ARTHUR BOERS: A Path Back to What Matters

25:21But when I gave her the handle, the explanation of why focal practices were significant, it gave them the language to defend and uphold and prioritize these activities and keep going forward with them. I love that. That's great. You know, one of the things that I've experienced, Arthur myself, and this is kind of recently relevant again, in that in December, I decided to give up Instagram completely, indefinitely. I realized I was addicted to it. I could spend as much time as I had on it. I couldn't sit at a stoplight without pulling out my phone and looking at it. I was just everywhere all the time.

25:59One of the things that I quickly experienced on the other side of that is one, I had a lot more time than I thought I did. So the sense that I I don't have any time is sometimes more perception than reality. Correct. We're filling it up with all this stuff. Yep. But now I got to figure out what to do with that time, which, you know, what I want to do are things that are like focal practices. But what I found is that the frustration tolerance that was necessary for doing these activities, doing something that demanded something of me, for example, or something that involved other people. Yeah. I'm an introvert.

26:32I'd just be happy to be at home by myself most of the time. I mean, I have five kids. I'm not really at home by myself, but, you know, in my home with my own nuclear family. First of all, what's your explanation for like the challenges that we experience trying to pursue these things, given our current kind of dopamine rich context? And how do we overcome that to get ourselves kind of over the hump to where they become joyful when we're used to everything being just so fast and easy? Right. I also use an idea that I learned from Albert Borgman that I found life changing. He would talk about thresholds.

27:07So, you know, a threshold in the doorway, for example. He said that lots of times the thresholds to doing things that are not necessarily our priority or most important are often very low. So you think about you have a hard day at work, you come home, you put your feet up on the HASIC, and it's really easy just to turn on the TV or turn on the computer or press a button. The threshold is low and you slide into it. And I'm not saying those are always bad things, but I'm just saying the threshold is low. And then the threshold to doing things that we like takes more effort and discipline. So the threshold is higher.

27:50One of his examples in a book that he wrote in the 90s, and the example will tell you that it was pretty dated. He said, when a TV was moved into a family's house, the decisions for what to do that evening suddenly got very narrow. Whereas in the past, you might say, shall we sit on the porch? Shall we visit with the neighbors? Shall we go for a walk? Shall we write letters? Shall we play games? On and on and on. Now, all of a sudden, the decision was, what's on TV tonight? So the threshold is low. So his answer to that was, he said, what we ought to do is raise thresholds against things that are not the priority.

28:30And because of him, I still had a TV then, but my TV was in a central place in the living room. So it was easy to turn on, especially when I was feeling tired. And so what I did as a result, I moved the TV down into the basement. It was an uglier room. I had to travel some distance. I had to walk over creaky floors to get to the stairs. And my beloved might say, are you really going to watch TV again? And I have to give it a little more thought. So you see, you're raising the threshold. It didn't mean I'd never watch TV, but it did mean I watched the TV not as often. So I raised the threshold.

29:06And then the other thing is lower the threshold for things that are your priorities. So one of my big focal practices is walking, walking and hiking. What I do is I buy really good shoes that are a pleasure to wear, that feel good on my feet. I'm glad to put them on. I buy good outdoor gear. Walkers like to say there's no bad weather, only inappropriate blowing, right? So you lower the threshold for the things that are a priority. I know that I'm a better person when I pray regularly and when I pay attention to my reading and my writing. I do that usually first thing in the day because that works the best for me.

29:47I'm the freshest, I'm alert, and I'm happy then. And so I just do it right away. So another thing I did was for years, I always wore a watch on my arm. And I know a lot of people don't wear watches anymore because you have phones. But I just realized I was too obsessed with that watch. There's even a picture of me on our wedding day where I'm looking at my watch. And I'm like, is there one day, you know, if there's one day where I shouldn't be worried about the time, it's that day. But you know, there's a picture of me looking at my wristwatch. And I wasn't necessarily engaging people that I wanted to, like I would be, if the conversation went too long, I might surrogate, start to try to look at my watch to figure out what was going on.

