Playing House for Real

We moved two weeks ago and I’ve been playing house ever since.   I’m unpacking boxes and arranging dishes, books and sweaters, seeing everything in a new light because it’s in a new place. I'm having so much fun that it feels like the kind of games I played growing up. 

I played house, a lot. I had a Barbie Dream House, a large two-sided doll house my Grandpa made for my mom, and a pink cardboard kitchen in the basement with table and chairs, plastic food, cribs and doll babies I talked to and cared for every night after school. 

I loved playing house. We even played house in the nearby woods, using sticks and leaves to create rooms and always knocking on the "door" before entering. 

Today, when I watch the news, it doesn’t seem that playing house is the dominant paradigm. The games of soldier, competition, and survival have prevailed. 

What if we played house instead of war on an international scale—let’s make sure everyone has a roof, a bed, and food to eat! Let’s tuck all the children in safely at night!

How could these games become the dominant ones? Maybe more who played house should be in charge. Maybe more kids should be playing house as they grow up.  

Maybe we can all shift our focus to remember that nurturing is our nature and act from there.

A Nudge to Slow Down

We moved last weekend and so for the past month I’ve been in high gear, working a full day, coming home to empty a house of 20 years’ accumulation and pack up.  We’re also remodeling the kitchen in the new house, and because it was just going to be cabinets and tile, I decided to be the general contractor, a job for which I have no qualifications. I lined up a cabinet installer, an electrician, a plumber and a tile installer. Things moved according to schedule for about 4 hours.  Then the project got bigger and required rewiring, demolishing plaster and lathe, re-insulating, dry-walling, painting, etc. Through the dust and schedule changes I put in longer and longer days.

The following events indicate that I am a step ahead of my body. I need to slow down and become more mindful or the consequences can become worse.

 One day on my third trip to Home Depot, I parked not entirely within the lines.  A man in a pickup glared at me as I got out.  I shrugged and walked into the store. There were plenty of places to park. When I came out there was a note under my wiper: “Learn how to park.”  I laughed and thought ok, I’ll pay better attention.  Later that night driving to purchase taller cabinets now that the ceiling was higher, I turned on my wipers to learn I had no blade on the driver’s side.  I want to be generous and assume it was an accident, but perhaps that man was angrier than I thought.  It was quickly replaced at an auto parts store on the way—little harm done beyond the inconvenience.

The next day I was in Cub grocery, buying a sandwich, drink and chips for the drywall guy and went through self-service because it was quicker. As I got out my debit card it flipped out of my hand and landed in the crack between the bagging area and the scanner.  I could see it but not reach it. Would we have to dismantle the whole rig? The manager was able finally to ease it up with chopsticks while I caught hold of it. He high-fived me with glee and I thanked him for his creativity.  Nothing lost here except time.

Another night Brian and I were heading home and stopped at Home Depot ten minutes before close to buy essential supplies to seal the new tile and grout. I hopped out of his car before he’d even stopped and ran inside to buy sponges.  At the checkout I realized I didn’t have gloves in my pocket.  They’d been on my lap—and sure enough, were lying in the road, run over several times.

None of these consequences were dire, and I felt the support and connection of helpful strangers in solving some of the problems. But this is not how my life normally flows, and these taps on the shoulder could become 2x4s or even Mack trucks if ignored.

I’ve always loved Christina Baldwin’s line, “Move at the pace of guidance.”  But to hear guidance I need to be spiritually well-nourished and physically rested.  And I’ve been cutting corners on both. Even knowing that the antidote to busyness is more stillness, this morning during meditation I realized it was trash day, and I hopped up and spent the next 20 minutes gathering trash and working outside before driving to work.

There’s an arrogance in doing tasks before getting into alignment through writing, prayer, and meditation.  And this morning, as I purchased breakfast because we don’t yet have a kitchen, I decided to carry it to my office and work while eating rather than join others at the table.  I wanted to be efficient with my time. As I entered my office, the plate hit the door jamb, shattered, and food flew all over the carpet.

 “It’s not getting better” I thought. And why would it? Just understanding the problem is not the same as solving it. I have to act differently to get different results. So I’ve written about it, which I’ve wanted to do for days. And I’ll get to a meeting first thing in the morning, after I’ve meditated, of course!

In Word and Deed

In 2015 I focused on three words to guide my decisions and actions: Happy, Healthy, Helpful.  I enjoyed exquisite health this year and moved into greater health regarding my eating.  Today I don’t eat sugar, haven’t for 9 weeks without a day off.  Since I can’t eat sugar in moderation, having none is really the best route for me, and it feels like this has now become a habit. Although I haven’t lost much weight, I have reached a mental clarity that I find exhilarating,  and a level of joyful energy flows through me more often than not. 

I wouldn’t have been able to ride this wave of health without being happy, which is why I put that word first.  For years my happiness has depended on my weight and body size, and that’s a losing proposition.  This year, instead of waiting for results that I thought would make me happy, I went right to the happiness by focusing on the aspects of my life that are working well and being much more consciously appreciative and grateful as a discipline.

How helpful I was this year is harder to measure.  I showed up for work wholeheartedly,  attended my recovery meetings, and sponsored women, whom I speak to weekly. I prayed to be gracious when people came to our home, and now that we’re moving, I’m being helpful in the preparation and facilitation of that process.  

Could I be more helpful? Probably, so I’ll continue the weekly work of self-examination and conversation with a sponsor and the monthly check on my spiritual fitness with my spiritual director because both of those guides help me stay humble, which I suspect is the foundation for being truly helpful.

