Happy Anniversary X 4

On April 11, 2020, we took our first hike up a nearby logging road. In the midst of the early days of the pandemic, we needed exercise that didn’t require a gym or Peloton, and, we needed fresh air. That 1.7 mile trek, with a 1000’ of elevation gain, checked all of the boxes.

At first, it was simply a way to stay healthy and strong, and we made a commitment to do it whether we felt like it or not.

At first, it was just a logging road, used by county utility workers, ranchers on the look out for free range cattle, hunters, and us.

At first, it was just something we did because we’d decided to do it.

Today, April 11, 2024, four years to the day since that first trip up, and with over 350 trips behind us, the logging road has shown herself to be holy ground, quietly supporting us as we make our way up and back, up and back, up and back. The trees—fir, pine, oak—the wildlife—deer, elk, turkeys, jays, squirrels, hares, coyotes, raptors, bears—all remind us that we are never alone, but surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.

Four years later, we wouldn’t miss it. That road has kept her promise to help us stay healthy and strong.

Four years later, hers is a sacred path we are privileged to walk.

Four years later, we do it because we can’t imagine not.

April 11, 2020

April 10, 2024

The House I Hate

I hate my house.

Don’t get me wrong. I love our home and all the life that happens here. We couldn’t live in a more spectacular spot. Mt. Adams looms directly in front of us, offering a staggeringly breathtaking view that is just there for the looking. Our home is a place of hope and healing, a space to grieve and give thanks, and a dwelling where imperfect love, grace, and welcome reside in abundance. This rustic home is a shelter in the storm and a sanctuary in a world that seems to be crumbling before our eyes, threatening to taking us all down with it.

But I still hate my house.

We built it 14 years ago, and it is in need of freshening up. It’s true that most of the furnishings have a fun story behind them. There’s the fantastic $25 couch from the Goodwill Outlet (yes, that’s a thing), a dining room table and chairs from the consignment store next door to Sleepy Monk (our favorite coffee shop in the whole entire world), the matching Woolrich blinds that were still in their original boxes when I found them at another Goodwill, and the coffee table that used to display men’s ties from my days working for Nordstrom. There is a serious lack of floor and table lamps, as those seem to be what little grand boys love to bring crashing to the floor. Nothing goes with anything else, and if I hung sale tags on everything, you would think you’d wandered into a secondhand store with a first-class view. The house is a decorating hodgepodge that has gotten under my skin. And not in a good way.

Given the current economy, this isn’t necessarily the time to invest in a large-scale makeover. Two things are helping me navigate my current aesthetic crisis, and neither one costs me a dime.

The first is a comment from my sister several months ago. She suggested that every time I walk through the house, I should remember something good that happened here. Remember all of the gatherings and conversations and decisions and stories and apologies and connections and celebrations that have happened in this house that I hate that sits under the shadow of that glorious mountain. Recall the tears and hugs and laughter and prayers and meals and toasts and naps that have taken place in front of that beautiful rock fireplace.

So much good has happened here, and it’s had nothing to do with finding the right fabric or purchasing the perfect rug. It’s happened because of the intention with which we built this home, the vision we had for it to be a safe place for all who walk through the door, and our ongoing work to learn how to better love, help, and heal the world that is within our reach. Starting right here. In this house that I hate.

The second source of help came today in the midst of what is always a fruitful monthly conversation with my spiritual director. As he quietly listened to me express my need to get back to writing but not finding my way to my desk to actually write, and my failed commitment to spend regular time in contemplative prayer and meditation, it hit me. I recently took an inventory of the spaces that I actually love in this house that I hate. There are two to be exact. One is my tiny office on the stair landing, the other my meditation space tucked under the eves upstairs. I love everything about these two spaces: their location, the furnishings, the colors, and the way they are arranged. The two places I love the most are also the ones where I need to show up the most.

So many things can get in the way of doing what we most need to do to so that we can be who we most want to be. The fear that stops us in our tracks. The lie that things are so bad that what we each do doesn’t matter. The pain, blame, shame, finger pointing, screaming matches that find their way into our news feeds, email inboxes, and social accounts. The too-muchness of it all can cause us to do too little, and then everyone loses.

Writing is the way I make sense of the world and my place in it. Quiet time in the presence of the Holy grounds me in a world that is spinning out of control. If there are two things that I need to do, these are them. And I haven’t been doing them. And it shows.

My desk and meditation space that I love are waiting for me, right here, in this house that I hate. All I have to do is show up, and the rest will take care of itself.

We Are The Mountain

For us humans, emotions are a tricky thing. They can come and go in the blink of an eye, drop in without notice and drop out just as quickly, or decide to settle in and stay for a spell. Most of us relish what we deem the good emotions, and resist having to endure the ones we’ve come to see as bad or negative. The ones that don’t, well, feel good.

I’ve always been a feeling kind of girl. Emotions, even big, hard, painful ones don’t scare me. However, they can snag me, and before I know it, I’m wrapped around some kind of axle and in full reactive mode. It’s like I am the emotion, rather than me experiencing that emotion. It can be exhausting. For me, and for the people I share life with.

This morning, as most mornings, we sit on the front porch, coffee cups in hand, and read the daily offering of Fr. Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

His focus this week is Wisdom.

CAC faculty member, Cynthia Bourgeault, suggests that, “Wisdom is not knowing more, but knowing with more of you, knowing deeper.”

