Replanting Yourself in Beauty
- Start a garden
- Spend time with animals
- Take up a hobby that brings you joy
- Reclaim the art of reading
- Walk in the woods or your neighborhood with attention
- Listen to music that stirs your soul
- Learn the names of trees, birds, or stars
- Cook something slowly and with love
- Watch the sky change
- Write a poem, even a small one
- Share tea or coffee with someone who makes you laugh
- Sketch, doodle, or paint without judgment
- Sit beside a body of water, even a puddle
- Practice stillness or meditation outdoors
- Light a candle and let it burn quietly
- Visit a local farmers market or community garden
- Volunteer in your local community (with children or the elderly)
- Volunteer at an animal shelter or wildlife sanctuary
- Take naps
- Keep a notebook of small joys
Starting a Garden
1. Start with Your Own Garden:
2. Join a Gardening Club or Community
3. Learn from Others
By cultivating a home garden and participating in a gardening club, you not only contribute to environmental conservation and food security but also build connections with like-minded individuals and foster a sense of community. You replant yourself in beauty.
- Begin by dedicating a portion of your yard or even just a few pots on a balcony or windowsill to growing plants. Start small if you're new to gardening and gradually expand as you gain confidence and experience.
- Choose plants that are well-suited to your local climate and soil conditions. Consider growing a mix of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers to promote biodiversity and support pollinators.
- Practice organic gardening methods such as composting, mulching, and natural pest control to minimize your environmental impact and promote soil health.
2. Join a Gardening Club or Community
- Look for gardening clubs, community gardens, or local horticultural societies in your area. These groups often offer educational workshops, gardening events, and opportunities to connect with fellow gardening enthusiasts.
- Joining a gardening club provides access to a wealth of knowledge and resources. You can learn from experienced gardeners, exchange tips and advice, and participate in group projects to beautify public spaces or address environmental issues in your community.
3. Learn from Others
- Don't be afraid to ask questions and seek guidance from more experienced gardeners. Many seasoned gardeners are eager to share their knowledge and mentor newcomers to the hobby,
- Take advantage of gardening books, online resources, and workshops to expand your understanding of gardening techniques, plant care, and sustainable practices
- Consider volunteering at local botanical gardens, nurseries, or conservation organizations to gain hands-on experience and learn from professionals in the field.
By cultivating a home garden and participating in a gardening club, you not only contribute to environmental conservation and food security but also build connections with like-minded individuals and foster a sense of community. You replant yourself in beauty.
Replenishment
Often, in times of trial, it takes determination to replant yourself in beauty—not as a way of hiding from problems or the pressing issues of the day, but as a way of replenishing your spirit so you can face them with courage and creativity. As I write this, we in the United States are living through seismic shifts—cultural, political, moral, and spiritual—that have shaken our collective sense of grounding.
Every morning when I get up and read the news, I feel like the ground is shifting beneath my feet, and everything I once counted on is losing its shape. The institutions I once trusted are being destroyed. The language we used to share collapses into noise. The stories of hope that I lived by have lost their endings. The word compassion has become a dirty word—at least for those in power. I don’t know what to stand on anymore.
Are there others who feel it too—the disorientation, the grief, the sense that the old world is cracking and something unnamed is pressing in? And the anger, too—the anger that so many seem bent on such destruction, the rage at what is being lost and what is being willingly torn apart. And especially the anger at what is happening to the vulnerable—to immigrants, to the poor and powerless—whose lives are being crushed by the weight of policies, indifference, and cruelty.
Process theologians suggest that a cosmic Spirit moves in the shaking—not as the cause of the rupture, but as the gentle, persistent presence within it. Not to restore what was, but to guide us toward what might yet be born from the rubble.
Is this true? Does process theology offer a theology for times like these—for fault lines and fractures, for mourning and anger, for rebuilding with trembling hands? Can we replant ourselves in beauty, even in such times? Can we trust that beauty, however fragile, still has the power to sustain and guide us? Can we continue to tell the truth, stay close to the vulnerable, grieve without shame, resist the machineries of harm, and, where possible, create mini-sanctuaries of tenderness and hope? If so, we need replenishment at personal and social levels. We need to replant ourselves in beauty.
Here, “replanting” becomes more than a metaphor. It becomes a spiritual practice—a way of re-rooting ourselves in the things that matter most, in what we find beautiful and sustaining, so that we can continue on the long road of love. Even when we feel, emotionally, as if the ground beneath us is giving way, replanting helps us find footing again—offering resilience in the face of upheaval and hope amid uncertainty.
In the essay below, Patricia Adams Farmer tells a story of how she had to reclaim the art of replanting. It is from her, and from my own home garden, now growing spring cucumbers, that I get the metaphor of replanting.
- Jay McDaniel
Every morning when I get up and read the news, I feel like the ground is shifting beneath my feet, and everything I once counted on is losing its shape. The institutions I once trusted are being destroyed. The language we used to share collapses into noise. The stories of hope that I lived by have lost their endings. The word compassion has become a dirty word—at least for those in power. I don’t know what to stand on anymore.
Are there others who feel it too—the disorientation, the grief, the sense that the old world is cracking and something unnamed is pressing in? And the anger, too—the anger that so many seem bent on such destruction, the rage at what is being lost and what is being willingly torn apart. And especially the anger at what is happening to the vulnerable—to immigrants, to the poor and powerless—whose lives are being crushed by the weight of policies, indifference, and cruelty.
Process theologians suggest that a cosmic Spirit moves in the shaking—not as the cause of the rupture, but as the gentle, persistent presence within it. Not to restore what was, but to guide us toward what might yet be born from the rubble.
