All around you and me in this very moment is more aliveness than either of us could possibly conceive.
When I was a freshman at the University of Pittsburgh, I stumbled upon writing. A depressed kid who felt like a mere number among 40,000 students, I had no idea what kind of life I wanted to create for myself.
I threw a hoodie on and slinked into the back row of an obligatory English Composition class in a fusty room storied high in the towering, Gothic-inspired Cathedral of Learning. Standing in front of a podium was a lanky graduate student instructor whose name I forget. I liked listening to him, even though I skipped classes often. Halfway through the semester he asked to meet me at a Starbucks along Forbes Avenue on a cold, dreary day. I leaned my shoulder into a heavy door and sat down across from him at a table much too small for us. My jacket was still on, partly due to the cold and partly in the hope our meeting would be quick. Mostly, though, I wore it like a shield, bracing against the chiding blows that would surely come for cutting too many classes.
And he did let me have it, but only for a moment. That wasn't why he wanted to meet. He pulled up my most recent essay. "It's good," he said. I don't remember what it was about, only what he said to me next.
"It could be better. I see something in you. You can write."
Little did he know I'd churned out most of those essays two-to-three hours before the deadlines. Actually, I bet he knew. Which is partly why he was prompting me to take the writing more seriously. This was the first instance in which I realized through writing, I was accessing something more in myself.
A few years later after transferring to Andrews University—a small, Seventh-day Adventist Christian institution located in the oft-barren winter tundra of southwest Michigan—I attended a poetry seminar featuring Carolyn Forché in Kalamazoo. When she finished reading her poetry from a playful and heartfelt disposition on stage, she took questions. After a few students asked theirs, I stood up among the crowd and asked, "Why do you write?"
She chuckled momentarily, as did the crowd. Then her face became as stone. She tilted her head back, then forward, as if she had harnessed a line from down deep. It shot out like a beam, lit up her very bones, and all of us.
"Writing retrieves from the consciousness what is irretrievable by other means."
And so writing became my chosen art form. It accesses something in me that other mediums cannot. In the years since I started taking writing seriously (but not too seriously, which is its own hindrance), I've learned a great deal about myself, and sometimes brought a kindling flame to those who've read what I've written.
In time, I became an English teacher. Worked as an editor. As a storyteller at an innovation lab. Then as a pastor, where I often had an opportunity to write and speak. For the last three years, I've worked as an instructor for two innovation courses at a university, and most recently, a writing and self-awareness coach for another organization.
I continue to have many personal writing projects that bring me alive. A novel-in-progress, ten years in the making. A manuscript on research I've been completing with a colleague, due this year. And occasionally, story snippets, like the one I'm writing now.
As I've grown older, I see it is not only the writing I'm drawn to. It is what is accesses: energy.
Writing requires me to tune my antennae to the energetic material this world has to offer, that I have to offer. Every stroke of the pen in my journal, each click on my keypad, is a lifetime in the making. I did not write this sentence just this second. It has been at work all of my life, in the conscious and unconscious to-and-fros of my existence; finally, spilling out onto the page.
I love to see people gradually come alive. I love to experience aliveness myself. Words give that.
The phrase abracadabra is one we all know well and associate with the magical verve that precedes a proverbial rabbit being pulled from a magician's hat. But did you know? This word comes from the Hebrew ebrah k'dabri (אברא כדברא) and literally translates to, "As I speak, I create."
Just how much power do our words have? With language we've created the Colosseum and AI and lunar modules and democracy. We've also used it to design the 13th Amendment and fake news and oligarchy. With the words we believe, we get married and divorced. Learn to love or hate ourselves. DNA is another language shaping every living thing from one's big nose and plump bottom to a cormorant diving deep for its kill and a bee's inadvertent pollination. Mathematics has often been referred to as a language used to describe the universe with great precision. Some thinkers have speculated that within quantum vacuums is a quantum language that might describe the underlying structure of reality.
In the Christian tradition, Christ has been called the "Living Word" who "holds all things together," having laid "the foundation of the worlds."
Perhaps words are not binding all reality together. You decide. Likely none of us can know in this lifetime. But we can probably agree words are a big deal. "Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me" isn't true. The words you believe, manifest your reality.
As I continue to explore their potential, I've decided to lean further into my own power after years of deep interior work and training, and decidedly create as I speak:
I am a coach.
This year, I begin my certification in integral development coaching with Thirdspace, an organization I hear many good things about, devoted to radical presence.
I've also decided to reframe my current creations in recent years as coaching offerings:
When I was a freshman at the University of Pittsburgh, I stumbled upon writing. A depressed kid who felt like a mere number among 40,000 students, I had no idea what kind of life I wanted to create for myself.
I threw a hoodie on and slinked into the back row of an obligatory English Composition class in a fusty room storied high in the towering, Gothic-inspired Cathedral of Learning. Standing in front of a podium was a lanky graduate student instructor whose name I forget. I liked listening to him, even though I skipped classes often. Halfway through the semester he asked to meet me at a Starbucks along Forbes Avenue on a cold, dreary day. I leaned my shoulder into a heavy door and sat down across from him at a table much too small for us. My jacket was still on, partly due to the cold and partly in the hope our meeting would be quick. Mostly, though, I wore it like a shield, bracing against the chiding blows that would surely come for cutting too many classes.
