BEHIND THE SCENES: STRONG CONTAINERS

You need a very strong container to hold the contents and contradictions that arrive later in life.” - Richard Rohr, Falling Upward, 2011

I don’t know about you, but that quote hits me like a ton of bricks every time I read it. I live among a culture and generation that only sees the now. The present. Live fast, die young, YOLO. Who cares. 

But if we do get the privilege to live a longer life on this earth, I desire for my journey to not be so thoughtless. I do care. 

The quote above comes from Richard Rohr’s book Falling Upward. This book speaks to the concept of a “first half of life” and a “second half of life.” I encourage you to read it, but in super watered-down, layman's terms: the first half of life is the life you lead as a younger person (40 years old and younger if we want to put a number on it) and the second half of life is the life you lead beyond that (50 years old and onward). 

Life is messy and crazy and downright hard. As we age and go along our life’s journey, we come across crazy contradictions and things we may have never seen coming our way.  I want to spend my first half of life building up the strong containers within me. Radically pursuing peace, mercy and community so that I have to capacity to hold the hard things that come with being human. Strong Containers is birthed from this concept. In fact, any mixed media works in my portfolio you see incorporating metal tubing alludes to this quote.

May we all live in pursuit of being strong containers.

-KB

Strong Containers
Katie Beman, 2019