30:28Now, I'm not somebody who can live without a watch. I'm Dutch. So the 11th commandment is not just punctuality, being early is a high priority. So I haven't been able to give up a watch, but I put it in my pocket. So it's like putting technology in its place. So I can still look at my watch from time to time, but the threshold's a little higher. I'm not going to pull it out and look at it when somebody's talking to me about a difficult subject. I'm going to be patient. So just small gestures of raising thresholds or lowering thresholds accordingly. It's really good. This reminds me of people who want to start eating in a more nutritious way.

31:07They might take everything out of their pantry and their refrigerator, get rid of it, and fill it with the healthy stuff. But if they want to have dessert or something that may be a little less healthy, no problem. It's just that they have to go out and get it. So it's more of a deliberate choice. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. You know, one of the things that we talk about as being kind of necessary for human flourishing, and I think your version of this is kind of biggie-sized, is the need for hobbies, the need for recreation. You know, a lot of the people in our community are people who consider themselves high achievers, they're pursuing goals, they, you know, want to be successful, that kind of stuff.

31:47And consistently, when we talk to our clients, when we talk to people in our community, the thing they struggle with most are hobbies. First of all, how are focal practices and hobbies similar or not? And why do you think we struggle with those as people who are high achievers? First of all, I would say that often hobbies are focal practices. So I don't make a distinction there necessarily. I think hobbies can be a very good thing. And by the way, the understanding of focal practices really helped me as a pastor, because as a pastor, I prioritize getting to know people, hanging around with people, visiting people at their workplace or in their home.

32:26And it would happen from time to time that I'd visit people in their home and they'd have some hobby that I did not get at all. Not that I would say that to them and not that I would show it, you know, with my body language. I hope I didn't show it, you know, because as a pastor, you're supposed to be professionally interested in everybody. I can find myself here. But when I started to understand focal practices, I understood, oh, this is fulfilling a function in their life that's really important and is worth celebrating. And so even though it might be something that I wouldn't engage or do, I could really celebrate that with them.

33:00I love that. Another thing I would say is that a lot of focal practices really are things that were quite normal in the past. They were regular and they've been displaced by our reliance on technology. And so in some ways, focal practice is just helping us reclaim things that we knew or did before and helping us prioritize them, helping us have a different perspective on them. Now, there are all kinds of reasons for why we don't go on that direction. I'm a type A personality, so I get the obsession with lists and accomplishments and awards and whatever. So I have that certain kind of driven nature, too.

33:38But what I have found was when I take seriously sabbatical, for example, taking the Sabbath seriously on a weekly basis, that has a way of changing my perspective. And also, ironically, can make me more productive than I was before. So I learned this when I was a pastor, and I had a summer sabbatical for writing. And for years, I had written one or two days a week, even when I was a pastor. And the way I would write is on those days, I would just write all day until I was exhausted. And then when supper came and have supper with my family, I was kind of obliterated. And when I had a sabbatical, I made a surprising discovery.

34:17At first I thought, oh, good, I'm going to write eight hours a day for five days a week. I'm going to just churn out so much material. I'm going to finish the book I'm working on. And I don't know what stopped me, but I actually changed my pattern. And what I did was I would write every morning and then I checked the weather later in the morning. And then I would go windsurfing every afternoon for hours. Windsurfing is a focal practice. And I loved it. I was really healthy. I was really fit. I was getting lots of exercise. I was enjoying the fresh air. I got home for supper. I was rejuvenated.

34:51I was a much happier fellow family member. And ironically, I was writing better and more than when I wrote eight to 10 hours a day. And so it was a kind of a funny way to discover it, but it was a discovery that I made. Wow. When does a hobby stop being a focal practice? You're asking for a friend? A friend that looks just like him. I don't know. I think that's probably a conversation that you need to have with a discerning person who knows you. Oh, no, your friend needs to have with a discerning person who knows him or her quite well. I have several hobbies, but one of them is golf. Yeah. Yeah.

