Rhythms of Sacred Time

                                                                                                                           Photo by Amy Luschen on Unsplash

There is a white-breasted blue jay out my window. Not a scrub jay, stellar jay, or grey jay—a blue jay. They were common enough where I grew up, but in Colorado, "regular old" blue jays are a special treat. He looks bright against the clear sky and crisp snow. 

Birds and trees draw me deeply into the joy of nature. The stillness of nature. The melancholy of nature. Like the flock of crows I stood silent under yesterday. The clouds were low and heavy, light snow was sifting down, and bird after black bird pressed his outline against the winter sky. 

Today I am reminded of that throng of birds as I listen to Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt. The piece begins with silence; it is somehow sparse and simultaneously spacious. Like the shades of white and grey and black yesterday. The limited light and colour pallet of the snowy day allowed for depth and detail one might miss on a bright day. It was solemn—grand and causing reflection—and expansive. The quiet of the fine, falling snow, the swish of wings—occasionally broken by the coarse cry of a crow, coming in wave after wave—and the weight of the clouds were all sparse and expansive in their own way. It was balm to my ragged, tired soul

The beginning of December feels like a marathon, trying to cram in long hours at work and  with people in every free evening. There are plans, plans, plans—and though they are enjoyable, the amount of scheduling and coordinating is exhausting. To tell the truth, I get very grumpy at this time of year. I don't even want to go to the events. I just want to curl up in my own home, light candles, listen to quiet music, and read Adventy things. But I rarely do that, because the evenings are full. 

Then, in creeps the resentment. I wrestle with this resentment of other people planning my schedule for me. What if I simply want to stay home and not rush, for once? I've tried this a few times, only to fill in the free nights with work or to have someone unexpectedly appear at my door. Indeed, I sabotage myself the most. Whether I stay home or go somewhere with a sigh and a "because I have to" feeling, it all comes from my perspective or perception. The reality is, I feel rushed because some part of me doesn't want to let others down or because I didn't employ good boundaries. I don't start with stopping, much of the time. And so, what should feel like a celebratory time feels like an exhausting rush.

The thing I've begun to see about time this year, as I consider the mo'edim (appointed times/seasons/days) is that I am not good at rhythms. I used to be. I used to have quiet time in the morning, used to go for walks before work, used to have margin. I began much more from stopping (Shabbat) and loved sacred celebrations (Sukkot). I also didn't work full time and knew fewer people in the area. . . which certainly meant there were more free hours in the week to employ contemplatively. 

How did I fall out of step in the Great Dance? When did I begin trying to fill every crevice of the week days with work and people, leaving no room for quiet space with God? I feel like Moses in Exodus eighteen, hearing the people from morning till evening. Rather than evening and morning it is backwards: morning and evening—not the rhythm given by God in Genesis one. So, how do I begin the evening before? How do I begin with Shabbat, stopping? What do I need to leave (Pesach)? And what do I need to learn to receive (Shavuot)?

Perhaps I need to take lessons from Spiegel im Spiegel, to begin with silence. To not fill every crevice in the music of daily life with 'noise' as it were. I need more silent space in my days and weeks. There are always podcasts, books, music, conversations, and more to fill each hour with sound. But what if I chose silence in those spaces? Silence on my walks? What if I chose not to multi-task all of the time? Inside my mind is screaming out, "So much would be left undone!" And I don't mean in the task sense. What would end up "undone" is conversations with people. And I think people are the most important beings in the universe, in life. Or do I?

I know I'm unhealthy when I feel like there is no room for people. But who do I decide to connect with, and who do I need to move on from? I have realised that I cannot possibly stay in touch with everyone I've met or known. Not unless I quit my job, and I have to be able to feed people when connecting with them! What if I'm ready to move on and let some relationships drift apart and the people on the other end want to hang on? 