To help us dig deeper into wisdom, what it is, and how to grow more of it, Fr. Rohr created a list of 7 pathways, or ways of knowing, that can help us along our own wisdom way.

One of those pathways is emotion.

“Emotion: Great emotions are especially powerful teachers. Love, ecstasy, hatred, jealousy, fear, despair, anguish: each have their lessons. Even anger and rage are great teachers, if we listen to them. They have so much power to reveal our deepest self to ourselves and to others, yet we tend to consider them negatively. I would guess that people die and live much more for emotional knowing than they ever will for intellectual, rational knowing. To taste these emotions is to live in a new reality afterward, with a new ability to connect.”.

As we sat reflecting on our emotions as a way of knowing with more of ourselves, the changing light hitting Mt. Adams seemed to underscore what we had just read.

We are the mountain.

Emotion is our teacher.

Read the todays meditation in its entirety

Getting Around To It

Meditation has been on my mind for a long time now. It is the spiritual practice I am most drawn to, and yet, I never seem to get around to doing it.

This probably has to do with the fact that there hasn’t been a lovely, carefully designed space in our home in which to sit while doing it. Except the only space required to meditate is the one between my ears.

It could also have to do with the fact that I don’t seem to be able to find a consistent time, every day of course, to do it. Except any time of day can work.

Or it might be that the few times I have done it, nothing seemed to happen. Except the benefit of meditation is in the doing whether anything happens or not.

Perhaps it is because it’s difficult to find a time when the house is quiet and I will be uninterrupted. Except mediation happens in the midst of real life, not off at some silent retreat center.

So.

I’m writing this after having finished meditating smack dab in the middle of the day, within earshot of a visiting daughter doing homework with our grandson at the dining room table, the yaps of their little dog Comet, and the footsteps of my husband as he comes in from some outdoor chores. Nothing happened. I just did it.

It is easy to put up obstacles in our own path.

It’s easy to get rid of them too.

Ommmm

Photo by Shiva Smyth from Pexels

Rise and Shine

Recently I was lucky enough to spend a week at Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Baja California, Mexico as a presenter. I was there to talk about the importance of "Trusting Your Own Magnet" - how to sense where life is calling you, and how you might get there.  My youngest daughter  Lauren came with me, and every morning we were up early, sitting out on the veranda with our sacred first cups of French Press coffee and setting our intentions for the day. Not surprisingly, our days unfolded with a sense of ease, space and grace.  It. Was. Glorious.

But when someone is serving you beautiful, organic meals made from vegetables just harvested from the Ranch garden and prepared by people who pray over and bless the food before serving it, making your bed in the morning and turning it down at night, leading you in quiet meditations, massaging and herbal wrapping your body, and serving you just made smoothies... well... if my day didn't go well.... #suckstobeme.

One afternoon fellow presenter Lindsay Sherry, a certified nutritionist and holistic health coach, was sharing 8 Tips for Creating Your Best and Healthiest Life!. Tip number one, numero uno, at the top of the heap? Take time in the morning just for you. Her words rang true. The ones that resonated even more? If we're going to win the day, we have to win the first hour. Period. End of sentence. It's as simple as that, and as hard as it gets. Especially when you're not at a world-class health spa with gracious people attending to your every need.

Back home, in the midst of the magic and the mess that is my real life, with meals to cook and beds to make, laundry to do and bills to pay, relationships to tend to and emails to write, it's a little tricker. And yet those morning hours set the table for the rest of the day. They really do. And if I let the table get set for me (hello depressing news, toxic tweets, social media rabbit holes, hitting the snooze button - again, and fake food for breakfast) I shouldn't be surprised if my daily bread tastes stale. Thankfully I came home from the Ranch committed to becoming committed to winning my first hour. Currently, this is what that looks like:

• Up at 5:30ish, hopefully after at least 7 hours of sleep
• Out on the porch sipping Sleepy Monk French Press coffee out of my favorite  before 6:00
• 20 minutes of meditation (or at least pretending to meditate)
• A little inspirational reading (sometimes only time for a sentence or two)
• Off to the gym for a workout

I wish I could tell you that I got it right every day. But I don't. I wish I could tell you that I was up to an hour of meditation a day and have found inner peace unlike ever before. But I'm lucky to get in that 20 minutes, and inner peace is a total crap shoot. What I can tell you is that I am learning to trust the practice and just get up and do it. I am finding a tiny sliver  of inner calm that I can access a wee bit easier. Rather than react, I'm a tiny bit more able to take a deep breath and a step back. With more time in the gym my energy is increasing as is my muscle tone. My morning practice to win the day is a work in progress, and comparing mine to that of anyone else doesn't help. I seem to be in pretty good company about that. In The Book of Joy, Archbishop Desmond Tutu dismisses his own morning meditation practice when compared to His Holiness the Dalai Lama's of arising at 3:00am for five hours of prayer and meditation. The Archbishop doesn't haul his sorry ass out of bed until 4:00am and then only manages to squeeze in three or four hours of prayer and meditation. Like Teddy Roosevelt said, "Comparison is the Thief of Joy." 

I've been a morning person for as long as I can remember. Apparently I arrived on the planet wired to get up before the sun does. But being an early riser does not a good day make. What we do when our feet hit the floor does.