I had no Sabbath Moment written for this week.
I spent the week catching up. And healing. Although healing is never easy when busywork is part of your routine. Paperwork (yes some of us still use and write on paper, with real pens), schedule for the fall, email (grateful for many SM reader prayers and well-wishes), daily back-physical-therapy (yes, it is helping), reading, and napping (the sacred necessity). When my mind kicks into assessment mode, this kind of week doesn't fare well, especially since I was not technically on vacation. "So, what did you do?" "Well..."
Okay. I enjoyed reading EB White's One Man's Meat, Mary Oliver's A Thousand Mornings, and Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist. I love getting lost in books and the worlds they weave. I remember perusing the shelves of one of my favorite independent bookstores some time back and finding a title that gave me pause. "What if I wake up and discover I'm living the wrong life?" (Mercy. This is a good way to throw a monkey wrench into any fine weekend. I mean, should I cancel dinner reservations?)
Sensing the author could be right, this led to an uncomfortable scene in the bookstore (that particular weekend), with me on the floor, being consoled by a minimum-wage-store-clerk, who may or may not be living the right life, which seemed beyond my capacity to discern, although she was very helpful nonetheless, patting me on the head saying, "There, there," and gave me the name of a nearby pub which specialized in soothing middle-aged angst.
What if I'm living the wrong life? (It is a question we all entertain.)
This seems to be a riddle for someone with way too much time on his or her hands, although the question gnawed at me over the weekend. Which brings me to today, which started as I begin most every day when I'm on the island:
Made a pot of coffee.
Journaled for a half hour.
Walked the garden as my morning invocation, periodically checking for raccoon damage.
I intended to write about what the "right life" looks like, but was preoccupied for a good deal of time by the way the morning dew weighted the new late summer blossoms on the rose Penelope. From the recent rain, the lawn is Irish green and the Rudbeckias (Black-eyed Susan) lean (or is it bow? In deference? Or is it reverence?) from the heaviness of the rain.
I was, truly, mesmerized.
And gratefully, I reentered my life. This life.
Dewitt Jones tells a story about visiting Marion Campbell, considered the finest weaver in all of Scotland. She lived in the Outer Hebrides. Jones visited to photograph Marion for The National Geographic. When she answered the door she seemed surprised (no wonder considering that the Hebrides are a remote island chain, the whole string of 65 islands with fewer than 27,000 inhabitants. I expect she didn't see a stranger very often.) Marion told Dewitt, "I'm sorry, but now I am taking care of my brother who is sick and near death." Dewitt felt an understandable embarrassment.
"No wait," she told him, "give me an hour. I'll join you then."
After the hour, he found her at the loom. She talked about her creations, and stories about scraping lichen from rocks for dye. Dewitt took a few photos. Still nervous that he had interrupted Marion, he started to leave. "Oh no," she told him. She escorted him into her dining room where she had put out biscuits and tea. Dewitt wondered if he was in the presence of a great sage, and waited for pearls of wisdom. "What do you think about when you weave?" he asked.
"I wonder if I'll run out of thread," she answered.
She must have seen the puzzlement on his face, and added, "When I weave, I weave."
There it is.
When I read I read.
When I celebrate I celebrate.
When I pay attention I pay attention.
It seems that the nagging question, "What if this is the wrong life?" is not that important after all.
Have I done bone-headed things with my life? To be sure.
Have I miscalculated and misused talent or opportunity? Assuredly.
Does it benefit me to wish that I were elsewhere and otherwise? I don't think so.
Preoccupation about living the "right life" is the "Daniel-san syndrome."
Remember Karate Kid? Daniel was enamored with Miyagi's skill and prowess and power. That's what he wanted. What he needed to change his life. To make it better. Different. Right. In one scene he asks Miyagi about his Karate "belt."
Daniel: Hey, what kind of belt do you have?
Miyagi: Canvas. JC Penney, $3.98; You like?
Daniel: [laughs] No, I meant...
Miyagi: In Okinawa, belt mean no need rope to hold up pants.
Miyagi: [laughs; then, seriously] Daniel-san,
Miyagi: [he taps his head] Karate here.
Miyagi: [he taps his heart] Karate here.
Miyagi: [points to his belt] Karate never here. Understand?
So yes. We're obsessed with asking the wrong question.
It's not about the stuff we add to our life. It's not about acing the test asking, whether we are living the "right or wrong life."
It is about the freedom to be awake, in this life, in this moment; the very one I am living today.
As Dewitt Jones puts it, "To not only be the best in the world, but to be the best for the world."
Today I am in my garden. It is late summer here, and the sun arcs lower in the sky. A few sunflowers punctuate our garden. They grow wherever a bird planted them. At the corner of my study is a sunflower cane with a single blossom. The flower is 12 inches in diameter. In mid-summer, the cane and flower stood well over six feet tall. Now, in autumn, it is bowed with age, deferential, respectful, its sturdy cane now bent so that the face is looking at the ground. The triangular foliage around the bloom forms a yellow bonnet. The leaves on the cane hang spent and mottled as if touched by fire. A spider web stretches from the sunflower face to the euphorbia plant three feet beneath. It looks like a netting or mesh that anchors, and secures the flower. Clusters of ivory-white Japanese anemone and the deep red leaves of the 'purple smoke bush,' flank the sunflower. Although it is past its prime, I decide I cannot remove the sunflower. I am drawn to its humble dignity. And its blemishes--and imperfections--are a measurement of its delicate beauty.
Jesus calls out to her, "Woman, you are set free..." Gospel of Luke
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