Here is where I come back to resentment (a constant theme I've noticed in my adult life). When someone is trying to celebrate me specifically (or celebrate with me), but doesn't offer what I feel would be a greater gift (not having to get together yet another night), a wrestling match ensues within. I don't want to hurt someone's feelings (though I have, plenty of times!), but I also don't want to have to do something I don't feel like doing. At that point, I feel like I'm not appreciating the time and effort of another (definitely not okay in my value system), but I also feel like I'm not able to choose how I want to celebrate—so a boundary is broken and I feel stepped on or like my desires aren't respected.

Right about now anyone who might actually be reading this rambling of mine is probably thinking, "What the heck is your problem?! You have friends who want to spend time with you! That is a gift!" Well yes, it is. But sometimes what this actually feels like is: everyone wants a piece of me—to the point that I am so disintegrated that I don't exist anymore. I can't be me, I can't be a whole human, if I'm constantly pulled to pieces. I will be a snippy, snappy, no-good-to-anyone, resentful person if I keep getting pulled to pieces. And the older I get, the more people I know, and the more directions I feel pulled in. 

Since you can't sort out friends like you sort out your closet and take some of it to Goodwill, what is a person supposed to do? Some old friends, like a favourite sweater, you want to keep close. They are comfortable (even when they tell you to shape up) and cosy and just right for any season. But some old friends are like your favourite pair of jeans that have holes in unseemly places. They were great for a time, but some good things have a shorter lifespan than others. You can't keep holding on to the jeans hoping you can keep wearing them. But people...people are intrinsically infinitely more valuable than jeans. If you have tried the slow fade (not answering calls and e-mails as quickly) and have mentioned that life is going a different direction for you and they still hang on, there is friction—which happens to be rather uncomfortable. 

Discomfort isn't always a sign that you need to leave something or someone, it can be a sign of growth, too. But discerning between growth and death is difficult. A baby must grow in the womb to keep it safe, but if it stays too long, it will actually die. A snake must shed its skin to keep growing, and a butterfly must wrest its way out of the cocoon to strengthen and form its wings. Some relationships need to be grown out of, and some need to be adjusted. I often feel the snake reference when I am home with my parents. I love them dearly! But when I go home, I feel like I automatically am being stuffed back into that skin that is ten sizes too small for me now. I choose it; my parents sort of assume it; even family friends expect me to be that person I was. But I'm not that person. I don't fit in that skin. In fact, I am probably more like the caterpillar who has become the butterfly. Not only do I not fit in the cocoon, I'm a very different creature now! But I try to become a caterpillar again because I am back in the cocoon of my parents' home and their world/schedule. Yet I don't fit. And I don't fit in various friendships now, either. For some, I am ready to move on, even if the other people aren't.

On the flip side, there have been friendships I was loathe to lose. I wanted to go back to what we had (or continue it), even when they needed to move on and grow apart. I hated that! So I  do have compassion for the friends I have moved away from and the ones I'd like to step away from. However, I won't continue to be myself or the person that any of my friends like if I keep getting pulled to bits. When close friends begin telling me, "You seem really out of sorts or not like yourself," I know I'm in the downward spiral of being overwhelmed in every area of life. And when I don't feel like celebrating what should be celebrated (or lamenting what should be lamented), I know I'm disintegrating. When I can't feel happiness or sadness, something is terribly wrong, I've been terribly "busy"—unable to connect with myself, but more, unable to connect with God, who puts me back together again when I've begun to splinter.

It is what feels like a lack of time that causes this decay in me. When I think of sacred time and the rhythms of the mo'edim, I feel envious when I see other people living in a place of sacred abundance or holy celebration. I want the quiet space to journal and read poetry and Scripture. That is part of the celebration of any season, but especially during Lent and Advent. I want to begin with stopping—re-creating and being re-created by God. I want to give of myself, my time, my creativity (of which there is none when I'm fractured), my finances, and my hospitality—but I can't give to everyone. And perhaps I un-discerningly choose the wrong people to give to, so that I have nothing left for my old friends... But I want to give to those on the fringes, who often feel unseen, how do I see them and also see my old friends? 

