Brene Brown, in her book Daring Greatly, differentiates between the tasks of being a mapmaker and a traveler. To be a mapmaker is to look at the environment and sketch the lay of the land, it’s to do the research, and plot it on paper. It’s takes into account where you are and where you want to go and develop the best route to get from here to there. Mapmaking needs to look at the past (have I traveled this way before?), the present (what factors are different now, what are my assets and liabilities, what’s the current conditions), and the future (where is the best place to go, what will it look like when I get there?) It’s a lot of planning, a lot of work.
To be a traveler, we just need to follow the map. Read the signs and follow directions. It’s a status quo activity. If all goes according to the plan, then no problem. But…when do things always go according to plan? As soon as we begin, something veers us off-course, we get new information, or our fickle heart changes. And then we have to recalculate our route. The task always seems to return to mapmaking.
There’s a short parable from the Jesus tradition that goes like this:
No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine, as it ferments, will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh, pliable wineskins. (Luke 5: 36-39)
With every new change, we need new plans, new approaches, new ways of understanding ourselves, and new ways to get to where we’re going. New material requires new containers. New attitudes require new awareness. New obstacles require new intentions.
This means that whatever we have planned for September – school, a new project, a new activity, joining a new group, learning something new, engaging in your community in a different way, pondering something differently, engaging the world in a different way, – it’s going to take being a mapmaker and a traveler. It takes the work of rejecting old ways and finding new ones. It takes dealing with pouring yourselves into new containers that fit us better, that will fit the new evolution of you – as you’re becoming. It takes recognizing that we need new tools for the new path we want to journey.
And through the changes of this new season, let’s remember we have each other. May you have the strength and blessing of community as you make your maps and make your way.
-Chris
