Before You Begin...

I thrive on ritual. The acts that make up my morning ground and anchor me, down to starting each morning with the same, favorite mug. It’s a shade of blue green I adore, and have donned much of my home in. A shade that reminds me of the ocean, and feels like peace. The mug slides around my hand when I slip my fingers through the handle, and holds the exact amount of strong, black coffee that my classic stove-top espresso maker brews. On one side is imprinted “beloved before you begin,” partially in cursive script.

I’ve read this message near daily since last September when I was gifted the mug at a woman’s retreat. Each morning, I’m reminded again, beloved before you begin.

Until this week, I’ve read this as a complete statement, telling me what and who I am, as in I am “beloved before I begin.” Period, end of story. This is what all the best traditions remind me of. I need not add a thing. I am made whole and loved, and I remain whole and loved even if the stuff of life, the desire for more, to prove, to be enough or better, happens to cloud that truth from my realization.

This week, though, I’ve been thinking about the pace of this summer, and I saw that message in another way.

When my daughter was 10 years old, I read one of those pushy posts about the number of summers I’d get with my kids. 18?! And 10 of them already spent?! I’m an overachiever so I set to work coming up with all the best ways to pack all the best stuff into the 8 remaining summers we’d have together.

My daughter is nearing 19 now. My son, 16. There is no irony in the statement that time really moves faster than I could have ever imagined. How did we get to this particular summer, when my two bright and lovely teens have very little time for me? How do I not feel full to the brim from all the past summers, despite having tried to cram so much in?

Ah, friends, I confess that as I finished writing that sentence above, I took a deep breath, let it all out, realizing I’d been holding my breath while typing that paragraph.

We’ve done a lot of beginning, a lot of traveling, a lot of visiting and exploring and adventuring. Now, I am imagining less, and find myself thinking of the rest that I know would make this time less crammed, more spacious. The retreat from doing, buying, achieving, packing in more.

I imagined this weekly missive as a kind of retreat I’d offer others, a moment of Sabbath from reading and doing too much of life. Walter Brueggeman, a beloved theologian, wrote that Sabbath is “and act of resistance.” He wrote that, “Sabbath is not simply the pause that refreshes. It is the pause that transforms.” That is the yearning, I realize. How can I allow this summer to be transformed, from another thing we must do, overachieving my way through the days, to something that might refresh me and my relationships? A kind of underachievement, an act of resisting the lie that this is all we get and it simply must be made the most of.

When I think back on our summers together, I recall best the times when there was space, when we were doing more nothing than something and when the unplanned could sneak in on the winds of joy. Times of sitting together a little longer on our deck after dinner and popsicles. Times of splashing in the river with friends as sunlight danced on wet skin. Times of sitting on the front porch watching fireflies. Who else remembers summer being for the spacious and unplanned?

So how am I reading that mug this week? As a fill in the blank invitation, an opportunity to steady myself before anything more can creep in and try to determine my day. “Beloved, before you begin…” Named beloved, and invited to consider, before I begin, before I dive in, before I jam pack and start feeling the not-enoughness, before I over plan and under rest, what will I allow in this day?

All week, my mug has invited me to be with this day without the agenda, without imagining that there are only so many hours left or summers left. Just to imagine and allow grace in myriad forms to settle over me, before I begin any other thing.

This morning, I sat admiring a new rose bloom sparkling with rain drops from an early morning storm. With the sky still partially gray-black and the sun barely peeking through the clouds, the air was cooler than it had been for the previous few days. Then, before I began another thing, I answered the nudge to walk at the park, where the canopy of trees baptized me with sprinkles of rain water.

It doesn’t matter how much I plan there will never be enough summers, I’m certain of that, but there might be enough in this one if I learn to be with it a little more fully. And you, beloved friend? Before you begin…