Community

What Coronavirus is Teaching Us About Timelessness

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“We’ve never had to do a complete shutdown like this…”

“…strange and unprecedented times…”

“Historic…”

These are the kinds of phrases we hear every day around coronavirus discussion. I mean, a literal pandemic is sweeping the globe! There is no guidebook for that.

That makes it a little scary and a lot weird. It means we are reminded how little control over our lives we have and how utterly sovereign God is. And it also reveals a lot about the truly lasting elements of humanity — the lindy elements, if you will.

In a time and place in which most people don’t know their neighbors and self-reliance is the name of the game, suddenly, community is cropping up.

We are checking on each other.

We are searching out ways to keep in communication.

We have seen stories of people singing on porches together, taking each other to hospitals, sharing encouragement and prayers.

I know that I have rarely been so open to the people around me about my thoughts and emotions and so motivated to actively search out the needs of those close to me.

Sure there are stories of people hoarding hand sanitizer in the other enduring human trait — selfishness.

But it is amazing that, even with our cities designed to keep people apart, our social media designed to keep people distant, and our habits of keeping to ourselves and our own business, the necessary sense of community never quite dies.

Centuries ago, people saw the need for strong communities daily because they were on the brink of death regularly. But now, we get the kind of illusion that we can do this on our own and we have everything under control.

But then, pandemic happens, and we see that we haven’t “outgrown” community yet, and we never will. 

So maybe once this is over, instead of falling prey to that illusion again, let’s look backwards to some timeless elements of community and see how we can strengthen our own even further.

We’re open for suggestions!

Family, Health

3 Easy Ways to Make Your Life More Lindy

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Life change is hard. And going against the grain is even harder.

Maybe that’s why we never seem to really do it..

As a family, we have researched, pondered, and talked late into the night about some of our life philosophies, and it always comes back to the same idea: timelessness.

  • How can we decorate our home in such a way we won’t need to redo its trendiness in 5 years?
  • How do we best nourish our bodies?
  • How should we be spending our free time?
  • How can we worship God as a family?
  • What should community look like? Or our jobs?
  • How do we give our kids the healthiest childhood on all counts?

But conversations are hard to turn into actions. Looking around, it seems like everybody has plans for how they would make a more money or get healthier or finally do x thing. But plans are cheap. Our plans are a dime a dozen.

And we are tired of being stuck there when it comes to our family. We are determined to make some real changes. That’s what we are here for. That’s what this blog is about — finding out how to turn philosophy into action.

If you want to join us, here it goes.

3 easy ways to make your life a little more lindy:

 1. Get outside more

Let your kids run wild. Plant a garden. Go on walks. Just sit and talk.

Life used to be lived outside — for good reason! (Well, besides the fact that that was often the only choice… 😛 But it was beneficial nonetheless!)

We have started with daily outside time for our kids, even if it’s short, and family Sunday walks. Baby steps!

2. Work with your hands

Find a project you can do or skill you can learn.

We have tried fitting in more baking and we are planning on learning some sewing and woodworking.

If that feels overwhelming, there are even smaller steps you can start with — take care of a plant, do some extra yardwork, make some origami!

3. Eat real food

Don’t worry too much about which foods to eat, soaking, etc. just yet. Just start somewhere!

For us, that meant adding in some more fruits and vegetables, cutting out all of our snack food, and looking for some higher quality meat.

That’s about where we are right now. It hasn’t been too hard and it has made huge amounts of difference in the pace of our lives, which has in turn affecting our health and stress, not to mention just enjoyment of what we do.

So, if that’s what you’re looking for, jump in!

Community, Design, Family, Health, Rhythms, Self-Sufficiency

What is “Lindy?”

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I tried looking the word up in the dictionary and got: “a jitterbug dance originating in Harlem”

Ahem. What?

Sorry, no jitterbug here.

And can we talk about the irony that the dictionary definition is a super trendy generational dance move?

That’s basically the opposite of what we are going for. When we think of lindy, it is more in this framing:

“If you hear advice from a grandmother or elders, odds are that it works at ninety percent. On the other hand…if you read anything by psychologists and behavioral scientists, odds are it works at less than ten percent, unless it is also what has been covered by the grandmother and the classics…” (Nassim Teleb).

It’s the “Lindy Effect” — the idea that if something has continued/has been used/is successful for a long time before, it will continue to be for a long time in the future.

So what does that have to do with family life? Friendships? Our part in society?

Well, as we are trying to build our lives well, we hear a lot of studies and opinions shouting at us, “DO IT LIKE THIS!” How do we sort which of this contradictory advice to adhere to and which to toss? I mean, the decisions we make about family structure, health, city design, childrearing, etc., etc. are far reaching and nearly irreversible. Talk about pressure.

But, we have a lot of the answers!** For thousands of years people have been trying to live life well and, according to the Lindy Effect, the strategies of our ancestors have already been sifted to see what will and won’t hold up. The principles that have already proven to be successful across generations, nationalities, and specific situations are the principles that will probably still be successful in the future.

Timelessness.

Are we making this parenting decision/architecture decision/decorating decision/food decision based on the timeless experience that is humanity or based on an unproven trend?

Those are the kinds of questions we are trying to ask around here.

**We can’t go without saying that the ultimate proof of the Lindy Effect are the truths of God’s Word, the Bible. As the Designer of the universe, the truths that God encoded in are unchangeable and the final answers to these questions. Every person and society since the beginning of time has proven that, and at the end of time we will realize just how much. Until then, the Bible is our ultimate answer to the question about living life well. We look to the Lindy Effect just to fill in some of the specific how to’s (like what to eat or how many hours to sleep), but always on the bedrock foundation of God’s design.