Monday, December 31, 2007

At year's end

The day dawns beautiful, a pink light behind snow covered trees. I am immediately awake and feel compelled to get out of bed and stand with Stephen on the back porch to enjoy the beauty together. He, undoubtedly, has already noticed the light, having watched it perhaps for some three hours before I rise. Still, he is moves onto the porch, standing in bare feet to experience the spectacle at my side.

I have been particularly thankful for his constant adoring love these past few days. There has been times, over the past 11 years, that I have felt it to be a bit cloying. Now it seems like a beacon -- so that no matter how lost I get, caught in the confusion of my desire to discern the future --to lead me back to a place where I am surrounded by simple and brilliant love. It is in that place where my strengths and frailties are held in a tender balance of awe.

I have been silent for weeks now, wondering what it is that makes people choose to live in a world where the odds of having things turn toward the light are constantly challenged by the darkness.

My dreams, these mornings of holiday sleeping, have been about a journey for which I know not where I am going and am always a bit unprepared for. In those moments between being awake and asleep, I am leaving behind things that I think that I need and starting off on a hike without sturdy shoes.

I don’t know where I am going. I only know that I am journeying.

Mostly, I understand that I must leave fear behind and the idea that I will accomplish anything, and embrace all that is tender and precious, fleeting like the morning light.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

A moment of clarity

When cleaning up yesterday evenng after making some cranberry bread for refreshments for a meeting about the Upper Delaware tomorrow afternoon, I realized that life was a series of choices. I could leave the dishes, or I could clean the kitchen up to whatever extent I wanted to.

It's a simple concept, but in this moment, it seems to be a truth that is a fundamental foundation.

Not only is the state of our minds a choice, every single action is one as well.

When you consider life like that: that I move my head, that I look around, that I take a breath, that I run my tongue around my mouth, that I pause when I write, that I hear the living of the forest from the window behind me, that I feel my feet on the soft bed, that the pen makes a noise when I write these words, then every moment is a symphony of action and choice. In that realm, the very basic of life, before you even get out of bed, is awe inspiring.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Day 4

The lightening continues as I graze through my house, getting rid of one thing after another in no particular order and without the intention of accomplishing anything.

I’m learning a bit about myself as I go through the various places where I stash things. Mostly, I understand that it has never been my intention to have a Spartan environment. Generally, I have the propensity to not throw things away, thinking that someday that I will be able to reuse them again.

And sometimes, it’s just easier to put stuff in a pile than figure out what to do with it.

That concept, shelving things until I know what to do, has some similarities to how I deal with some life experiences. Which brings me back to that place of intentionality. What is it about our modern day values that makes it easier to shrug things off than applying ourselves to dealing with them?

I spend the morning reading about mysticism and in my perusal I read about Etty Hillesum, a young Dutch Jewish woman who kept a journal for the last two years on her life before her death at Auschwitz in 1945. It was recently published as “A Life Interrupted.” In the article, published at http://home.wxs.nl/~brouw724/EttyHillesum.html, Hillesum is described as reaching through her obstacles, both personal and societal, to find a universality of life and a connection to the divine. Through her struggles and her “knowledge” that there wasn’t much time left for her, she reaches a point where she can connect to beauty and a sense of oneness with the world and its beings and becomes transformed.

Transformation is partly the reason that I try to be intentional about removing 27 things a day. But even then I miss a day here and there, and I can’t help but think it is a mighty shallow discipline in light of life and death realities.

Science is telling us that we all have the ability to shift our consciousness and be a part of the transformation of the world. I attempt to do a small part by sorting through my life and its clutter to find a clear space to rest. But even as I take these steps, I have a critical eye that somehow I should be doing it differently.

Perhaps when the extraneous stuff is out of my house, I can concentrate on getting rid of the behavioral patterns that don’t serve me in these truly troubled times.