Inherited Responsibility

(or, why even not meditating might still require a little reverence)

Hello Everyone,
Today I’m not writing from the porch, so this isn’t back porch pontificating. And it’s not after midnight either, with the hour of the wolf pressing in. I’m at my desk. Maybe this is more of a meandering from the desktop.

We all read - or I assume you do. I read every day, though often just a few pages at a time, because something usually catches me. Last night, it was two words that caught and held me. I’m still working through them.

Here are my thoughts, for you to wonder over - or not. But I felt it was worth my time to write them down.

These few thoughts came after a phrase from Mary Oliver stayed with me longer than I expected. I hope they land well for you.

I’ve been reading some Mary Oliver again. Dangerous, I know. Her writings always have a way of slipping past my thinking brain and poking around somewhere deeper, somewhere I don’t always want poked. But in an essay she wrote, she used a phrase, borrowed, in fact, from Gloria Vanderbilt’s granddaughter:

‘Inherited responsibility’.

It wasn’t about money or property. It was about something subtler, heavier. It was about spirit. Character. The shape of one’s presence in the world.

And it struck me, maybe that’s what this whole so-called “practice” of mine is really about. Even though I like to poke a little fun at the idea of meditation, and I do my best not to take it too seriously (lest I float away on a cloud of my own importance), there’s something in that phrase that won’t leave me alone.

Because I do think we have a kind of inherited responsibility, not just passed down from ancestors, but passed through us. A responsibility to be the best person we can be. Not perfect. Not enlightened. Just… genuinely decent. Aware. Awake to our impact.

We owe that to ourselves, first and foremost.
We owe it to our families and loved ones.
We owe it to the people we meet in passing - the clerk, the kid on the bike, the quiet neighbor.
We owe it to our community.
We owe it to the world at large.
And yes, we owe it to those who will come after us.

And it’s not just about tending to our own small circle.
We have an inherited responsibility to see others as they are,
especially those the world prefers not to see.

We owe something, too, to the overlooked, the underprivileged, the misunderstood.
To stand near them - not above, not ahead, but beside.
To offer what we can, even when it’s not much.
To stay open. To stay human.

That, too, is part of the inheritance.
Not a burden, but a calling to grow.

And, I’m not always great at this. I forget. I grumble. I roll my eyes when I should be listening. But I keep coming back to the idea that who I am in the quiet moments - when no one’s watching - might matter most of all.

This isn’t about being spiritual in any particular way. I don’t care if your peace comes from church, from walking in the woods, from sitting still on a cushion, or from lighting a candle and whispering into the dark. The form doesn’t matter.

What matters is that we do take it seriously.
Because how we are - who we are - is not just our life.
It ripples.

And maybe that’s what a “practice” is, even if we don’t call it that.

Not a path to escape this world.
But a way of being more fully in it.
A way of honoring the inheritance
and leaving something better behind.
So maybe this is the work.
Maybe this is our ‘Inherited Responsibility’ 
Not to fix the world. Not to save anyone.
Just to show up with eyes open,
to carry the question of who we are – together - 
and to walk gently enough
that those who follow
can still find the path.

I don’t always know how to do it, but I know I want to keep trying - because something in me believes it matters.

If you’d like, sit with me now, just for a breath.
In.
Out.
Here.
Together.
Still becoming.