I believe I need to leave my broken way of seeing. I begin to realise that I am seeing the land of abundance as if it were the land of lack. I am seeing the Promised Land as if it were Egypt. I'm seeing a blessing as if it were a curse—and so it becomes a curse to me. I want to receive the gifts God gives as though there were the good He intended—whether it is the gift of time, the gift of friendship, the gift of silence, the gift of space (all of which must be stewarded well); or the gift of lack (which leads me to need God), the gift of small spaces (that I might learn to be myself where I thought I had to be someone else), and the gift of noise (which makes me grateful for the silence and stillness when I am able to receive them).

And now I return to birds—the swift-flying crows, the brilliant blue jay, the cheery little nuthatches I often see on the scrub oaks. . . Birds are a sign of fecundity and a symbol of freedom. Perhaps I am drawn to them, inspired by them, because I long for life and liberty. Not the "liberty" that is really license (doing whatever I want), but of the true freedom that comed from breaking out of one skin to be contained in the next skin. Snakes don't stop being snakes when they shed their skin, they simply grow bigger. A caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly, but it would not be free to really be a butterfly if it continued to use only its legs (like a caterpillar) and never its wings. Likewise, I want to be free to be myself, the human God made me to be, which means I have limits and boundaries, but there is an expansive freedom within those boundaries... Like a doorway limits the size of what can go through it, but on the other side there may be rolling fields and open skies for those who can go through.

“Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

In this bright hour...even the mountains know you're gone

Dear Aaron,

Gloaming has always been my favourite time of day, even since I was a small child. The words gloaming and twilight have a romantic, magical air to them. Dusk brings with it certain smells, a slowing down, a stillness, a place for pondering and reflecting.


I never knew the dusk could seem so sad,
an empty aching in my soul.
In this bright hour I speak your name in the wind,
the shining world outlasts us all.

Unlike the author of this song, I know about dusk: it can wring my heart of many tears. Dusk is when I slow down enough to listen to my thoughts, my heart, and the Holy Spirit. . .Especially in the Spring through the Autumn, when I can sit on my porch as the light fades. In this bright hour, fading from colour to grey, the ache permeates my soul. Not a throb, not a piercing pain. . .a continual ache. Like arthritis, steady and dull, but very present.

How many evenings have I whispered into this gloaming that I miss you? And how many hours in years past did I sit at my desk or on the porch, grasping for the last light of day to see by as I wrote to you? The smell of Spring and fresh turned earth makes me think of evenings spent reading poems until I couldn't see the words on the page. Poems we discussed, and at least one that you memorised, reciting it on my voicemail. How heartbroken I am not to have that voicemail still.


Even the mountains seem to know you're gone,
the foothills shimmer where they stand.
The sky is still and much too beautiful,
and I am missing you again.

In the quiet, as the mountain turns from rose to periwinkle-grey, I feel a profound sense of loss and loneliness. I miss you so much it hurts. There are times when I get alternately sad and angry that you never came back to Colorado. Never saw my home. Never drank tea with me on my porch. That we never climbed a mountain together after Semester. Why? Why do I miss you so much? After all these years, why is the pain still there, strong and sharp?


I think of songs I might have sung to you,
the love I wanted you to hear.
Every time the blazing sun goes down,
another promise disappears.

I never knew the dusk could break my heart,
so much longing folding in,
I'd give years away to have you here,
to know I can't lose you again.

Maybe the answer lies in the longing. . . We were friends, good friends, for years. Then it all began to crumble. Your letters grew shorter and fewer. Sure, things change, life gets busy wherever you are—I understand. But it wasn't that. That has happened to me before. This was different. You changed. And when I saw you for the final time, you left me when I wasn't the person you wanted me to be. I wasn't someone else, I was me. . .and that wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. I can't pretend that I didn't cry, that it didn't hurt to have you reject me and abandon me. But for years I'm not sure that even I understood why it hurt so much.

