Waiting In The Dark

There’s been an inversion in our valley for at least a week. The clouds hang low, the light is flat, the landscape drab, and the days feel dreary, a little depressing, and I can’t wait for it to get dark.

That’s because there is a difference between grey days and dark nights.

In my faith tradition this is the season of Advent. It is a time when we light candles in anticipation and preparation. It is a time of waiting in the darkness for the coming of the light.

In the story of that first holy night, a mother had been waiting too, anticipating the birth of her baby. A baby who must have arrived with all of the birth pains and the mess and the wonder that new life brings.

Darkness is an invitation to wait for the light, and to anticipate the birth of something new. With all of the birth pains and mess and wonder that new life brings.

Legit

I have every good intention of having a legit spiritual practice. In my mind this is what that is supposed to look like. Early in the morning I head upstairs, step into the lovely little meditation space I created a couple of years ago, light the candle, settle onto the cushion I purchased just for this purpose, set my Insight Timer app for 20 minutes, focus my gaze on the Buddha statue with the beautiful cross around her neck, take a deep cleansing breath, and sit until the timer goes off. Those 20 minutes are how I am supposed to connect with God. With the holy and the sacred that flows through and around everyone and everything.

That’s what a legit spiritual practice is supposed to look like.

Here’s what mine actually looks like.

Early in the morning I walk to the kitchen, pour a cup of coffee, put on a jacket against the chill, and head out to our field. Settling into the chair next to Tom, it’s impossible not to focus my gaze on the mountain in front of our home, take a deep cleansing breath, and sit. No timer. No Buddha. No candle. No cross. Just us, our coffee, and Gracie-the-chocolate labradoodle. We watch the birds, and wait for the sun to crest the pine trees and hit the anthill a few yards away rousing the ants to another day of work on behalf of their community. We read a daily offering from the CAC that lends a holy perspective to our human experience. We talk about everything and nothing at all. We give thanks. We grieve. We complain. We apologize. We laugh. We cry. We do the sometimes hard work of trying to love each other well, or at least a little better. That time, in those chairs, is how we connect with God. With the holy and the sacred that flows through and around everyone and everything.

That’s a legit spiritual practice too.

Almost anything can be a spiritual practice if it helps us to connect, however briefly, to the sacred in the midst of our ordinary lives. It doesn’t have to look like anything other than what it is. A spiritual practice can be as short as our next breath if we notice it, as messy as a toddler’s meltdown if we stay present for it, as scary as engaging a therapist to help us unhook from old stories and heal from old wounds, and as difficult as having the conversations we don’t want to have. Our practice can be as mundane as doing yet another load of laundry, or as miraculous as a few unexpected quiet moments before the rest of the house wakes up. It’s in the presence and the noticing that the practice occurs.

It’s not lost on me that there is a privilege that makes my brand of morning spiritual practice possible. We are both white with all of the advantages that has granted us over the course of our lives. We are decidedly middle class, and generally retired with a bit of time and money to spare. Recognizing that privilege brings with it the responsibility to work for a world that is more just, loving, and inclusive. A world that recognizes the holy and the sacred that flows through and around everyone and everything.

That’s a legit spiritual practice too.

A Holy Mess

God comes to us disguised as our life.

Paula D’Arcy

Life is so messy right now. Maybe it always is, but this feels like mess on steroids. Nothing is how it was before the world went into lockdown, which isn’t such a bad thing. The part about nothing being the same as before I mean.

Because if we’re being honest with ourselves, things weren’t working very well before. We’d just gotten used to them.

But still.

Living in the chaos of the unfamiliar is not easy. In fact it’s downright hard and scary and batshit crazy. The way forward is murky at best, and so we are stuck in the mess that is today. So just what are we supposed to do with it? The mess I mean.

To answer that question I have to take you back to my front porch earlier this morning. It was pouring rain and I was listening to a song my niece sent to me called The UK Blessing. Actually, now that I think about it, I have to take you back inside and upstairs earlier this morning. I was on my yoga mat doing a plank while listening to this song on full blast, tears streaming down my face. It just reached inside and grabbed me by the heart and said, this message is for you. Maybe it’s one for you too. The message I mean.

So, back downstairs and out on to the front porch. The rain was pouring down in a cleansing-tears-from-heaven kind of way. I was listening to the song, again, when I got a text from that same niece. She said that she had been listening to it too, because like mine, her life felt a little more than messy. The power in their home had just gone out, and so she decided to light some candles.

Which is the answer to that question. The question of what are we supposed to do with the mess I mean.

We are supposed to light candles in our darkness, let music pour into our souls, and tears stream down our weary faces. We are supposed to make a sanctuary, a holy place, right in the middle of our messy, muddled, murky lives. Whether we believe in God or not, we all believe in Love. Tomato. Tomahto. Life isn’t holy and sacred someplace else. If life is holy and sacred anywhere, it is holy and sacred right here. In the mess I mean.

(With gratitude to Katie Meleney)

Photo by VisionPic .net from Pexels

For What The Bell Tolls

 “We seldom notice how each day is a holy place

Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,

Transforming our broken fragments

Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.”

~John O’Donohue, To Bless The Space Between Us: A Book of Invocations and Blessings

I love where we live. I love our home, and the mountain that watches over us. I love the pine forests that surround us, and the wide sky overhead.

However.

I’ve decided that there is just one teeny-tiny thing missing; an ancient church with an ancient bell that rings like clockwork, every morning at 8:00, and every evening at 6:00. Speaking of clocks, it also rings out the hour, every hour, on the hour, all around the clock.  For the past week in the tiny ancient village of Lindum, Denmark, the ancient bell in the ancient church, next to the old home in which we are staying, has done just that.

When it rings at 8:00 in the morning, it is as if to say remember, it is a new day, a holy day. What will you do with this day that has been given to you?  

When it rings out the hour, every hour, on the hour, it is as if to say remember, it is a new hour, a holy hour. What will you do with this hour that has been given to you?

When it rings at 6:00 in the evening, it is as if to say remember, it is the end of another day, a holy day. What did you do with this day that was given to you? 

It is so easy to forget the holiness of time as it marches on, day after day. 

And if time is not holy, then what is? For it is within our hours that we live out our lives.

And if our lives are not holy, then what is? For it is with our lives that we are able to love, help, and heal the world that is within our reach.

And if the world is not holy, then what is? For it is within the world that we live out the one life that we have been given.

And so it goes. Holy lives, spent in holy hours, in the midst of a holy world.

All is holy. 

Photo: Tom Pierson