And he did let me have it, but only for a moment. That wasn't why he wanted to meet. He pulled up my most recent essay. "It's good," he said. I don't remember what it was about, only what he said to me next.
"It could be better. I see something in you. You can write."
Little did he know I'd churned out most of those essays two-to-three hours before the deadlines. Actually, I bet he knew. Which is partly why he was prompting me to take the writing more seriously. This was the first instance in which I realized through writing, I was accessing something more in myself.
A few years later after transferring to Andrews University—a small, Seventh-day Adventist Christian institution located in the oft-barren winter tundra of southwest Michigan—I attended a poetry seminar featuring Carolyn Forché in Kalamazoo. When she finished reading her poetry from a playful and heartfelt disposition on stage, she took questions. After a few students asked theirs, I stood up among the crowd and asked, "Why do you write?"
She chuckled momentarily, as did the crowd. Then her face became as stone. She tilted her head back, then forward, as if she had harnessed a line from down deep. It shot out like a beam, lit up her very bones, and all of us.
"Writing retrieves from the consciousness what is irretrievable by other means."
And so writing became my chosen art form. It accesses something in me that other mediums cannot. In the years since I started taking writing seriously (but not too seriously, which is its own hindrance), I've learned a great deal about myself, and sometimes brought a kindling flame to those who've read what I've written.
In time, I became an English teacher. Worked as an editor. As a storyteller at an innovation lab. Then as a pastor, where I often had an opportunity to write and speak. For the last three years, I've worked as an instructor for two innovation courses at a university, and most recently, a writing and self-awareness coach for another organization.
I continue to have many personal writing projects that bring me alive. A novel-in-progress, ten years in the making. A manuscript on research I've been completing with a colleague, due this year. And occasionally, story snippets, like the one I'm writing now.
As I've grown older, I see it is not only the writing I'm drawn to. It is what is accesses: energy.
Writing requires me to tune my antennae to the energetic material this world has to offer, that I have to offer. Every stroke of the pen in my journal, each click on my keypad, is a lifetime in the making. I did not write this sentence just this second. It has been at work all of my life, in the conscious and unconscious to-and-fros of my existence; finally, spilling out onto the page.
I love to see people gradually come alive. I love to experience aliveness myself. Words give that.
The phrase abracadabra is one we all know well and associate with the magical verve that precedes a proverbial rabbit being pulled from a magician's hat. But did you know? This word comes from the Hebrew ebrah k'dabri (אברא כדברא) and literally translates to, "As I speak, I create."
Just how much power do our words have? With language we've created the Colosseum and AI and lunar modules and democracy. We've also used it to design the 13th Amendment and fake news and oligarchy. With the words we believe, we get married and divorced. Learn to love or hate ourselves. DNA is another language shaping every living thing from one's big nose and plump bottom to a cormorant diving deep for its kill and a bee's inadvertent pollination. Mathematics has often been referred to as a language used to describe the universe with great precision. Some thinkers have speculated that within quantum vacuums is a quantum language that might describe the underlying structure of reality.
In the Christian tradition, Christ has been called the "Living Word" who "holds all things together," having laid "the foundation of the worlds."
Perhaps words are not binding all reality together. You decide. Likely none of us can know in this lifetime. But we can probably agree words are a big deal. "Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me" isn't true. The words you believe, manifest your reality.
As I continue to explore their potential, I've decided to lean further into my own power after years of deep interior work and training, and decidedly create as I speak:
I am a coach.
This year, I begin my certification in integral development coaching with Thirdspace, an organization I hear many good things about, devoted to radical presence.
I've also decided to reframe my current creations in recent years as coaching offerings:
- unhurried design—design coaching for anyone who wants to design products, processes, and services in a non-anxious way
- Your Epic Ordinary Life—narrative coaching for people seeking to memorialize their legacy, explore their identity, build their personal brand, and anyone ready to reflect on their journey
In addition, I am launching "I AM" Coaching—applied mysticism coaching that draws upon my work as a pastor, trainings in Christian Mysticism, process and perennial philosophy, yoga (Hatha, Tantra, and Kundalini), Tai Chi, and learnings from Thirdspace. This experience invites one to learn to live their words and write their own "I AM" statements, not merely as affirmations, but as spoken creations from a desirable context.
The fourth coaching offering will be a hybrid of all three, and I'm calling it Life, Designed.
Life is many things, and sometimes hard. We can think ourselves into it being harder than it has to be. Regardless of our circumstances, there is more possible in and around us than we can imagine. If only we would imagine, the Universe might do the rest.
An intention is more than a conscious purpose, it’s the congruence of that purpose. It requires alignment of all aspects of one’s self. Of conscious thought and unconscious beliefs, of capabilities and commitment, of actions when working and not. It’s a state of living in harmonic agreement with oneself.
– Rick Rubin
