A man lost his keys.
On his hands and knees, he searched frantically.
Another man saw his predicament, and asked, "Can I help?"
"I lost my keys."
"Where did you lose them?"
"Over there," the man answered.
"Then why are you looking here?"
"Because the light is better over here."
Frantic searching. This feels familiar. We are searching, or at the very least, we're inculcated with the need to search, or hunt, or shop.
In a bookstore this week, I found a book that guaranteed to "give me my life back." Another gave me the tools to live the "life I deserved."
Both books made it clear that whatever the ingredients, I somehow (or for some reason) didn't have them, and needed to amp up my search (plus buy their book!). (What made it even more problematic is that, like the man with the lost keys, I felt the need to look in some place other than the one I was in right now.)
You can't help but walk away from those shelves thinking, "If only I could digest one of those books... my life would be better..."And it hits me, on the way back to the ferry, how much mental energy goes into navigating this bombardment. And how little mental energy is left...
...for sitting still,
...for listening,
...for giving,
...for making music,
...for sharing,
...for savoring the moment,
...for laughing with friends.
Every religion has a story about a man who leaves his home looking for treasure, or the meaning of life (sorry, but it's true, most religious stories are about men; and they are always getting lost, so what does that tell you?). The man travels many miles and any months, only to return home discouraged, where he finds the treasure he frantically sought under the floorboards of his own house.
While there is a part of us that knows this to be true (that which we seek is inside of us, around us, near us now), we know it would wreck havoc with the advertising industry.
My garden is now on full display--preening and unveiling. Each day new. And full. I walk the pathways--through the different garden rooms--feeling the weight that I have bitten off more than I can chew. I will stop, in the middle of my moment of savoring (at the mercy of public opinion I suppose), to give myself grief for not having the time or energy to keep it unsullied by wear and tear. That I must somehow make it all "right." Why is it that I so badly need to mend and refurbish?
I read Terry Tempest Williams write about the desert lands of Utah. The wild lands. She calls them alive. She writes, when someone says, "Look, there's nothing out there," what we are really saying is, "I cannot see."
It is in our genes, isn't it, this troubling pursuit of perfection? In my workshops, I like to use crayons and have people color a lot. Someone will inevitably ask, "Did I do this right?"
And I tell them, "Yes you did, right up until you asked me that question."
I'll be in my garden again tomorrow... and for the week to follow. And here's what I know...
If I can stop the hurry and the need for perfection and the noise, then...
the fragrance of the rose Penelope,
the joy of my son playing laser tag,
the quickening of the morning air,
the fulsome extravagance in the new peony blooms,
the sound of the waterfall over moss covered rock,
the chatter of finch and towhee,
the warmth of the sun on my arms and face,
all tell me that I am living this life, or this moment, or this conversation, or this event, and no longer need to focus on what is down the road, with its potential for some greater payoff.
Rilke once wrote of how he learned to stand "more seeingly" in front of certain paintings. That's what I want. To live this moment more "seeingly."
So here's what I know: We simplify our lives not by theory or a 7-step-program for life management. We simplify when we follow the example of the old man on his back deck. His wife asked, "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," he said.
"But that's what you were doing yesterday," she told him.
"I didn't finish," he answered.
Sitting allows us SEE. It's another way of saying that we are practicing the sacrament of the sacred present.
Tonight I'm in Piedmont, California, with dear friends. I worked today--preached twice and led an evening forum on "waiting for my real life to begin." Now sitting on the deck, we look out toward San Francisco. The sun disappears behind Mount Tamalpais. A half-moon smiles down on us--from a blanched blue dusk evening sky. We share a bottle of Bordeaux. We toast memories and friendship and family and Father's Day, and grace, in its untiring abundance.
Prayer is "an outburst from the heart; it is a simple glance darted upwards to Heaven; it is a cry of gratitude and of love in the midst of trial as
in the midst of joy." Therese of Lisieux