Some part of me loved you in a way that I didn't expect. Yes, I loved you at first as that quirky kid from Rhode Island, and then as my dear friend. But is it possible that the severing of our friendship hurt and continues to hurt because some other love mixed itself into my heart? We often fall in love with someone wholly unobtainable, even spurning those within our reach. Is that it? But no, I think it was and is more than that, but I learned it too late and I regret it bitterly.

So much longing folds in, I'd give years away to have you here, to know I can't lose you again. To give up years to be with someone you love sounds worth it. But how many other people that we love would we miss time with if we could barter that way? I can't go back and reach out more than I already did once upon a time. I can't undo mental illness. I can't undo my life choices, and I certainly can't undo yours. I can't have another shot at being friends, at being anything more than that. And I wish to God that I could. But we can't live in the past, and we can't undo it. Even though I know that's true, it doesn't stop the pain, even as I try to live here and now, knowing what I know. We can't buy more time with our lost loved ones, but we can invest in those we love now.


Help me remember the San [Juans], the foothills burning in the light.
Let my heart rise up to where you are, I long to be with you tonight.

Of course I do. I long to be with you tonight in the Kingdom. I long for all of us to be free from death and its severing, searing pain. I am both angry and envious that you are there without me. That you don't have to watch person after person you love die. But I am not angry at you, and that makes a great deal of difference. 

I miss who you were. I miss who I was. Sometimes I wish I could somehow go back to who I was when we first met, yet also know all that I know now. I know myself better now, and though I have a deeper experiential knowing of God and Life, I miss the person I was. . .The girl who loved poetry and saw light and all those little birds. The person who had time upon time to write, to walk, to listen. I miss loving every little thing about life, delighting in every Beauty, no matter how small or grand. And somehow, I feel like that part of me began to die when I lost your friendship. It was like a light went out; like all of the connections my heart and mind could make between Beauty and reality got scattered and broken.

Sometimes, when I whisper into the blue-grey of the evening, "I miss you, friend" I am also missing me. Do I think that if I could find you I could find myself? No. But I think that if I could find you, you might awaken something asleep in me, maybe even resurrect something long dead. You had a gift, my friend. And you left some of that gift infused in this world and inside of my soul—but so much of it went with you when you left. Does the world know what it's missing? How could we know what we don't have? And yet. . .I often long for what I never had. I often grieve what never was. I know that you are gone. . .Even the mountains seem to know that. In this bright hour I speak your name into the wind, and remember that the shining world outlasts us all.

Angel Fire by Fernando Ortega and Elaine Rubenstein

The Fullness of Rest

LORD

Here I am

Empty

Please fill me

with Your Spirit

I am hungry

for Your word

Increase

my self with 

You

LORD

I am not

Still

I strive inside

and You wait

for me to

Cease

to rest in

You

LORD 

Gift me Your 

Mercy

Christ have mercy

Grant me Your

Peace

Fill me with

Yourself

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

“Empty space tends to create fear. As long as our minds, hearts, and hands are occupied we can avoid confronting the painful questions, to which we never gave much attention and which we do not want to surface. 'Being busy' has become a status symbol, and most people keep encouraging each other to keep their body and mind in constant motion. From a distance, it appears that we try to keep each other filled with words and actions, without tolerance for a moment of silence.” 1

—Henri J. M. Nouwen

On a breezy, rainy evening a few weeks ago, I sat on my porch, thinking. It was too dark to read or write, too Beautiful to do anything but sit still in the ferocious gloaming. It was an evening empty of plans—a dangerous thing for one's thoughts. On such occasions, I tend to corner my thoughts and make them own up to what is lurking behind various façades. This particular evening, I had a sore head, having hit a soft spot on a metal beam at work that day. Without warning, my thoughts strayed to the fear of my own mortality.