This coming year, I’d like to be Calm, Clear, and Kind.  

What will your guiding words be next year?

Guarding the Heart

I tend to finish what I start, yet I just stopped reading a 688 page book on page 227.  I realized that my customary good spirits were waning, and I connected that to reading this award-winning novel each night. The talented writer renders a complicated context in which each character lives and recreates the oppressive conditions of its setting in the reader. However, I cannot absorb a couple hundred pages of violence and the worst in human kind with impunity.

There’s a spiritual concept called “guarding the heart” and “guarding the eyes” that comes from the desert fathers and mothers. While I’m not oblivious to the mayhem in this world—headlines of heartbreak and outrage come steadily into awareness-- I do watch where I put my attention during discretionary time. 

 Just as I don’t pay for movies that scare me or go on amusement rides that turn me upside down, I use my free time to seek out kindness, wonder and the kinds of connections often called “heartwarming.” I guess that’s why I’m so drawn to the concept of leaning into the light.

 I can appreciate the accomplishment of this massive book and be grateful for the privilege of setting it aside.

In Praise of Hot Coffee

I was on silent retreat last weekend and was consistently amazed at how hot the tea and coffee was at the monastery.  Every single cup impressed me with its delicious flavor and, most of all, its heat.

On the second day it occurred to me that there was nothing special about the retreat center’s coffee dispensary; I was simply drinking immediately after pouring, something I apparently never do.  

Rarely do I drink a cup of tea immediately after preparing it, and this is even true at home, first thing in the morning. At work, I make a cup and then do 17 other things that call my attention. Every cup I drink is cool or lukewarm at best. 

On retreat, after 24 hours of “desert time,” my powers of observation and awareness were keen. The silence and the pace slowed me down so much that while I was reading a poem and drinking a cup of coffee a voice inside said “too busy.”  I wasn’t really focused on either action, so I put down the poem and simply drank the hot beverage, savoring each sip.

How I wish I could be so attentive always.  Yet last night driving home in traffic I had to slam on my brakes so quickly that everything on the front seat fell to the floor. (This used to happen weekly so I’m happy it occurs less often.) Where was my attention when the car in front stopped?  

As much as I’d like my life to feel like a retreat, it doesn’t always. Even as I finish this blog I’m eating my lunch because I have to be somewhere in 12 minutes. Ah well. Walking the spiritual path is a continuous process of notice, adjust and savor. Notice, adjust and savor.  

Ambient Addictions--an Inventory

I’ve been intrigued by what Mark Muldoon calls ambient addictions, the background activities or thoughts that preoccupy us and keep us sleepwalking through life. No one is exempt from an ambient addiction; we all do something to distract ourselves from moments of uncertainty, discomfort or emptiness.

 Muldoon observes that “we learn to do [ambient addictions] automatically when anxieties begin to flare and we need to manage them without acknowledging them. . . .The actual substance or activity that our bodies have learned to employ are only a means to an end to manage our un-owned anxieties by altering the mood of fear and threat that accompany them” (“The Addicted Pilgrim” 24).   Facing our “un-owned anxieties” is the work of a spiritual path.

Many ambient addictions are rewarded and made to seem the norm in our society--shopping, exercising, workaholism-- when they are actually “substitutes for the Holy,” in Muldoon's words. Spiritual growth occurs when we knock on the door of our ambient addictions and enter.

 

I've created this inventory to discover what my ambient addictions might be.  I hope you find it useful.

Ambient Addiction Inventory

1.      Who is the least addicted person you know? How do you feel around them?

2.      What do you tend to do with unscheduled time (10 minutes, an hour or two, a day)?

3.      On what do you spend discretionary money?

4.      List the traits and habits in your partner or someone close to you that most bother you.

5.      If you had a six month sabbatical in life, how would you spend it? 

6.      Why aren’t you doing that?

7.      During a typical day, what brings you contentment, ease or joy?

8.      What do you do that you know you shouldn’t do or should do less of?

9.      What do you not do that you think you should do or do more often?

10.  What gets in the way?

Big Thanks for Big Magic

When I finished reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic I burst into tears.  It's  an extended note of permission to be creative and was just what my soul needed to hear. Gilbert demonstrates that ideas are alive, looking for a human to manifest them.  When we get one, she says, we have to do something with it or it moves on to another person who will do the work.  Keep working, she argues, because inspiration looks for motion rather than inertia.

I’ve been struggling to not eat sugar on and off for several decades now, and the only times it seems to be effortless is when I’m creating something.  When I'm engrossed in a project I eat to survive rather than to distract or entertain  myself. It's not enough to know what I don’t want (i.e. to be fat and cranky); I have to know what I do want (to be kind and happy, creative and alive) and lean into that. If I really am leaning into the light everyday, I’m creating the life I want.

So I’m going to get a writing coach to keep my own work moving along. I’ve got a couple projects in progress, and have been writing pieces on spirituality, recovery, relationships and growing for years. It’s time to gather them, see what still resonates, ask more questions and follow the answers wherever they lead.

There’s a direct connection between creating and becoming lighter, literally and metaphorically, because creation comes from our light.  Gilbert puts it this way:  “What you produce is not necessarily always sacred just because you think it’s sacred. What is sacred is the time you spend working on the project, and what that times does to expand your imagination and what that expanded imagination does to transform your life. The more lightly you can pass that time, the brighter your existence becomes.”

So I will publish my thoughts and observations, questions and curiosities more regularly and keep the momentum moving.