Is this true? Does process theology offer a theology for times like these—for fault lines and fractures, for mourning and anger, for rebuilding with trembling hands? Can we replant ourselves in beauty, even in such times? Can we trust that beauty, however fragile, still has the power to sustain and guide us? Can we continue to tell the truth, stay close to the vulnerable, grieve without shame, resist the machineries of harm, and, where possible, create mini-sanctuaries of tenderness and hope? If so, we need replenishment at personal and social levels. We need to replant ourselves in beauty.
Here, “replanting” becomes more than a metaphor. It becomes a spiritual practice—a way of re-rooting ourselves in the things that matter most, in what we find beautiful and sustaining, so that we can continue on the long road of love. Even when we feel, emotionally, as if the ground beneath us is giving way, replanting helps us find footing again—offering resilience in the face of upheaval and hope amid uncertainty.
In the essay below, Patricia Adams Farmer tells a story of how she had to reclaim the art of replanting. It is from her, and from my own home garden, now growing spring cucumbers, that I get the metaphor of replanting.
- Jay McDaniel
Replanting Yourself in Beauty
by Patricia Adams Farmer
Lying awake at 3:00 a.m. on a board covered with a thin mattress, I ache from my neck to my toes. I am in a strange land and I cannot sleep. Something vital is missing, something from my homeland, my past, and I cannot go back and get it. My "self" as I know her is somewhere back there, while my body lies here: I am stretched out on this painful reality.
All the invisible layers of security and comfort that have secretly supported me from the day of my birth suddenly become visible and real at the very moment of their departure. The void is dark and hard and hurting. This is how terror feels.
I imagine this is how it must feel when you lose a spouse or a best friend, or even a job. But I have not lost anything really, except a home, a place, a people, a language, and a feeling of safety and security. So yes, I have to face it: I feel like my life has been pulled out from beneath me. I must be experiencing the throes of culture shock: the grief, the loss, the terror of being an alien in a strange land.
So here I am, lying wide-eyed in the long equatorial night of darkness, on a bed of torture, a rack really, in a cheap hostel (feeling more like its homonym "hostile") in the cold, rainy city of Quito. I am waiting for sunrise, for at least that, for light, and possibly some toast and juice. Later, my husband and I will make yet another frustrating attempt at securing our residency visas. With so many attempts and always an obstacle, we feel like Sisyphus, and we are tired of the effort.
I look over at my husband, who is sleeping annoyingly sound while I struggle over not only the sanity of the whole enterprise of uprooting and moving to South America, but my ability to withstand such an uprooting. I had been like a mature tree--even blooming on occasion--but now I am lost to the familiar, only to be replanted in the soil of the terrifying unknown. "Bloom where you are planted," the proverb goes. But the transplant is not taking hold. I am a rootless tree.
*
That night on the "rack" in Quito was just the beginning of a difficult year punctuated by many sleepless nights. Of course we were we dealing with psychic vicissitudes of culture shock, which we had anticipated; but we were not prepared for our adventure to spin suddenly into misadventure.
We did get our residency visas, and thought that would be the end of it, the end of the difficulties in our new land. So we set out with great enthusiasm to fulfill our dream, to build our home--plans that my husband had personally designed--so we could finally root ourselves in our new world. But that dream was quickly derailed in a building scam, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of dollars we could ill afford to lose. Our home building came to a standstill for months, as did our hearts. We were in a foreign country with no home and not enough money to build one, and we could not go back where we came from. Not long after this shock, we were taking a walk to discuss what to do next when we were mugged at knife-point and gunpoint. After that, we lost all sense of security in our new world. By the end of the year, we were two adventurers bedraggled by events and actions completely outside of our control.
But Ecuador is not to be blamed. It is a dazzlingly beautiful country with mostly generous people and so much to offer the rest of the world. But this larger picture was not enough to keep terror at bay.
But larger questions did help. I had to go beyond my personal pain to ask the bigger question: How can process thought help when change and loss feel utterly overwhelming, when fear paralyzes, when one's whole sense of security is undermined?
I realized that such an existential crises as mine--this painful Questioning of Everything--does not only wreck the sleep of someone moving to another country; it lies in wait at 3:00 a.m. for any adventurer who dares to love, to risk, to live vividly, to roam beyond the boundaries of the familiar.
"The Adventure of the Universe starts with a dream and reaps tragic beauty." Whitehead's famous quote about the nature of God and the world, which I had carried in the back of my mind to Ecuador, became a source of healing for me that first year. This bit of theology, set in poetry, rooted me to the earth over and over again. It is just this way: If we adventurers are to follow the lure of the Divine Adventurer, then our dreams, too, will inevitably collide with reality--even at times, with terror and evil.
But that's not the whole of it. That's not the end. Beauty, the goal of the Adventurer, is also the guide. How, Beauty asks of us, can we weave this tragic thread into the whole of it with wisdom and skill and an artist's eye? Or, in this case, how can we use the very depth and darkness of the pain to plant new roots and nourish them in a new land?
With Beauty's questions in mind I went to work to establish very practical steps, daily habits and rituals that would enable me to tap into the rich, verdant soil deep down inside me. What I needed was to slowly and patiently replant myself in Beauty. Looking back now, I can identify five habits of beauty.
· Natural Beauty: On my daily beach walks at low tide I would commune with the graceful pelicans and the white egrets and the skittering sand crabs, while allowing the natural rhythms of the sea to embrace me in the larger Flow of things. I learned firsthand what Rachel Carson always believed, “Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.”