35:28It's easy for me, very similar to you, very driven person, that I can turn any non-achievement activity into an achievement activity. I guess that's when I think, hmm, I'm not sure this is kind of serving its purpose. Like when I go fishing, I'm perfectly content to not catch fish. I'm just being out there or when I'm playing the guitar, I also play Native American flute. You know, I'm just content to just enjoy myself. Yeah, I don't golf. But I mean, I, you know, I totally get that as I used to bird regularly for a while. And then you start getting obsessed with the lists and the numbers and the ones that you miss.

36:06And, you know, the thing about birding that was so fantastic was it helped me to slow down when I was outdoors. You know, I used to go to the monastery and I'd go outdoors and I was just antsy. I wanted to do things. You know, I wanted to read books or write stuff. I wanted to get back to my cell and get busy. And when I started birding, it gave me the discipline of just slowing down, finding a nice quiet place, watching for a while, and let whatever happens, happens. And that was much healthier for me. So I'm not going to judge your golfing or the way that you golf. But I totally recognize that we all have these kind of urges that drive us in ways that can be destructive.

36:47So golfing may still be a focal practice, but sometimes it may be kind of a distorted one for you. It's a good way to say it. Before we got on, I was on a coaching call with a client who, like me, has a number of children. Hers are actually younger than mine. She has a successful business. And I would say one of the most common questions that I get asked by people who have young children at home is, how do I find time for hobbies? You know, like this particular woman has three young children under three years old, who are her youngest, she has several older children as well. But, you know, if they're awake, she's on with these kids.

37:26And I think sometimes hobbies or activities that are recreational or focal practices, to be more specific, can feel really out of reach. It feels like something that you get to do when you're retired, or it feels like something you get to do if you don't have children. and it can be really discouraging for people who are in a season of caretaking. Sometimes that is when you're retired, when you're taking care of elderly parents, you know, or another family member. Sometimes that's when you have little kids at home and you're not sleeping or they're, you know, just you got to have your eyes on them all the time.

37:58What could this practically look like for people who find themselves in a season of very demanding caretaking without a lot of free time? I think there are a couple of things I would say. One is that we need to recognize the season of life that we're in. So when my wife and I had small children, we both worked part-time and we juggled our jobs so that we could juggle childcare. And, you know, there's only so much you can do and the kids are the priority. And I remember I looked forward to nap time and sometimes I let them nap longer than I should have let them nap, but you know, that's another thing.

38:33So, you know, there are things that are appropriate in particular seasons. But another thing to say is that caretaking itself can be a focal practice. Cooking meals for people that we care about, that's a focal practice. And quite simple things can be focal practices. I love, for example, walking in my neighborhood and just having random conversations. And there's some people that I talk with more often than others. And sometimes it's just a one-off. Last week, I walked around the corner. I ran into a woman who was walking her 18-year-old cat, and we had a long talk about her cat and the options for her cat.

39:07And it was great. I felt like it uplifted my day, and I think maybe it uplifted hers as well. And so I think there's joys that we can find in our daily life, and it's worth focusing there. It's not just about hobbies. It's really about an approach to life and prioritizing our highest values. Do you ever, and I'm asking you to be vulnerable here, do you ever backslide and you find out, oh, I've just become kind of mindless about this and I've drifted back into not practicing these things the way I'd like to? What do you think? I think probably. The answer is, of course. And all God's people said, amen.

39:45We're so glad we're not alone. For sure. For sure. I have a theory, and I don't suppose it's probably right in every case, but it's definitely write when it comes to me is that people write about the things they struggle with. For sure. Yeah. That was true of one of my mentors was Henry Nowen. I spent a lot of time with him. And, you know, he wrote so brilliantly about silence and solitude and stillness. And he was a harried man. Like he was busy. He was frantic. He bought a new car one time. And even though the auto lot was only a mile or so from where he was living in the daybreak community.

