Ep 50 Celebration as Exhale

Celebrations, whether big or small, take even the ordinary moments of life and make them special. It’s easy to feel anywhere from bogged down to outright traumatized by our lives. Celebration provides the exhale we need – that moment to relax, to look around, and say, “Yes! This IS the day. And I am fully living in the middle of it.” Join us in taking a few moments to let out our “Yay!” 

Additional Resources
Book: Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
Book: To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue
App: Noom
Apple Fritter Bread: Recipe  

#Celebration
#Intention
#Milestones
#LittleMoments 

For Transcript:
Go to the "Transcript" Tab.
If you are in a player that does not have the Transcript Tab, use the link below:
https://thecontemplativelife.buzzsprout.com/1642654/9798266-ep-50-celebration-as-exhale

Transcript

 SUMMARY KEYWORDS
celebrate, noticing, milestones 

Dominic Kaiser  00:06

Welcome to The Contemplative Life: Three pastors, friends and spiritual companions help us explore spirituality through a contemplative lens. I'm Christina Roberts. I'm Chris Roberts. I'm Kristina Kaiser. We're glad you joined us.

Kristina Kaiser  00:23

Hello, it's great to be with you. And as we start an episode talking about celebration today, it happens to be our 50th episode.  So we take a moment to pause and to celebrate that we have been here together 50 times talking about all things contemplative: why this is useful in our lives, how it's bringing meaning to our lives.  So we take a moment to celebrate that as a big thing, right? Because 50 is a huge deal. 

And then I'm actually going to take us down to something much smaller for a moment, because we celebrate in both big and small ways, as it turns out. And so I was thinking, as I was preparing for all of this, even just last week, we had this moment with one of our girls, where she had been quarantined in her class, because of a close contact.  Somebody else had COVID, which brings sort of an inhale, if you will, right. Everybody holds their breath, like, does she have COVID? Does she not have COVID? What does this mean?  And they were telling us, everybody else could go to school. But if she was positive, then everyone needed to come home. And I thought that would precipitate a ton more like needing to tell more people about stuff. This is crazy. So we're in the inhale, we are in the holding the breath, she gets the COVID test. And we wait. It takes like 24 hours. And the email came through, of course when I'm in the middle of a meeting. And so I’m trying to check my email inconspicuously, because this really matters.  And I see that it's negative, and I think it's negative. Great. So I hold on, it’s just like a few more minutes left, the meeting ends, and I throw up in the door, and I'm like, Oh, my gosh, your test is negative. And she doesn't even really understand the words negative or positive, she can't even quite say the word negative, like, we have to slow it way down. And so I pick her up and start twirling around. And she's a little bit surprised that there's so much hoopla around all of this. But it was a really important moment, because it was the exhale, it was that space where we relaxed where we got to celebrate her health and getting to go back to school and resume her normal life. And it had been a little bit traumatic to be suddenly pulled from school. So to kind of bring a little bit of healing to that traumatic space and celebrate her re-entry back into her community felt like a really big deal.

Chris Roberts  02:55

Very fun, I loved hearing about the celebration of a small moment. I feel like whenever we were talking about celebration, you know, the small moments are important. But I think the big moments are important as well. And I was thinking back to my 40th birthday and it was probably one of the most celebrated times of my life. We had this amazing tapas and strings event that everyone in my community came to. And we had this quartet of strings and they played modern songs and classical songs and people had little finger foods and wine. And it was just, you know, this wonderful event where people sort of celebrated me and celebrated my life. That was very fun. I haven't felt celebration like that since then, or ever before that. And that was a very important moment to me. But I'm thinking about how I can take some of the small things in my life and celebrate them, and I find myself pondering what are ways to do that. I would be interested to hear what you guys have to say about celebrating the small ways because what comes to my mind is just like the big things,

