On stability, community

and the urge to run away.

It’s easy to dream of alternate realities when life feels boring or difficult . I’ve only recently realized that the impulse to pack up and start a new life in a different state might be something akin to a flight response. At this point our in life, we’ve actually picked up and started over a few times, so some of the shiny idealism of the idea has worn off. It’s not that moving or starting again is a bad idea. It’s been good for us when we’ve done it, and if God sends you somewhere, you go. But it’s not the solution to the problems in your current life. Have you heard that saying, “wherever you go, there you are”? It turns out that moving to a new place just means you move to a new place, not that you become a new person.

Gosh dang it.

So, if we can’t just pick up and move to fix our problems, what do we do instead?

A reader’s comment on one of my last instagram posts sent me down a rabbit hole researching the Benedictine vow of stability. You might be vaguely familiar with the Bened…