consecrating as a vow.
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Dear ones,
In the midst of an emotionally stressful and busy couple of weeks, I have turned to what keeps me moored: the daily morning walks to the lake; the nightly Duolingo lessons; the non-negotiable food-related rituals with the cats; coffee to wake up, tea to decompress. These things are rote, but in hard times, they are also holy; a break for presence, for attention, or as I’ve been thinking about more and more, for devotion.
At the Insurgent Research conference last weekend, the keynote speaker Joy James spoke repeatedly about devotion. “Devotion and commitment become stable ground [for liberation],” she said in her book talk, then again, in so many words, over conversation at the dinner I was lucky enough to share with her. James is talking about love, what she calls revolutionary love, and devotion as a tool for the movement, but when I think of distilling wisdom from all my best teachers, it all comes down to this. The task of living a life — as an activist, a lover, a friend, a parent, a writer (or whatever your craft or calling may be) — is this modality of profound reverence, committed awe. Mary Oliver says that “to pay attention is our endless and proper work.” Jenny Odell reminds us that “to behold is to become beholden to.” Here is Simone Weil: “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.” Everyone who seems like they might be on to something seems to agree.
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