A Still Life

The news is just bad news today. Earthquake and tsunami. A sad, sad email I didn’t expect with a heart-wrenching update. Then there are the stories of love that doesn’t burn quite like it once did or of grown-up lives that aren’t nearly as much fun as people thought they would be. Kids who get really sick. Lives that wear us down.

There’s just a whole lot of hurt all around us, and I sense it so strongly this morning.

So I’m taking a deep breath and then breathing out love. Who is it that always says, “Love each other real good.” That’s what we must all commit to doing. Breathe in, breathe out, love each other real good. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

I found this blog maybe two or three years ago and have since followed along each week. One of her recent posts connects with me in what has been a privately challenging week. I love these verses she includes from Psalm 56:

Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?

When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me.

In God will I praise his word: in the LORD will I praise his word.

In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.

Thy vows are upon me, O God: I will render praises unto thee

It’s a lovely image, the bottle of tears. It is a powerful thing to be reminded that we are not alone. We are seen. We are known. We are felt. We are held. We are remembered.

Week two of school is already much calmer than week one, and I’m ready to start creating my own schedule now that The Boy is settling into his. I know I want to spend the time well, and that means:

1) I don’t want to spend these mornings lugging The Girl along for countless errands and trips that bore and ignore her.
2) I want to make time to move daily and plan to spend 3 mornings a week walking outside. Beginning this week, it’s time for soaking up those blue Autumn skies before the long Winter comes.

Today we walked at the track near my house adjacent to the seminary I attended. It was a glorious morning, and The Girl enjoyed a full three laps before she got fidgety. It’s not an asphalt track-and-field kind of place. Instead, it’s a lovely gravel track beneath huge trees. A couple of rather fit folks were jogging, but it was mostly walkers and included an amusing group of older men (two with canes) who laughed and talked loudly the entire time. The best part is the labyrinth at the center of the track. I first walked that labyrinth when I was expecting The Boy, and today I noticed one man drift off of the track and into the labyrinth for a quiet moment. Fortunately, The Girl humored me and played in the gravel while I used the labyrinth for my cool-down walk. What better way to mark a new routine, new habit, new way of moving than to travel to the Center and bless these intentions for wholeness.

We receive our CSA share each Wednesday afternoon (if I remember, that is) from our new farmer friends at Power of Love. The variety of colors in the most recent share was stunning. I sat and shucked, peeled, and prepared the veggies for upcoming meals. I was reminded of childhood afternoons on the back porch with my mother, grandmother, and aunt who spoke of “putting up” peas and beans. It’s amazing how those motions and smells take me to the paper bag sitting between us to collect the discarded hulls.

Even with backyard gardens, the bulk of what we shelled came from the farmer’s market. Many of us today are enjoying an extra day of weekend for Labor Day today. I’m all for rest and firmly believe we fill our lives to overflowing with busyness. But I’m thinking of my brother this morning who, with a crew of friends, rose early this morning to a long day of hard work that heals the earth and feeds Virginia families. Rest and labor should inform each other. I am thankful for the labor of caring farmers who feed me and feed my family, who consider the value of soil, who know their work is sacred. May my work matter just as much.

I’m reflecting today in addition to enjoying this day with My Love and our Two. In seeking inspiration, I thought “Who gets the interconnectedness of labor, rest, and things that matter better than Wendell Berry?” Read here his poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.”

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

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.

A new friend this summer suggested I begin a regular practice of keeping a gratitude journal. A stranger, whom I admire greatly, has a similar practice and even numbers them. After getting all excited about new writing projects and dreams of organizing my life, we’ve already had our first sick days. Seriously. Preschool and baby-sitting began on September 14, and we’ve already been home three days out of a scheduled six. I have been grumpy this week and often ignored the voice of wisdom that reminds me to enjoy the sweet loves before me. The whining and sneezing and not-being-productive gets me down.

With keen self-awareness, however, I know I am the one who is whining. The future-me says to the now-me, “Memorize this moment because you will look back one day and wish you could hold that whining, sneezing pair.” Our pastor says at every funeral and memorial service, “I’ve never sat at someone’s bedside in those last moment’s and heard, ‘I sure do wish I’d worked more.’” I’m listening to that wisdom this morning and repenting of my whining ways. The writing will get done, the bills will all be paid, order is coming (if slowly), but this is the moment before me today.

And in this moment of awareness, I am grateful for many lovely moments this week:

• Standing at the stove only to notice total silence; peeking into the dining room to see The Boy feeding The Girl snacks and lunch. Twice.
• A friend who called when she sensed I was spinning in a moment of anxiety. Her voice brought perspective and a deep breath.
• More roasted tomatoes as our pitiful garden still hasn’t given up on Summer.
• An afternoon tea spent with several lovely women who shared their experiences of children, motherhood, and life.
• My best friend and companion in life; so many reasons.
• A cool breeze through the front door reminding me to sit on the front porch tonight with a (big) glass of wine.

A dear friend is waiting for her first son, third child, to be born. A few of us gathered to bless this time in her life, and I was drawn to these words by Pat Kozak.

Rise up, child of earth
Let life rise up in you,
full-term, new born.
Time enough in wondrous darkness,
Echoed sounds of voices, stirrings,
splashings of new life.
Relinquish to memory this one mystery
we yearn to know and will again
in after-death.
So much latent
still to rise
Until our rising lifts us to a depth
that questions every truth
we’ve ever known.

Mud-stirred of first-clay
Plaything of a potter who fell in love
with her hands’ work.
Blessed be her handiwork.
Blessed be the work of her hands.
Blessed be.

O God of the least and the lost, the homeless and the betrayed,

Come close to us this day that we may come close to You.

As You watch the world with care at every moment,

Move us, O God, that we may see the world with Your eyes.

With hope for our future, You see the world as it should be.

Open our hearts, O God, that we may love the world with Your love. Amen.

(Inspired by and adapted from Celtic Prayers From Iona, J. Philip Newell)