I loved so much of what he shares here, especially the section on Stewardship:
Stewardship
This feels like an important stance to me: when something or someone crosses our path, comes into our care, enters our hearts, steps into our lives — if we receive from it, we have a duty to give to it. This isn’t some transactional rule, just a natural energetic flow.
There was a friendship of mine that got damaged last year. I was pretty sure we’d never talk again. The two of us discussed it, and we felt that the friendship was something special that held a lot of benefit for both of us and for the world — so we decided to spend time together and repair it. That’s stewardship. We sensed the value the friendship gave us, and we decided to value it in return.
I realized several months ago that when I didn’t value my energy, I lost it. If I spent my days lying around, watching tv, staring at the walls, then I’d have no life force available for writing, exercise, relationships, any of the good stuff. When I decided to steward my energy consciously, to value my life force and listen to what it wanted from me, it returned in full force.
That’s the simple magic of stewardship. Something of value has been placed with you — you can value it and receive value from it, or you can not value it and watch it fade out of your life. The first flickers are often a gift, a bit of grace. But to build a real relationship with something, you have to steward it well. You have to see its worth and act worthily.
I have a huge amount to say on this, but every time I start it gets intense and forceful and I feel like I’m not firm enough in that force to hold it well. Give me some time, I’ll get to it.
For now, I’ll just point at a little sketch in that direction:
There are very few communities around that steward their wisdom-keepers well. Everyone is very down to say “your work changed my life” or “you’ve had a huge impact on me,” but very few make any effort to return life-changing or impactful value to that person, group, or tradition.
If wisdom has been put in your path and has impacted your life — you are now a steward of that wisdom and the ways that it wants to move into the world. You can take up that stewardship or not. It can take many forms, money is only a small part of it here. But if someone has impacted your life, and you want that impact to grow (not just for yourself, but others), it’s best to act like it.
What are your thoughts on stewardship?