40:24He totaled the car before he got back home because he drove too fast. The daybreak community was on this farm. His house was at the back of the farm and his office was at the front of the farm. And I remember the community had a big, long debate whether they should pave that road on the farm from the front to the back. And they said, we really don't want to pave it because Henry's going to drive even faster. So, you know, he was doing the same thing. And as a pastor, of course, I'm doing this all the time. I'm preaching about things that I struggle with, and I'm hoping that it makes connections with struggles that other people have as well.

41:10Let's turn a corner and talk about Shattered. Okay. This is your newest book. Right. Give us the story. I know you talk about generational trauma in there, but kind of give the long arc of the book. Most of my books would be considered pastoral theology or practical theology. And I'm trying to give people counsel on how to engage certain challenges in life. But about 20 years ago, I started noticing that there were some examples of nonfiction that particularly inspired me and were lovely. So I read them not just because I liked the ideas or they helped me live a better life, but there was something about the quality of the literature that really captivated me.

41:51And then I realized, oh, there's kind of a whole genre of what's sometimes called creative nonfiction or literary nonfiction. And I thought, I'd like to try my hand at that. I'd like to try to write something a little bit differently than is just preaching or advising or counseling or arguing or whatever. And the more I thought about that, the more I thought, I think I'd like to write about my childhood. I was a son of Dutch immigrants. Dutch is my first language. I had to learn English in the street. My parents gave me an English name that they couldn't pronounce. And so I grew up not sure whether I was Dutch or Canadian.

42:25And then, you know, when I started working with missionary kids as an adult, I realized, oh, I was a third culture kid. I didn't know whether I was Dutch or Canadian. I really struggled with that for a long time. So that I thought would be worth exploring. There's some funny things in there. And I also had very vivid experiences, religious experiences as a child. I felt a call to ministry at age four in a church where they didn't talk about call. And that sense of call has persisted through my life. So I thought, well, that'd be worth exploring. And then I thought, well, I'd like to explore the mystery of my dad, who was a brilliant man, a businessman, didn't have much education, but he created a manufacturing business and exported greenhouses all around the world.

43:06He was also very troubled. He struggled with alcohol and anger. And there were times when his anger focused on me in very destructive ways. And so I thought, well, I'd like to explore the mystery of my dad. And in the book, I do all three things, but the more I wrote, the deeper I dug into it, I realized the main story that I want to explore here is the mystery of my dad and how it affected me. And as I was working on it, I realized, oh, my dad had PTSD, something that we didn't talk about when I was a child. And it made sense. He survived two wars. He had a very abusive father. And when I thought about him in terms of PTSD, it explained how he would get triggered by things and act way out of proportion.

43:51And the more I reflected on that, I realized, oh, I have PTSD as well, because his violence focused on me on a couple of occasions. And all my life, I have struggled with depression and anger. And then, so then as I realized that I have PTSD, it helped me have more compassion for him, but also more compassion for me. And in fact, compassion is the way forward. It doesn't help to school people who are struggling with these things, but to listen to them with patience and kindness and compassion can in fact make a difference. I have a similar background. Yeah. And I just, you know, one of the things you say in the book, or one of the things that certainly related is that focal practices can be a way to heal or improve generational trauma.

44:35What did you experience there? It's interesting. A lot of people who deal with PTSD, especially soldiers, they often recover through walking and hiking, for example. And hiking has been very important to me. I've hiked the whole Bruce Trail here in Ontario. It's about 800 kilometers. I hiked the community Santiago in Spain, also 800 kilometers. I wrote a book about that as well, the ways made by walking. So I think that focal practices have a way of reminding us what our priorities are and paying attention to the things that heal us and bring us back to where we want to be. When I started hiking, one of my discoveries was I would go and hike on the Bruce Trail here in Ontario.

