Linger

A while back I wrote about a goal of mine for 2023 - to Explore. To explore through travel, explore my faith, and just generally have a sense of exploration for 2023. Recently, a friend of mine posted about his one word goal for 2023 - to Linger. What a great word. A quick search of a definition for linger and the following pops up - "to stay in a place longer than necessary because of a reluctance to leave". Wow! Think of all the places during 2023 that we can linger. We can linger at church - actually my wife and I are really good at lingering with our friends at church. We're usually the ones in the auditorium when the tech people start flashing the lights on and off. I get it. We've been lingering. And that's a good thing. Linger in a book. Linger in a conversation. Linger on your walk. Just linger. Find those things, find those people, find those places where you feel like you want to stay there longer because you are reluctant to leave. Here's a challenge to each of us. Linger in our fears. Why would we be reluctant to leave a place of fear? Because growth and knowledge might come out of our lingering. Linger in a hard conversation. Why? Because understanding, compassion, and grace might arise out of it. Linger. Linger after a meal with friends or family. Linger in a song. Play it four or five times - soak up the lyrics, take in the harmony, soak up the beat. Linger in the song. So there you go - some ideas on how we can better linger in 2023. I guess we should caution ourselves to not think that we are lingering and that our host, our friend, our family think we are just a nuisance. So use some judgment on when to linger - but do it. So my ask of you today - linger in this post and think about how you might linger in 2023. Happy Lingering!