· The Arts and Creativity: I took several minutes each day to listen on my iPod to the calming, balancing keyboard works of J.S. Bach. Besides music, I needed creative mental work, so I carved out time to write, even if it was only a journal entry.
· Meditation: Mindfulness meditation enabled me to hold everything gently--even my terror and rage--like a parent caring for child. Meditation, even in tiny increments, trains us not to grasp too hard or demand too much; it also teaches us not to push away our fears. It teaches us to open wide to the moving, undulating, "never final" universe which sustains us.
· Community: "Only connect" is the continuing refrain of E.M Forster's novel, Howard's End, which I read and re-read on my Kindle during my year of terror. My connection to nature is easy, but when it comes to people I tend to be an introvert. Nevertheless, my husband and I both reached out to find community support with other expats from North America. And we have extended that sense of community to the Ecuadorians around us, despite the language difficulties. This sense of ever-widening circles of community and cultural enrichment has given us a sense of belonging in our new world.
· Beautiful Thinking: Here is where our philosophy of life, our meaning-making comes into play. Our favorite books such as sacred texts, theology, philosophy, psychology, JJB articles, novels and poetry help feed the mind with thoughts that create harmony of mind and soul. Journaling helps, too. I found a form of cognitive therapy called REBT particularly useful in my journaling as I rooted out flaws in my thinking. I also memorized bits of Rilke's poetry, verses from the Bible, and many calming affirmations. The affirmation-oriented writings of process theologian, Bruce Epperly, have been particularly helpful. Below is the working-out of my own needed affirmation on the path to Beauty.
*
Feeling "out of control" is a major stressor--especially, I have found, in a foreign country. For example, in Latin America things never happen when they are supposed to; they just happen when they happen. When they say something will happen "mañana," it is does not mean tomorrow. It means "not today." Latin America humbles those who think they can organize their lives with schedules and date books. All this is frustrating, and one feels constantly "out of control."
Learning to let go of the need to control is vital. But of course on a metaphysical level nothing really is fully within our control to start with. We are never, at any time, omnipotent; nor are we ever completely powerless. So we can learn to accept this basic relational fact by letting go of our demands on life, others, and ourselves. We can desire that things go well, but we cannot demand it. We have power, but our power is relational and limited. So, when we are overwhelmed by events outside our immediate influence--when we feel angry and helpless and afraid--we must first learn to release our demands on life, on others, and on ourselves. Demands do not work in a relational universe, and certainly not in Latin America.
For those of us who are process-oriented panentheists, we can also trust in our understanding of a loving, suffering, creative God, who feels our terror in all of its intensity, and offers transformative possibilities. Here is my own three-step affirmation that I relied on during that difficult first year, and still recite today when facing frustration, fear, and helplessness:
I let go of the demands I place on life, others, and myself.
I trust in God's creative transformation and healing.
I choose the path of beauty. . . .
By "the path of beauty" I mean that we need to choose the most beautiful response for this particular moment, e.g., forgiveness, creative problem solving, courageous action, listening, prayer, stillness. What choice is right for the situation at hand? This is where maturity and wisdom and sensitivity to the "divine lure" from the Adventurer of the universe come into play. It is our moment of improvisation.
As for my husband and me, we are back to building our home--a simpler home than the one we started out building, but a far more interesting one, with improvised elements from the eye of an artistic architect. Our little casa-in-the-making is now, like the lives of its owners, becoming what it can be for this creative moment. Next year, we may add-on or revise, or maybe not. We are learning to let our dreams unfold in the creative vortex of life-as-it-is instead of life-as-we-demand-it-to-be. Beauty is there always, re-working, re-creating, re-envisioning. This is what a process vision of the world gives us: it gives us open-endedness; it gives us hope.
So then, as Rilke says, we need to feel it all: the whole of it, the beauty and the terror. This does not mean we are passive pawns in a fatalistic universe. On the contrary, we have the power of improvisation in this universe of Flow where "no feeling is final." We can let go, we can trust, we can walk the path of beauty. This is how we "keep going." But we do not walk alone. With the companionship of divine Beauty always re-creating out of chaos and pain, we can finally relax and let our roots spread deeply and peacefully into the welcoming earth, wherever we happen to be.
Patricia Adams Farmer is an essayist and novelist in the tradition of process theology. She is the author of Embracing a Beautiful God and the Fat Soul Philosophy Novel Series (The Metaphor Maker and Fat Soul Fridays).
All the invisible layers of security and comfort that have secretly supported me from the day of my birth suddenly become visible and real at the very moment of their departure. The void is dark and hard and hurting. This is how terror feels.
I imagine this is how it must feel when you lose a spouse or a best friend, or even a job. But I have not lost anything really, except a home, a place, a people, a language, and a feeling of safety and security. So yes, I have to face it: I feel like my life has been pulled out from beneath me. I must be experiencing the throes of culture shock: the grief, the loss, the terror of being an alien in a strange land.
So here I am, lying wide-eyed in the long equatorial night of darkness, on a bed of torture, a rack really, in a cheap hostel (feeling more like its homonym "hostile") in the cold, rainy city of Quito. I am waiting for sunrise, for at least that, for light, and possibly some toast and juice. Later, my husband and I will make yet another frustrating attempt at securing our residency visas. With so many attempts and always an obstacle, we feel like Sisyphus, and we are tired of the effort.
I look over at my husband, who is sleeping annoyingly sound while I struggle over not only the sanity of the whole enterprise of uprooting and moving to South America, but my ability to withstand such an uprooting. I had been like a mature tree--even blooming on occasion--but now I am lost to the familiar, only to be replanted in the soil of the terrifying unknown. "Bloom where you are planted," the proverb goes. But the transplant is not taking hold. I am a rootless tree.
