Goals for 2008: Putting it Together

I've been thinking, in a background sort of way, about goals. I've been learning, whether I like it or not, that fundamentally I have to prepare the ground before I expect any good outcomes. That is to say, if I have no energy, nothing happens and in fact, things disintegrate. There's a baseline level of necessary energy just to maintain the current level of organization in my life. I know what contributes to good functioning and now I have to practice it. I need to create better soil for my life. So if I wanted to grow things like being more patient with my children and getting out of debt ("Debt is normal...Be weird"), two of my more important goals, then it is crucial that I have good soil in which to grow these delicate and thirsty plants. Energy level underlies everything. What a blessing a garden is for learning.

Musing further, what is the compost? What leftovers can I throw in a pile that will turn into an infusion of energy nutrients? I will think on this...(the picture is of my compost pile behind the shed).


So, I now have an overall goal for 2008 that I work on, with three outcomes that I will nurture. 1) Soil: ENERGY, and 2) Produce: Patience, Debt Reduction and a Literal Garden.

Of further interest is the way I keep thinking of myself as a division, particularly in terms of physical health and spiritual health. Like the "mind/body problem" it seems that spiritual/physical is a sorely misleading and stultifying separation. So I can stop thinking of exercise or sleep as a physical need vs. a spiritual need and I can stop thinking of spiritual work as "only" spiritual and not physical. The holism is obvious but to carry that holism forward into my everyday thinking and action is not so obvious.

Also, the effect on wisdom and guilt can't be ignored. I wouldn't expect depleted ground to yield good fruit, and I wouldn't blame the lack of good fruit on the garden in the sense that if the garden just tried harder, the fruit would be there. It's just a truth that the garden has to be "pleted," not depleted.

Specifically, it doesn't make sense that I could have expected to work normally on a day where I had zero sleep the night before. Yet I had this expectation because I thought I could do it if I just pushed myself. Would I make my garden do this? No, because you can't just "push" your garden to do what it can't do, due to poor soil. You already know it ain't gonna happen.

Here's to good soil in 2008! That is, reliable good sleep, reliable good eating/water drinking, reliable exercise, reliable prayer and study, and reliable nurturing of energy. No expecting seeds to grow overnight and no impatience with my own soil when it takes time to "plete."