We don't just want people in our lives, we ache for the ones who know us fully and stay anyway. This week we sit with the longing for connection that goes beyond convenience or proximity, and ask what it might mean to stop settling for less than we were made for. LINKS:Keepers of the Fire |  Connect  |  YouTube  |  Coming UpTRANSCRIPT:Relationships: What we reach for in each otherBefore we get into anything else— before really introducing this conversation series or today’s particular theme— I want you to pull something out of your Sunday Papers.It's called a Daily Examen.If that word's new to you, here's the short version: it's an old prayer practice— centuries old, actually— where instead of asking God to fix your day or explain your life, you just look back over it. Slowly, and gently. You notice what moved you. What you're grateful for. What quietly grew you. And you ask, at the end, what all of that might be inviting you into next.Super simple prayer practice that requires no performance or right answers. Just noticing.We made our own version of it for this series— for the next six weeks we're calling Keepers of the Fire— and instead of just talking about it, I want us to actually do it. Right now. Together.So take a minute. Look at the front side. Grab a pen, or just sit with it in your head. Let yourself notice what you're actually grateful for. Then, let yourself notice what's brought you joy, energy, a sense of coming alive lately. Don't rush to explain any of it or fix it or figure out what it means or anything like that.Just let yourself want deep, big things.Let yourself ache a little. I’m going to give you a little time here to think about it, and then write or draw in the boxes on your page.However that landed for you, however much or little showed up, that's okay. That's the practice.Now, flip it over. The back side is a second copy, identical to the one you just did, because this isn't a one-time thing. Take it home. Do it again tomorrow, or Tuesday, or whenever you can steal five or ten quiet minutes this week. The fire you just noticed doesn't go out when you leave this room.And underneath all of that noticing is a question we're going to be living with together for six weeks— a fire most of us have learned to keep quiet in any number of ways. So before I tell you what this series is about, I wanted you to spend a little time with your own fire first.When you're ready— when you've done a little dreaming, a little longing, a little honest noticing— we'll talk about where we're headed. Starting with the first thing that fire always wants: relationship.SECTION 1: A turn in the roadFor the last many weeks we've been in The Book of Forgiving, looking back from where we stand, at real hurts, real wounds, charting a kind of path forward that can only be achieved through forgiving. That was important work, and I hope it did something for you.Today, we’re turning around.We're going to spend the next six weeks not looking back, but looking forward. Standing where we are and trusting a gut feeling. A sacred impulse. A fire in the belly that says: things can be better than this.That feeling has a lot of names. For the next six weeks, let’s call it The Ache.What is The Ache?The Ache is that restless, reaching, yearny feeling. The sense that the world could be different. That you could be different. That there's more available — in your relationships, your life, your world — than what you're currently experiencing.Kids feel it when they want a best friend who really gets them. Adults feel it when a conversation goes surprisingly deep and they think, “why don't I have more of this?” We all feel it when we watch the news and think: it doesn't have to be this way. [I felt it this weekend as I thought about 250 years of the American experiment, and remembered that there’s a reality behind all the mythologies that deserves attention as we work to continue collectively rejecting tyranny.]Th