Surprise Gifts

The Way It Is, by William Stafford

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

Surprise gifts can’t be planned or predicted. Different than the gifts I’ve chosen or picked out—which are often lovely and so desired—these surprise gifts are the ones that I could never have expected and often nearly miss because of what I think should be, or fear should not.

The gifts of acoustic guitar music and singers around a fire, of wise teenage voices, of a mountain ridge looking out 90 miles in the distance, of trees bare, of leaf covered ground rich with the scent of mulling apples, of silence, and of stillness.

It is challenging for me to step away from my window of control, yet not so challenging for me to follow through on what I’ve said I’ll do—unless my cup feels empty from the doing. This weekend, I both stepped away and followed through. And because I did, my heart was filled with gifts I could never have imagined.

You might notice this is arriving later in the day than usual. This weekend I was in the woods of Rolling Ridge Retreat Center in West Virginia with a group of youth and a few incredible adults. The trip had been planned as a youth fall retreat several months ago; however, as I watched my friend coming closer to the end of her life, I started feeling conflicted about heading out of town. I planned to take my computer so that, I told myself, I could create a mailer, take care of some things for my friend’s family, stay closer in touch. But the truth is, I wanted to maintain some sense of order and control. The moment we arrived at the retreat center, I discovered I’d forgotten the entire bag with my computer and all my other “needed” books and tools. I had some choices—sit in the anxiety and drive the 90 minute round trip to retrieve these things, beg my husband to make the drive to bring me the bag, or let it all go and be present right there.

What a miracle it is to find presence. Or more truthfully, to let presence find me. The gift of existing in the moment, allowing the teachings, the community, and the surprises to unfold just as they are and as they are meant to—all miracles, a kind of thread leading me back to love.

I couldn’t leave the retreat center as I was the primary adult in charge. I didn’t want to put more on my husband’s plate. So I had to let go. Don’t believe me if I tell you I chose this because it wouldn’t be true. But letting go chose me, and so it was that surprises arrived, gifts I could never have prepared, planned, or asked for.

This weekend I heard it said that the poem I shared by William Stafford—a favorite of mine I’ve shared before, yet I know it’s one that should be read more than once—is based on the idea that we are connected all our life by a thread to God. I might even say this is a thread that connects us to love—within and without. There are times when we don’t want that thread, when we choose to live counter to love, and the mythology is that during these times, we cut the thread that connects us to God. Do you know what God does, what Love does, when we do this? This force of God, or Love, ties that thread back together, and so, as the thread is tied it also shortens a bit so that, after, we’re a little a closer to God. No matter what, the story goes, God is always holding on to the thread.

There are teachings, moments, communities that help me remember my way back to this thread. This weekend’s time offered me all three of these.

What about you friends? These are the 3 remembrances, the antidote to forgetting, and so I ask for this week simply, what are the teachings, the moments, the communities, that remind you that help you remember the thread? And what do I mean by this? The thread of love, the remembrance that you are loved always and ever, that you are held in and by more than your anxiety, your fear, your control. What reminds you?

Next week’s mailer will include a video / audio practice for paid subscribers. I’ll add, as my slightly southern mother and her southern father would say, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.