*
That night on the "rack" in Quito was just the beginning of a difficult year punctuated by many sleepless nights. Of course we were we dealing with psychic vicissitudes of culture shock, which we had anticipated; but we were not prepared for our adventure to spin suddenly into misadventure.
We did get our residency visas, and thought that would be the end of it, the end of the difficulties in our new land. So we set out with great enthusiasm to fulfill our dream, to build our home--plans that my husband had personally designed--so we could finally root ourselves in our new world. But that dream was quickly derailed in a building scam, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of dollars we could ill afford to lose. Our home building came to a standstill for months, as did our hearts. We were in a foreign country with no home and not enough money to build one, and we could not go back where we came from. Not long after this shock, we were taking a walk to discuss what to do next when we were mugged at knife-point and gunpoint. After that, we lost all sense of security in our new world. By the end of the year, we were two adventurers bedraggled by events and actions completely outside of our control.
But Ecuador is not to be blamed. It is a dazzlingly beautiful country with mostly generous people and so much to offer the rest of the world. But this larger picture was not enough to keep terror at bay.
But larger questions did help. I had to go beyond my personal pain to ask the bigger question: How can process thought help when change and loss feel utterly overwhelming, when fear paralyzes, when one's whole sense of security is undermined?
I realized that such an existential crises as mine--this painful Questioning of Everything--does not only wreck the sleep of someone moving to another country; it lies in wait at 3:00 a.m. for any adventurer who dares to love, to risk, to live vividly, to roam beyond the boundaries of the familiar.
"The Adventure of the Universe starts with a dream and reaps tragic beauty." Whitehead's famous quote about the nature of God and the world, which I had carried in the back of my mind to Ecuador, became a source of healing for me that first year. This bit of theology, set in poetry, rooted me to the earth over and over again. It is just this way: If we adventurers are to follow the lure of the Divine Adventurer, then our dreams, too, will inevitably collide with reality--even at times, with terror and evil.
But that's not the whole of it. That's not the end. Beauty, the goal of the Adventurer, is also the guide. How, Beauty asks of us, can we weave this tragic thread into the whole of it with wisdom and skill and an artist's eye? Or, in this case, how can we use the very depth and darkness of the pain to plant new roots and nourish them in a new land?
With Beauty's questions in mind I went to work to establish very practical steps, daily habits and rituals that would enable me to tap into the rich, verdant soil deep down inside me. What I needed was to slowly and patiently replant myself in Beauty. Looking back now, I can identify five habits of beauty.
· Natural Beauty: On my daily beach walks at low tide I would commune with the graceful pelicans and the white egrets and the skittering sand crabs, while allowing the natural rhythms of the sea to embrace me in the larger Flow of things. I learned firsthand what Rachel Carson always believed, “Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.”
· The Arts and Creativity: I took several minutes each day to listen on my iPod to the calming, balancing keyboard works of J.S. Bach. Besides music, I needed creative mental work, so I carved out time to write, even if it was only a journal entry.
· Meditation: Mindfulness meditation enabled me to hold everything gently--even my terror and rage--like a parent caring for child. Meditation, even in tiny increments, trains us not to grasp too hard or demand too much; it also teaches us not to push away our fears. It teaches us to open wide to the moving, undulating, "never final" universe which sustains us.
· Community: "Only connect" is the continuing refrain of E.M Forster's novel, Howard's End, which I read and re-read on my Kindle during my year of terror. My connection to nature is easy, but when it comes to people I tend to be an introvert. Nevertheless, my husband and I both reached out to find community support with other expats from North America. And we have extended that sense of community to the Ecuadorians around us, despite the language difficulties. This sense of ever-widening circles of community and cultural enrichment has given us a sense of belonging in our new world.
· Beautiful Thinking: Here is where our philosophy of life, our meaning-making comes into play. Our favorite books such as sacred texts, theology, philosophy, psychology, JJB articles, novels and poetry help feed the mind with thoughts that create harmony of mind and soul. Journaling helps, too. I found a form of cognitive therapy called REBT particularly useful in my journaling as I rooted out flaws in my thinking. I also memorized bits of Rilke's poetry, verses from the Bible, and many calming affirmations. The affirmation-oriented writings of process theologian, Bruce Epperly, have been particularly helpful. Below is the working-out of my own needed affirmation on the path to Beauty.
*
Feeling "out of control" is a major stressor--especially, I have found, in a foreign country. For example, in Latin America things never happen when they are supposed to; they just happen when they happen. When they say something will happen "mañana," it is does not mean tomorrow. It means "not today." Latin America humbles those who think they can organize their lives with schedules and date books. All this is frustrating, and one feels constantly "out of control."
Learning to let go of the need to control is vital. But of course on a metaphysical level nothing really is fully within our control to start with. We are never, at any time, omnipotent; nor are we ever completely powerless. So we can learn to accept this basic relational fact by letting go of our demands on life, others, and ourselves. We can desire that things go well, but we cannot demand it. We have power, but our power is relational and limited. So, when we are overwhelmed by events outside our immediate influence--when we feel angry and helpless and afraid--we must first learn to release our demands on life, on others, and on ourselves. Demands do not work in a relational universe, and certainly not in Latin America.
For those of us who are process-oriented panentheists, we can also trust in our understanding of a loving, suffering, creative God, who feels our terror in all of its intensity, and offers transformative possibilities. Here is my own three-step affirmation that I relied on during that difficult first year, and still recite today when facing frustration, fear, and helplessness:
I let go of the demands I place on life, others, and myself.
