last night at the lenten service pTom spoke about a wisdom that had touched and stayed with him through the years. i found it profound in its simplicity and wrote it down when we got home after rehearsals.
“don’t just do something. stand there.”
mmm. how often i feel compelled to ‘do something’. someone i used to know often said (in moments of impatience), “do something. anything. even if it’s wrong.”
doing something avoids sitting IN it, whatever IT is. it avoids being in the time of sorrow, the time of grief, the time of confusion, the time of anger. it allows you to step out of the moment. it gives you permission to step out of the moment. it gives you excuses (albeit well-intentioned) for not being in the moment.
now maybe that is a good thing, sometimes. those moments you know that it will only serve you poorly to stay in the frustration, stay in the anger, stay in the weirdness of an off-moment. those moments may be only asking for trouble and moving into the Next is healthier. but staying in the strife, in the sadness, in the confusion also gives you a chance to feel it. to maybe try and sort it. i am guilty of trying, sometimes, to sort too much. the perils of being emotional, being mushy. too empathic at times, it is hard for me to separate what i am feeling from what someone else is feeling that i am picking up. i am given to wanting to fix moments like that.
but i’ve learned i’d rather sit with someone in their moment than exit the building when they need someone else to be there. it’s not in my saying-something. it’s in my being-there. and i’m not ego-centric enough to think that it’s ME being there…it’s SOMEONE being there. another person. someone who thinks and feels and can hold a hand and just be quiet.
phil vassar has a song called “stand still”…i love this. (and…side-note…it’s wonderful to dance to). “stand still. i’m right where i wanna be…holding you in the middle of the moment of my life. the way i feel i don’t care what’s in front of me or what’s behind. i just wanna stop the wheel and stand still.”
in Now. standing there. not doing anything. just being. what better gift can we give to people? to ourselves? my favorite moments are not the big ones. they are the teeny ones where i feel present. where i get this huge rush of happy or satisfied or intense sadness or enormous gratitude. where i catch my breath. where the world stops for a second (even though it doesn’t) and reminds me that i am here. right now. living this second. hopefully doing the best i can. always learning. always growing. always feeling the presence of God and this universe full of everything we can count on and nothing we can count on. always held in grace.
heidi quoted to me this morning from a compendium inc. book, “scientists have discovered that there is no limit to your amazingness.”(not verbatim)
no limit. to amazingness. yours and what you bring. to the amazingness of the moment. a moment standing still in a giant spectrum of possible emotion.
“i just wanna stop the wheel and stand still.”
i walked into the bathroom this morning and it greeted me. the scent of my sweet momma’s favorite perfume – estee lauder’s pleasures. it took me by surprise, making me stop suddenly. i stood still. i looked around, thinking maybe there was some other reason for this beautiful wafting ghost of perfume lingering in the air. i could see no other reason, no cause of any scent into which i might have meandered. so i stood there.
the snow, having survived the wind and driving snow. vivid color. in heavy boots, bulky coats, long underwear, double gloves and earmuffs we set out. we weren’t far into our hike when we realized that we were the first out on the trail since the snow. first after the deer. first after the rabbits and tiny birds that had hopped across the path. first after whatever animal it was that made enormous tracks in the snow. longer than his boot, these tracks kept us company for a long way, meandering in and out of the brush, in and out of the woods. we wondered aloud what it was. we quietly pondered that these woods were not ours. they are home to beautiful creatures, big and small. creatures that depend on the turning of the seasons, the sun, the warmth, the snow, the rain, the ecologic responsibility of those of us who are out there, for a bit of time, with them.
mostly, i was bowled over by the fact that we were the first people to walk out there since it had snowed. the trail through the prairie glittered in the sun and in the woods, the trees reflected majesty on the snowy path. we were first; we weren’t first. but to make the first people-tracks in the snow…to know that in at least the last 36 hours or so, no one else had walked there…something about that was humbling. hugely grateful for the universe in all its goodness, in that place of quiet-quiet, that space of pristine clear that single digit temperatures make possible, the smell of sun in our hair, i was struck by our smallness. four footprints in the snow, walking together, side by side. hand in hand. on trails. through the woods. in life. that’s really it – four footprints. each set of prints count. each stride counts. each breathless moment that we get to breathe counts. now counts. now is the only thing that really counts, the only thing that really is.
reverse threading 