April 19th, 2017: Slow Down

Today's readings: one about the hurry, hurry, hurry culture that we have, and the other about how those small instances where God shows itself leave us hungering for more.

What came to mind was a "song message" I received at the close of meeting at Friend's General Conference.  

"I'm leaving home to journey home; 
I will take you with me 
        wherever I may roam. 
Unfettered love...abounding grace; 
I will take it forward 
        when I leave this place." 


I am so aware that I have not been singing.  And, when I try to sing, it is hard to get to that spiritual place that used to come so easy.  When I hike, it's later in my walk that music finally comes.  

As I write this, what comes to me is that I have not taken the time to "listen" for the music that - perhaps - wants to come through me.  And as I sit with that, what comes is that I have not found a set of "peeps" here where that gift can be shared. 

And is conversation and living with Spirit much more than a "habit?"  All readings point to regular meditation growing a desire for more of the same. Will that happen again with my music?  And I notice that I write "my music."  

And I am tired.  One night of staying later at work has thrown off all of the good "juju" that I built this past weekend with my two days of 10,000 steps plus.  

Ha! I look at what I have written, and I see almost 6 different topics.  How about a 7th?  I am aware of a deep longing in my throat, sitting right on top of the place where my clavicles meet my sternum - my sternal notch?  Or is that simply the spot where the grief in my heart is getting stuck?  And I am tired.  I need a vacation where I can cry until I can't anymore.  

And the thing that makes me the saddest right now?  I think - "Omigod - sister Evangeline is dead."  That feisty old nun on "Call the Midwife" has left a hole that is bigger than my heart can hold - I think because her death is only a reminder that all life passes.  All - and who - I know and and love will pass - some of it and them before me, and some of it and them long after I am already gone.  And what touches me most of that episode is how those remaining kept her with them - even after she was gone. 

And I start to cry, and then I yawn...and I giggle.  My body

does not seem to know whether to cry, yawn - or laugh!  Is my body so tired that it can't support a good cry - but yawns instead?  How weird is that?  

I miss my peeps - and when I say that, I am thinking about NYM.  And I'm not sure that I miss the people, as I do the "space."  And that

sort of brings me full circle to where I started, I think - with Quakers, and leaving home to journey home.  So, perhaps, all of those other ramblings were just a way to slow down (remember the first reading?) and help me try to grow a little deeper into this grief. 



Finding a home here won't assuage the grief - and still, perhaps it's time to settle in here, where my Spirit can
recognize something familiar and feel at home - even if invisible - among others.

I have left my home, to journey to a place that - perhaps - is supposed to be my home but does not yet feel like it.  That does not mean that I have to leave what my "home" has given me.  I can take it forward - from my familiar place, to this new one.  

And I am smiling...the only way to "break through" is to "sit in."  Another case of seeming opposites that must be held next and close to each other in my hands at the same time. 

The Buddha might say that I must let go of my attachment to these feelings to be free.    


What if I don't want to be free of them?  What if I am in love with the physical manifestation of my spirit here on this planet, and I am already grieving its loss before it's gone?  What if longing and heartache are simply a few reminders of how beautifully human we are, and what a joy it is to be on this planet at this time?  

And while I could easily be pulled into a discussion about how and when we leave this place, I won't...at least right now.  Better to stay smack in the middle of "holding" and "being" in a fused dichotomy.

It really is all one.