Holiday challenges

There's frost on the boardwalk, and clouds in the sky: it's New Year's Eve, and lined up down the edge of the hallway (so our blind dog won't trip over them) are 25 packages, one for each year of life for our oldest daughter, who was born 25 years ago today.

And as you can see, there's a picture of her from each of those years -- can I just say how much fun I had putting this together?  In that one on the right she's dressed as a shepherd for that year's Christmas pageant -- SO CUTE!!!  Now we're just waiting till she wakes up and opens them -- which may be a while, as her younger sister had a party here last night, keeping all of us up til the wee hours of the morning...

In other news, I created a present for YOU yesterday, as well -- just a short video of the hymn I posted yesterday, because I hated sending you to the River City website with all its ads and clutter.  I've replaced the link in yesterday's post, but you can watch it here as well:

And then a neighbor came over to purchase the last two Sandspit calendars (I make them every year, just for our little neighborhood).  We got to talking about photography, and the end result was I decided to create a video out of a slide show I put together on photo composition and editing for the Episcopal Communicators Conference back in 2008.

So life is full and rich with potential, as always -- and what a great way that is to start out the New Year!  Of course we still don't know how our day will play out, or if there's supposed to be a party at our house, or what the new year will bring: all of us are in transition right now, and so we're just taking things one step at a time; trying not to get too caught up in worries about what the future may hold.

But that does mean -- especially when you add in my husband's new cold and my recovery from that pre-Christmas fall -- that we all have a tendency to snap at each other: nothing serious, but it's not particularly pleasant either. It's a very small scale war, but... well,  I've had to apologize several times in the last few days for losing my temper... so even if I find other family members irritating, I'm not liking myself much either!  I'm hoping we're ready to declare a truce... And, having said that, now I'm hearing that John Lennon song in my head:

"So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young 

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear 

And so this is Christmas War is over
For weak and for strong If you want it
For rich and the poor ones War is over
The world is so wrong Now
And so Happy Christmas War is over
For black and for white If you want it
For yellow and red ones War is over
Let's stop all the fight Now."

For those who wait

"All things come for those who wait."  Does this sound familiar to you?  I thought it was from the Bible, but actually it's just an old English proverb, used perhaps most famously as "Good things come to those who wait" in a ketchup commercial in the 80's...

Whatever the source, clearly it lives on in my brain as if it were the word of God.  And it came to mind this morning as I was mulling over Henri Nouwen's words about the importance of solitude.

Nouwen believes (and of course, as a mildly introverted only child, I HEARTILY agree) that we all need solitude to help foster our spiritual lives, if not our sanity.

For Nouwen, solitude is meant to be an opportunity to listen for the word of God: he believes we need to create a quiet space within ourselves in order that we may be filled with an understanding of our purpose. But as anyone who attempts to create these kinds of quiet spaces knows, waiting is hard: the mind has a tendency to jump in with all the thoughts that preoccupy us during the day.

Fortunately, living on an island, I get lots of opportunities to practice waiting: any time I need to catch a ferry, I get to arrive early and sit in my car, waiting while the lot fills up with fellow travelers; waiting for the ferry to come and discharge its cars; waiting to load, and then sitting upstairs or in my car for the half-hour ferry ride to the city.

If I wait attentively -- always easier to do if there's a camera in the car -- I may see sights like this one, simple but appealing shapes or colors to invite my attention.  If I let my mind drift but continue to steer it away from my usual preoccupations, it frequently fills with music -- which is what happened as I sat quietly in my chair this morning, waiting for Henri Nouwen's words to bear fruit in me.

Today's music was a song from my childhood, sung every Sunday in the Presbyterian church where I grew up in suburban Cincinnati:

Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what Thou dost love,
And do what Thou wouldst do.

Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Until my heart is pure,
Until my will is one with Thine,
To do and to endure.

Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Till I am wholly Thine,
Until this earthly part of me
Glows with Thy fire divine.
 
Breathe on me, Breath of God,
So shall I never die,
But live with Thee the perfect life
Of Thine eternity.

(You can listen to a brief clip of this from River City Music by clicking here.)

What's curious is that I only remember singing the first verse; and I remember the third line as "that I may live as thou wouldst live," so I'm wondering if perhaps someone modified it for use in a particular part of the service, as a response.

Whatever the original words, and whatever the use, I am nonetheless grateful that this appeared in my head as I was waiting in silence this morning: if feels like a gift for the day.

Learning to trust

I suspect all those who attempt to follow the spiritual path -- whichever form that takes -- struggle with certain aspects of that work.

I was thinking this morning that for me the struggles center around the concept of obedience: I remember, when I first began thinking I wanted to serve God in some way, someone suggested I consider getting ordained in the Episcopal Church as a Deacon.

So I read up on it, and realized the centrality (in the life of a Deacon) of Service, and... well, I just cringed.  It seemed my whole life had been spent serving, and I was tired of it.  I wanted to lead, not serve.  And, being me, I felt guilty about that.

I've thought for years that my struggles with that were around the idea of obedience.  But actually, I am an almost embarrassingly obedient person.  Having been raised as an only child by a difficult mother, my particular pattern has always been to assign some person authority and then bend over backwards trying to please them.

No, I think the real problem is trust.  I just don't trust anyone -- even God -- to take care of me, to love me, to look after my needs... and so I never fully let down my guard, even for God.  So Henri Nouwen's words in Making All Things New this morning are both words I need to hear and words that trigger a lot of resistance in me.

If we live the spiritual life, putting God at the center of our existence, he writes, "we are set free from the compulsions of our world and set our hearts on the only necessary thing... we no longer experience the many things, people, and events as endless causes for worry, but begin to experience them as the rich variety of ways in which God makes his presence known to us.

