About Dinner, Commitments, and the Sacred

I told Jon I would do this. I told him I would write a post this morning about the impromptu dinner the four of us enjoyed last night at a new place that has opened up. I was only half-kidding, telling him that because he’s a reader of this newsletter, that he’d be reading about himself this morning. I made a commitment, half in jest, and here it is.

I am beginning to see the role of commitment as foundational to creativity. That is to say, commitment to the work is the underlying foundation of creativity itself. It gives it structure and substance, a foundation and a framework. Without that commitment (at least for me), the work doesn’t begin, and while the journey is to be savored, there is no journey without a destination in mind. Without that commitment last night, I doubt I’d be writing this morning.

Another commitment I’ve made is to finish the new album I’ve been working on by September, in time for a release in October. Over the next few months I will be sharing the challenges and little victories that come in its creation.

This commitment comes to me as I have just finished my third reading of the novel Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, prompted by the visit of another dear friend Pam (also a reader of this letter). There is something in the reverence and such deep love in that book that I want to see more of in my own life. I see it in sanctuary (see Lisa’s blog for more about that). It has something to do with what I have referred to as a “shamanistic” view of life.

In this view, there are no coincidences, really. Everything has meaning. The world speaks to us in even the smallest movement of the smallest bird. Everything is approached with a sense of the sacredness of life—our own, and all of the life around us. And each of us is called to bear witness to and participate in that sacredness.

What a contrast this view is to the world I usually inhabit, which is one of meetings and deadlines and lists and tools to be used to my own ends. That’s the magic of Piranesi—the protagonist doesn’t simply make use of the things around him. He loves and cares for his world and the things that inhabit it, and even talks to them, seeing and celebrating their purpose and being, seeing life (and therefore love) where our own Cartesian understanding allows none. And I wonder if, in our mechanistic worldview, simply using things without even acknowledging them has become for us a pathway to using people, as well, treating them as another object to be put to use for our own ends.

And so another commitment: to walk in that path, even if only for an hour today. To pause and notice the significance in everything, to see each moment as an opportunity to consciously love everything—EVERYTHING—around me.

Like this banged-up iPad, that has put up with so much unintentional abuse and yet still carries on. Like this house, that has cared for and nurtured us on warm sunny days and in the tempest of hurricanes. Like the dear friends we supped with last night.

The world is sacred. Our moments are sacred. Our work is sacred. Just as we are sacred ourselves, if we will only pause for a moment to notice.

My very best,

Philip