45:18And I'd go for two or three days or something. And I started to realize hiking on the Bruce Trail was a lot like going to the monastery. I'd been going to the monastery for decades. It's time to recalibrate, to reevaluate one's life, to look at where your life has gone off course. And Michael, in answer to your previous question, yes, my life regularly goes off course. And so there's an opportunity to see these things. Plus it has the added benefit of being outside, enjoying the beauty of nature, enjoying God's creation, having physical exercise, getting fresh air. So those would be examples of how focal practice really helped me deal with some difficult things.

45:59I would think too, we've talked on this show about polyvagal theory and nervous system regulation and some of that. And it seems like focal practices are a way for us to get into that parasympathetic mode where we can, you know, our brains relaxed and we feel safe. And that all by itself would be a way to deal with trauma. Yeah. That's a big help for trauma. That's right. Yeah. That's good. You know, we were talking, Arthur, before we started recording that, But, and I've shared this before on the show, that of my five children, three of my younger children are adopted. And of course, any child who's made available for adoption has endured incredible trauma to be in a place where they need a new family.

46:43And so one of the things that I find fascinating about our own family journey of trauma and healing is how much attention is affected by trauma. How difficult it is to pay attention, to be embodied. you know, the impulse to dissociate when you've experienced a lot of trauma is a tremendous pull. And I'd love for you to just talk a little bit about the relationship between attention and focal practices and kind of like what the dark side, we've talked a lot about the benefits of focal practices, but I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about like, if we don't have focal practices in our life, what happens to our attention?

47:24What happens to our lives? Because I think we need to know what's at stake. All right. So you're inviting me to bring together two books that I haven't really. That's right. I haven't really tried to make connections between them before. So that's a very good challenge. See, one of the things about having been traumatized and having PTSD is that we can have reflexes that are automatic and not really thought through. It's called triggers. We get triggered. And my dad got triggered really easily. You know, you never knew what was going to trigger him. You know, one day I could bash up the car and it didn't bother him.

48:02And the next day I could quibble with my sister and he would explode, you know. So we never knew what the triggers were. But it's not so much about my dad. It's that I've needed to learn what are my triggers. I need to learn when I'm being triggered. And I know that there are certain kinds of situations that are more likely to trigger me than other kinds of situations. instant, then I need to be on alert to go back to living into focus. I need to pay attention. I need to be on alert. But if I live a life that pays attention to focal practice, especially pays attention to writing, reading, and praying on a regular basis, I tend to be more centered and focused and less likely to be triggered.

48:42Prayer disciplines are also a place where we get to reflect on our life and we can think about things that have gone wrong or things that have gone well and we can make decisions about them and we could just be more deliberate. So for me, focal practices are about getting away from just acting automatically. See, that's how I was raised that if you act automatically, it's right, you're justified. And of course, that's crazy thinking, but I've had to unlearn that. That's so helpful because one of the things we talked with, I think, Dad, it was when we had Ian Cron on. Oh, yeah. We're talking about how, you know, if you're going to flourish, you have to be able to live intentionally and you can't live intentionally unless you're self-aware and you can't be self-aware if you're numb or dissociated or otherwise checked out.

49:34Like you have to be attentive and present in your life. And that I think is what I hear you saying is that if we're going to become aware of our triggers, if we're going to ultimately have the capacity to heal, then we have to be able to be in a place where we're like plugged into our lives so that we can catch them before they become explosions, for example, like in your dad's case, or before they take us way far off the rails. It's one thing, you know, to have our life drift a little here and there and then we kind of recalibrate. And, you know, I think we're always doing that to some degree, but what we don't want is to have years go by and realize we were way off course.

50:09You know, that's where a lot of bad things happen. So I think this invitation really my experience of living into focus is an invitation to be present, an invitation to be fully where I am and fully embodied. And the practices tend to be things that engage your physical self as much as your emotional or intellectual self. And I think that in and of itself is deeply healing and restorative in the true sense of the word. I agree with everything you said, and I would also add that it also means a willingness to live with ambiguity and to live with pain and to live with things that aren't resolved and hold that there.

