I was raised in the Catholic Church. In fact, I am the product of twenty six years of formal Catholic education and spent six years of my young life as a monk in the Congregation of Christian Brothers. It has been a long time since I actively participated in a church community, but this season of gratitude has me reflecting on how those early experiences shaped me in steady, positive ways.

My deepest gratitude is for a simple yet powerful idea. The idea that the spirit or intention behind a practice, ritual, law, guideline, or prescription should matter more than living “the letter of the law.” This is not to say the “law” does not matter. Shared and agreed upon practices create a sense of community and give us a framework for living out shared values. But what happens when the practice becomes more important than the value it was meant to express, when the practices become performative?

I think this simple idea fuels my curiosity. Long ago I realized that core values can be expressed in countless ways. Each embodiment of a value carries its own shape, its own flavor, its own contribution to our understanding of what that value really means.

My lifelong search, whether in psychology or horsemanship, has always been for the common threads woven through different perspectives and traditions. I am wary of disciples of any approach, whether it is a religion, a psychological theory, or a school of horsemanship, who cling rigidly to their method as the only way.

So today I am challenging myself to reconnect with my values. When I notice my behaviors or choices drifting into the performative, I will return to the quiet question beneath it all. What is the spirit I am trying to honor? And then I will live from that place with more courage, more clarity, and more truth than performance could ever offer. ~Paul

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