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\nIt's so easy to be in a fight with our lives, as if there's a way we can win out over our fear, or grief, or some other experience we're wishing not to have. But often trying to win out leaves us small, and exhausted, and rigid. What if we were to take up a different relationship with what's happening, in which we know our experiences not as something to get away from but a way in which life is flowing through us? And what if instead of trying to fight things off we allowed ourselves to soften and flex enough to be changed by them as they pass through? A conversation about the life-giving possibilities of surrender, with Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
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\nThis is Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. We\u2019re also on YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google and Spotify. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website.
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\n\n\nHere's our source for this week, chosen for us by Justin:
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\nThe Man Watching
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\nI can tell by the way the trees beat, after
\nso many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
\nthat a storm is coming,
\nand I hear the far-off fields say things
\nI can't bear without a friend,
\nI can't love without a sister
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\nThe storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
\nacross the woods and across time,
\nand the world looks as if it had no age:
\nthe landscape like a line in the psalm book,
\nis seriousness and weight and eternity.
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\nWhat we choose to fight is so tiny!
\nWhat fights us is so great!
\nIf only we would let ourselves be dominated
\nas things do by some immense storm,
\nwe would become strong too, and not need names.
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\nWhen we win it's with small things,
\nand the triumph itself makes us small.
\nWhat is extraordinary and eternal
\ndoes not want to be bent by us.
\nI mean the Angel who appeared
\nto the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
\nwhen the wrestler's sinews
\ngrew long like metal strings,
\nhe felt them under his fingers
\nlike chords of deep music.
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\nWhoever was beaten by this Angel
\n(who often simply declined the fight)
\nwent away proud and strengthened
\nand great from that harsh hand,
\nthat kneaded him as if to change his shape.
\nWinning does not tempt that man.
\nThis is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
\nby constantly greater beings.
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