50:50That's a hard learning. For me, it's a hard learning. Me too. When you're in that reactive mode, it's harder to do. Yeah. And I think the focal practice creates the space. I remember Dr. Stephen Covey talking about, I think he got this inspiration for this from Viktor Frankl, but the idea was that between the stimulus and the response is the opportunity to pause and to think about how we're going to react. But if we always feel rushed, if we're going at the edge of our capacity, then we don't have the ability really to reflect. We really do become, at that point, you just have to do things automatically.

51:32Right, right. We could talk all afternoon, but we do have three questions that we like to ask at the end. Okay. Rapid fire. Yeah. And so, you know, our concept of the double win, winning at work and succeeding at life. Right. So it's basically a way of saying work-life balance, that life is more than work. There's all these other things that create human flourishing. Right. But what's your single biggest obstacle in your life today to getting the double win? Oh, I'm really drawn to being busy and I'm drawn to stroking things off my list and being overly active. That's a constant ongoing struggle and temptation for me.

52:15Okay. How do you know when you're winning at work and succeeding at life? I guess it's a kind of subjective thing, but a sense of fulfillment and purpose and calm and direction. When I'm at peace with God and peace with myself and peace with my spouse, those are good signs that things are going in a good direction. That's good. Peace is an answer that often comes up with this question. It's really interesting. Yeah. A sense of peace and purpose, for sure. What's one ritual, a routine that may be a foundational ritual that helps you do what you do? One of my most important rituals actually would be going for regular walks in the neighborhood, which I'm doing more now because it turns out I have diabetes, type 2 diabetes.

53:03If you go for even just a fairly brief walk after your meals, it can help process the blood sugar in really, really great. Yeah. So that's a recent addition in the last few years. but it's something I've been working on for a long time. And it really fits into my theology of prioritizing the neighborhood. And I mentioned earlier, there's some neighbors that I know I have long conversations with, but I'm always meeting new neighbors as well. And it really makes my day when I do that. Well, you've challenged me on that. I like it. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much for joining us today. This has been a rich conversation.

53:37And man, just keep doing what you're doing. I think the world needs this message increasingly. Oh, thanks very much, Michael and Megan. Again, it's been great being with you. I've admired your work for a long time. So it's nice to connect with you in this way. Likewise. Great to connect with you.

54:01Well, Dad, what did you think? You know, I've long been a fan of his. And he's kind of a hero to me. And you never know what you're going to get, right? Yeah. You know, sometimes you meet your heroes and it's a big disappointment. but he was delightful and thoughtful. And he was pretty much like I suspected he would be. Yeah. Kind of a fellow struggler who's figured some stuff out, but is humble enough to admit that he's not perfect at it. I loved getting to know him. I had forgotten that I had heard him speak many years ago, more than a decade ago at a church event that he came and spoke at. And I think I was in a very different place in my life, but it was very meaningful then.

54:41and even more meaningful. I think now I just feel like that framing around focal practices is such a helpful way to think about it. Those three qualities of it needing to be something that demands something of you, something that connects you widely and deeply. And I forget the last one. I'm gonna, you know, I'll have to look it up here in a second. But, you know, I think that is a helpful way of framing up what we need more of in our life and what the qualities need to be. You know, one of the things that I'm realizing increasingly, like I've always had focal practices of some sort, but I rarely do focal practices with others.

55:21Right, and that's a key distinction. I know, and it's just like, I remember one time my wife, Gail, for those of you listening that don't know her, suggested or thought we should go or join a running team because we were trying to run a half marathon. well I'm very much a lone wolf do it yourself so I really joined that and I loved it I loved I've anticipated seeing people and it was a lot of fun and same thing with fishing I like to be an introvert but increasingly I love to go with a bunch of guys in fact we're taking a trip this uh coming fall that I'm excited about but yeah I think there's things I need to do like one of the things I'm really motivated to try now is painting.

