May you find the joy that is yours today

I haven’t written a blog in a long time. I seem to think that something magical or amazing has to happen to be worth reading.  So instead of combing my days for that, I’ve been busy preparing to teach a graduate course for the first time in 19 years. 

When I found the following in a journal entry from April, I realized that I've already given myself the blessing I need today.

May you find the joy that is yours today,

wear it easily,

claim it often,

hold it gently,

share it readily.

May you see the tendrils of the past as

kindling for the flames of

your heart’s desires,

so that the ghosts of longing

do not haunt

but serve as guides to what you

desire and so richly deserve

today.

Lessons from a Fox

Every morning I draw a word to meditate on all day.  Yesterday it was “fearlessness,” a prescient commentary on the morning to come.  Brian had tethered Harry, our 16 year old Westie, outside and left him to do his business.  Ten minutes later I sat drinking tea at the counter and for no apparent reason went to look out the window.  I saw Harry and seven feet away crouched a fox, one we’d seen trotting around the neighborhood earlier in the week.

Immediately I ran out the door towards the two creatures, screaming to Brian “the fox, the fox.” The fox moved off and Harry waddled toward me, oblivious to his near demise.  When my heart rate slowed, I realized that while I was scared about Harry, I was fearless for myself. Did my love for this dog eclipse fear? Perhaps, but I think there’s more to it than a simple love/fear matrix of emotion.

Though bold, the fox is wild, and therefore more predictable than a domesticated animal accustomed to people.  I would have been afraid had it been the neighbor’s Boxer in our yard, for that dog regularly charges me, stirring up my old fear of dogs.

But wild creatures seem to have a set of rules for violence. Even though this might be a mother fox needing food for her young, she ran rather than attacked me. This has been my, albeit limited, experience with wild creatures. For example, I left work one day this winter through a back door and found a half dozen deer within a few feet.  When one turned to approach me, I got scared and fumbled for my key before remembering these are wild and gentle creatures. I clapped my hands and they dispersed.

There’s a prayer in the Big Book for Step 4, where we list resentments for those who have harmed us throughout our lives. That prayer rests on the assumption that anyone who has hurt us is “spiritually sick,” and says God, please help me show x “the same tolerance, pity and patience I would cheerfully grant a sick friend.” In order to move on, we need a new perspective, and this prayer enlarges our view so that the old story loosens just enough to be healed.  I can't change the past, I can't change another, but I can grow more loving, open, and awake, which changes everything.

The only route to fearlessness I know is to trust a larger goodness in people and the world. Any malevolence stems from spiritual sickness or imbalance, which only love, tolerance, kindness and pity can restore.  That fox was doing what it does.  We’re the ones who will no longer leave our old dog unattended and tethered as if it were bait. With a shout, a clap, or a new perspective, the balance of life can be restored.

Savoring Routine

I spent last weekend at my cabin with two dear friends and a dog.  A woman I’ve known for 25 years flew in from out of state, a visit we’d been anticipating for months.  The three of us walked, talked, meditated, wrote, read, cooked, gazed at the lake, and played yahtzee. It was a wonderfully renewing time.

What occurred to me today is that just as this long-awaited event was now over, so too would all the other trips and major events I have planned this year.  Each one will have a morning after when I reflect on what’s happened. Every eagerly anticipated gathering, every dreaded event, each routine appointment comes to an end.

This isn’t earth shattering news, I know, but somehow today it struck me how poignant our lives are, how quickly time moves as I get older, and how important to savor whatever is before me, no matter how routine or grand. If I pay attention, I end up with moments:  a rescue dog’s growing confidence walking on bare floors, the easy way three women put together meals and clean up, the sparkle of clarity that comes from being listened to deeply.  What moments today will I keep?

Tutored in Wisdom

 

Yesterday at my desk at home, futzing with my computer, I glanced out the window. On the peak of our shed at the property line was a large brown animal. Was it a cat? It had pointed ears and turned its head as if to lick its shoulder. But how could a cat have gotten up there with no nearby trees and metal walls too slippery to climb?

 

No, it was an owl, a huge one, in plain sight during the day. Almost a year ago in New Mexico, I dreamed about a mother owl. When I told the spiritual director at Ghost Ranch, she suggested I pay attention to my next owl sighting. When I shared that dream with my own spiritual director, she invited me to notice when owl came up in my dreams again. When I told the dream to a friend who walks a Native American spiritual path, she gifted me owl feathers to pray with. I hadn’t seen or dreamed of an owl since.

 

Here in day light, unprotected by trees, was an owl perched on the highest point directly in front of me. What did it mean? What might it want? I quietly moved to the deck with my phone to take a picture. The moment I touched the button, as I knew in my bones it might, the owl flew—gracefully, massively, steadily—away from me.

 

The photo I have is too blurry to tell there’s even a bird, let alone one of such significance, so why did I take a picture? Why the need to document and share (brag about) this remarkable sighting? If I had a do-over I would just observe and commune with this magnificent creature as long as it allowed me to.