Christina Roberts  04:08

I think it's important that you're both naming that there are big and small things to be celebrated. And each has its own unique beauty to it. And I think we do need both. Obviously, there's a little bit more effort involved in celebrating the big things, often there's planning involved and logistics and things like that. But I think it's important that in these milestones of our life, or these goals that we're trying to achieve or whatnot that we do take time to celebrate. And in Episode 49 we talked about the year-end Examen and often how that can lead into maybe setting intentions or a focus or goals or whatever it is for the coming season. And I think sometimes it's tempting to just kind of plow through and we don't celebrate until we reach that final end point. And by that time, maybe we're too exhausted to even celebrate or we're then looking on to the next thing, as opposed to celebrating along the way, the little milestones, the journey, the experience, the process. And to me, I think that is what life is about, it is those moments. But I think to your point, Chris, it's important and I think every culture in the world has built in communal celebrations, whether it's festivities, dancing, special foods that you eat certain times of year, ritualistic things where maybe you're worshiping in a particular way. And so I think that celebration seems to be something important as the human species and kind of seeing it reflected in all different parts of the world.

Kristina Kaiser  05:32

I do really feel like both are important. And I think I would probably tend, without any intention behind it, I would probably tend towards only celebrating the big, like, a graduation or a major birthday. But there are so many benefits to pausing throughout a day, even for little mini celebrations, little micro things, for one, because they do build community.  There are studies done about why children need this in their educational experience, right. It can't just be until we get to senior year. Now they have preschool graduation and kindergarten graduation and elementary and there's like 700 graduations now before you get there. But I think they've done it because they discovered we need these rites of passage, we need these moments. And Chris, I think that whole notion of the big event can seem so intimidating. So if you even think about a wedding, how stressed people can get about planning it. And so being able to have celebrated along the way, seems like a really important part of the story to get out of the furrowed brow, head down, working hard, which is my story.  I think otherwise, to say like, Okay, this meal is amazing. We've been looking forward to this meal, and I'm in. We celebrate our meals. It's like a family value.

Chris Roberts  07:05

I think something that comes up for me is I think just paying attention and noticing.  I've been reading a book for years now. And it's To Bless the Space Between Us by John O'Donohue. And it has all these blessings for these different times, this notion of celebration. I think, is this idea of noticing and blessing what is. And so I think I can get more on board with this notion of celebration, just by distinguishing what the word is. This idea of noticing and naming, blessing this new day, blessing this meal, blessing this space of being together with your family and celebrating this meal. So yeah, I think that helps me as we talk about celebration, because there are these moments in our lives that I do feel like you're right, we could we could just go by and not really pay attention. 

There's a famous verse in the Psalms of Scripture that says I will, I will stop seven times a day and just give thanks and give my attention to the Divine. I think that's been super important for me in my life, this idea of stopping and noticing and saying, This is good, this is awesome. And I'm going to have gratitude. I'm going to have things at this moment. So yeah, that's what comes up for me.

Christina Roberts  08:24

And there's a classic book by Richard Foster called, Celebration of Disciplines. And he lists all these different disciplines: fasting, prayer, and one of them is celebrating as a spiritual practice. I think that might be the last chapter of the book. And there's a quote that says, “Celebration as a spiritual practice involves a posture of living so well anchored in the fuller story of God's involvement.”  And then he goes on to talk about an anticipatory faith and hope, regardless of present circumstances. And I really appreciate that. Somehow stopping to celebrate reminds us that we are anchored in the fuller story of God. And it does bring about a particular hope and joy and some of the delight that we're talking about. And, you know, I think for me, too, sometimes it's easy to want to take the lazy route. And, you know, there's these milestone things, and it's like, Do I really have it in me to do that?  But I think every single time that I have afterwards, it's like, I'm so glad that we did that. I'm so glad we went the extra mile, I'm so glad we sort of soaked up whatever it was like the birthday celebration or the you know, holiday or whatever it was.  I think I know we often talk about the ordinary on this podcast, which I love. But I do think that there's just such beauty and value in those extraordinary moments as well and making the most of those.

Kristina Kaiser  09:43

Yeah, and I think sometimes we have this conversation around, you know, if we get too happy if we celebrate does that somehow try to ignore that there's suffering. So there's always this pull, I think for us around, I've got to get it right. How happy or how sad should I be? But I think one of the most lovely things I've ever heard is this idea that celebrating or being thankful or whatever it would be… it doesn’t mean that there aren't things that don't need working on. It doesn't mean that there aren’t bad things.  It just means that there are both. Getting to balance that a little bit and to not miss the good, right? Because we really do have this one precious life. So how are we spending it? 

