IMG_1553My context is scarcity: I am speeding in a 35-mile zone. I am tired. So tired. Anxious too. My baby had a low fever last night and I brought her to daycare this morning anyway. I am late for a work meeting and my workday is too short. It’s school vacation week.

But, someone has died in our community. A twice-a-day customer at my husband’s restaurant. The father of one of our peers who works for us. And, I am going to her house to bring food. Hugs. Sympathy. And I am hoping I don’t meet a police officer on the way.

I don’t. And I spend 15 important minutes sitting with our bereaved friend. The daughter of a beloved father. We are sad together. I do the reminding she needs that her feelings are normal. That losing someone stinks. Dying stinks. We are never prepared for such a final loss. And she’s strong. She will get through this.

She is grateful I came. And I am grateful I went. This small action is so big. Not to have to think about food when the body is grieving but still needs nourishment. Four kids, and family coming into town. Food and convenience aside, the connection mattered. She said so. I felt it.

And as I drove away, returning to my frazzled state of near falling apart exhaustion, I thought: I have not organized my life for people to die. Or to have babies. I have the value to make those acknowledgments. I am inclined towards community. But my life is not set up to express those values. Not without a huge cost to my nervous system.

This month in our Enough, Already! course we are exploring scarcity – where it lives in us, how it grabs us, the domains it most creeps around in. I see in this experience how embedded scarcity is in the very way I have structured my life. It’s a daunting discovery, but I am also relieved to have a source to inquiry into. I’m starting with: What can I let go of to be more available to that which I say matters most?

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