I have vaguely considered that 'one day' I will die, and I am not afraid of what lies beyond this life. . .But this was different. I came nose-to-nose with the reality that I am mortal, terminal. Fear bristled in my head, blossomed in my heart. Why, I could easily fall on the uneven stairs leading to my cabin and hit my head. I could be incapacitated for life—or even die. All it takes is a moment—a wrong step, not looking twice in my car mirrors—suddenly all of my vitality is shown its frailty.

Fear spread its talons in my thoughts, surging on to think of my parents, now in their sixties. My parents are not immortal. Tears pricked my eyes. I will not borrow trouble! I told myself. I began to tell God my fears, not to give them a rigid reality, but to name the fears so they could be defeated. Yes, I am temporal, I could die on my stairs or in my bathtub or whilst driving—but the possibility of death is not going to stop me from living. You may breathe a sigh of relief, I still plan to shower. . . And to walk to work, drive my car, and hike as I please.

Rather than allowing fear to paralyse me, I choose to let it galvanise me—to dare to live life. In the face of fear I have fresh appreciation for hearing my parents' voices, in giving thanks for my beating heart. I will not live in fear's shadow, I will not allow it to dog my steps. I will enjoy this evening's sunset, this summer's wildflowers, this hour of thinking and writing. Daily I take it for granted that I will awake in the morning; that my heart will keep beating—even if I forget that it does so and don't remind it to keep on. In this instant I am thankful for this organ that circulates my blood, that allows oxygen to flow to my brain so I can think of the right words to pen.

The fears and questions I often push down with daily tasks, with reading copious amounts of Harry Potter, with unceasing strains of music—these questions and fears surface in empty moments. I am the one who chooses the still evening on the porch, to sit under a tree on my walk and marvel at the burnished clouds. But I am not the one who brings to mind the thoughts, the fears. Those come unbidden. The fears of being alone or not being enough. The questions about why I chase freedom or attention from various individuals. Questions I cannot answer—like why I still crave sin when I know it doesn't satisfy. I would rather avoid “confronting the painful questions”, the craven fears—but if silence is part of my life, I cannot stop them coming.

It is here, in the stillness, that I disagree with one word in Nouwen's quotation: create. Empty space does not create fear, it only gives it the time and place to bob up in the stream of our thoughts. I can distract myself at work, around others, with my reading and correspondence—but not in the silence. Our culture is one that fears silence first, because from it, deeper fears arise. Yet how can any of us meet our fears head on with truth, with life, with hope if we suppress those petrifying questions? We must allow silence in our lives in order to know the fears and questions that motivate or manipulate our actions. Only then can we confront fear with truth and life. I find, indeed, that the antidote to fear truly is the perfect love of God giving me courage to live, to do, and to make room for stillness.

____________________

1. Nouwen, Henri J. M., Reaching Out (New York, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group) 73

Cross posted at Conciliar Post and Humane Pursuits

Reflection or Merely Recounting?

[Advent Week 1 - Posted a bit late]

The season of "Here is what I did this year" letters is upon us. Yes, most people call them 'Christmas letters' but they are more truly year-in-review letters. I am not guiltless of this practise when replying to long-overdue e-mails or letters, but I try to have the decency of not calling those communications 'Christmas letters' either. A Christmas letter ought to be about Christ, whom we remember became man at one specific point in history. Whether it was in December or April or some other month I really do not care. We pick the busiest time of year for reflection on this point of truth, so I plan to reflect on it. 

Perhaps this time of year is the busiest because the enemy of our souls despises stillness and reflection upon Jesus. If there are more and more Christmas parties and stresses and less and less meditating on Christ, that enemy is accomplishing his underhanded goal: distracting us from setting our eyes where they ought to be. We need to see Christ, not ourselves, our busy lives, or our accomplishments. Paradoxically, the more we set our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, the more clear and correct is our view of ourselves. 