 I really do appreciate that notion of even just noticing a beautiful sunrise. I think there are people much better at this than me. But in fact, I had a friend once who said that every morning she goes out. I picture her having double doors on her bedroom, I doubt that that's true. But in my mind, she does. And she opens them. And she welcomes the sun. I don't know what she does on cloudy days, I have no idea. But this notion feels really important to just celebrate, there is a day. 

And we get that in Scripture too. “This is the day and let us be glad about it.”  And a lot of days, it's easy to wake up and say okay, what's my schedule? What do I have to get done? As opposed to this is a day where I have breath and life and we're going to laugh together, we're going to walk together, we're also going to do stuff.  That other stuff is there. It's not that it's not. But we do get to live this life. And isn't that grand? And it's easy to miss that aspect of it. And then even just to bring in another element, there can be issues around blocks in our head, I guess. So for instance, for me, spending money can feel like such a major block like I, I don't spend it easily. I need encouragement. So then there's this whole question of should I spend the money? Should I not have? Do I celebrate with money? Do I not celebrate with money?

Christina Roberts  11:55

Yeah, and I think that's an important practical piece as well. Because I think sometimes, you know, we maybe do have some money that we could spend but there's more “practical things” that we can be spending our money on. But I think sometimes the splurge is when we do have opportunities for that. It really does say where our treasures are, our hearts are too. And I think sometimes spending a little extra for the special decorations, or the dinner, or the flowers or whatever it is.  The church calendar, there's ordinary time, but then there's these special times as well. And I think there's something about having set apart celebrations. And I hear you.  I remember reading a book once and she was talking about, I think she talked about spending, of giving herself permission to spend.  She's like, I have the money. But there was  a sense of I was clinging to it, not having that ability to spend. And then of course, maybe there's leaner times.  I remember when Chris and I were first married, we had a very, very tight budget. We were working for a nonprofit. And we had like a date once a week. And I remember like one time we just did not have extra money. And so we were finding spare change in our car. And we had enough to like go to Dairy Queen and split an order of French fries, which we did. We're like, it's our date day and we don't have extra money right now, but we have enough for an order of french fries. And then we went to the park and had a really fun evening. But we weren't going to let finances limit that. And so I think it can go both ways where sometimes you don't need that. But I think sometimes it's like, Yes, I can give myself permission to take the little extra.  I had a friend who said, You know, sometimes on my grocery shopping I will skimp a little bit on the groceries so that I can buy a bouquet of fresh flowers, because of the joy that it brings, that it elicits in that moment. So I appreciate what you're naming about something very practical, even how does money tie into celebrations?

Chris Roberts  13:45

I think these are just tools right? Tools to help us celebrate. I love looking for tools to help celebrate. I mentioned prayers or blessings that this book is giving me to help celebrate a new day. I think music is another tool that we love to use to celebrate. Whenever we go on a road trip, one of the first songs in the playlist is Celebrate Good Times. Our intention is to have a great time on this road trip or this vacation. And you sort of get the party started. So I love that you guys are bringing up tools and tips to help us celebrate.

Christina Roberts  14:25

Yeah, and we have a closet and over the years I've collected things and I like. Years ago I sat down with the calendar and it's like what are all the different celebrations? There's the biggies, right? Like you know, Christmas or whatever, but in between there's not a lot of celebration. So let's make a really big deal out of whatever it is.. St Patrick's Day or you know some of these lesser ones like Valentine's Day. So we've collected these different decorations over the year where every month (and sometimes maybe a month has double in it), it's like let's get out all of the really cool coasters that are sort of Irish and doing all the green things, we have scarves. And let's just take this week to celebrate since this is St. Patrick's Week. And so we're kind of making the most of that and amplifying it. So I think some of the tools can be simple like that as well, just like some significant things that mark, “there's something different about this week or this day or this weekend”.

