This week, as this episode is released, I am in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, serving with the Appalachian Service Project. Alongside youth and adults from Dulin United Methodist Church, I’ll spend the week helping make homes warmer, safer, and drier.
It is a week of service, but it is also a week of practice.
This summer marks my eleventh year with ASP, yet much about this experience is new. It is my first trip with Dulin. The staff are people I’ve never met. The family whose home we’ll serve is unknown to me. The rhythms, relationships, and expectations will all be different than they have been in previous years.
And that is where this week’s ripening practice comes in: Ripening Intention.
The Gift of Intention
When life changes—when we enter new places, meet new people, or step into unfamiliar situations—it is easy to stop being present.
Instead of meeting the moment before us, we compare it to the past.
We remember how things used to be. We imagine how things ought to go. We worry about what might happen next.
Before long, we are everywhere except where we actually are.
Intention calls us back.
Ripening intention is the practice of choosing presence. It is the willingness to show up for the moment we are living rather than the one we are remembering or anticipating.
It is the quiet decision to be here.
Showing Up Without Performing
One of the things I know about myself is that unfamiliar situations can sometimes awaken old habits.
Many years ago, when I felt awkward or uncertain around others, I often responded by becoming overly energetic or overly talkative. It was a way of compensating for insecurity, of trying to earn belonging.
Most of us have our own versions of this.
We carry old stories and old defenses. We develop ways of protecting ourselves, proving ourselves, or making ourselves acceptable.
The challenge is that those old patterns often continue long after they are needed.
Ripening intention allows us to notice those responses without letting them take over. It gives us the opportunity to pause and ask:
Who is showing up right now?
Is it the self that feels it must perform, impress, or prove?
Or is it the self that already knows it belongs?
Remembering Who We Are
Without intention, I can easily forget who I am.
I can forget whose I am.
I can forget that I have nothing to prove.
The truth is that no moment asks us to be anyone other than ourselves.
Not a perfected version of ourselves.
Not a future version of ourselves.
Not a version crafted to meet someone else’s expectations.
Just ourselves.
That is enough.
More than enough.
Belonging Before Anything Else
At the heart of this practice lies a deeper truth.
Before there was any sense of separation or differentiation, we belonged.
Before we accomplished anything.
Before we succeeded or failed.
Before we compared ourselves to others.
Before we learned to hide parts of ourselves.
We belonged.
We belonged to God.
We belonged to one another.
We belonged to the whole of life itself.
Ripening intention is, in many ways, simply remembering that reality.
It is remembering that our belonging is not something we earn. It is something we awaken to.
A Practice for This Week
As you move through the coming days, notice where you are tempted to leave the present moment.
Notice when you begin replaying the past or rehearsing the future.
Notice when old insecurities or old stories begin speaking.
Then gently return.
Take a breath.
Remember who you are.
Remember whose you are.
Show up for the moment before you.
Not perfectly.
Simply intentionally.
Because just showing up as yourself is all that any given moment asks.
And that is enough.
Until next time, please remember: You are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.
Infinitely Precious 