...We realize that we are in the center, and that from there all that is and all that takes place can be seen and understood as part of the mystery of God's life with us.  Our conflicts and pains, our tasks and promises, our families and friends, our activities and projects, our hopes and aspirations, no longer appear to us a a fatiguing variety of things which we can barely keep together, but rather as affirmations and revelations of the new life of the Spirit in us.

All these other things, which so occupied and preoccupied us, now come as gifts or challenges that strengthen and deepen the new life which we have discovered.  This does no mean that the spiritual life makes things easier or takes our struggles and pains away... What matters is to listen attentively to the Spirit and to go obediently where we are being led, whether to a joyful or a painful place.

Poverty, pain, struggle, anguish, agony, and even inner darkness may continue to be part of our experience.  They may even be God's way of purifying us.  But life is no longer boring, resentful, depressing, or lonely because we have come to know that everything that happens is part of our way to the house of the Father."

It all sounds really good.  And I believe it, intellectually.  But when push comes to shove, or the going gets tough -- whether for me or for those whom I love -- this is not where I go.  I long to trust "that everything that happens is part of our way to the house of the Father."  I even strongly suspect that's true.  But that knowledge is not deeply rooted in me; I can't sink into it and trust.  When things get challenging, all my body cells get preoccupied with the challenge, whatever it is.  What's going to happen?  How can I fix it?  What can I do?

It's very hard to stop, to breathe, to know the Spirit is there, supporting and empowering me; to trust.

Doing what we love

Years ago, in New Hampshire, I used to teach quilting at the League of NH Craftsmen in Hanover.  So it's not surprising that the first manipulated image I ever created took the form of a quilt (I created this almost 10 years ago).

Today, in a fabric store, I happened to mention that I taught quilting years ago, but hadn't made a quilt in years.  "Why on earth did you stop?" asked the sales woman.

"I guess," I replied, "because I found something to do I loved even more -- photography."

"Oh, well, that's okay," she said, "at least you're still being creative!" That's true, of course, but it's also true that photography is a lot less work -- and not nearly as tiring.  Although perhaps that's always true when you find a way to do what you love...

Fading light

This morning I received an invitation to participate in a photography contest whose theme is "Fading Light: the tension between wanting to hang on to the light but at the same time welcoming the darkness.  Fading light, shadows, absence of light, twilight, darkness, losing sight, transformative."

Hmm.  I'm not sure I take very many photos that AREN'T about fading light.  And certainly at this time of year that's a pretty consistent theme.  What intrigues me is the link the presenters of the contest draw between shadows, twilight, losing sight and transformation. 

By now I think we mostly understand -- intellectually, at least -- that a step into darkness, however painful, will ultimately become a step into light.  After all, the sun rises every morning, and spring always returns; right?

But yesterday a friend mentioned that what he feared most was to become increasingly disabled -- losing sight, hearing, and mobility -- with no way to afford either medical care or caregivers.  And yes -- as age creeps up on me and those whom I love, it becomes increasingly clear that challenges like the ones my friend describes may well be lurking ahead.  Old age -- as the poster in my pilates classroom reads -- is not for sissies.

And of course, the root of that concern is that, actually, there WILL come a time when spring does not return, and the sun will not rise -- for us, anyway.  We tend to see death, from our limited perspective here on earth, as the ultimate darkness. 

Somehow I suspect that may not be true; that there may actually be another, stronger light, that falls upon us when the lesser light of days and seasons fades, a transformation more complete than any we undergo in response to the darknesses we encounter here.

But that's only a guess; we can't really know.  And to live our lives worrying about whether or not that's true; to divide our communities over disagreements about what that future might look like seems to be the ultimate exercise in futility.  Yes, it's good to be conscious that life can change completely in an instant; that it may not always take the form it's taking at this moment in time.  But to spend so much time worrying about that that we neglect what life and light lie waiting for us here and now, in this moment...

Nope.  Just don't want to go there.  Better to understand that we live -- always -- in fading light, laced with shadows and the possibility of transformation to come.  Better to rejoice in the light that is, to breathe in the shadows when they arise, and to trust the light will always triumph in the end.

Eschew preoccupation

One of the benefits of doing marketing work for the Seattle Children's Hospital thrift store (also known as the Bainbridge Bargain Boutique) is that it provides an excuse to shop there with some frequency.

Last week, while capturing photos of some likely-looking Christmas presents for the store's website, I picked up two books by Henri Nouwen.  And this morning, in his  tiny little treatise, Making All Things New, I read the following:

"More enslaving than our occupations are our preoccupations.  To be pre-occupied means to fill our time and place long before we are there... Much, if not most, of our suffering is connected with these preoccupations.... Since we are always preparing for eventualities, we seldom fully trust the moment.  Our individual as well as communal lives are so deeply molded by our worries about tomorrow that today hardly can be experienced."

I hadn't thought of that interpretation of the word preoccupied before, but it really resonated -- and it's a perfect description of what most often derails my meditation practice.  I suspect it's also a phenomenon that contributes to the derailing of relationships as well.  After years of marriage, we have a way of becoming absorbed in our preoccupations, and tend to be less present and less attentive to our mates and children.  "Not right now, honey; maybe later," said with enough frequency, can leave a loved one feeling ignored and devalued...

The problem is -- as a friend said over coffee this morning -- things are always changing.  And if we're not paying attention, we might miss something beautiful, or even life-changing -- like this moment in yesterday's sunrise.  Not life changing, of course, but there might be something going on -- right here, and right now -- that could feed your soul way more than all that worrying...

Merry Christmas!

May God bless you
this day
and every day
and in the months
and years to come.