Just. Do. It.

 “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.” 

~Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life 

One of the unexpected outcomes of writing BLUSH: Women & Wine, was that I fell in love with writing all over again. In the process of sitting down and putting words on the page, I remembered something I had forgotten; I love to write.

By showing up day after day at my desk, I rediscovered one of my passions; I love to write.

In honing my craft, I rekindled an important fire; I love to write.

After the book came out however, the flames that had fueled it went out. I was no longer stoking the fire.  

 40 days ago today I made the commitment to write every day. Not ready to begin working on another book (yet), I decided to just start writing. I decided to just do it.

As with any endeavor, some days are easier than others. There are days when the words can’t pour out on the page fast enough. I love those days.

Then there are other days.

Like today.  

And so...

Today it is enough to put words on the page, because when you love something, you just do it.

Today it is enough to show up again, because when you love something, you just do it.  

Today it is enough to continue to hone my craft, because when you love something, you just do it. 

What do you love? 

Just. 

Do.  

It. 

The Arcs of Our Histories

“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.” 

Theodore Parker                                                                                                                                       (Unitarian Minister and abolitionist. This quote is an excerpt from a sermon he delivered in 1853.)

My husband Tom and I arrived last night at the home of our dear friend, Birthe, in Lindum, a village in Denmark that dates back 2500 years. The family home, which was built in the 1800s, sits across the street from the village blacksmith shop, and in the shadow of the village church that was constructed in 12th century.

Next to the house, and behind the church, is the village cemetery.

From her kitchen window, our friend is able to see the stone, found in her garden, that marks the grave of her husband, Niels, also Tom’s host brother when he was here in 1965 as a high school foreign exchange student. 

We slept upstairs in one of the many bedrooms in this house that has been home to the same family for five generations. 

Before a new day dawned, the small house next door burned down. 

As we sit over coffee this morning, smoke still hanging in the air from the fire, and the church bells ringing in a new day, as they have every morning for generations, I can’t help but be struck by both the shortness of a life span, and the long arc of the history of this place. 

The tension between the two is worthy of our consideration.

Towards what do the long arcs of our own short histories bend?

Written with gratitude to Birthe, and in memory of Niels.  

Sit Down and Rest

 “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day...By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all his work.”

~ Genesis 1:31 & 2:2

When I stepped into the atrium of the Glyptoteket (an art museum in Copenhagen, which, incidentally, is funded by the Carlsberg Foundation - as in the beer) the space took my breath away. There was something about it that made it impossible for me to do anything but sit down, and rest. 

We eventually continued our tour of the museum, lingering in front of sculptures from the ancient world. But that atrium space kept calling me back. To sit down, and rest. The air was soft, the light gentle, and the temperature warm and cool all at once. It felt like sitting in the midst of God’s newly created world. The world that was proclaimed good. Very good in fact. The one in which to remember to sit down, and rest.

In the Biblical story of creation, God brings the world into being, creating the heavens, the earth, and everything in them. As She looked over His work at the end of each day, She would proclaim it good. Very good in fact. And then...and then...on the seventh day, He does the unthinkable...She sits down (taking a little literary license here) and rests. 

We are all tiny little creators, bringing our own worlds into being. Like the creator, we work to create the world in which we live. But unlike the creator, we often forget to look out over our work and proclaim it good. Very good in fact. Also unlke the creator, we forget to sit down, (same license taken here) and rest. 

Sitting in that atrium, I was reminded of my desire to do good work. To work hard at doing work worthy of being called good. Very good in fact. The kind of work after which it feels good to sit down, and rest.

Very good work.

Followed by rest.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.