Let There Be Light

This morning as I settled into one of the Adirondack chairs out in front of our house, the sun hadn’t crested the horizon.

Cup of coffee in hand, I waited.

The meadow stretching out in front of me waited too.

Restless, I reached for my phone, and then thought better of it.

The meadow wasn’t restless. It just waited.

And then it happened, as it does every morning. The sun rose above the pine trees behind the house flooding the air with light and spilling across the meadow grasses and wildflowers. And, me.

In dark times we are called to be light in our little corners of the world. To rise above the horizon of another night and spill light across whomever and whatever crosses our path.

A New Start To The Day

The news ain’t great these days.

Most mornings as I wait the recommended four minutes before I can press the coffee, I scan my email inbox. Along with the tantalizing smell of freshly ground coffee brewing, my senses are assaulted with the latest New York Times Breaking News Headlines. While there is the very occasional headline that to my heart constitutes good news—the swearing in of Judge Katanji Brown Jackson—most of the time what I read breaks my heart a little more—the past two weeks have almost put me under—and hope is hard to find.

It’s not a great way to start the day.

So, I changed it.

I unsubscribed to The NY Times newsletter.

I subscribed to Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s A Hundred Falling Veils: there’s a poem in every day

This morning I was greeted with my first poem from Rosemerry, about, of all things, hope. (You can find her poem, Longing to Be Seen here)

How we start the day matters. Along with coffee and time with my husband and our dog as the sunlight first hits the meadow, I’m choosing to start my day with poetry, and a little hope.

Maybe you will too.

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(Now before you go jumping to any conclusions, it’s not that I don’t want to be informed about the goings on in the world. I am simply choosing not to start my day there. Being part of a well informed citizenry matters to me, and it should matter to you too. Our democracy depends on it. There are good sources of news, as in real information as opposed to opinion and rhetoric out there, and, spoiler alert, they are not found on social media.)

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.

Like A Begonia

My sister is the gardener, not me. Whether planting a pot, planter, raised bed, or perimeter border, she has a vision to cultivate a beautiful space and create a sanctuary where living things can flourish together.

Not long ago she found a begonia at The Home Depot. It was in a small pot, priced to sell, and clearly on its way out. That sad little begonia in the small plastic pot filled with dried out and depleted soil was probably doomed for the dumpster, had someone, like say, my sister, not spotted it and taken it home.

She planted it in a large pot that sits by the back door, along with a variegated fuchsia, a fern, and some coleus. It had room to grow, good soil, fresh air, sunlight, water, the company of other plants, and a gardener determined to help it thrive. And it did.

The world right now feels much like that last chance rack at The Home Depot. If you are anything like me, it often feels like the pot in which I am planted is too small, the soil dried out and depleted. Looking around, in many ways, it is a sad state of affairs.

And yet.

I can’t help but believe that we are a lot like that little begonia. Individually and collectively we are meant to thrive.

We are the plant, and, we are the gardener.

It starts with our own garden and grows out from there.

Let’s be gardeners determined to help one another thrive.

The Voice Not To Be Listened To

It’s hard to know how to be in the world right now. How to stay in it, work in it, and remain connected to what matters. My middle of the night thoughts cast doubt in every direction. How did it all come to this? How much more can we all take? Is the world really a lost cause? I’ll be honest with you. There are times when I think it is. And if I stop there, I might as well call it quits and just stay in bed.

But I can’t quit. And neither can you. Each one of us adds to the world what no one else can. We aren’t called to love, help, and heal the whole world. Just the one that is within our reach.

I’m not sure who or what force is behind evil, but I do believe it exists. And one of the things evil would want me to accept is that individual effort doesn’t matter. It does. My contribution matters, regardless of the outcome, and so does yours. Any voice that would tell us otherwise is not to be listened to.

Like I said, it’s hard to know how to be in the world right now. With problems so big, divides so deep, and fear so rampant, who am I to think that I can make one whit of difference?

Actually, I’m the only one who can. And so are you.

Of Our Own Making

We all do it.

In one way, shape, or form, at one time or another, we get in our own way, are our own worst enemy, and step on our own hose. Life is hard enough as it is without adding unnecessary anguish and pain. The world is in enough trouble as it is with without adding avoidable difficulty and distress. And yet, that’s just what we do. We live in misery of our own making.

These were my thoughts as I drove into town. The idea had merit and seemed worth writing about. And then it happened. Going around a curve, my very-cool-looking-but-not-very-practical travel mug filled with bulletproof coffee tipped over, spilling the contents into another cupholder where my cell phone rested. After a short guttural scream of a word starting with the letter ‘F’, I burst out laughing.

Talk about a silly case in point.

I knew that the travel mug had a lid that didn’t close, was perched precariously in a cup holder that was too small, and could easily tip over. And yet I did it anyway. Created a little misery of my own making, which of course would require extra time, attention and energy to clean up.

