The following excerpt was taken from a journal entry written from my camper van while visiting Kirk Creek Campground in Big Sur, CA—a spot I visit regularly to immerse myself in nature and to attend mass at New Camaldoli Hermitage up the road.
November 14, 2024
This morning after prayer and journaling I walked out to the ocean and there was a family behind me on the road that caught my attention. I turned around and saw a mom and dad with their two kids. I thought, starting a [nonprofit] ministry is like birthing a child. That first year the mother is exhausted, confused about her identity, wishing she could go back to a simpler way of life. There are many sleepless nights, and dazed and confused days. There are fits of tears and rage that alternate so fast because of a lack of sleep mixed with physical exhaustion due to the demand on the body, mind, and spirit.
If a ministry [nonprofit start-up, new business, etc.] is like a newborn baby, the woman who births a ministry can be kind to herself— for the vision she has brought into this world will take everything out of her. She too will have sleepless nights. Feel she has nothing left at the end of every day, and wonder how she will carry on tomorrow. She will lose her grip on reality, time, and space. She will be doing so many new things all at once she will inevitably become overwhelmed and have no choice but to depend on something much greater than herself to keep this child alive.
It takes a very long time for that child to learn how to walk and talk. That child stumbles and falls for a year or more. Only speaking in monosyllabic words one at a time. There will be so many messes, scrapes and falls, bumps and bruises, dirty diapers as the child is learning how to walk and talk on its own.
I looked at that mom and dad walking next to their child on the scooter. Probably 4 or 5 years old, and I thought it was a long road to get to that point. It just takes time.
My first two years [of building a nonprofit] have been just like that. It all felt like too much. Like it was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life because you can’t quit. This time I had no choice. Because of the [nonprofit grant] funding I could not quit.
I was grateful to normalize how I have felt by having this metaphor to compare my last two years to. Because, holy shit, this has been hard.