Gazebo Moments

 

Clay was just an ordinary man sitting under an ordinary gazebo where I stopped for shade and a rest after a hike along the beach.  He was just sitting there because, as he eventually shared, he felt stuck in life.  His phone was broken along with his car and what he really needed was a job. Besides, he might like to move and he loves maps and the night sky.  For someone stuck in life he was kind, clean, considerate and exacting in his choice of words.  We struck up a conversation about those ordinary things people talk about under a gazebo and I noticed his ease with the silent gaps as he choose the right word or words to express what he wanted to say.  Given Clay’s propensity to let things be I was also encouraged to just be and allow the silent gaps unfold.

He said he was just sitting still at this time because he wasn’t certain what direction to take in life.  The intelligence of such a decision seemed profound and I wondered why, when stuck, I didn’t try this approach more often.  He was content to just be, it sort of oozed off him.  Somewhere in the conversation the topic of society’s increasing need for material acquisitions arose and he said that for him “less is more” and then to add emphasis he said, “no, really.”  I agreed that less is more and, in fact, there really wasn’t anything more than the present moment he and I were sharing.  Smiling wryly, he acknowledged this truth. 

As we both just sat imbibing on the ordinary smallness of the day I enjoyed the basking of the extraordinary.  I’m struck how something so simple can be the best teacher and how in that moment I knew all was well. There was nothing more or nothing less needed in those moments and my heart was filled with enough.  Clay and his great intelligence will now always remind me to be still in the midst of stuckness and just allow.  Thank you Clay!    

How is your stillness and abiding today?  Do you have a regular practice that slows you down so you may engage more deeply with what is actually happening?  Please share and, as always, if you have comments or questions, I’d love to hear from you.

Living Presence

                                                                                  Images: sean norman

The Daily Meditation by Richard Rohr (A Positive Vision, March 23, 2021) held within it a mash up of Amos 5.  Here’s a paraphrase: 

Seek the Living Presence and you’ll live…seek who made the Pleiades and Orion turning deep darkness into morning and the day into night…hate the evil and love the good and establish justice… 

Now, I’m not one to normally quote scripture but on this ordinary day the words Living Presence leapt off of the page.  There was a seeming delicious quality to them imprinting a beautiful descriptive image of Life and Love. I imagined a Living Presence (organism) that is available to me, to us, and in which we live and move and have being.  I allowed the jolt of these words to rest on my heart and, eventually, my thoughts turned to my faith heritage and its focus on the doing.  This sense of Living Presence felt like movement and growth and greatly contrasted to the heritage's reduced message of finding the Living Presence largely through doing.  In this moment I remembered the heritage's message as presented in multi-varied ways connected to patterns of belief and behavior.  Now perhaps this is the way one must begin the journey but certainly, intuitively, we grasp that growth entails a leaving behind of anything that is not intended for the mature product.  I am reminded here of the grain of wheat that must fall and die.

So, on this ordinary day, where the essence of participating with a Living Presence was making such an impression, I also spoke with a dear friend recently diagnosed with cancer.  This diagnosis presents her with a myriad of medical decisions and struggles and also the mental challenges associated with the possibility of mortality.  During our conversation she said, “I want to live!”  It was such an impassioned plea and bold statement, I was struck (again) by the scaredness of it and also impressed by the indomitability of the human spirit.  

As the day progressed I realized that one thing I did not fully learn or grasp in my faith tradition, perhaps my own failing or perhaps not, perhaps a feature of growth or perhaps not, is that this Living Presence and this cry "to live" are linked.  How could it be otherwise when, in essence, the Living Presence lives me?  These ideas of living and Living remained with me throughout the day and with each activity of the day the question "is this living?" seemed to be inquiring into all aspects of my ordinary life.  Like the accompanying photos of the aurora borealis (Yellowknife, Canada), undulating overhead in an everchanging dance of lights, this Living Presence permeated and danced me this day.  

It turns out that this ordinary day, filled with mortality, food banks, car repairs, and groceries, was a day filled with awareness of the dance of life surrounding me.  My mind knows that this dance is always present yet my heart is slowly learning how to participate.  This ordinary day invited me into full participation with nothing more and nothing less than what was right in front of me.  So simple yet often, at least in my case, easily missed.  What a beautiful grace. I am now left with the wonder of how to better participate consistently with such a dance partner.  I'm also struck that it has something to do with falling and dying but we will leave that for another time.

Do you have your own practices, noticings or stories related to this Living Presence? Perhaps you have another word for it?  When are you most aware of Life's dance?  As always, if you have thoughts, questions or comments about this subject please leave them here or contact me directly.

The Somewhere Story

 

Wolf Creek, Montana

 A Blog, now there's something I never saw coming.  I wonder, and ask myself, "don't you have to be somewhere before you begin to blog; why blog when life is nothing but ordinary, the most ordinary of ordinary?"  Yet, undeniably, there is a desire to say something about the ordinary life.  What I mean by the ordinary life is the present moment, a showing up to what actually is.  This sounds so trite, so easy, but, in reality, it is hard to do.  Honestly, for the longest time I believed the thoughts in my head were the present moment, actually for most of my life. It has taken long years of practice and commitment to both recognize the thoughts in my head and make a conscious choice about what to do with them.  What has opened up, although still a work in progress, is a whole new way of showing up to ordinary life.  

If you are truly present to the moment it can feel ordinary, maybe even boring, because it is uncluttered.  It is uncluttered by thoughts about the past or future, thoughts such as "they always talk too much" or "when will I catch a break."  When these types of thoughts are stilled the basic unit of NOW seems, initially, empty and can be missed.  A simple test to gauge if I'm fully showing up is to ask myself if there is any tension or stress currently held in my body or emotions?  If so, then I know this tension or stress reveals a desire, however subtle, to be somewhere, anywhere, but right here right now.  Initially this practice took place in hindsight by engaging in a curiosity about how I'd shown up to a given situation.  You can do this too by setting aside a short quiet time each day to ask yourself if there were any hints of tension or stress in your body or emotions in a situation of your choosing.  As an aside, if you're not fully tuned into your body (yet) these tensions and stresses come out as the thoughts and stories we hear in our head saying things like, "why did they say that" or "I should have said such and such when they said so and so."

So, the right here right now story in my head says that blogging can begin when somewhere is a reality.  If I'm really still, and really honest, I can feel in my body the tension when I actually consider creating a blog and pushing the publish button.  Upon closer reflection of this thought-story it dawns on me that today is somewhere even if the thought-story says otherwise.  This story about being somewhere is a learned thought that emerged from many different sources; family, academia, culture, religion and from the wounds received as a partaker of the human family.  These sources helped reinforce an ideal I held (and obviously still hold) that says once a person gets somewhere life finally and fully begins.  Funny thing is a lifetime can be spent waiting and the waiting option isn't very appealing these days. Somewhere is now!  Living this moment, even while noticing the story, is the most appealing option.  It also means that the publish button will get pressed.  

I'd love to hear your thoughts, struggles or insights with living in the present moment.  Please leave your comments below or contact me directly with any comments or questions.  

Peace, light and love to you on this day.