New Wells

For however many times I have wanted to write, I have remained stuck; unmoving, quite literally, to the keyboard. A thousand little thoughts have taken up residence in the meantime.

Today, though, I did something a little weird. In the summer of 2020, my friend Amanda had me on her (now-paused) podcast A Longer Table. I listened to it once post-release and then let it live on in the internet matrix. Yet something inside me today wanted to hear the Bre from four years ago. What has changed? Do I still think the same? Would it feel out-of-body to listen to me and the opinions that have either lived on or have been retired after learning and growing?

What I ended up discovering was a surprising way I was able to pull from the world around me by simply being aware. I connected so many dots from my life as a Christian to social and political justice. I took the time to replay my past and find where it led me. Whereas now, I feel like I have been 35-year-old Bre for 67 years. My thinking is weightier and more existential to some degree. I hardly identify so strongly as a Christian. Rather I am now someone who will attend Church on a not-so-regular basis and I believe in a higher Being in a universal sense. I could call they/them God, sure, but it feels limiting with what I know as four-years-since-podcast Breanna.

I believe the notion of God is much bigger to me than it was even then. The way we exist together is so much more powerful than I could have hoped for.

I think what feels so special about writing here or physical journaling or even being on a podcast, is the kind of reflection one can have. As humans, we evolve more often than we can fully comprehend. I mentioned in my talk with Amanda a quote from Richard Rohr on how great love and great suffering are our richest paths to transformation. The universality of this alone is astonishing to me. No one exists without this in their time on Earth. The notion of being human highlights just how easy – even important – it is to shift in our journey.

I liken it to digging new wells within ourselves. Oftentimes, we begin to pull dry buckets. Sometimes there is no reason. Sometimes there is. But if we want to continue to learn, grow, remain awake and aware, we have to keep digging new wells.

I think 2020 Bre was on the cusp of so much. It was only a few months into a pandemic that would change the way I viewed work/life balance. How seriously and unseriously friends, family, and strangers took a virus that eventually killed over a million people worldwide. It was shortly after George Floyd’s murder. Another tumultuous election year.

I think, really, it became clear she was digging a new well without even realizing it.

May all our wells be deep. May we move on to new ones when it’s time.

The Podcast episode: Roomy Faith, Politics, and Conscious Parenting from A Longer Table

Alexa, play Deeper Well by Kacey Musgraves.