Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult--once we truly understand and accept it--then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters. Scott Peck
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. Pema Chodron
Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing we call human existence. Anthony de Mello
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In 1914, famed explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton set out from England on an expedition to cross the continent of Antarctica. He posted this brief notice: "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success."
Five thousand men applied.
Twenty-eight men began the voyage.
The expedition did not (to put it mildly) go as planned. What transpired is breathtaking, and quite literally, beyond belief. The crew spent 635 days, surviving cold, their ship crushed by ice, months of darkness and living in make-shift camps in cramped quarters.
I recommend watching the documentary, The Endurance (which features actual footage, taken by expedition member Frank Hurley, and includes interviews with surviving relatives, plus archived audio interviews with expedition members). One day away from their destination, Vahsel Bay (in the Antarctic), surrounded by an unforeseen heavy ice flow, the Endurance halted. Stuck, the crew spent the winter months living on a stranded ship. After months, Shackleton made the decision to abandon ship and continue on foot (which proved fortuitous as they watched the Endurance crushed by the ice and claimed by the sea).
In lifeboats, the crew found it's way to Elephant Island, with hope fleeting. Against all odds, Shackleton and five crew-members boarded one small lifeboat (leaving the others for future rescue), spending three weeks crossing eight hundred miles of frigid, raging ocean.
After reaching South Georgia Island (ironically, where their expedition had begun over a year previous), the starved and frostbitten men found themselves on the wrong side of the island, which meant that they needed to cross a severe mountainous terrain, a journey never attempted nor completed before. Facing almost certain death that morning, Shackleton wrote in his journal:
"We passed through the narrow mouth of the cove with the ugly rocks and waving kelp close on either side, turned to the east, and sailed merrily up the bay as the sun broke through the mists and made the tossing waves sparkle around us. We were a curious-looking party on that bright morning, but we were feeling happy. We even broke into song, and, but for our Robinson Crusoe appearance, a casual observer might have taken us for a picnic party sailing in a Norwegian fjord or one of the beautiful sounds of the west coast of New Zealand."
(It reminded me of Isaac Asimov's quote, "If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster." )
Endurance is an edge-of-your-seat sort of documentary. And will certainly curtail my grouses regarding air travel nuisances. It's hard to carp (at least with a straight face) about a tardy flight arrival when you have not experienced frostbite.
This is not an easy story to render. There is no doubt that I cannot imagine the conditions these men endured. Even Shackleton could not have anticipated the James Cameron or Steven Spielberg-esque special effects.
But here's what hit me.
There are times when we feel at wits end.
And there are times when we are certain, we cannot handle this.
There are times when we feel strong enough to handle anything, and wonder why we fail.
And there are times when our insides feel like dust, and even then, find something to carry us through.
So I wonder... Where do we go and what to we draw upon when life is bigger than we are?
Invited to guest preach at another parish, Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor asked the priest, "What do you want me to talk about?"
"Come tell us what is saving your life now," he told her.
Taylor writes, "I did not have to say correct things that were true for everyone. I did not have to use theological language that conformed to the historical teachings of the church. All I had to do was figure out what my life depended on. All I had to do was figure out how I stayed as close to that reality as I could, and then find some way to talk about it that helped my listeners figure out those same things for themselves." (From An Altar in the World)
There is an endless litany of opinions. And solutions.
Of, if we are lucky, some kind of miracle. I watched an infomercial the other night (I know, I have a problem). It promised, if you bought the product, that you would see miracles in your life in 90 days. Imagine that! (And to think, with my book The Power of Pause, it only takes 3 days.)
What occurred to me is that they never read Einstein's quote, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
What I can tell you is that we will not see miracles if we believe that life is something we need to manage or control. (And I can tell you that will-power alone is not enough.)
Endurance is hardly an inspiring word. (It brings to mind the moral fiber necessary for my annual root canals in Guatemala.) When I think of how my life should be, endurance is not what I had in mind.
I have an agenda.
I have a time-line.
And it is irritating when life interferes.
