Life Beyond the Comfort Zone
It’s been a week.
One of those weeks that feels like it could be a year.
Time really has little baring on my life much anymore. I accomplish so much or almost nothing in a day. I talk to no one or have twenty phone calls and two Zooms in a day. I write. I pray. I design. I take on-line techie classes. I meet with a business mentor. I have one-on-one sessions with clients. There is no pattern to my current life and yet there are commitments.
Today is Saturday. This past week I have engaged in profound transformation work that used up three days of my week; not expected or planned, but definitely right action. This morning while still in my nightie and before grabbing a cup of decaf I sit on the couch and pick up a book from my pile with the title Prosperity Practices: Harnessing the Power of Positive Thinking to Get the Life You Want. I bought this book years ago when I was employed by a congregation and never opened it. The hardbound green book cover with a psychedelic circle on the front cover draws itself to me and I pick it up to read it as part of my morning practice. It is laid out as forty days to prosperous living. I read it with two lenses. Is there something new or important in here for me to pay attention to, and, would this be a good practice for the current spiritual center I lead to engage in together? The first practice is gratitude. Check. The second practice is living in the now. Check. The third practice is stretching. Check. Check. Check and check. And there is a sentence that jumps off the page and twirls me around for a do-si-do. It reads:
The comfort zone is where dreams go to die.
I talk a lot about the place outside of the comfort zone where life is alive and beckoning. I loved reading about the comfort zone itself and this quote captures the energy of it well. Zing. I, like all of us, LOVE comfort. I do. And yet there is very little comfort in our external world right now and spiritual people since the beginning of time have learned that comfort or safety or peace is internal. And sitting in comfort is different than a living in its zone. The zone is saying that comfort over engagement, living, and risk has become a stuck place and contributed to smallness and entropy. For comfort is a known place, a static place, and NOTHING that is in physical form is known and static. Everything is always changing. And, I get it. I have also experienced times of little to no comfort and that too has its own issues.
I have been a minister since the 1990s and the form of ministry has changed. Now the form has taken an electronic delivery and I am stretching and growing outside of my comfort zone every day. I am forced into being a beginner, a student, a learner, a novice. I am taking classes on how to use programs such as YouTube, Mailchimp, Zoom, iMovie; and Squarespace, all which I have used in a cursory way for years but without proficiency. Now I am diving in. And the interesting thing about technology is that it isn’t static — each program changes and receives updates all of the time so just as I think I know something, it is different.
For years during my travels I have taken short minute or so long videos of sacred places with me involved in sacred practices. I wanted to share these with you on YouTube as a sort of reprieve. A pick-me-up or a reminder of our Sacred Nature whenever you want to receive it. I wanted to use the George Strait song “I saw God today” as its background or introduction but due to copyright laws, I couldn’t. I prayed for an answer. I placed the project on hold. I was intimidated by iMovie, a program I used ten plus years ago for fun but without really understanding all that it could do. I took a class on using AI in a business this week. I learned there are programs that will create music for me. So I wrote out the lyrics. I wanted the lyrics to say “There is only One Prayer. As I pray for me, I pray for you.” I gave the instruction to the software and in less than ten seconds I had a country song sung by a male voice and a pop song sung by a female. I was elated. Problem solved. Quick, easy, affordable. Then I got to work and posted my first of what will be a series called Only One Prayer; short videos for the Soul. My first one is now available on the YouTube channel. www.youtube.com/@BonnieBarnard-scs. It’s not the greatest video. But I know each video will get better. I will learn as I go and learn as I grow. And I’ve come to life. I remember the feeling of aliveness that comes with stretching. I recall the power of Creativity as a God Quality. And I am WAY outside of my zone of comfort.
I want a life where I live, not merely exist. And another name for God is Life.
