I just started reading Jedidiah Jenkins new book Like Streams to the Ocean. I’ve loved Jedidiah’s positive and insightful lens on life ever since I came across National Geographic’s You Tube video about his journey from Oregon to South America titled “Life Lessons from a 7,000 mile bike ride”.
His memoir, To Shake The Sleeping Self, recounting his epic bike trip was a wonderful read. As a gay Christian, he speaks beautifully and openly about his complicated journey with religion. I love the honest conversations he has with his friends about religion in his memoir. After reading that book, I had a better understanding of what it means to be Agnostic and that my beliefs most align with its definition.
This is just one example of the many reasons I love books, especially memoirs. I find so much comfort and inspiration from reading about the lives of others. It helps me keep an open mind, remember that we’re all working through our own struggles and that sharing our experiences can help other’s in their own journey.
I read the following paragraph today in Jed’s new book and I love it so much, I had to share. I have this thought regularly but have never been able to articulate it the way he has…
“Whenever someone is freaking out over nothing… when their world has come undone because she won’t text back, or the airline lost their luggage, or they got a parking ticket… I want to point to the sky and say, “Um, we’re floating on a boulder in space, spinning at an incredible speed, held down by gravity and some arbitrary rule of physics. There’s only so much organic material on the planet, which means we’re made of molecules that came from dead stars. Dead. Stars. Some part of you was probably part of a dinosaur. For you to exist, every single one of your ancestors had to survive long enough to procreate, all the way back to the Stone Age and monkeys and small mammals and reptiles and fish and cells. You exist thanks to an unbroken chain of successful sex. Everything is a miracle… so calm your ass down.”
— Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams To The Ocean
Those are the kind of words I need in my life regularly to keep everything in perspective. Because it’s true, it’s a freaking miracle that we ever got the chance to exist on this planet in the first place.
For more from Jedidiah, check out these three great podcast interviews with Rich Roll. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every one of them.
