Next In-person walk: Saturday, May 9, 9-10 a.m.
Covenant Presbyterian Church back parking lot, 2222 at Mo-Pac, Austin
Next Zoom discussion: May 9, 2026 10:30 AM Central Time (US and Canada), Zoom link is here.
By Janet Davis
Walk In: Losing our Lives by Letting Go of What is Not “Me”
It is a strange gift, this birthright gift of self. Accepting it turns out to be even more demanding than attempting to become someone else. I have sometimes responded to that demand by ignoring the gift, or hiding it, or fleeing from it, or squandering it—and I think I am not alone. There is a Hasidic tale that reveals, with amazing brevity, both the universal tendency to want to be someone else and the ultimate importance of becoming one’s self: Rabbi Zusya, when he was an old man, said, “In the coming world, they will not ask me: ‘Why were you not Moses?’ They will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’” …
Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent…
Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks–we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.
Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak
Questions
What struck me about this random photo in my collection (taken at a fountain in Germany!) is the release of that which is alive (blossoms and green leaves). Sometimes, even “living” parts of our lives need to be released because, despite having been nurtured into existence, they are not “native” to our being, not ours to carry.
Are there pieces of your life currently (identities, roles, even callings) that are not authentic to the gift of your unique self-hood?
Have you been, in part, living someone else’s life or call or values?
Whose life have you been living? And why did that seem more attractive or easier to live than your own identity, life, or calling? Are you ready to release even that which has life within it?
Center: Meeting the Holy One in the Holy In Between
A seed knows how to wait. Most seeds wait for at least a year before starting to grow; a cherry seed can wait for a hundred years with no problem. What exactly each seed is waiting for is known only to that seed. Some unique trigger-combination of temperature-moisture-light and many other things is required to convince a seed to jump off the deep end and take its chance—to take its one and only chance to grow.
Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.
Hope Jahren, Lab Girl: A Story of Trees, Science and Love
Questions
There are many seeds within us (identities callings, names, invitations, potentials, etc.) that have never met the conditions needed to grow.
What feels ripe to sprout now? Do you feel any risk or vulnerability attached to the idea of it sprouting, breaking open, taking its “one chance?”
Can you imagine the comfort, wisdom, and life-force of God meeting you in that tender place?
Walk Out: Saving Our Lives by Opening to the Unknown Before Us
Listen
Standing in the garden,
left had laden
with ripe
strawberries. The
sun
beams off the glassy
backs of flies. Three
birds in the birch
tree.
They must have
been there
all year.
My mother, my
grandmother
stood like this
in their gardens,
I am 43.
This year I have
planted my feet
on this ground
and am practicing
growing up out of
my legs
like a tree.
By Linda Lancione Moyer, from Cries of the Spirit
Questions
This poem has been a faithful companion of mine since 1998!
What is the ground into which you are planting your feet?
What changes would you have to make if you were to choose to grow up out of your own legs, like a tree? What resistances arise with that thought?
What would you need to release? What practices might help you?