Even so, we try our best to tie up loose ends, or handle our impasse with the tricks of the trade. I like Tim Farrington's take, "We fast, we pray, we take up a marital art. We spice our diet with ginseng and eat only vegetables grown in Zen-monastery gardens. If we have been meditating one hour a day, we mediate two. We hang the appropriate crystals and buy new furniture to address the nagging issue of feng shui. We see a past-life therapist. But none of it is any fun. The fountain that bubbled within us has gone dry, and we're just going through the dusty motions now."
Here's the deal: When life is awkward or inconvenient or downright intolerable, we are offered an invitation. What Martin Heidegger called dasein, or being in the world. This not a reference to existence, but to our capacity to enter fully into the day. This day.
In other words, we are no longer numb.
We feel.
Literally. And fully.
Sadly, we live in a world detached from feeling our connection to this moment. As if we are hooked up to life support, with machines and distractions.
Sometimes we know it. Sometimes we don't, or do not have words.
What is at stake is not withdrawal or protection or more armor. What is at stake is understanding that spirituality, if anything, is about immersion. A spirituality that begins with the sentence, I never noticed that before.
Like Shakleton's tossing waves that sparkle. We find ourselves celebrating (even without knowing it), the sacrament of the present moment. And, if we are lucky, we pass the gift on. And you never know how far that gift will travel.
I have a friend doing battle with cancer, who sent me this note, "Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass... it's about learning how to dance in the rain." Even with his battle, he is passing the gift on.
I spent the weekend leading a men's retreat at The Casa, in Scottsdale, AZ. We 'fessed up to how we talk big about wanting to live life authentically and boldly, but how easily we settle for some kind of security. Attached to a role no doubt, and how our performance buries our authentic self--and the all of the feelings that go with it.
I arrived at the retreat with a sagging spirit, courtesy of a very heavy travel schedule. Thankfully I had an extra day to nap in the sun. And mercifully, that is the kind of endurance I can handle.
It may be that instead of giving us a friendly world that would never challenge us and therefore never make us strong, God gave us a world that would invariably break our hearts, and compensated for that by planting in our souls the gift of resilience. Harold Kushner
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Poems and Prayers
You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that. Charlotte to Wilbur in Charlotte's Web
I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
Where I left them, asleep like cattle
Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
And the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.
Wendell Berry
Lord, the Air Smells Good Today
Lord, the air smells good today,
straight from the mysteries
within the inner courts of God.
A grace like new clothes thrown
across the garden, free medicine for everybody.
The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise,
the first blue violets kneeling.
Whatever came from Being is caught up in
being, drunkenly
forgetting the way back.
Rumi (13th Century)
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Be Inspired
Let your light shine -- Keb' Mo'
Keb' Mo' talking about the meaning of Let your light shine
Lauryn Hill feat. Ziggy Marley - Redemption Song
Bruce Springsteen -- We Shall Overcome
Favorites from last week:
With my own two hands -- Ben Harper
The Parting Glass -- The Wailin' Jennys
A picture of John Styn's grandfather, Rev. Caleb Elroy Shikles, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had a huge impact on John Styn's life growing up. It made him realize that great people are not "them" - they are "us." In this funny, emotional TEDx talk, Styn shares his grandpa's lessons of living life in intense gratitude and the joy that comes from gifting.
Coming Home to Me -- Patty Griffin with Julie Miller
Som Sabadell Flash Mob -- On the 130th anniversary of the founding of Banco Sabadell we wanted to pay homage to our city by means of the campaign "Som Sabadell" (We are Sabadell)... with the participation of 100 people from the Vallès Symphony Orchestra, the Lieder, Amics de l'Òpera and Coral Belles Arts choirs.
Not Alone -- Patty Griffin
Man Prayer -- Words by Eve Ensler, film by Tony Stoebel. Violence against women hurts everyone, including men. We invite our brothers to take up this cause, and be free from the limiting strictures of our modern definition of masculinity.
The only response is gratefulness - Brother David Steindl-Rast
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Notes from Terry
(1) Here's the deal: Your gift really does make a difference. THANK YOU for making another year of Sabbath Moment possible. 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. February 11. 2013 -- Butterfly Hearing February 4. 2013 -- See with our heart January 28. 2013 -- Wide Open Arms (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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