\nIt\u2019s not surprising, when we\u2019re in difficulty or overstretched, to find ourselves tuning out of the world, distancing ourselves from what and who is around us. The stories we\u2019re handed by our culture - that life is essentially meaningless - don\u2019t help.
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\nWho do we become if this is what we do? How might we, instead, learn to love again when we\u2019re \u2018running out of things to love\u2019? And how might we - as the poet Maya Stein invites us - \u2018narrow the distance\u2019 between ourselves and the world, ourselves and one another, so we can let life flood in once again?
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\nHosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
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\nTurning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.\xa0 Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify.
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\nHere\u2019s our source for this week:
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\nwhat to love when you\u2019re running out of things to love
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\nPick any landscape\u2014a kitchen counter, a waiting room, that part of your body you shield from photographs\u2014and narrow the distance between you. At first, the stains will monopolize your eye. Each blight and crack and overgrowth, a seismic disruption. If you can bear the stillness of not looking away, if you step even closer, the contours will begin to lose their meaning. The noise of an old story will fade. New shapes will emerge, like petals after a hard rain. I\u2019m not saying you will desire, suddenly, the pits and pores of the world, or that your hands passing over every rough surface will feel fresh tenderness. But you\u2019ll notice your breathing has softened, your heart a door you can open past the jambs. How there\u2019s room for what you see, and everything you can\u2019t.
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\nMaya Stein
\nmayastein.com
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\nPhoto by After Exposure Studio on Unsplash\n