Welcome to this conversation

Enough - Episode 3: Enough Comfort. There is nothing wrong with being comfortable. It is something everyone should be. But ‘enough’ has a strange ability to play games with what qualifies as comfortable. In 2021, when a billion people on our planet truly don’t have enough, what comforts do the rest deserve? There are better choices than hedonism and guilt when it comes to enough comfort. Join Greg Meyer, Nick Theisen and others in figuring out what comfort is and where it is found.

Episode 3: Enough Comfort with Nick Theisen (theembersway.com)

What is Enough Comfort?

Thinking that enough comfort is a certain amount that you are allowed to have and indulge yourself with, and anymore is selfish and irresponsible is pretty obviously not the way to understand comfort. What is a better question? What does comfort mean to you?

Nick Theisen, a photographer, story producer and teller, thinker, writer and question asker made a 6-week solo, technology-free trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA), a million plus acre wilderness area in order to… well, that’s what you’ll listen to the podcast to figure out. Thanks to Nick for helping us think through what Enough Comfort is.

Your ENOUGH COMFORT words: When you think about “Comfort” and “UnComfortable” what words come to mind? Don’t think too hard or judge what comes to mind, just write them down.

Something to consider:

Those things you listed above, are all the words on the comfortable side good things and the words on the uncomfortable side bad things? Are some on both sides? Is comfortable better than uncomfortable?

TWO BETTER QUESTIONS THAN HOW MUCH COMFORT DO I WANT?

#1 In what do you find comfort?

Nick and Greg talked about ‘brokenness’ being parallel to the comfort/discomfort question. They wonder if it can be seen as a path to wholeness rather than the opposite of wholeness.  

“Going into the discomfort it is easy to feel fear but [if you can find] the edge where it actually transforms into curiosity, you suddenly don’t need bravery to go into that uncomfortableness. You only need curiosity because it is something to be learned. It is a portal. It is a doorway to a whole different understanding of something. Fear acts like a lock on that door, and curiosity opens it.” Nick Theisen

Something to consider:

How do you treat discomfort? Is it something to be avoided, or is it something to be faced? 

“Silence is the best listener, ever. It listens without judgement… It has the potential to act as a perfect mirror to ourselves if we are willing to listen, if we are willing to see. Not just look, but see.” Nick Theisen

Something to consider: 

What parallels to the story of Israel’s escape from slavery in Egypt into the wilderness do you see in Nick’s experience? In your own experience?

“No individual will survive a conversation.”  David Whyte

Nick’s story of the windy day. 

Is silence an element of comfort or discomfort for you?
Is silence the absence of noise, or a voice of its own?

The angel of the LORD came, touched Elijah, and said, "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you." Elijah, got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there. Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, "What are you doing here, Elijah?...Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"  1 Kings 19.7-13

One of comfort’s purposes is to not only be able to sit with silence, but to find comfort in that.

#2. What does comfort provide you? What role does it play in your life?

Something to Consider: 

Comfort can either function as a…

• Fortress. I use comfort to protect me from what is uncomfortable. 

Or…

• Launching pad. Comfort gives me a secure platform, a foundation from which I can brave the unknown, the unfamiliar, the uncertain, I can take on change.

Greg’s Last Theory about Comfort.

Is my Comfort based on my Circumstances?  The conditions around me are not making me uncomfortable.

Can my Comfort be a Posture?  A posture I hold so that I can find comfort despite my circumstances.

The power of a question like this is not in the right answer to it, but in the asking of it.

Nick’s mantra to help one who grapples with the role of comfort in their life: 

“See the Creator in everyone. See the Creator in everything.”

The BIG Question this week: 

What is the hole in yourself that you are trying to fill in order to have enough, be enough?

More Resources…

Group Discussion Guide: Click HERE.