Spilled coffee is one thing. Making choices that keep us stuck in old patterns, stories, and ways of thinking and being is quite another. The inconvenient truth is that whatever we ignore, leave untended, or are unwilling to face spills over onto others. Starting with those that we care about the most, and then splashing out from there. Whatever hardship we create for ourselves requires extra time, attention, and energy to clean up. All things that for most of us are in short supply these days.

So it seems like a question worth asking:

What is misery of my own making?

And.

Most importantly.

What am I willing to do about it?

The Weight Vest

I’ve started working out with a weighted vest, a training tool that is pretty much like it sounds. A vest with individual pockets into which weights can be added, 3 pounds at a time. A way to incrementally add effort to any activity, with each additional weight block my workout is initially harder. But after some time at that increased weight, I’m ready to add more.

The weight vest strikes me as a particularly practical metaphor. Just as my vest adds effort to my physical body in order to strengthen it, life seems to have a way of adding weight to help me develop greater inner strength too.

Every courageous conversation strengthens us for the next one.

Every difficult decision readies us for the ones still to come.

Every obstacle overcome prepares us to take on new ones.

Every time we take on the hard work of mending what’s broken in our hearts, we increase our capacity to love wholeheartedly.

Every courageous step emboldens us to take the next one.

Maybe what is true of a weight vest is true of the rest of life too. Added effort today strengthens us for what life brings our way tomorrow.

No Strings Attached

The other morning I woke up decidedly on the wrong side of the bed, and it went downhill from there. My feelings became the filter through which I saw, heard, and interpreted everything and everyone, and it wasn’t pretty. I felt like a marionette. You know. One of those puppets with strings attached to different parts of the body, including, at least in my case, my mouth. Like The Lonely Goatherd in The Sound of Music, I was at the mercy of the circumstances and emotions pulling on my strings.

Control, it seemed, was out of my hands. Or was it?

What if instead of a marionette I could be more like a hand puppet? Like Daniel Tiger, X the Owl, or Lady Elaine Fairchilde in Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, it could be my hand in charge. A hand puppet isn’t pulled about by external forces. Guidance comes from within.

As a 4 on the Enneagram, emotions are my thing. There isn’t an emotion I haven’t experienced, and the ones that a lot of people work hard to avoid come easily to me. Because big emotions don’t scare me, I can be the calm in the midst of your storm. A quiet, safe place to show up with your grief and sadness, anger and fear, I won’t try to talk you out of how you feel.

As it turns out, being a feeling kind of girl is my gift.

It’s also my curse

Because I tend to lead with my heart, I can easily turn over the controls to my feelings and react accordingly. With, as you might imagine, very mixed results. I’ve been practicing not letting my feelings run the show. Catching myself before losing myself to the emotions of the moment, and that practice is paying off. But this puppet metaphor feels next level. There are no strings attached to those emotions, other than the ones I attach myself.

Turning In Circles

Do you have a dog?

Do you know how sometimes they turn around, and around, and around, and then around some more, before finally plopping themselves down to settle in to just the right spot?

Do you ever feel like that dog?

Me too.

In fact, lately, I’ve felt a lot like that dog. Maybe you have too. We’ve been turning around, and around, and around, and then around some more, all in an effort to plop ourselves down and settle in to just the right spot. It can feel like we’re wasting time, not getting anywhere or making any progress. But the good news, for that dog, and for us, is that when we are turning in those circles, we’ve found the right spot. We’re just not quite ready to plop ourselves down and settle in there yet. There are a few more circles to turn before we settle down to write that book, start that new painting, or sign up for that class. With a few more spins under our belt, we’ll be ready to find a therapist, get serious about our health, or make a long-awaited change. A couple more circles, and we’ll finally find the courage to ask the question, have the conversation, or face the issue head-on.

Take it from that dog. With every circle, we are a little bit closer to plopping ourselves down to settle in to just the right spot.

What A Mess

We’re all a mess. Some of us may be better at hiding it than others, but trust me on this one, even the most buttoned up of us is a mess. Some days we’re a little less of a mess, and on others, a full-blown, all out, will-I-ever-get-my-shit-together mess.

So let’s get over it. We’re a mess. So be it.

Being a mess is hard enough as it is without making things even worse by wishing I was, it/we/they/life/things were different.

So let’s get over it. We’re a mess. So be it.

What we need, more than anything, is to be able to be a mess without someone try to fix us, coax us out of it, convince us that we’re not, or point out the silver lining.

So let’s get over it. We’re a mess. So be it.

I’m not saying that we should wallow in it, hang on to it, or blame someone else for it. But let’s not pretend that we’re not a mess when we actually are. Come to think of it, we shouldn’t be too surprised at the messiness of it all. I mean, it started out that way when we were born, what with the labor pains, pushing, gushing, bloody, gooey mess and all. We forget that before the doctor or midwife or nurse or whoever wrapped us up in a clean blanket and put a cute little beanie on our pointy little head, we were a slippery little mess. A miraculous one to be sure, but a mess nonetheless. In other words, life is messy. Always has been, always will be. So maybe, just maybe, to be a mess is simply another way of saying that we are alive.

So let’s get over it. We’re a mess. So be it.

Day 5 without a shower in the Wallowa Mountains