Month: October 2019

On Your Own Behalf

/ eachholyhour / 2 Comments

Dear Friends,

Pinned to the bulletin board above my desk is a quote from Jane Austen: “I am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on till I am.” I keep this curious sentence in view because I find it an excellent crystallization of a truth I’m learning to live by: that tremendous effort is sometimes necessary to access things that are good for me.

Today, I awoke feeling like I was looking at my life through the wrong end of a telescope. On my morning walk, usually a centering routine, the autumny yellows waving from a patch of aspen seemed dull, the slanting sunlight a reproach.

All morning I reached for another cup of tea or a piece of chocolate to banish the banality. I listlessly moved my to-do list around the counter, half-heartedly starting projects and dropping them, managing mainly to be ineffectual. My mood seemed to buffet me at every turn.

Finally, and with titanic energy, I pulled on my running shoes and forced myself out the door. For the first quarter of an hour the aspen’s yellow still seemed dishwater dull.

But after awhile everything began to brighten. The wrong-end-of-the-telescope feeling diminished. Each stride landed me more in my body, more pax with the familiar world I love. Suddenly, with clarity, I recalled a friend’s text sent many months ago when I was in a similar drifty, purposeless space: “It is amazing the miracle balm that is ACTION on your own behalf.”

This is a lesson I have to learn and relearn all the time. Why is it so hard at times to do the things we know deepen our lives, to adhere to practices that ground us? In the past decade, through a lot of trial and error and listening to my experience, I have learned decisively that everything is better in my heart and mind if I plonk myself at my desk and work on crafting another chapter of my manuscript. Or if I go on a trail run. Or, if possible, both. Though this formula could not be simpler, I still have to talk myself into these actions on my own behalf. Even with years of practice, it doesn’t come easily.

It would be far less complicated, I suppose, if we were just plain good at choosing the things that fill us up, that pay out dividends in our hearts and minds. But, in my experience, these are the very things about which I drag my feet and invent excuses to avoid.

The point is this: it’s hard work, this business of being alive in the world. Let no one tell you differently. The work is real. There are no shortcuts to fulfillment, no arrival at some halcyon space where you get to stay. There are just decisions, day after day, on how to use the time you’re given. Some days those decisions seem easy. Some days they are taken with great effort.

How grateful I am for those times when, pushing through, I write on till I am back in humor with the practice, or run on until I can appreciate the autumn light winking in the aspens.

Peace,
Lindsay

p.s.  My formula for action on my own behalf is a trail run and writing. What’s yours? Share it with us here by leaving a reply below.

The True Substance of Our Lives

/ eachholyhour / 2 Comments

Dear Friends,

This morning after my spouse and kids left in a flurry of bags, jackets, and hurried kisses, I left the dishes on the counter and sunk back into my chair at the breakfast table. Promising myself a few minutes of meditation before jumping into my own day, I poured myself a cup of luke-warm tea. Then, before I fully knew what I was doing, I reached for my phone. Four minutes later, I realized that my quiet time had been filled with work emails and instructional texts to my kids about after-school activities. The essential task – spending five minutes in intentional silence – had been sacrificed for a whole load of frenetic to-do’s. 

I imagine many of you can easily relate to this scenario. With so much clamoring for our attention, it is almost impossible not to lose sight of what is truly important.    

In my work in spiritual formation at an Episcopal church, I am privileged to spend many hours with folks in the second half of their lives. Unlike many of the elders I knew when I was younger, who tended to veil their vulnerability in the language of triumphant salvation or sugarcoat their struggles in a wash of sparkling sentiment, these elders are not afraid to talk openly and without judgment of a lifetime of twists and turns, sorrows and joys.Their lives are still a work in process, a testimony to the idea that one lifetime is not long enough to whittle down love, faith, and the art of seeing, to a perfect point.

I’ve learned so much from watching these folks in their 70s, 80s, and 90s sift through their lives.  They are actively paring back, letting go of many of the things they once counted vital to success and survival. Franciscan friar Richard Rohr writes, “All great spirituality teaches about letting go of what you don’t need and who you are not.” This work of spiritual decluttering is what so many of the elders in my community are actively leaning into. And it’s not easy work. This open-hearted re-ordering requires humility, honesty, imagination and faith. When we’ve done the work of stripping away all the nonessential layers that feel so important and pressing, Rohr says we’ll ultimately find that “the little place where you really are is ironically more than enough and is all that you need. . . .that place is called freedom.”

More than enough. All that you need. Freedom. These things feel far away this morning. At work, half-finished tasks seem to slap my face for attention. At home, the house, the dog, the girls, all need my loving presence to thrive. What about my own health and appointments I need to schedule? And did I mention that my oldest daughter is off to a college interview this afternoon?  What my elders teach me about this moment is that while the one hundred things commanding my attention this morning are fine in themselves, I should not mistake them for the true substance of my life. That true substance lies underneath all the busyness and urgent tasks that populate my mind and calendar. Far more intrinsic and essential is my identity as a child of God, a listener to the still, small voice that tells me what is deeply true about today. And what is deeply true is this: We are loved, and no matter what we check off our list by the end of the day, all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

Peace,

Kim

P.S. I am indebted to a virtual “cloud of saints” for these ideas; this month, I’ve been sitting at the virtual feet of Richard Rohr and Parker Palmer.  Of course, so many writers and poets address these ideas–who are your favorites?  Please leave a message and share them with us!