ORDINARY LIFE - Thoughts and Ideas to Help You Live a Happier Life

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Summary for March 22, 2020

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Dear Folks -

First, thank you for your patience as we seek to get our act together regarding this live-streaming thing. Tim Leatherwood and his crew, Olivia Watson and William Budge, got the kinks out of integrating the presentation slides with the talk Holly Hudley and I offered. These folks are heroes. Some folks experienced difficulty with the live stream dropping out on them. For most people it was a seamless experience. If Tim has technical advice for those who had difficulty, I’ll post it here before next Sunday.

You likely know as much as I do about what restrictions may or may not be placed on us in the weeks to come. I was in a Zoom meeting this morning with other clergy of St. Paul’s. It is clear that we will be live-streaming services and events at least through Easter - perhaps beyond. If you want to stay connected via these times, please check the St. Paul’s website on a regular basis. www.stpaulshouston.org

There has been some concern that either the mayor of Houston or the governor of Texas will impose some sort of “shelter-in-place” restrictions. If that happens, even live-streaming from the sanctuary and the space where Ordinary Life meets will be off-limits to us. We do have contingency plans in place should this happen.

This week Holly Hudley, and I cannot adequately express how grateful I am to and for her, talked with each other about fear and how to deal with it. We gave this title to our time -

How Not to Go Berserk When Things Fall Apart

The time begins with a line that found me right after last Sunday. The line is by Stephen King: “The world has teeth and can bite you whenever it wants.” Indeed. And, we are being bitten. Do things actually “fall apart”? Or, is that an illusion we fall into because we forget the true nature of life - things arise and things pass away? The only way to deal with fear is to look at the source of our fears. This is essential to do because fear causes people to live in less than wise and useful ways. Holly talked about Jarvis Masters, a man on death row who turned his life over to Buddhism. We need to face realistically the fact that being out of alignment with our obligation to care for “mother earth” has consequences. We can also look at what brings us joy, be aware of what we have to be grateful for and use models - like Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela - to provide us inspiration for living in these circumstances. Bottom line: now is the time to cultivate and live with a kind heart.

That is a brief summary of the talk offered in Ordinary Life. The audio version contains all the asides and ad libs.

You can read or download the text from which we spoke, view the presentation slides, listen to the audio of the talk and/or watch the video of the talk using the links below.