Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Begin Again is for people in the second half of life who sense that the identity they've been carrying no longer fits. Host Winston Faircloth — spiritual director, daily poet, and fellow traveler — brings honest conversation, personal story, and original poetry to the journey of remembering, releasing, and returning to who God created you to be. Visit www.myreuniontour.com for more resources.
The war is over! Welcome to Begin Again. If you're new here, this is my reunion tour, a faith based journey for people in the second half of life who sense that the identity they've been carrying no longer fits. We've moved through this journey in four different seasons: Remember, Recognize, Release, and reunite. And today, we're entering the third season, Release.
Winston Faircloth:Last episode, I told you about a passage I read 43 pages into a book called Falling Upward, that finally gave a 50 year old feeling a name. What I didn't tell you is that everything that surrounded that moment, where I was, why I was there, and something that arrived in the mail exactly one week before I left that I still can't fully explain. Today, I want to set the whole scene for you. But before we begin, a poem. This is from tour day five ninety three called Moment.
Winston Faircloth:Have you ever had a moment when a crossroad suddenly appears, and you know deep down, you have to leave one path for another unknown one? Time stands still, and we want it so. For this is sacred, an idea and nudge obviously beyond ourselves. At this intersection, there is a decision to stay on the path that's certain or to follow wherever it leads. At first, you question, is this really for me?
Winston Faircloth:It feels way too big beyond my abilities, and that's the point. Trusting you always means less reliance on me, for you have a purpose beyond our vision. Help me to slow by attuning my heart to whatever you may ask, your plan, your purpose in this moment. About a week before I flew to Illinois, an envelope showed up at my house. My sister had been going through some of our family's things, and she found one marked with my name from our grandmother Alice.
Winston Faircloth:Inside was a compass. I didn't really know what to do with that at first. Grandma Alice had been gone for years. I don't know how long the envelope had been waiting, or what she intended by it, or whether she imagined it would reach me exactly at this moment. But I felt something the instant that I opened it, a kind of prompting I didn't argue with.
Winston Faircloth:I decided to bring the compass with me on the trip. I want to tell you what this trip actually was, because the setting matters greatly to this story. By the fall of twenty twenty one, I'd been in spiritual direction with Sybil for about six months. We'd worked through several of the oneLife maps together, the ones I told you back during the Remember movement, and something was clearly shifting in me. I just didn't have the language for it yet, and I knew I needed to go deeper than my monthly conversation with Sybil would take me.
Winston Faircloth:So I built a personal retreat over four days, around an occasion I was already traveling for. My friend Teresa's daughter was getting married that weekend in Effingham, Illinois, and I wanted to be there to support my friends. And since I was already making the trip, I decided to turn it into something more. Four days, each one with its own purpose. Friday, I spent a full day in an intensive coaching session with my coach Erica Vinson Stearns.
Winston Faircloth:About a week earlier, Erica had given me a reading assignment from a book called Falling Upward by Richard Rohr. Or alternatively, if I didn't get through the whole book in time, at least read the one section of it called Discharging the Loyal Soldier. I carried the compass into that session with me. I set it on the table between us. I couldn't have told you exactly why, except that it felt like the right thing to have it close by while Erica and I tried to make sense of the six months of change that I did have words for.
Winston Faircloth:Saturday was the wedding itself, a genuinely joyful day of dancing and toast and family, the kind of ordinary celebration that goes on happening even while something is quietly shifting underneath you. Sunday, I gave myself some quiet reflection time. No agenda, just space to let everything from Friday settle. And then on Monday, I spent a second full day in a coaching intensive with Teresa McCloy herself, the friend who had first pointed me to Sybil and towards this whole new way of working the inner journey. All four days, I was staying at Teresa and Dale's family farm at the little house on the property.
Winston Faircloth:That little house has its own story. Teresa may tell you more about it herself when she joins me on the show later this season. Here's what nobody tells you about a moment like this. It doesn't feel like clarity. It can feel like a fight.
Winston Faircloth:Sometime in the four days at the farm, between the reading Erica had a sign, the compass sitting in my bag, the deep conversations with two people who could see me more clearly than I could see myself, I found myself standing at a genuine crossroads. On one side was the path I already knew. Fifty years of practice at it, staying capable, staying useful, staying the guy who has it all together. That path was certain. I knew exactly how to walk it because I'd been on it since I was eight years old.
