What Sustains You?

Recently, I’ve been blogging in general terms about the damaging effects of the US administration’s chaotic and ill-considered cuts and changes. A few days ago, over dinner with friends, I learned that a major university is under threat of losing federal funding for four research centers that study the languages and cultures of the world. This funding sustains students, faculty, research and teaching projects…and the potential loss of it is turning many lives upside down.

The ripples of this chaos run broad and deep. Here’s one very real impact that won’t register on anyone’s official list. My friend knows an administrator at the school who had one planned day off during spring break for rest and rejuvenation in his woodshop: “shop time.” Instead, he spent it on the phone, navigating his colleagues’ concerns about the impending educational and intellectual devastation these funding cuts heralded and responding with care as best he could.

Part of what’s important in periods of radical uncertainty is to focus on what sustains us, psychologically and spiritually. Shop time sustains this administrator, just as my photography sustains me. Prayer and worship also sustain us, along with dinners with friends and morning walks in nature. What sustaining items would you add to this list?

And sometimes, our best-laid plans for self-care are upended by events that are out of our control. In those times, all we can do is respond as best we can to the crisis in the moment, trusting that the shop time will come—even if it’s not today.

The weeks and months ahead look bleak and foreboding for the United States. If we are depleted, we cannot work for change. Each of us has choices to make about how we nurture ourselves to survive it and do our part. That includes leaning on and participating in our various communities and networks—and I’ll focus on that next week.

Meanwhile, I invite you to be conscious about what sustains you. What’s your equivalent to shop time? How can you plan rest and rejuvenation into your life so you can persist for the long haul?