First, the confession. This week my bones were dry. There is not one thing actually wrong, other than all the world’s woes, and it is a very busy season for me and my family. This week many things kicked into gear at once. In the midst of organizing a busy day early in the week, I could feel the signs of rising anxiety and listened to the tone of my voice rise along with it.
How about a little gratitude for the fact that you GET to be busy and your household is well, I chided myself. But that only made me more irritated—not only did I feel like I couldn’t come up for air, I also couldn’t muster any gratitude for all these gifts! Deep sigh—nothing encouraged me.
Until this Thursday morning. I love rhythms and the season of Lent has created a needed time of reflection for me. Thursday morning began with me sitting quietly with my current Lenten devotional from Kate Bowler. Her offering that day began with this passage from one of her blessings in The Life We Actually Have: “God, these feel like darkening days, with little hope to be found…help us in our exhaustion and in our desperation. When we’re tempted to throw our hands up in surrender, anchor us in hope.” I needed to be anchored in hope and a bit of rest, but how?
Bowler’s next guidance took me to the Lord’s Prayer. It’s a well-known one: “Our father in heaven, holy be your name…” Bowler encouraged, read it with fresh eyes for some passage that stands out. “Give us today our daily bread…” I found myself stopped by this, unsure in the moment why. Later, I headed off to one of many commitments, still holding that prayer as a mantra in my heart, “May I have today what I need for this day. May it be so.”
This Thursday commitment is a prayer group where I’m forced for a time into stillness with other women. I often think I should cut it out of my week, but am reminded each time I don’t why stillness and contemplation is so essential. This day, we were reflecting on contentment—a principle that is foremost in the yoga tradition, too, and is so often misconstrued. I know I’ve misconstrued it as yet another quality that I should WORK to cultivate. If I just focus hard enough, get enough done, read enough wisdom, meditate for long enough, I can will myself into contentment. Yet, I’m beginning to know that’s not the point at all (I told you I still need practice).
True contentment comes as I realize I can rest in the promise that I am enough and there will be enough—for exactly what is most essential—if I don’t let the noise of my brain or the world crowd out that truth with the demand for more. It doesn’t come from detachment or from attachment. It comes from letting go.
So it was Thursday morning at this group meeting. Having been asked to share, I reached in my bag for my reading glasses to discover I’d left them at home. Another sigh. This would mean that I couldn’t really participate other than to sit and listen. Within a few minutes, one of the women in the group crept quietly up behind me with a pair of readers she’d retrieved from another woman in the building. Suddenly, I had enough—my daily bread handed to me so that I could see and not be left out.
It occurred to me—most miraculously—that I might not have been so touched by this or have thought of it as a moment to revel in, had I not read those passages earlier that day or if I weren’t sitting in stillness, reflecting on contentment. My attention was placed in exactly the right place so that I could be fed.
Maybe that’s what it takes—attention. Mine placed in the direction of receiving, trusting, resting, on small means of nourishment, meant I could be content in the goodness of that singular moment. For in that one moment, I saw that, yes, there is goodness and I would be sent enough, even if that enough was a simple pair of glasses. That was sufficient hopefulness to anchor me for a time.
Create Something
“In a time of destruction, create something; a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment.”
~Maxine Hong Kingston
Create something. The spring seems to cry out for it. Create something just as the world is creating itself anew. I’ve created a little guide many of you might enjoy on bone health. Click here for 9 simple tips to maintain and build yours.