56:04I want to do it with my wife. Oh, that's awesome. I didn't know that. But it just is a way for me to enter into her world. But I also think I'd really like it. Yeah. Well, so the third quality I was just looking at while you're talking is focal practices need to have a centering or orienting power, which is kind of something that connects us to reality, our values, our highest priorities, those things. So it's got to demand something of you. It's got to take you deeper into connection with others, yourself, God. And it's also got to have an orienting or centering element to it. And I think that's a big idea.

56:42I mean, I was thinking yesterday morning, I think it was before we left for church. So yesterday when we were recording this was Sunday and I looked out the window and at the bottom, one of the oak trees was what looked kind of like a woodpecker, but it wasn't quite right. And I just stood there and I looked at it and I said, oh my gosh, okay, so I like birds too. I'm not like a birder. It's like, this is a very amateur kind of hobby, but it was like a woodpecker, but it had this black sort of bib on it. And I'm like, that is not the woodpecker that comes to my bird feeder every day. So I got out my little bird book and I looked it up.

57:13And as it turns out, it was a yellow bellied sap sucker for those in the know, never seen one of those before. Oh, you know. Yeah. I got so excited about it. And it just happened because I was looking out the window and I was just kind of taking my time. And it gave me so much joy to see a bird that I had never seen before. Didn't even know it existed on the planet. And then there it was. And I just, I think that's a good example of that kind of centering. It's like, I was really where I was. I wasn't off in my head somewhere. I was really just looking out the window in my front yard at the bottom of this tree at this bird.

57:47And I thought, I need more of that in my life. You know? That's why I think I would enjoy painting. Yeah. You have to be present to what you're painting. You do. I remember somebody said to me one time about fishing. When you're fishing, you're doing something, but you ain't doing much. Yeah. That's your mind off work. Right. And I think that anything that requires a different focus is really a good thing. Yes. Are you inspired to pick up any new focal practices or just to dive more deeply? Actually, one of the new focal practices that I've committed myself to is gardening. So we just, as of this last weekend, just installed a pretty elaborate raised bed garden on the side of our house.

58:27And my friend Natalie at Kingdom Soil Gardens is helping to bring that to life because I don't know much about gardening yet. So I'm learning. Everything is planted now. And Joel and the boys built everything. And Natalie helped to plant it. And now we're just going to take care of it and cultivate it. And I think the practice I told her, she said, well, how much time do you have to give to this? That was part of her as she was consulting with us and helping us figure out, you know, how to do this. And I said, well, actually, the reason I'm doing this is not because I want the food from the garden, although that's great.

59:01I mean, who doesn't want some healthy organic food, right? I said, the reason I'm doing it is because I want it because it's a focal practice. I actually want it to take at least 30 minutes a day where I have to be out there doing things because it's the doing of the gardening that is the benefit to me, not the stuff that comes from it, which is actually like very counter to my personality. And she was like, oh my gosh, you can have such a great garden if you're willing to give it 30 minutes a day at least. And I was like, no problem. So I'm really excited that that's going to be my new focal practice.

59:31And the cool thing is it's situated such that I will see my neighbors walking by. I imagine I will often end up in the driveway talking to neighbors about the tomatoes or whatever, giving them some tomatoes, you know, way more than we need. And I think that's going to be a really joyous thing to be involved with. Well, the fun thing is Natalie just finished our garden. Yeah. And you've got to come over and see it. I know I need to. She did some amazing things this year. So we weren't too involved in actually making it happen other than mom shoveled the dirt into the raised beds. but I promised her that I would be involved in the gardening.

1:00:08So I'm looking forward to that as well. Again, another opportunity to do it with somebody. I love that. Well, guys, get this book, Living Into Focus. Get the book Shattered from Arthur Boers. This is an important topic and it will enrich your life in ways you can't even imagine. Thanks for joining us, guys. Look forward to seeing you next week.

1:00:34Thank you.