Inner work frameworks, practices, and questions – all in a five-minute read. Delivered to your inbox every Wednesday morning before you even wake up. Written and curated by Andrew Lang.
4 Questions for Facing Catastrophe: The Wednesday 1-2-3
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Happy Wednesday Reader! This week, I’ve been really challenged by a question from Dr. Cornel West, and I’d like to pass the question on to you: What does it mean to live in the midst of the catastrophic? For me, especially this past month, the word “catastrophic” brings to mind one place in particular: Gaza. When I try to process what’s happening in Gaza, I find my chest tightening and my stomach twisting. My thoughts become jumbled and I feel like I’m sinking into a deep, vacuous pit of sadness. Images of fire and children and bombed out hospitals and schools and U.S.-manufactured bombs and utter hopelessness fill my mind. Dr. West says “It’s hard to bear reality; sometimes it’s just too much.” And, to be honest, I don’t quite know how to bear this reality, and my contribution to it through my tax dollars and my voting record, other than to cry and to curse. I wonder if you’re familiar with the feeling. For those of us with so much distance – physically, culturally, politically – from what’s happening on the ground, it can be hard to know what we can do. How do we keep our eyes on Rafah, on Gaza, on Israel, while metabolizing the movements of our inner life into actions of solidarity and justice and healing? How do we live and move and breathe and act in the midst of the catastrophic? In 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois, reflecting on the terrors of white supremacy in the United States, raised four fundamental questions for living in a violent and catastrophe-filled society. These questions don’t offer us the softness of soothing comfort or the answer of “what to do now.” But I hope they might help you discern your next steps, not toward apathy or inaction, but toward healing, in whatever ways, large or small, they might be. ❓ Questions
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The Wednesday 1-2-3
Inner work frameworks, practices, and questions – all in a five-minute read. Delivered to your inbox every Wednesday morning before you even wake up. Written and curated by Andrew Lang.
Hey Reader, This month, I'm taking a pause from writing a new issue of The Wednesday 1-2-3 each week and instead sending out some of my favorites from the past two years. Hope you enjoy! In the middle of reading Rumi's wonderful poem, “A Great Wagon,” there's a stanza that stuck out to me as deeply familiar: Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the...
Hey Reader, This month, I'm taking a pause from writing a new issue of The Wednesday 1-2-3 each week and instead sending out some of my favorites from the past two years. Hope you enjoy! In 1955, psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham developed a framework for mapping our awareness and self-awareness called the Johari Window. Here’s how it works: (And a quick note: when I first learned this framework, I found myself labeling qualities in different quadrants as good/bad. If you notice...
Hey Reader, After almost two years of writing a new issue of The Wednesday 1-2-3 every week, I'm taking a short pause this month! With the October Inner Work Cohort starting up and our family now in school-mode for both our kiddos, this seemed like a good time to temporarily remove something from my plate – but that doesn't mean you won't still get something from me. 🙂 Over the next five weeks, I'll be sending out some of my favorite issues from the past two years. (And the good thing is,...