 

I would realize that all it was asking of me was my attention--that my presence is all that Spirit ever requests. I hope someday I will instinctively savor the preciousness of the ordinary and the remarkable.  Thanks be for do-overs. Each day I have the chance to give my undivided, wholehearted attention to the holy, which is always and everywhere perched in plain sight.

 

The Insidious Power of Cinderella

 

Brian and I went to see the new Cinderella movie this weekend.  We weren’t the only couple without children on a Saturday night date to see my favorite fairy tale. When I turned seven I received a Cinderella watch with a pink band and her face on the dial. I proudly wore this first watch for a couple days before it stopped.  My parents returned it and I put the new one on my wrist until it too stopped running.  Someone concluded that my metabolism prevented watches from working (is that even possible?)  so for the next many years the only watches I owned were on pendants or rings. 

I had Cinderella paper dolls and a Cinderella birthday party with the round cake forming her skirt.  When Leslie Ann Warren starred in the musical, I learned every word to the songs.  Something about the scullery maid alone in her “own little corner” resonated deeply.

What’s been the impact of being enamored with Cinderella? During the years I was single, I was a feminist with a satisfying career and no desire to be rescued by a handsome prince. However, I did want a man to love me so much—at first sight if possible—that no one else would do.  I wanted someone to search a kingdom until I was found.  It was 52 years before that happened, before I said yes to a man I knew truly saw and loved me.  When we became engaged, I faced the dilemma of wedding attire. What was proper for a first-time middle-aged bride? After a couple months of hesitation, I tried on wedding dresses, walked away, was rational, consulted with everyone, returned to the store and bought a big full white gown with a little jacket to wear down the aisle to meet my husband/prince.

Today, I think about the money I spent on that gown--cheap by wedding dress standards and yet more than I've ever spent on clothing. Today, that dress hangs in the basement untouched and unvisited. Today I wish instead I had bought a beautiful tailored silk suit or dress I could still wear on special occasions.  But I did not.  Today I can be curious about where my desires originate and discern which ones truly fill my heart.  That's a lesson worth every penny.

Slow Subtle Progress

I just returned from a silent retreat at House of Prayer in Collegeville, MN. The minute the topic “Silent Fire: Consumed by Love” crossed my email I knew I wanted to attend, and I'd been eagerly anticipating this weekend of silence, meditation, and quiet community for a month.

When I arrived at the retreat center, there were three rooms left, so I peeked in them and selected one that faced the woods.  The next day I read the room’s book of reflections by past occupants.  Dated Feb. 18, 2007 was a paragraph in my own handwriting. Almost eight years to the day I had been on retreat in that same room.  I took that as a confirming sign that I was listening to my guidance and was in the right place. Yet I also remembered what had preoccupied me eight years ago, and that same issue was up for me last weekend too. I began to wonder if I've made any progress.

What kinds of scales and standards measure spiritual progress?  I’m a scorekeeper, so it’s tempting to use numbers, yet what numbers can gauge the health of my spirit? Certainly not the size of my clothes, how many have registered for my retreat, how many spiritual directees I have, what rating I got on the recent performance review, or how many minutes a day I meditate. (And yes, I keep a mental tally of these numbers and more.)

The trouble is when I measure my value by an external standard I feel like eighth grade JoAnn, taking my skates off early when the last song was couples only and no one asked me to skate.  If my mood depends on things I cannot control, I’m always hoping or praying for a shift in conditions to make me feel ok. To feel my worth deeply, I have to look beyond measures of popularity and to what is much more subtle and sacred--those moments of waking up, those small miracles of connection.  Like landing in the same room eight years later and reading an encouraging note from myself.

Loving the Question

I love questions.  I happily answer surveys that cross my desk, take quizzes in magazines, and stop for anyone with a clipboard and a questionnaire. When I meet strangers I ask questions about what they do, what they’re passionate about, where they’ve traveled; I like to get beyond the headlines and into the heart of their story.   As a spiritual director, I ask questions that invite people to go beneath what they think they know and deepen an inquiry into mystery. However, I’ve come to see that this practice of questioning can be a block to intimacy and connection.

Because not everyone asks questions. Some people think it’s rude--they don’t want to pry.  I have interpreted a lack of questions from people as a lack of interest and have an unwritten rule that I will only share if you demonstrate that you want to know, and you’ll let me know you want to know by asking me a question. And then ask me a follow-up.  Imagine how this works with someone who believes asking questions is rude.  It’s not a mutual exchange. I come off as a prosecuting attorney, they’re relieved when I stop asking, and I believe they don’t care a thing about me.  It's time to let people off that hook and do the work myself.

Questions open my mind and heart and help me grow. So I’ve started writing questions in my morning journal and answering them later in the day.  These questions are a mixture of idle curiosity and a real desire to know.  They often surprise me. For instance, in one session I’ve asked myself where are the top ten places I’d like to live and what does it feel like to love with my whole heart.

I’m having fun asking and answering these questions. While I will always appreciate someone who asks me a question that makes me reflect before responding, today I’m not going to wait until that person crosses my path.  I’ll be my own happy questioner—a social gathering of one.