I trust in God's creative transformation and healing.
I choose the path of beauty. . . .
By "the path of beauty" I mean that we need to choose the most beautiful response for this particular moment, e.g., forgiveness, creative problem solving, courageous action, listening, prayer, stillness. What choice is right for the situation at hand? This is where maturity and wisdom and sensitivity to the "divine lure" from the Adventurer of the universe come into play. It is our moment of improvisation.
As for my husband and me, we are back to building our home--a simpler home than the one we started out building, but a far more interesting one, with improvised elements from the eye of an artistic architect. Our little casa-in-the-making is now, like the lives of its owners, becoming what it can be for this creative moment. Next year, we may add-on or revise, or maybe not. We are learning to let our dreams unfold in the creative vortex of life-as-it-is instead of life-as-we-demand-it-to-be. Beauty is there always, re-working, re-creating, re-envisioning. This is what a process vision of the world gives us: it gives us open-endedness; it gives us hope.
So then, as Rilke says, we need to feel it all: the whole of it, the beauty and the terror. This does not mean we are passive pawns in a fatalistic universe. On the contrary, we have the power of improvisation in this universe of Flow where "no feeling is final." We can let go, we can trust, we can walk the path of beauty. This is how we "keep going." But we do not walk alone. With the companionship of divine Beauty always re-creating out of chaos and pain, we can finally relax and let our roots spread deeply and peacefully into the welcoming earth, wherever we happen to be.
Patricia Adams Farmer is an essayist and novelist in the tradition of process theology. She is the author of Embracing a Beautiful God and the Fat Soul Philosophy Novel Series (The Metaphor Maker and Fat Soul Fridays).
Mandarin Translation of "Replanting Yourself in Beauty"
by Han Sun
International Institute of Education and Culture & Department of International Cooperation and
Exchanges, Heilongjiang University, China
把自己重新植入美丽的世界
厄瓜多尔、基多、2011
躺在只有一层薄薄床垫的硬板床上，我凌晨3点钟就醒了，从头到脚浑身都感到疼痛。我在一个陌生的国度无法入睡。我失去了对我至关重要的东西，它来自我的祖国，我的过去，我不能再回那里得到它了。我的“自我”就在那里，而我的躯体却躺在这里：在这个痛苦的现实之中。
自我出生以来给我安全感和舒适感的那些东西突然给我非常真实的感觉，它们离开了我，剩下的就是黑暗、艰苦和痛楚。这就是恐惧的感觉。
我可以想象到当你失去爱人或者最好的朋友，或者自己的工作的时候一定会有这种感觉。但是我实际上没有失去任何实质的东西，我是去了一个家、一个地方、一个民族、一种语言、一种安全感。所以我不得不面对这个情况：我感到生活已经脱离了自己。我肯定是在经历文化冲击给我带来的痛苦：在陌生的国度里感觉自己是外星人的那种恐惧和痛楚。
在赤道地区漆黑的夜里，我在寒冷多雨的城市基多一所廉价的旅店里（和“敌人”的英语发音相似），睁开双眼躺在像行李架一样的床上，那床的感觉就是一种折磨。我期待着日出，至少会有光线照进来，还可能有一些烤面包和果汁。过了一会，我和丈夫一起再次努力尝试能否继续保留我们的居住签证，但形势不乐观。我们尝试了很多次但每次都会有障碍，我们感觉自己和西绪福斯一样，已经厌倦了这种努力。
我转过去看着我的丈夫，他睡觉时发出的声音有点恼人，这时我在反复思量把整个企业搬到南美洲，同时思量着我是否有能力承受这个变迁。我一直就像一棵长成的大树——有时候还开花——但是现在我在熟悉中却迷失了，在令人恐惧的一无所知的土壤里我重新被种下了。谚语说“一旦把你种在这里就让花朵绽放吧。”但是这种移植并没让我变得更好。我是一颗没有根须的树。
恐惧和美丽的年份
在基多“货架”上度过的那一夜仅仅是一个艰苦年份的开始，接下来又度过了许多个不眠之夜。当然我们一直在处理文化冲击产生的心理转变，我们知道这会发生，但是对于突然发生意想不到的事情我们没有做好准备。
我们的确拿到了居留签证，并认为这就成了，这就是在我们新家的所有困难的终结。因此，我们满怀热情去实现自己的梦想，建设我们的家园——实现丈夫早已设计好的计划——这样我们就最终扎根在新世界里。但是在一桩建筑诈骗中这个梦想被击碎了，导致上万美元的损失，几乎让我们无法承受。我们的民居建设停滞了几个月，我们的心跳也同样停滞了。我们在外国没有家园，也没有足够的钱来盖房子，我们又无法回老家。这种冲击发生后没多久，在边散步边讨论下步计划的时候我们被人用刀枪劫持了。从那以后，我们失去了在新世界里所有的安全感。到了年末，人力无法控制的各种事件和行为把我们变成了邋遢破败的探险者。
但是我们不应该归咎于厄瓜多尔。我在这个网站发表的第一篇关于厄瓜多尔的文章《幸福经济学》里提到，这个美丽的国家有着慷慨的人民，为世界做出了很多贡献。但是这个描述不足以把恐惧排除在外。
但是涉及到更大的问题确实有所帮助。我要超越我个人的痛楚来问一个更大的问题：当变革与损失让人无法承受的时候，当恐惧让我不能行动的时候，当一个人的安全感完全消失的时候过程思想能给我怎样的帮助？我意识到像我所经历的这种现实危机——这种让人难以承受的“质疑一切”——不仅让一个刚到国外的人无法入睡；在任何一个人冒险者凌晨3点等待的时候出现，他敢爱、敢冒险、敢于让自己生?
