Some learning can only occur in relationship, so I go to church. For me, it's good for me. Like broccoli. I prefer solitary learning, which is interesting considering the LFP is a massive group work. I particularly prefer solitary spiritual practice. I read religious texts. I run by myself. I spend time in nature alone, often while running. And for the past two years, I listen to the weekly podcast "On Being with Krista Tippett." The iTunes Description of On Being is as follows:

On Being takes up the big questions of meaning with scientists and theologians, artists and teachers — some you know and others you'll love to meet. Each week a new discovery about the immensity of our lives.

It's accurate, and I don't really know who I am without it (so I should probably contribute). What prompted this post, though, was the August 31, 2017, episode, a rebroadcast of Krista Tippett's 2008 conversation with the late Irish poet, John O'Donohue. The episode, entitled "The Inner Landscape of Beauty," concluded with his recitation of "Bennacht," included in To Bless the Space Between: A Book of Blessings.

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

Post- Hurricane Harvey, while the Pacific Northwest burns, Hurricane Irma (the largest Atlantic hurricane on record) careens toward Florida, Mexico experiences its largest earthquake in a century, and on and on, I needed both this reminder of nature's gentleness and this blessing. I think we all do.