Two weeks ago, as an early Autumn breeze washed through an ancient park in London, I stopped at the benches, reading inscriptions about people who are no longer alive.
There was one about a teacher who would spend her lunchtimes there, among the flowers and enjoying the trees. There was another about a gifted doctor who had passed away suddenly, shocking his family who loved him deeply.
Then, there was one that caused me to stop: on the top of the bench were pieces of Lego, the children’s toy, glued onto the wood. There they were, colorful pieces formed into a line, with a few words engraved onto the metal square below them.
The inscription spoke of a boy’s love of play, his extraordinary spirit and of a family’s love for him. The dates showed me that he left at the age of eleven.
Age eleven. I didn’t move on. I stayed. I stared at the Legos. And thought about the ones I adore, what matters most and about the passage of a life.
As I live, I’ve learned that a valuable life is less about the rewards the world wants us to pursue and more about how we love, who we become and what we leave behind.
I’ve spent much of this past year asking myself a deceptively simple question: what makes us most human.
This has taken me into periods of solitude in nature, mornings of rich prayer, reading the classics and writing a parable on the subject called The Robot and The Gardener: Being Fully Human in an Artificial World.
Out of this exploration, I’ve created The Fully Human Sessions, four live teachings for living with greater meaning, mastery and freedom.
The new book will be available in February but given the state of our world right now and all the noise stealing people’s potential, time and peacefulness, I wanted to do these sessions now (all will be live and each will allow time for participants to ask me questions).
If this exploration speaks to you, I invite you to join me in The Fully Human Sessions. You’ll find the details here.
Hope this helps and I send you my best,
Robin