畹姆岣欢嗖省⒏矣谠诔阶约菏煜さ牧煊蚵角靶小?/span>
“宇宙冒险从梦想开始，并成就了令人感到哀伤的美丽。”我把怀特海关于上帝本性的著名引言放在脑海深处带到了厄瓜多尔，它在第一年成为治愈我所受创伤的一剂药方。带有诗意的这一点神学一次又一次地让我在地上扎根。事情是这样的：如果我们这些冒险的人跟着那些神圣冒险者的印记，我们的梦想会不可避免地同现实碰撞——甚至有的时候会含着恐惧和邪恶。但是那不是全部。也不是结束。美丽是冒险者的最终目标，也是指引他们行进的向导。美丽问我们怎样用智慧、技巧以及艺术眼光把线神奇般的穿在这些事实里面？或者在这个事件里，我们怎么能够用痛楚的最深层在新大陆上生根培育？
把自己重新植入美丽的世界
想着关于美丽的这些问题，我工作的时候养成了非常务实的行为，包括每天的习惯和日常的做法，这些能够让我进入肥沃的土壤。我所需要的是慢慢地、耐心地把自己植入美丽的世界里。现在看起来，我认清了5个美丽的习惯。
自然之美：每天当我在落潮的海边散步的时候，我都与那些美丽的鹈鹕、白鹭还有那些轻轻爬过的沙滩蟹亲密地交流，这个时候让那广阔的海洋天然的节奏慢慢地拥抱我。
艺术与创造：每天我都用几分钟的时间听iPod里J.S.Bach演奏的冷静、
平衡的乐章。除了音乐，我还需要创新的思想，所以我腾出时间来写作，即使仅仅是为了刊物来创作。
冥想：冥想让我的思想能够温柔地抓住每个事物——甚至我的恐惧和愤怒——就像父母关爱孩子那样。即使是很短时间的冥想也可以让我们不过于追求和索取；还教给我们不要远离害怕的感觉。它教给我们向移动的、起伏并且无穷尽的宇宙敞开自己。
社区：在我恐惧的那段时间，我躺在床上读着福斯特写的《霍华德庄园》里的“连接观”。我与自然的联系非常简单，但是当涉及到与人的联系的时候，我显得很内向。然而，我丈夫和我都与社区取得联系同其他来自北美的移民一起得到资助。尽管有语言障碍，但是我们已经和周围的厄瓜多尔居民一起融入这个社区了。这种把社区的感觉扩展开来的文化包容感让我们有了属于这个新世界的感觉。
美丽般的思考：这是我们的生活哲学与意义的实践之处。我们最喜欢的书记包括神的诗篇、神学、哲学、心理学、这个网站的文章、小说和诗集等等，能够帮助我们用想法让心灵充实，这些想法能够让思想和灵魂变得和谐。记日志也可以。我发现一种叫做REBT的认知疗法，尤其当我在思绪中把缺憾找出来的时候对记日志很有帮助。此外我还背诵一些里尔克的诗、圣经的话和很多能够让人平静的话语。像过程
神学家布鲁斯的作品尤其有帮助。以下就是我总结出让我进入美丽世界的捷径。
放下、信任、选择美丽
感到“失去控制”是一种典型的受到刺激的反应——我发现，尤其在外国。举个例子，在拉丁美洲，事情从来不会按照应有的方式发生；只有当他们发生的时候才知道。当他们说的时候，意思不是明天，而是“不会是今天”。拉丁美洲贬低那些认为能够用计划和日程来组织自己生活的人。这些让人感到很沮丧所以经常感觉到“失去控制”。
学着放下那种控制的需要是很重要的。但是当然要在形而上学的层面，我们不能完全控制任何实质性的东西。我们从来都不可能是全能的人；我们也不是毫无能力。所以我们能够通过放下自己对生活、对他人和自己的索取来学着接受基本的关系事实。我们都期待事情按好的方向发展，但是我们无法强制事情如何发生。我们有能力，但是我们的能力是有连带关系的，也是有限的。因此，当我们被自己能力所及之外的事物压的喘不过气的时候——当我们感到气愤、无助害怕的时候——我们一定要首先学着释放自己对生活、他人和自己的索取。索取在有着联系的宇宙中不会奏效，当然更不会在拉丁美洲。
对我们这些以过程研究为基准的万有神论者来说，我们还要相信自己关于慈爱的、为人们承受痛苦的具有创造力的上帝的理解，上帝感受到我们强烈的恐惧并提供给我们转变的可能性。这是我在艰难的第一年所依仗的三个步骤，当我现在面对失落、恐惧和无助的时候还耳熟能详的：
放下对生活、他人和自我的索要
相信上帝创造性的转变和治愈能力
选择走美丽的捷径……
即席创作
选择“美丽的捷径”，我的意思是我们需要在特殊时刻选择用美丽的方式来回应，例如谅解、需要创新方式来解决问题、富有勇气的举动、倾听、祈祷和镇定自若。那么对手头的情形来讲什么选择是正确的呢？这才是来自宇宙探险到神迹给我们展现出来的成熟智慧与敏锐表现在现实之中。这是我们即席创作的时刻。
