The Thin Space

Hey, good morning, Cadre. How are we doing today? How are we doing? There we go. It's kind of nice. I have my car lighting so I can put up the. Whatever you call those things, the visors, and get a little bit more light. It's a nice sunny morning. It's still chilly here, but it's a good. It's a good start to a Sunday. I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad you're here. I know what I know and I care about you. How many spaces can you find within your week where that is the case? Hey, Alana, nice to see you.

I had to lean because I couldn't see your. I couldn't see your name in. In my shirt because it blended in. Happy Sunday. How many places in your life each week can you say that you're glad you're there? The people you're there with are glad they're there. You know what you know and that you care about the people that you're with? Hopefully, hopefully quite a few. But I'll say consistently, if you need that space ballgame 22:30, you can find it right here. Speak wonder. This is one of those spaces that no matter what, when you click on in, you know that there are going to be people who are glad that they are spending time together and that there's people who are willing to share what they know.

On some days we talk a lot about the intangibleness, the softness, the highly pluralized act of taking care of yourself, self care. Hey, Jules, nice to see you. And I always talk about this idea of thin space, which is rather elusive, I'll tell you. Season shifting is always a really hard time, but a weird time. I find myself around Memorial Day weekend, which is the unofficial start of summer. I always find myself going down trails in my mind. It's the part of the year where I have the weirdest dreams.

Last night I was dreaming about hugging tall people. I literally woke up in the middle of the night and I said, what do dreams about hugging tall people mean? And I couldn't find anything else. Find anything. But then I started going, wait, why is this in my mind? Carrie, nice to see you this morning, my friend. But it's often in these transition places like season end, season begin or end of day, beginning of day or in between, weekend and week beginning, like we are right now, that we can find this thin space.

Thin space is a practice established by the Franciscans where they would try to find those spaces in between. And often when I do this exercise with People, I go into a little bit of JC Math mode and I always say it's like. It seems like we spend about 48% of our time unpacking our past, about 48% of our time planning for the future, and very, very little time. About 4% in JC math mind actually being in the only moment where we have any power. We don't have any power in the past. We can learn from it.

We don't have any power in the future. We can, in theory influence it, but the one moment we have some power is. Is right here. And with that being said, speak wonder. I see your message that today is not a great day. Yeah. How do we find nourishing moments in the days that aren't innately good or innately easy? I think. I think it was a week ago today. I told a story about my friend whose dad abruptly passed away a few Tuesdays ago. And while she. While the memorial was down in Florida this past week, she stayed down there with her mother for the week until yesterday.

And she flew back home last night. And today's her first day home after the trip, after the. The memorial service. I have a near and dear human friend. Her name's Carrie, but even more dear, her older dog. She has two dogs, Murph and Poppy. Murph has been one of my best friends for 12 years. We used to be neighbors and then I moved away. But I still go and hang out with Murph quite a bit. Well, Murph, I mean, you can tell by how long we've been friends. Murph was an old dog. Murph passed away two days ago.

How do we find that space that we can be nourished in the midst of? Well, I'll tell you quite often in these moments, whether it be a transition season, you know, a hard moment, something happened that we have to be in, or simply within those, hey, it's Sunday night, a new week starts tomorrow. Or hey, it's nighttime and the sun is disappearing, or it's morning and here comes the sun. Any of these thin spaces, these spaces in between. If we take the invitation, be curious and to go, huh, what am I noticing?

Quite often I'll find something. You know, I'll tell ya. I was a part of a. Of a comedy storytelling show at Crooners Jazz Club in Fridley, Minnesota, two nights ago. Crooners is one of the hundred top jazz clubs on planet Earth. And for some reason I get asked to be a part of this show with Ms. Shannon Paul, who you can find right Here in the Cadre sphere, Ms. Shannon Paul goes, JC, you need to come and be a part of this. And then I end up closing the show. The three times I've been there, I've been the, the, the closing act that the Last person before Ms.

Shannon wraps it up and sends people on. And I always get nervous because I go, I'm not a comedian, I tell stories for a living, but I'm not a, I don't like, I don't do it as my living. And even though I sit down at the piano and that's where I do my set from, I'm not a world class musician. But I'll tell you, on this night, the seven artists who went before me, they spoke about growing up Catholic. They spoke about how their grandmothers who have passed on, how they haunt them. One spoke about being queer and the, the reality of being othered in the world.

And then, kid you, not, one came up and started singing the Albania song from cheers back in 1988, the sitcom Cheers. And then I get up to do my set and I go, audience, I kid you not, a Polish Catholic kid whose dead grandmother haunts me. Polish queer Catholic kid who's dead grandmother haunts me. All of these correlations were happening. And then I go, and this week George went from Cheers, died, as I've shared on this platform earlier this week, and we did a sing along of the theme song from Cheers.

And that was the plan, like all along I go, all of these stories lined up, even to the point of me singing the second song from Cheers in the evening. Now I tell you, if I was focused on what I thought I had to do to go and be enough as our tie to Saturdays, I wouldn't have seen all those correlations. I would have been so focused on going, here's what needs to happen when I go on stage. Because I was in the moment that I was in, I was able to go, you know what? This is a really cool moment in the midst of a real hard time.

And I was nourished by it. So no matter where you are, no matter what's going on, observe a little bit. Notice a tree or a song that comes on the radio that reminds you of something, that brings you into the moment that you're in and then pick up that little morsel of the moment that you're in. Be nourished by it. I will see you tomorrow morning, y' all. I hope you are having a good weekend. Whether this is a weekend that you enjoy or weekend you don't enjoy. A weekend that brings you energy or weekend that takes it.

Guess what? That's the story of life. I often say, you know, I'm a musical theater guy, and stories that don't have curve balls and hard stuff and great stuff aren't stories that ever make it to the stage. Your story is stage worthy. Not because of what you accomplish or how good you are at making everything be good, but because it's real. Oh, and Jules just noticed the smell of pear bread. I've never even heard of pear bread. Jules, that sounds divine. I hope it cooks up well, bakes up well, and continues to fill your house with that wonderful smell.

Y' all have a good one. We'll see you later. Bye.