let each day hold its own worries - and let the rest to God's care...

One of the joys of being "Gwad" (a young boy's early attempt at Granddad nearly 7 years ago that stuck) is the chance simply to be with these wee ones: to listen to their stories, jokes, joys as well as their sorrows; to play with and read to; and sometimes just carry when they're worn out. Di said to me as we were leaving Hancock Shaker Village on Saturday, "It's been a long time since you've had a little girl on those shoulders." "40+ years," I thought to myself - and was grateful for the chance to do it again.

It may sound like a broken record, but I only started to "be" while on sabbatical in Montreal. Before that, while I knew how to relax while on vacation and had been practicing Centering Prayer on and off since the mid 80's, I remained more of a human doing than a human being. There's no point lamenting the reasons why this was so - you can't put the Jin back into the lantern once its escaped - so I simply acknowledge that it was so: I learned a lot, I missed a lot, I wore myself and others out a lot, and in time burned enough bridges to be ready for readied a dramatic inner change. By the time our four months in Montreal was over, so too was my old doing self. 

Sabbatical showed me how to simply be - not just as the organic flâneur of my away times - but as the contemplative I had long yearned to be but was too insecure to honor. I come from the realm of social activism, you see, that rarely respects the inward journey. Incrementally, over 35 years of filling each day with socially significant and meaningful tasks, the Spirit was helping my soul know that to everything there is a season, turn, turn, turn. When it became my season to step back, I couldn't help but hear St. Lou Reed slyly smirk: "Stick a fork in him, he's done!" (BTW I LOVE this song, "Last Great American Whale" which is not about inner transformation at all, but still speaks to me on many levels and deserves yet one more hearing no matter what the context.)

For a half a decade now I have been practicing becoming my quiet self. My being self. My reflective and contemplative self. The lockdown for me only accelerated my journey within. Like the NY Times put it this morning:

“We are emerging from what may be the most introspective year in American history,” writes the journalist Jessica Bruder, whose book “Nomadland” was the basis for Chloé Zhao’s multiple Academy Award-winning feature starring Frances McDormand. “The pandemic has prompted much talk of interconnectedness and empathy, what we owe one another as a society.” One thing we owe each other, Bruder argued in an essay over the weekend, is more kindness.

These days I am certain this includes tenderness to the self - not self-centeredness - but inner compassion so that we may authentically love our neighbor (and our guests and even the strangers we encounter) as ourselves. During this season of stepping back from the bustle, I've learned that contemplation is for me is one part silence, two parts patience, one part study, and two parts practice. As Gertrud Mueller-Nelson writes: "Nothing healthy comes from hurry." This is clearly the truth when it comes to the care of the soul. There's a lot of watching, waiting, and listening. There's also a great deal of searching for and holding gently the thread of synchronicity that runs through each of our lives. William Stafford's poem continues to speak to me:

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

Thank you Jesse for the pic

This past weekend was another sacred time in a very ordinary life to practice just being while holding that small thread that still guides me: there was time to walk in our garden, talk about the things Louie and Anna wanted to talk about. Each day unfolded to its own rhythm without striving as we rested and feasted, gabbed and laughed, held one another with a tender reverence for a spell and then released one another to our respective worlds: city-life, school, and the chores of a young family alongside our semi-rural solitude, gardening, writing, and prayers. The more I practice it, the more I find trusting the tender-hearted path of Jesus rings true for me: Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. (Matthew 6:34 in Eugene Peterson's wonderful reworking of Scripture, The Message.)