对于丈夫和我来说，我们继续建造自己的家园——比我们刚开始建造的要简单的多，但是更有趣味，与建筑学家富有艺术气息的即席元素有关。我们正在建造过程中的小窝就像它主人的生活一样，极具创造性。明年，我们可能附加一些东西。我们正在学着让自己的梦想在创造的漩涡中自然展现出来，而不是刻意去索取。美丽总是那样的，再一次去做、再一次去创造、再一次展望。这是一个过程幻想能带给我们的：它给了我们开放的思想；给了我们希望。
所以像里尔克所说的那样，我们要感受到它：它的全部，美丽与恐惧。这不意味着在宿命论的宇宙世界里我们是被动的兵卒。相反，我们在变幻的宇宙中有即席表现的能力“没有感觉是最终的感受”。我们能够放下、能够相信，能够走在美丽的捷径上。这是我们如何继续前行的方式。但是我们不是自己在行走。有神迹般的美丽陪着我们，我们在繁杂和痛苦的世界里再次创新，不管我们遇到什么样的情景，最终能够放松让自己深深地静静地在欢迎我们的土壤里生根。
by Han Sun
International Institute of Education and Culture & Department of International Cooperation and
Exchanges, Heilongjiang University, China
把自己重新植入美丽的世界
厄瓜多尔、基多、2011
躺在只有一层薄薄床垫的硬板床上，我凌晨3点钟就醒了，从头到脚浑身都感到疼痛。我在一个陌生的国度无法入睡。我失去了对我至关重要的东西，它来自我的祖国，我的过去，我不能再回那里得到它了。我的“自我”就在那里，而我的躯体却躺在这里：在这个痛苦的现实之中。
自我出生以来给我安全感和舒适感的那些东西突然给我非常真实的感觉，它们离开了我，剩下的就是黑暗、艰苦和痛楚。这就是恐惧的感觉。
我可以想象到当你失去爱人或者最好的朋友，或者自己的工作的时候一定会有这种感觉。但是我实际上没有失去任何实质的东西，我是去了一个家、一个地方、一个民族、一种语言、一种安全感。所以我不得不面对这个情况：我感到生活已经脱离了自己。我肯定是在经历文化冲击给我带来的痛苦：在陌生的国度里感觉自己是外星人的那种恐惧和痛楚。
在赤道地区漆黑的夜里，我在寒冷多雨的城市基多一所廉价的旅店里（和“敌人”的英语发音相似），睁开双眼躺在像行李架一样的床上，那床的感觉就是一种折磨。我期待着日出，至少会有光线照进来，还可能有一些烤面包和果汁。过了一会，我和丈夫一起再次努力尝试能否继续保留我们的居住签证，但形势不乐观。我们尝试了很多次但每次都会有障碍，我们感觉自己和西绪福斯一样，已经厌倦了这种努力。
我转过去看着我的丈夫，他睡觉时发出的声音有点恼人，这时我在反复思量把整个企业搬到南美洲，同时思量着我是否有能力承受这个变迁。我一直就像一棵长成的大树——有时候还开花——但是现在我在熟悉中却迷失了，在令人恐惧的一无所知的土壤里我重新被种下了。谚语说“一旦把你种在这里就让花朵绽放吧。”但是这种移植并没让我变得更好。我是一颗没有根须的树。
恐惧和美丽的年份
在基多“货架”上度过的那一夜仅仅是一个艰苦年份的开始，接下来又度过了许多个不眠之夜。当然我们一直在处理文化冲击产生的心理转变，我们知道这会发生，但是对于突然发生意想不到的事情我们没有做好准备。
我们的确拿到了居留签证，并认为这就成了，这就是在我们新家的所有困难的终结。因此，我们满怀热情去实现自己的梦想，建设我们的家园——实现丈夫早已设计好的计划——这样我们就最终扎根在新世界里。但是在一桩建筑诈骗中这个梦想被击碎了，导致上万美元的损失，几乎让我们无法承受。我们的民居建设停滞了几个月，我们的心跳也同样停滞了。我们在外国没有家园，也没有足够的钱来盖房子，我们又无法回老家。这种冲击发生后没多久，在边散步边讨论下步计划的时候我们被人用刀枪劫持了。从那以后，我们失去了在新世界里所有的安全感。到了年末，人力无法控制的各种事件和行为把我们变成了邋遢破败的探险者。
但是我们不应该归咎于厄瓜多尔。我在这个网站发表的第一篇关于厄瓜多尔的文章《幸福经济学》里提到，这个美丽的国家有着慷慨的人民，为世界做出了很多贡献。但是这个描述不足以把恐惧排除在外。
但是涉及到更大的问题确实有所帮助。我要超越我个人的痛楚来问一个更大的问题：当变革与损失让人无法承受的时候，当恐惧让我不能行动的时候，当一个人的安全感完全消失的时候过程思想能给我怎样的帮助？我意识到像我所经历的这种现实危机——这种让人难以承受的“质疑一切”——不仅让一个刚到国外的人无法入睡；在任何一个人冒险者凌晨3点等待的时候出现，他敢爱、敢冒险、敢于让自己生?