Kristina Kaiser  15:19

I think we just need that.  There's something about taking that time. My husband has this daily stand up, and he works remotely. And so I often overhear it or we're like prepping lunch while it's about to happen. But it very much sounds like my apps that will be like “This, whatever day of Ordinary Time”, it feels exactly like that. Only they're legitimately starting, this is the third day of the second week of the whatever sprint.  And you're like, Oh my Gosh. And so we all have an ordinary time, just so we do need that moment. It's a little better than ordinary to ordinary is fine, I have no problem like, in fact, I think this is such an important point. Because in the Bible, we often see big events, big events, big events, which gives the impression that everything's a big event.  Not everything is a big event, right? There were plenty of days of just walking and just getting through. So that exists. But we also need that experience. 

And they say that, scientifically speaking, celebration helps us manage our daily stresses. So to have that moment, if I'm going to light a candle, let's be like stupid excited about lighting a candle, or, you know, putting in a new scent today, or just whatever is coming. I like aesthetics. So aesthetics can do a lot for me. But even with my Noom app, my app will stop, I feel like at least once a week, to say you have done this many lessons.  They are tabulating things that I am certainly not tabulating. So yay, take a moment to celebrate. And then they have 700 ways that you could celebrate everything from buying a new pair of shoes, which I have, I'm probably not going to do that, too. You know, don't log your next meal, take a break from logging your next meal. Because you know you did, you've got it. And so this little moment to celebrate, yes, I have been doing things I am working towards my health, whatever it is, right? Yay for me that I just drink that healthy, whatever. Right? That kind of experience. 

Thank you guys for having a conversation about celebration. This is going to come out one day after the new year. So we will have all just been spending some time hopefully celebrating that there is a new year coming in. And if we missed that, for some reason, this is our fresh opportunity, or if we're already sick of this year now, this is the first opportunity to get excited again. So thank you.

Kristina Kaiser  18:03

Now is the time in our podcast where we take a moment to celebrate what we are into. So what are we into?

Christina Roberts  18:12

I am into scones.  Many years ago I worked for my cousin. She had a tea room and that was kind of my first introduction to scones.  We would have these high teas and these different scones. I really like scones. And so recently I've been trying scones.  I haven't baked scones, but like different bakeries in town or restaurants trying scones. And I have to say that I've been underwhelmed by the scones that I've been trying so I don't know that I can quite celebrate yet. I'm in a hunt for good scones. I will say though today I had a promising scone from the co-op. It was a gluten free cranberry scone which I was a little bit skeptical about, but there was sugar on top and whatnot. So I'm going to give it another try but this could be my one. But I'm celebrating the journey and today there was a little bit more excitement around the scone. So I am into research of the perfect scone.

Chris Roberts  19:04

Nice. Hopefully I'll get to share that with you. Well, I have been into the phases of the moon. So we have been doing these walks at night and one of the things that we're noticing almost every night is the moon. We've had some amazing, cloudless nights. And so my son has a shirt that has all the phases of the moon on it. One of them just says the whole pie and you know has a pizza. We are into looking at the different phases of the moon as we go on these walks. And the moon is just fascinating the way that it shines in the night sky and its different position in the sky at any given month is just fascinating. So I've been into the phases of the moon. 

Kristina Kaiser  19:57

I am into both of those things. So exciting. And actually what I am particularly into these days is the holiday baking. So when we moved my bread tins got crushed, which is quite amazing that that could happen. So I bought new bread tins, I did all the research to find out scientifically again, like what is the best? What color metal, what type of metal? What should you bake your bread in? So that is coming and then I do have to do gluten free stuff. So I miss out on all kinds of things that I would otherwise love. But I found this recipe for apple fritter bread. I could choose a donut or fritters.  They're the thing. And so this apple fritter bread makes a donut into bread and I can do it. I can do it in a gluten free way. So I'm making a chai, banana, and an apple fritter. And then a pumpkin and I cannot wait. I'm just so excited. 

Thank you everybody for being with us today. If you enjoy listening to our podcast, we invite you to sign up for our bi weekly newsletter. You can find a link to that in the show notes or you can subscribe right at the top of our webpage, thecontemplativelife.net. 

Thanks for being with us. We'll see you again soon. Bye, everybody.