Hi there,
Wherever there is, be it digital or a mailbox—I’m grateful you’re there. I’m hungry to connect; wary of attachment but craving a meaningful enmeshment of me and my world. Your world. So I’m writing this letter.
A lot’s on my mind. Yours too, I’m sure, so I hope you’ll respond if you’re so inclined. Nothing to urge but of course it all feels very urgent doesn’t it.
The german poet writes of god not as historical origin, but the possibility of some future emergence. god as potential, possibility worth moving towards. I feel as though I’m not moving at all and yet this is something I’m connecting with right now. Attaching to.
How do you want god to emerge in your life? There are cracks in mine I hope something will take root in. I’ve no clue what will grow best, but that’s the solace of emergence I suppose—need not pick and choose, only tend to and hope.
Tend to hope. That’s hard to do. My heart has strings, and like an octopus’s tentacles they’re independent neural networks searching, roving, tending as towards food. You are what you eat, and my diet’s out of whack. Here’s hoping those networks can be reworked and netted in new ways meaningful and regenerative. How do you train a heart?
I’m getting into the weeds here. What I mean to say is: I’m looking for the optimism, the reasons to connect, the pieces of god potentiate(?). Amidst decay what is growing? What can I tend to, hope for and harvest? Perhaps just weeds, but surely they still have some nutritional value when they’re so green like that.
So I want to share with you some of what I’m seeing, tending to. This is arrogance and hubris, sure, but I mean to connect and enmesh myself with something possible. Something that looks a lot like you. And me, and us, together.
And you can always put this letter down, too, if it’s not for you. I hope you will. But if it is worth reading—and I hope for some of you it will be—I hope you’ll do just that. Perhaps you’ll respond as well. I’d like that.
Yours,
Mason
What I’m Connecting With
- Becky Chambers, A Psalm for the Wild-Built. Short sci-fi with a big heart. Her Wayfarers series is also worth exploring. Space opera full of humanity, with humans playing a small role. https://www.worldcat.org/title/1240266570
- On Being, short Foundations episodes. Krista Tippett is an unassuming host with great wisdom. The short episodes released this fall have been a solace for me in moments of fear. https://onbeing.org/series/podcast/
- James Bridle, Ways of Being. An earthly refresher on what is possible & emerging. A reminder that much will persist if/when we do not. https://www.worldcat.org/title/1296687871
- Chad Lawson, breathe (piano instrumental album). What’s playing while I read.
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet. The german poet quoted above. https://www.worldcat.org/title/1178868956
Letters to Friends 