Those year-in-review letters that so many of us write focus on our highlights, sometimes our low points, and rather useless information about our corporal man which is passing away. That is all merely recounting. Real reflection is not that at all. Reflection is 'looking back' on the blessing God has given, on the lessons He is teaching, and seeing His strength and hope bringing you through your darkest moments. In short, reflection is seeing the Glory of God shining back to Him through yourself in circumstances and quiet moments. How do we know that reflection if we are not focussed firstly on the real, the true image of God, Jesus Christ?

So, in the busiest season of the year let us strive to make time for stillness and solitude daily. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, who is before (both 'prior to' in history, and 'ahead of' as an example) us. Let us know Him as He IS, so that we might reflect His glory and His image.

~ johanna

Solitude

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” 

~ Blaise Pascal, Pensées

Evidenced by the fact that I began to listen to music  directly after typing that quotation. How quickly I forget that Beauty most often finds one in stillness. How readily I push aside God's messages delivered by silence and solitude. 

The whole world clamours and clangs with noise. Even our eyes are assaulted by 'visual noise' - billboards, skyscrapers and 1960s apartment buildings, badly hung Christmas lights, vulgar lawn ornaments, and the like. There is the disarray of 'stuff' all 'round us. Rather than making our lives better, 'stuff' can simply clutter our homes and gardens, as well as our thoughts. Many persons attest to being unable to think or study well in a messy area, myself included. 

Visual chaos and the din of television, films, iPods, et cetera almost constantly fill our minds or blunt our senses. "What of it?" one might ask. Think for a moment of what you do when you go for a walk or run. Do you put in earbuds? Talk on the phone? When you sit down at your desk or kitchen table, do you pull out your smart phone, computer, or a book? Can you fall asleep without music? Do you ever simply look out the window and think in silence?

Outside my window tiny white faeries flutter and float, flurry and fall. Trying to watch individual flakes makes me nearly dizzy, they are coming so quickly. There is something calming about snow, or a blanket of fog. Both give a covering of quiet to ponder, to let the thoughts we push away with noise come forth from their banishment: Do I have what it takes to be a man? Will anyone ever love me for who I am? What am I here for? Do I even make a difference? Is living any better than dying? What if so-and-so dies? How will I support myself when I am older? What will happen if other people find out how little I really know? Am I just faking it through life? Who is God? Is God really real, is He really there? Does God care about me? Why would He? Who am I, behind this skin and those eyes in the mirror - who is this I inside? 

In solitude and stillness I realise I have more questions than answers. Sure, I have a vague idea of how to answer some of the above questions. However, if I spent an hour thinking about Who God is, I might find how little I actually know Him. I know about Him, and in small degrees I know Him, as a person knows another person early on in a friendship. But do I truly know Him? 

When faced with thoughts about family or friends dying, I try to push them aside - usually successfully. It is too hard, too painful to think of them actually being gone from this life. Likewise, I am accomplished at ignoring thoughts about the future state of our government,  how long my bank account will be worth something, or where I will be in ten, twenty, or thirty years. I do not like depressing thoughts, yet sometimes I really do have to face them. Sometimes the pain from 'out there' comes 'in here'. The brokenness of the fall is not just for other people. I, too, experience the fall in my own circle of friends, in my own family, in my own life, in my own body.

Solitude brings these thoughts to the surface, rather rapidly, in fact. No wonder Pascal said that a man is unable to sit in a room quietly and alone. We want to be distracted from the questions  we cannot answer, the thoughts we do not like. We do not want to think about how far we fall short. We hide from rejection and loss. We block it all out with constant music (degrading the worth of music to mere background noise), non-stop communication, and busy-ness.

Have you been running away from your thoughts? Are you ignoring God's arms wide open to you by running the course of the noisy world? When was the last time you sat down to listen to God? Do you often (or ever) turn your phone, music, and computer off completely? Have you taken a walk in silence recently? When was the last time you faced your thoughts rather than fleeing them? How about practising solitude today... Right now.

~ Johanna