Just once I wanted a task that required all the joy I had... Having chosen this foolishness I was a free being. How could the world ever stop me, how could I betray myself, if I was not afraid? Annie Dillard
Bag lady, you gonna hurt your back dragging all them bags like that. I guess nobody ever told you, all you must hold onto is you. Erykah Badu, "Bag Lady"
We must learn to let go, to give up, to make room for the things we have prayed for and desired. Charles Fillmore |
Two traveling monks reached a river where they met an attractive young woman waiting to cross. Wary of the current, she asked if they would be willing to carry her. One of the monks hesitated, but the other promptly picked her up into his arms, transported her across the river, and put her down, safely on the other bank. She thanked him and went on her way.
As the monks walked toward the monastery, one brooded, stewing in the toxic elixir of self-righteousness and envy. After an hour, unable to hold his silence, he spoke. "Brother, our spiritual training teaches us to avoid any contact with women, but you picked her up in your arms, held her very close and carried her!"
"Brother," the second monk replied, "That is all true. But on the other side of the river I set her down. It sounds to me as if you are still carrying her."
Yes, this is a story about sacrificing people for rules, and how our yearning for certainty allows us to see only what we want to see, and how such an effort ties us up into knots. Although we use the verb "carry," it is a story about how we can be (every single one of us) owned or possessed by the things we carry.
Remember when we called it baggage? Or tapes? (It doesn't quite translate in a CD world, does it?)
You know, all the stuff that made us anxious, and prevented us from being free. Or, at the very least made us buy every self-help book that promised some kind of relief, or a version of an enviable life.
In a bookstore, a clever title caught my eye: Throw Away Fifty Things. A few people came to mind, but it seemed less hassle just to tackle my garage. I found boxes of "indispensable" items. You know, the ones I was certain I would "need" someday. I see them now, and can't remember why. And other items prompted the age-old question, "I paid money for this?" Long story short: We hauled piles to Granny's (our island equivalent to St. Vincent de Paul). I now have a clean garage. (That's a white lie; I have a clean corner of my garage.)
But, a clean garage doesn't address the underlying issue.
Here's the deal: Like the first monk, we know that most of what we "carry" (whatever preoccupies, worries, vexes) is not even real. Whatever it is, it possesses us. And the next thing you know, it's ingrained or tattooed on our soul.
Like the worried monk, there are times when I carry a life that does not even belong to me.
My friend Celia Whitler is a songwriter and a storyteller, and like me, travels around doing her best to spill the light. She told me about leading a women's retreat on Mother's Day. Apparently, it troubled a few women, who, like the first monk, made their dismay all too clear. "Oh my, Celia, you are missing being with your family and on Mothers Day."
Celia told me, "After about the tenth comment, I was like okay, enough already. So I said to them, 'This is bothering you a whole lot more than me. When my boys get in the car tomorrow we'll play, and really everyday is mothers day for me.' One woman looked at me like I had lost my mind. And for a second, I believed the lie. I believed that my life as a mother should look like all these other woman's lives. But that's wrong; my life should not look like theirs, it should look like mine. So I will celebrate all that it is, and all that it's not, and God will make up the difference!"
We all carry that fusion (or muddle). Meaning that there is stuff we carry that brings delight. And there are a few things that bring regret. Maybe that's the weight: an expectation that I am to be somebody other than who I am today. That my value is conditional... all about some need to satisfy (measure up or pass muster). Can it be true that I am loved, or am somebody, only because I keep the rules, or play the role, or worry about what others think?
If that is the case, then this weight (just like the first monk carried) means that I am no longer free...
To risk, or try. To live unbridled. To give. To show mercy. To celebrate. To savor. To love.
I write this affixed to a bench in Parque Central, Antigua, Guatemala, one of my favorite places--in this hemisphere--to give my spirit a rest. The park is filled with people; families, clusters of friends, and couples, islands of their own. For those walking, the speed limit is amble. Or perhaps mosey. The people I watch are literally spending their Sabbath. Resting, talking, playing. The sun smoothes the edges of my anxiety. I smell earth and the fried foods of street vendors. I close my eyes and listen as the water from the main fountain bounces and splashes and mingles with the laughter of children, and I am buoyed by the replenishing joy of doing nothing.
Let someone love you just the way you are--as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as unaccomplished as you think you are. To believe that you must hide all the parts of you that are broken, out of fear that someone else is incapable of loving what is less than perfect, is to believe that sunlight is incapable of entering a broken window and illuminating a dark room. Marc Hack
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Poems and Prayers
When I was younger, my benefactor asked me a question, but I was too hot-blooded to understand it. Now I am older and ask it of you. You must look at your life and your way, and there is no shame in dropping whatever you have undertaken, as long as it's not done out of fear or ambition. But there is one question, and one question alone, that matters. Does this path have heart? Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan
Thank you, my fate
Great humility fills me,
Great purity fills me,
I make love with my dear
As if I made love dying
As if I made love praying,
Tears pour
Over my arms and his arms.
I don't know whether this is joy
Or sadness, I don't understand
What I feel, I'm crying,
As if I were dead,
Gratitude, I thank you, my fate,
I'm unworthy, how beautiful
My life.
Anna Swir
My prayer for you is that you determine in your heart and mind to go into 2013 free and determined to take steps towards walking in the footsteps that only you were designed to walk in.
Free up your hands so that you may waive them in victory over something that has been binding you up in the past.
Free up your heart so that you may love and receive love the way you desire.
Free up your mind so that you are clear about the direction your life is taking.
Free up your time so that when opportunity comes, you are ready to walk in it.
Free up the limitations you have imposed on yourself and walk boldly towards your heart's desires.
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Be Inspired
Lay down your weary tune -- Mary Black
The book of Love -- Peter Gabriel
Simple Gifts -- Judy Collins
Favorites from Last Week:
Christmas in the Trenches -- sung by John McCutcheon
The Christmas Scale
Carol of the Bells (for 12 cellos) - ThePianoGuys
Walter Cronkite (and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) tell the story of the 1914 WWI Christmas miracle truce, between the British and Germans at Flanders Field -- Silent Night.
Let It Be --from Across The Universe (Carol Woods And Timothy T)
The only response is gratefulness - Brother David Steindl-Rast
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Notes from Terry
(1) THANK YOU for your generous gifts, for making another year of Sabbath Moment possible. If you wish to be a part of making this gift possible in the year to come, I appreciate your generosity. 
Sabbath Moment is available to everyone--with the invitation that people forward it, and share it with those around them. Please forward Sabbath Moment... if you work at an organization--please consider forwarding Sabbath Moment to every member of your staff or team.  (2) NEW! Soft Hearts from Hard Places. This is a TWO-CD-set. Two 75-minute workshops.
We know that we should love one another; practice kindness and compassion. But here's the deal: love can only spill from a heart that has been softened and in most cases broken.
(4) Share Sabbath Moment -- Here are the recent issues. Please forward the link, or cut and paste. For archived issues, go to ARCHIVE. December 31. 2012 -- Crippled December 24. 2012 -- Making Space December 17. 2012 -- Broken Things (5) Every day... there are PAUSE reminders every day on Facebook.
Please hit the LIKE button... it doesn't hurt and it helps the cause. And... pass the word. |
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