We finish this section on tenacity, with one of the strengths of our community — how human beings change, grow, and develop. We’ve distilled the ancient spiritual practices to an easy-to-remember icon — “Working the Circle.” Have a listen.

We’re talking about how carefully considered routines help us live tenaciously — long, sustained effort in the same direction. In the livestream notes last week, one commenter asked in essence, “So yeah. Noticing my habits. Noticing my routines. Got it. But how the h*** do I actually change a routine once it’s set in habit? Let’s talk about that. Have a listen.

Shared routines, carefully considered, allow us to sustain commitments over the long haul, even when we don’t have the internal infrastructure in place, to build new habits. Hey! we can do that with one another. Have a listen.

People of our time, people working on the most important moral issue of our day — racial harm, racial inequity — must be tenacious. We must be tenacious, because racism is tenacious. Have a listen. Another principle in how we develop tenacity.

People of our time will be about the slow, steady, dismantling and rebuilding of systems that create inequity — especially racial inequity — generation after generation. We’ll need to be tenacious! How does that happen? Have a listen.

Crisis evokes “fear-brain.” And fear-brain shuts down the best thinking, big-picture seeing, and sends us into evolutionary instinct, survival mode. The spiritual tradition gives us wisdom and practices, to help us do better.

Far from naval-gazing narcissism, meditation opens us to the kind of new possibilities this moment in history is demanding of us.

Meditation won’t cure a virus or stop fake news. But it will break down tribal blindness. And that’s a big component in the crisis we now face.

Let’s think about how courage helps make us people of our time.

“The greatest glory lies not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail” (Nelson Mandela).

Our nation has failed. Each of us has failed. AND, we can rise again. We can do better.