rejoicing in the stillness as well as the descent: roller coaster spirituality and serenity...

Today is stunning in these hills: the sun is bright, the wetlands and woods are shrouded in yellows and grays, the burning bushes are shouting in crimson, and the autumn air rolls softly with a quiet warmth. It won't last, of course: by All Saints/Souls Day, the temperature will have fallen a full twenty degrees. That is why the invitation is to abide in the beauty of the now while we can, yes? At the close of his reflection on anxiety, Jesus told his friends with a subtle smile, "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today." (Matthew 6:34)

Stillness and presence are key to abiding. It is so easy to become distracted. I am thrown off course daily by shame or anxiety, feelings of judgment from others or from within, worries about our long term financial well-being to say nothing of the political/moral chaos of this moment in time. The alternative - and antidote - to these diversions is letting go. Nourishing a deep encounter with stillness. Practicing and then living into the Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference." Which is never automatic and always in need of refreshment. Maria Popova put it like this in her reflection on Tolstoy and the Quest for Kindness:

In our culture, it has been aptly observed, "we are never as kind as we want to be, but nothing outrages us more than people being unkind to us." In his stirring Syracuse commencement address, George Saunders confessed with unsentimental ruefulness: "What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness." I doubt any decent person, upon candid reflection, would rank any other species of regret higher. To be human is to leap toward our highest moral potentialities, only to trip over the foibled actualities of our reflexive patterns. To be a good human is to keep leaping anyway.

To be a "good" human is to keep leaping, yes; but to be a wise and faithful human requires more than repetition. The spiritual masters of AA are clear that "if we always do what we've always done, we'll always get what we've always got." Or as another quipped, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results." This is where the practice of stillness becomes a matter of true life and death. Nourishing the ability to rest in whatever reality brings to us is the universal, time-tested practice for strengthening serenity. Consistent compassion. A heart and soul at peace even in the tempest. Popova builds on her insight re: stillness in another essay exploring Pico Iyer's conversations with the late Leonard Cohen concerning quiet meditation:

In our Productivity Age of perpetual motion, it’s increasingly hard — yet increasingly imperative — to honor stillness, to build pockets of it into our lives, so that our faith in beauty doesn’t become half-hearted, lopsided, crippled... In a sentiment that calls to mind Annie Dillard’s memorable notion of “unmerited grace [that] is handed to you, but only if you look for it,” Iyer considers the rewards that beckon us from that space of stillness: "It’s only by taking myself away from clutter and distraction that I can begin to hear something out of earshot and recall that listening is much more invigorating than giving voice to all the thoughts and prejudices that anyway keep me company twenty-four hours a day. And it’s only by going nowhere — by sitting still or letting my mind relax — that I find that the thoughts that come to me unbidden are far fresher and more imaginative than the ones I consciously seek out... Going nowhere … isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply."

(Brain Pickings @ https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/11/10/pico-iyer-the-art-of-stillness/?mc_cid=630b5b4e5e&mc_eid=d53a910493)

Over the years I have stumbled upon a truth that needs regular repeating: there are a ton of ways to practice stillness. That is, there is no one size fits all when it comes to contemplation. As both Rumi and Annie Lennox proclaim: there are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth.

What is a constant and not open for debate, however, is that some form of quiet reflection is essential for rewiring our hearts and habits away from the curse of judgment. Dualistic thinking. Putting our feelings at the center of creation. That is always deadly - and seems to be best unlearned and rewired through failure. Talk about the mystery of paradox, right? "Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their soul?" (Matthew 16: 25-26) Hitting the wall, crashing and burning, losing our mooring and drifting in anxiety and/or shame seems to be the way most of us realize we need an alternative. If you are like me, you'll try a lot of ways to make a change that are essentially cosmetic before coming to grips with the need for surrender or relinquishing control to the grace of God.

My descent and incremental renewal has been constant. Thankfully there have been modest plateaus that pop up from time to time to help me regain my breath and perspective. It hasn't been a half century of free fall. Yet while I have come to appreciate my own peculiar and slow way of practicing acceptance it would be fair to say that the challenge of surrendering to God's grace hasn't been fully resolved in my heart. Right now I'm in a quiet season of consolation. A breather of sorts. And I am grateful because the last four years have been agonizing. Yes, there were oasis for rest. Yes, there was love and support in my life. But mostly I had to experience wave upon wave of anxiety because I refused to let go of outside judgments. They truly got the best of me more often than not. They filled me with fear. And failure. So it would not be too strong a confession to note that I needed to break down before I was ready to accept what could not be changed - and learn to quietly savor God's small but certain presence in serenity.

"Taste and see," the Psalmist sang. Apparently we cannot think our way into rest or busy ourselves into stillness. We must feel our need from the inside out with an intensity that compels surrender before we're able to trust the quiet. Or as they put it in AA: "You gotta be sick and tired of being sick and tired before you're ready to get well." Owning my inner spiritual roller coaster out loud helps me remember what an uneven ride it has been thus far. And if past is prelude to future, will likely be again. Karen Paul Homes' poem, "Rental Cottage, Maine" speaks to me today:

We thought we were the perfect family—
loyal, stable, a brick wall you couldn't topple
with a wrecking ball. Parents dependable
as the frozen Minute Maid juice
we squeezed from cardboard cans and drank
mornings, reconstituted.

We'd come to this place just to be together.
October in Ogunquit, record heat,
no need for the sweaters we'd packed.
Dad had died but Mom, in her 80s, sat
pouring green tea, our wicker chairs
on the small porch, six sets
of knees touching.

She didn't mean to mention
Dad's first wife.

To our collective what?
she sputtered lasted a year, before the war,
her name: Phyllis.
Remember that chest in the basement?
It was hers.

Some moments passed, then mutely
we agreed to let it go.
Radium glowed green in our brains
but didn't burn. The knowing, a relief:
We didn't have to be perfect.

The August-warm wind felt pleasant
and odd. We sat on that porch,
orange leaves pinwheeling down the street.

Thanks be to God that I can rejoice in the stillness of this day and abide in its love.