畹姆岣欢嗖省⒏矣谠诔阶约菏煜さ牧煊蚵角靶小?/span>
“宇宙冒险从梦想开始，并成就了令人感到哀伤的美丽。”我把怀特海关于上帝本性的著名引言放在脑海深处带到了厄瓜多尔，它在第一年成为治愈我所受创伤的一剂药方。带有诗意的这一点神学一次又一次地让我在地上扎根。事情是这样的：如果我们这些冒险的人跟着那些神圣冒险者的印记，我们的梦想会不可避免地同现实碰撞——甚至有的时候会含着恐惧和邪恶。但是那不是全部。也不是结束。美丽是冒险者的最终目标，也是指引他们行进的向导。美丽问我们怎样用智慧、技巧以及艺术眼光把线神奇般的穿在这些事实里面？或者在这个事件里，我们怎么能够用痛楚的最深层在新大陆上生根培育？
把自己重新植入美丽的世界
想着关于美丽的这些问题，我工作的时候养成了非常务实的行为，包括每天的习惯和日常的做法，这些能够让我进入肥沃的土壤。我所需要的是慢慢地、耐心地把自己植入美丽的世界里。现在看起来，我认清了5个美丽的习惯。
自然之美：每天当我在落潮的海边散步的时候，我都与那些美丽的鹈鹕、白鹭还有那些轻轻爬过的沙滩蟹亲密地交流，这个时候让那广阔的海洋天然的节奏慢慢地拥抱我。
艺术与创造：每天我都用几分钟的时间听iPod里J.S.Bach演奏的冷静、
平衡的乐章。除了音乐，我还需要创新的思想，所以我腾出时间来写作，即使仅仅是为了刊物来创作。
冥想：冥想让我的思想能够温柔地抓住每个事物——甚至我的恐惧和愤怒——就像父母关爱孩子那样。即使是很短时间的冥想也可以让我们不过于追求和索取；还教给我们不要远离害怕的感觉。它教给我们向移动的、起伏并且无穷尽的宇宙敞开自己。
社区：在我恐惧的那段时间，我躺在床上读着福斯特写的《霍华德庄园》里的“连接观”。我与自然的联系非常简单，但是当涉及到与人的联系的时候，我显得很内向。然而，我丈夫和我都与社区取得联系同其他来自北美的移民一起得到资助。尽管有语言障碍，但是我们已经和周围的厄瓜多尔居民一起融入这个社区了。这种把社区的感觉扩展开来的文化包容感让我们有了属于这个新世界的感觉。
美丽般的思考：这是我们的生活哲学与意义的实践之处。我们最喜欢的书记包括神的诗篇、神学、哲学、心理学、这个网站的文章、小说和诗集等等，能够帮助我们用想法让心灵充实，这些想法能够让思想和灵魂变得和谐。记日志也可以。我发现一种叫做REBT的认知疗法，尤其当我在思绪中把缺憾找出来的时候对记日志很有帮助。此外我还背诵一些里尔克的诗、圣经的话和很多能够让人平静的话语。像过程
神学家布鲁斯的作品尤其有帮助。以下就是我总结出让我进入美丽世界的捷径。
放下、信任、选择美丽
感到“失去控制”是一种典型的受到刺激的反应——我发现，尤其在外国。举个例子，在拉丁美洲，事情从来不会按照应有的方式发生；只有当他们发生的时候才知道。当他们说的时候，意思不是明天，而是“不会是今天”。拉丁美洲贬低那些认为能够用计划和日程来组织自己生活的人。这些让人感到很沮丧所以经常感觉到“失去控制”。
学着放下那种控制的需要是很重要的。但是当然要在形而上学的层面，我们不能完全控制任何实质性的东西。我们从来都不可能是全能的人；我们也不是毫无能力。所以我们能够通过放下自己对生活、对他人和自己的索取来学着接受基本的关系事实。我们都期待事情按好的方向发展，但是我们无法强制事情如何发生。我们有能力，但是我们的能力是有连带关系的，也是有限的。因此，当我们被自己能力所及之外的事物压的喘不过气的时候——当我们感到气愤、无助害怕的时候——我们一定要首先学着释放自己对生活、他人和自己的索取。索取在有着联系的宇宙中不会奏效，当然更不会在拉丁美洲。
对我们这些以过程研究为基准的万有神论者来说，我们还要相信自己关于慈爱的、为人们承受痛苦的具有创造力的上帝的理解，上帝感受到我们强烈的恐惧并提供给我们转变的可能性。这是我在艰难的第一年所依仗的三个步骤，当我现在面对失落、恐惧和无助的时候还耳熟能详的：
放下对生活、他人和自我的索要
相信上帝创造性的转变和治愈能力
选择走美丽的捷径……
即席创作
选择“美丽的捷径”，我的意思是我们需要在特殊时刻选择用美丽的方式来回应，例如谅解、需要创新方式来解决问题、富有勇气的举动、倾听、祈祷和镇定自若。那么对手头的情形来讲什么选择是正确的呢？这才是来自宇宙探险到神迹给我们展现出来的成熟智慧与敏锐表现在现实之中。这是我们即席创作的时刻。
对于丈夫和我来说，我们继续建造自己的家园——比我们刚开始建造的要简单的多，但是更有趣味，与建筑学家富有艺术气息的即席元素有关。我们正在建造过程中的小窝就像它主人的生活一样，极具创造性。明年，我们可能附加一些东西。我们正在学着让自己的梦想在创造的漩涡中自然展现出来，而不是刻意去索取。美丽总是那样的，再一次去做、再一次去创造、再一次展望。这是一个过程幻想能带给我们的：它给了我们开放的思想；给了我们希望。
所以像里尔克所说的那样，我们要感受到它：它的全部，美丽与恐惧。这不意味着在宿命论的宇宙世界里我们是被动的兵卒。相反，我们在变幻的宇宙中有即席表现的能力“没有感觉是最终的感受”。我们能够放下、能够相信，能够走在美丽的捷径上。这是我们如何继续前行的方式。但是我们不是自己在行走。有神迹般的美丽陪着我们，我们在繁杂和痛苦的世界里再次创新，不管我们遇到什么样的情景，最终能够放松让自己深深地静静地在欢迎我们的土壤里生根。