Heroics are ultimately easier to sustain than dalyiness: the most significant and dangerous problem that most people face is how to get through a lifetime of ordinary days. Walker Percy
'Man is born broken,' wrote Eugene O'Neil. 'He lives by mending. The grace of God is the glue!' Which is a nice way of saying that living is the healing. Vulnerability is not a weakness. It is a strength. Very few of us are tough enough to be soft. Meryl Shain
We can only learn to love by loving. Rumi
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A mother begins her weekend breakfast routine, pulling ingredients from the refrigerator. Omelets on the family menu this morning. Before she knows it, her two-year-old daughter has climbed a chair and is now sitting on the kitchen counter.
"Momma, can I help?"
"Of course honey."
The little girl removes an egg from the carton, and does her best imitation of momma, cracking eggs into the bowl. The first egg breaks on the rim, half staying in the bowl, the other half of the egg, on the counter, and now sliding down the front of the cupboards. Undeterred, and delighted to be cooking breakfast with her mother -- "Look mama, I'm cooking," she squeals -- she smashes another egg against the bowl's rim, and then another.
After the fourth egg, her mother barks in exasperation, "Noooo honey, this is not a good idea. Not right now!" I can feel the mother's exasperation. (There are moments in parenting, when regardless of the experts, there are, quite literally, no words.)
But here's the unforeseen and astonishing deal: Chances are, that any helpful two-year old will break some eggs. At some juncture in my life, I will need to choose. Do I want a tidy kitchen, or a relationship with people significant in my life (even the ones that include the mess)?
But it's not just a kitchen is it? It could be any script about my life that has been muddled or derailed. Such that we've been led to believe (or we have assumed, or perhaps, we have hoped) that real life happens after there is tidiness, or after the cleanup, or after the enlightenment, or after the script edit. (Lord knows we are reluctant to admit to any disarray, especially of a personal or spiritual nature. You know, "I used to struggle with that problem, but, of course, not anymore." "Really? When did you quit struggling?" "About an hour ago.")
It is true that messes unnerve some people more than others. But then, some people are just plain wired funny.
Our need for tidiness (orderliness, fastidiousness, agreeableness) comes in many forms:
--if there are questions, we want answers
--if there are struggles, we make resolutions
--if we experience unsightly emotions, we apologize ("I'm sorry," we will tell others, wiping away the tears.)
--if there are impediments, we want no loose ends
--if there is a blunder or muddle, we are given to a compulsion to explain
But life is not about avoiding broken eggs.
Life is about presence (broken eggs and all).
While we are focusing our energy on the perfect picture (or omelet or relationship or child or church or faith or life script), our mind is already into the future, and because of that, we cannot be Here. Now. Present.
We have become skilled at (and consumed by) emotional multi-tasking.
It's not just the tidy part that motivates us. We want the assurance that it brings: You know - NOW THAT THINGS ARE IN ORDER - I can enjoy life more. "We are GOING to get this right," we tell ourselves.
(After a weekend about the importance of Sabbath, one participant asked, "I get it, I need to do nothing, but what do I do while I'm there?")
We are a culture big on resolutions (as in, making ourselves better). So long as the resolutions fit into our plans. A man had resisted efforts to run with a jogging group until his doctor told him he had to exercise. Soon thereafter, he reluctantly joined the group for 5:30 a.m. jogs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. After a month of running, it was decided that he might be hooked, especially when he said he had discovered "runner's euphoria." "Runner's euphoria," he explained, "is what I feel at 5:30 on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays."
What gives?
If things are incomplete or messy or chaotic, of what are we afraid?
It is disturbing to me that we pass this on to our children. In the book Under Pressure: Rescuing our children from the culture of Hyper-parenting, "The modern belief that children need to be handled with extreme care, that the way to rear them is indoors, in places that are rigorously hygienic, accident-proof, climate-controlled, and under constant supervision."
(I read that there is a school on the east coast that has banned the game Tag at recess, because it has been determined to be a health hazard. Really.)
Carl Honore is unequivocal, "Much of our thinking about children is shaped by fear--the fear that a shred of their potential will go untapped, that they will fail to shine, that they will be unhappy, lose their innocence, or dislike us, that they will grow up too quickly or too slowly, that they will reflect badly on us as parents."
As a parent, I understand that temptation, but more insidious, is the connection between our prerequisite for tidiness, and our need to hide behind the safety of labels. Eve Ensler writes in Insecure at Last, about working with a group of woman at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. She knew these women would be tough, difficult. And that every one was there because of a mistake. And it occurred to her that we have frozen each woman in her mistake. Marked her forever and held her captive.
"Mistakes do not have faces of feelings or histories of futures. They are bad. Mistakes. We must forget them, put them away. Then I came to Bedford. Slowly I began to meet the mistakes, one by one. They had soft, delicate voices, strong hands, beautiful faces, feisty spirits, outrageous laughs. These mistakes were mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews--they had fantasies and toothaches and bad moods and funky T-shirts. There was the mistake and the woman."
There is a bad car accident on a busy street. A woman, from one of the vehicles, lay in the street, in need of medical assistance. A young woman bends over the body. A man rushes over. "Move away please," he tells the woman. "I've had CPR training. Let me handle this." He pulls out his training manual. After a minute, the young woman taps him on the shoulder and says, "When you get to the part about calling a doctor, I'm already here."
It's so nice, when we think we know everything. As a result, we want everything in its place. There's that tidiness again. And the price we pay?
More often than not, we miss the Spirit.
And yes, even in the untidiness, the Spirit is already here...
This month, my schedule has somehow been beyond my ability to reign it in... my own version of broken eggs. And I am grateful to have spent the weekend with 40,000 of my closest friends at the Anaheim Convention Center for the Religious Education Congress. It is my annual trek for hugs (blessings) and wine with old and new friends, and I am reminded each year--and this year more than ever--that nothing momentous comes in this world unless it comes on the shoulders of kindness.
I beg you... to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. Rainer Maria Rilke
Stay connected:
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terry's schedule
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Poems and Prayers
To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.
Mary Oliver, Blackwater Woods
That Day
Across a lake in Switzerland, fifty years ago,
light was jousting with long lances, fencing with broadswords
back and forth among cloudy peaks and foothills.
We watched from a small pavilion, my mother and I, enthralled.
And then, behold, a shaft, a column,
a defined body, not of light but of silver rain,
formed and set out from the distant shore, leaving behind
the silent feints and trusts, and advanced
unswervingly, at a steady pace,
toward us.
I know this! I'd seen it! Not the sensation
of deja vu: it was Blake's inkwash vision
'The Spirit of God Moving Upon the Face of the Waters'!
The column steadily came on
across the lake toward us; on each side of it,
there was no rain. We rose to our feet, breathless--
and then it reached us, took us
into its veil of silver, wrapped us
in finest weave of wet,
and we laughed for joy, astonished.
Denise Levertov
O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it.'
The Book of Isaiah
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Be Inspired
Living without Fear: The truth about intimacy -- Terry Hershey -- Religious Education Congress 2013
The Don't Quit Poem
When I close my eyes -- Truly Inspiring - It'll Make You Smile - Kristina Rocco
Favorites from last week:
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
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.
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 18. 2013 -- The Endurance February 11. 2013 -- Butterfly Hearing February 4. 2013 -- See with our heart (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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