A Still Life

On our trips to the library, I sometimes arrive with a certain book in mind as my selection for the next week or two. Often, however, I will simply grab a book that looks attractive, has a fetching title, or one that somehow catches my eye for no good reason at all. I know nothing more than the blurb on the jacket, and some of these books are very loosely in the “beach reads” category even here in February.

Today I began a book by Tim Farrington called The Monk Downstairs. It could be an award winner or a grocery store romance novel. I really have no idea. In it, a former monk writes letters to his former abbot, and I particularly enjoyed this quote today. It connects nicely both with the ways I long to live and the Lenten practice of presence I am seeking to embrace:

We expect God’s presence to be thunderous, spectacular, monumental; but it is our need that is so large. The real presence slips past our demands for spectacle. It slips past our despair. Not just like a child–sometimes it is a child. She walks down the blistered steps to where you kneel and says the simplest things. She is entertained by butterflies. She has opinions about unicorns. She does not seem to care that you are ruined and lost. She does not even seem to notice. Find an earthworm in the neglected loam and she will make you feel for a moment that your life has not been wasted. Name a flower and she will make you feel that you have begun to learn to speak.

Today has very much been a with-kids kind of day, though I found tiny moments for another loaf of bread and reading a few dozen pages of this library find. It can be tempting to view the busy days of mothering as not being productive. Instead of having some thing to show for my time at the end of a day, I have only moments. My culture wants me to believe that is a waste and that the thing matters more than the moments do. I am thankful for days when that temptation barely has voice to whisper itself because I am too busy in moments to hear.

Today wasn’t perfect. There were certainly seconds of wanting to be alone, or maybe to find a cabin in the woods with time to actually become a writer, and then the recurring hope of running away for a whole weekend with my darling. But those longings were rather fleeting. The moments that really saturated my day were filled with surprising laughter as my boy performed some ridiculous song about Noah’s Ark, amazement as my girl played with the big kid exhibits at our children’s museum, and contentment as we shared relaxing meals together all day. It was a good day.

The first sewing project I took on was a crib skirt for my daughter’s room. I discovered this shop and began acquiring beautiful fabrics and patterns. Somewhere along the way I moved over to the shop owner’s blog where I found out about this book and this recipe for a basic aristan boule. After slowly gathering what I needed over the course of the week’s shopping, here I am this afternoon, trying something new. Truly, I consider it part of my Lenten practice of turning and returning to ways of moving that are balanced, that move me toward God’s presence, that still my breath, that consecrate the space that is our home. Now we just wait to see what happens after the dough rises…

I don’t know what I expected last night. It’s Ash Wednesday, so…to dust you shall return, right? It was my first night out of the house in a while, and I was so excited to see friends and hear their voices. But the death, death, death, die, die, die of it all just felt like showing up at a party only to have someone vomit all over me. Graphic enough for you? Yeah, my husband wasn’t particularly excited to have this little Suzie Sunshine returning home to him, either.

I woke up in the night thinking about how hard Ash Wednesday crashed down on me. As my wise friend aptly wrote this morning, I was awakened in the night by the inner critic. Inadequacy, isolation, fear, jealousy all bubbled up around four this morning. Death’s closest friends, I suppose. Death in this life is walking with those critic voices and giving them a place to set up home inside of you.

I then woke up for good at a much better hour but still feel the ache of last night’s unexpected darkness. I’m mulling over what to do with that. Alongside my own personal lessons about how a night’s discussion of life’s fragility overwhelmed me, I am also thinking about those fifty women who surrounded me and ways to connect our lives, voices, and stories.

Life is fragile. Death seeks to overwhelm us even in the midst of life. So how can we gather, in daily ways, to overcome death’s grip? I’m gathering up my favorite “So What?” questions and sitting with them for a while. More to come as Lent is just beginning.

I’m still thinking about my evening ritual in the kitchen and sitting down this morning with my little green copy of Brother Lawrence’s book. My 1977 edition includes an introduction by Henri Nouwen who writes this of the 17th-century monk:

One of the most stimulating aspects of this precious book is Brother Lawrence’s deep conviction that prayer is not saying prayers but a way of living in which all we do becomes prayer. We indeed are called not just to say prayers but to live a prayerful life. A prayerful life is a life in which all we do–eating and drinking, working and resting, playing and praying–is done to the glory of God and God alone. Prayers can often help us very much to lead a prayerful life, but that is only a part of it. For Brother Lawrence the practice of the presence of God was not a practice for a few moments a day, not even for a few hours a day. No, for him it was a practice that permeated every moment of his day. He felt that his work in the kitchen and his occasional trips were in no way less prayer than his hours in the church. Through the practice of the presence of God nothing, absolutely nothing, was outside his intimate relationship with God. That is how he could experience an ongoing sense of joy and a real sense of communion. Brother Lawrence indeed lived a life of connectedness, which is the opposite of alienation, and a life of unity, which is the opposite of fragmentation.

This simple but difficult way of Brother Lawrence is indeed a great challenge for us today. It is a hard way but a way worth following. It is the way to God.

It always amazes me to consider how the sense of alienation and fragmentation in life is not unique to an era. My generation expresses a conflicted relationship with social media as false community that really keeps us at arm’s length in our relationships. As parents, we all too often feel overwhelmed as we juggle work, home, activities, needs, and wants. We talk about the many tools of technology that should allow us to be more connected to one another when really we feel less connected. While the trappings are new, the sentiment is not. We must still ourselves and live into connectedness, live into unity, and slow down to find our Center. 

When we look at the world as a great wagon wheel of which we are the spokes and God the hub, it becomes clear that our first task is to remain anchored in the hub. There in the center we find ourselves most closely connected with each other.

On this Ash Wednesday, as we move into the season of Lent, perhaps we might commit to take on some practice that moves us toward the Holy Center. By slowing ourselves and seeking to live in a rhythm of prayer, or mindfulness of the Sacred in all moments, this season might welcome new life in us. That is my hope for you and for me.