Winston Faircloth:On the other side was a path I couldn't see the end of. I didn't know what would happen if I actually sat down and addressed this part of myself directly. A part of me kept asking, is this new path really for me? Is it too big? Can I face this fear?
Winston Faircloth:That question, is it really for me? I've come to believe is not a warning sign. It's a signpost. When you feel that something is too big for you, that's usually a decent clue that was never meant to be carried by you alone in the first place. I want to name this anxiety honestly, because I think it's part of the story most people skip past on their way to resolution.
Winston Faircloth:I was afraid. Not of physical danger, but of something quieter, and in some ways harder. I was afraid that if I actually faced this fear, I would not be able to put it back in the cage. And I was right about that. I couldn't.
Winston Faircloth:Somewhere in those four days, something profound shifted. I can't really name the exact minute. I can tell you it didn't arrive as a thunderclap. It arrived more like something finally going quiet that had been loud for a long, long time. I'd spent fifty years at war with a part of myself I didn't even have a name for until that week.
Winston Faircloth:And sitting with the story of the loyal soldier, I began to understand something. He wasn't the enemy. He'd never been. He was fighting a war on my behalf that I'd never once told him was over. The decision that settled into me wasn't complicated, even though it took real wrestling to get there.
Winston Faircloth:It was simply this. The war is over. The war is over. Whatever came next, and I genuinely did not know what that would be. I was not gonna ask him to keep fighting a battle that had ended decades ago without either of us noticing.
Winston Faircloth:And I wanna be precise about what this moment was and what it wasn't. It wasn't a letter or declaration. I hadn't written a word yet. It wasn't forgiveness, and it wasn't healing because both of those were still a long way off. And some of that road, honestly, I'm still walking today.
Winston Faircloth:But it was a truce, a decision made before I had any idea of how to carry it out, that I was done treating a fifty year old vow as if it still needed defending. I still had that compass with me. I don't know that I believe an object can mean something on its own, but I do believe one family member can love another from further away and longer ago than either of us understood at the time, and that some gifts arrive exactly when you're finally ready to use them. That decision is what carried me out onto the porch of the little house the next morning. But that part of the story belongs to a future episode.
Winston Faircloth:I'd like to close with a poem. It comes from tour day nine ninety five, written especially for this episode. It's called Truce. One day it shows up when a last straw is broken. Clarity finally arrives, knowing no longer unspoken.
Winston Faircloth:The obvious answer, clouded by experience emotion. Loyalty, we cling and hold, vows once made by devotion. Our yesterdays we cannot change, so easy to bring into today, holding us back unknowing, conflicting thoughts that can sway. Our protection, now a prison. From the inside, we hold the key.
Winston Faircloth:By renewing our minds, repenting, you've already made us free. Past stories and fears released, no longer bound by excuse. The war finally over. Your way crafts the ultimate truce. And before we go today, I wanna ask you the question that sat with me at the farm that weekend.
Winston Faircloth:What war have you been fighting that ended a long time ago without you ever calling a truce? What war have you been fighting that ended a long time ago without you ever calling a truce? Friend, you don't have to know what comes next to make that declaration. I didn't. I just knew I couldn't keep asking part of myself to keep fighting a war that was already over.
Winston Faircloth:And coming up on a future episode, I'm gonna take you on the porch of that little house that that weekend when I had a blank journal page and the first words I ever wrote directly to the part of me that had been standing guard for over fifty years. So if today's conversation has stirred a desire for you to do this work, I'd love to walk that path with you. If you're ready to begin, visit myreuniontour.com or review the show notes for resources, including a link to schedule a conversation with me. It's just an honest conversation about where you are and whether this is the right season for you. And I wanna thank you for listening to the Begin Again podcast.
Winston Faircloth:Subscribe wherever you listen to podcast, whether that's Audible or Apple Podcast or Spotify. Anywhere you listen, just search for Begin Again with Winston Faircloth on your favorite podcast streaming app. And if today's conversation reminded you of someone who's been fighting a war that ended a long time ago without them ever calling a truce over it, make sure to share this episode with them. I'm Winston Faircloth, and you're right where you're supposed to be.