What is Saving Your Life Right Now?
What is saving your life right now?
That’s a question Jen Hatmaker asks her guest at the end of every podcast episode. It’s always fun to hear. Some people have really serious deep answers. Others, it’s something silly and/or frivolous Iike a favorite lipstick or tv show. But whatever they say, it’s always honest and true and good.
The question has popped into my head quite a few times over the last few days so tonight, I figured I’d engage the question and truly ask myself, “Rachel, what is saving your life right now?”
1. Schitt’s Creek
I mean seriously… how did I wait so long to watch the show that people have been telling me for years I needed to watch. Dan and I were laughing out loud within the first 30 seconds of the pilot episode. It’s so ridiculous, so off the wall, and just so dang funny. Give me all the Catherine O’Hara weird accents and outlandish screams. Give me every single one of Alexis’s valley girl sounding “David’s.” And someone please take me to brunch at the Cafe Tropical. I still can't figure out how a town like that has a diner that looks so cute.
If you haven’t started watching Schitt’s Creek then now is the time to do it. It’s really the laughter we all need right now.
Photo From BuzzFeed
2. Richard Rhor’s Daily Meditations
I wrote about this on the blog earlier this week, but they’ve been such a cold drink of water running refreshingly over my soul. They’re deep and they’re slow. They require the sort of presence that I long develop and I’m loving the things they’re making me think about.
3. Lip Color
Talk about a hard left turn, but it occurred to me today that I wear lipstick more in the winter than I do in the summer. I think it’s because my face feels so pale and colorless in the winter so it’s an easy way to add a pop. That, and I just really love the deep berry shades that come with the winter months.
Current Favorites:
L’Oreal Mica
BareMinerals Bo$$ Matte
BareMinerals Swank Matte
This podcast is one of the best things out in the world right now. I feel informed and encouraged every time I listen, and it gives me plenty to think deeply and pray hard about. Go give them a listen.
5. My Weekly Art Class at Open Studio Project
This is something I signed up for the first week of January, and as I suspected, it’s just been the best. I chose Open Studio because their method of art-making is similar to the type of art I want to teach to kids — art that’s focused less on techniques and outcomes and more on the process. I have this feeling that the continual decrease in artistic opportunities for kids in schools and our general belief that creativity is reserved for a certain subset of people (you know...people we traditionally define as artists) is one of the deepest forms of spiritual attack humanity is experiencing. It’s no wonder we’re more angry, more divided, less adaptive and empathetic. Creativity breeds these things. It moves us forward. It makes us flexible and durable and resilient. It makes us more fun. It makes us think outside the box. It leads us into failure because it knows that failure is part of the process.
“Remember,” my teacher often says, “there are no wrong choices, only new paths forward.”
What I wouldn’t give for this to be the pen that was shaping our national narrative. But the very least, perhaps it could be the pen that’s shaping mine and yours?
So what about you? What’s saving your life right now???