A Rule of Life in Turbulent Times: Thursday's Reflection

The temptations are many and oh, so available --  24 hour news and commentaries on all our devices. 

We want to know what is happening, minute by minute, and we want to know what those in the know are thinking. And it is important to be informed, for these are turbulent times.

But how do we manage our day-to day lives during the turmoil? How do we maintain some equanimity in the swirl of the outrage so many of us feel?

Periodically, many of you have taken sabbaticals from the news or at least have prescribed a diet for yourselves, and that has been a good thing. That may have included not checking your phone for the latest reports the minute you wake up in the morning and the last thing before you go to bed. Perhaps, instead of having MSNBC or CNN turned on all day, you have limited your media time. And maybe you have agreed with family and friends to maintain a moratorium on politics during the dinner hour. 

All that has been good, but now...NOW we seem to be entering a new time, and the temptations are even more compelling. 

Here's a suggestion: Get up brush your teeth and make your bed. As you pull up the sheets, and blankets, and comforter, and fluff the pillows, give thanks for the night's rest, for the gift of another day and your ability to be in the day. Look out the bedroom window and give thanks for the sun that rises, the seasons that change our view, and the air that supports us. 

Too simplistic? Maybe, but now more than ever we need guidelines for living our lives. The monastics, such as the Benedictines, call it a Rule of Life that helps us "put and keep God at the center of everything we do." (Living Faith Day By Day, How the Sacred Rules of Monastic Traditions Can Help You Live Spiritually in the Modern World by Debra k. Farrington) If "rule" is too negative of a term, Farrington says, substitute "way of life," for example. 

A Rule of Life is not meant to trip us up or confine us or keep us ignorant or sheltered from what is happening in the world. Instead, a rule helps us create a balanced life, one in which the key relationship is with the Divine. That relationship when tended produces clarity, enhances energy, and opens our hearts. 

A Rule of Life encompasses all areas of our life--work, study, care of our body, hospitality and relationships, our spiritual community, and our citizenship and ways of seeking justice in the world. A Rule of Life encourages mindfulness--how we live and move in the world and how we reflect the movement of God in our lives. 

So what does making your bed have to do with a Rule of Life--beyond being a responsible hometender? When I make the bed, I announce to myself and to God my openness to another day, my intention to live purposefully and gratefully in that day. And then no matter what happens in the day, I have moved forward in at least one way. 

I will listen to the news carefully today, but not all day. 
I will read reports from The Washington Post and the New York Times, but I will not check my emails constantly.
I am sure I will check with others in my life about their reactions to the news, but I will also want to know how they are and what is happening in their lives that is sustaining and growth-giving. 
And I will maintain time for meditation and devotion. I will walk in the morning, delighting in the signs of fall. I will try to be present to the needs of others, as I try to listen to the voice of God within. 

I will attempt to nurture my spirit. 

An Invitation
If you feel pulled into today's turbulence,  how might you restore some balance in your life? I would love to know. 

NOTE: At the risk of seeming contradictory to what I have written in this post, I offer a resource that helps me process the news and also offers positive action steps, along with a range of links for further study. The resource is an email newsletter written by Robert Hubbell, an attorney in California. You can only receive this by sending your personal email, not a business or workplace address, to rbhubbell@gmail.com I urge you to subscribe--you can easily unsubscribe if it doesn't appeal. Give it a try. 

Create Community: Tuesday's Reflection

I spotted this sign while walking through my neighborhood. It was tucked in a garden near the sidewalk. Unassuming, as truths often are. I sent a kiss and a blessing to the homeowners whose sign it is before I continued my stroll. 

I invite you to read the words on this sign. 

Do so contemplatively. Read them more than once. Ask yourself, "What am I currently doing to build community? What else can I do to create community right here, right now?"

I love that this sign offers concrete steps to build community--none of them massive, but each one meaningful, especially when combined with an open heart. Perhaps that is the key anyway. An open heart.

What are you doing to expand your heartfulness? 

I suspect as you practice open-hearted living and loving, you will just naturally create a more vibrant and inclusive community, and as you practice community building, your heart will grow bigger and stronger. 


Our last hymn in church on Sunday was "We are Called" by David Haas. I love the refrain:
            We are called to live with justice.
            We are a called to love tenderly.
            We are called to walk humbly with God.

And may I add, "We are called to open our hearts and create community." 

An Invitation
What will you do to enhance your community? I would love to know. 

Life's Little Anxieties: Thursday's Reflection

I felt that familiar twinge of tightening in my belly. I held my breath as I checked what I hoped would be the correct squares. Each square where a car was pictured. I moved the cursor over the word "verify," and hit it.

Yea! I got them all correct. I am not a robot! 

Does anyone else feel some test anxiety when you sign up for a blog and have to prove you are not a robot by identifying all the traffic lights or palm trees or whatever? Or when you renew your driver's license? Are you nervous you won't pass the eye exam? 

What are the little things, the silly things that cause you to feel anxious. Not in a major way, like waiting for the results of medical tests, for example, but rather the little irritating anxieties that poke at you.

An example: I have been asked to officiate at a wedding in October. The daughter of a dear friend. Am I nervous? Not really. I have been thinking about my homily and am quite sure I will be able to write something appropriate and perhaps even meaningful. I met with the lovely couple again recently and now have a good sense of the flow for the ceremony and so am not concerned about that. What bothers me, however, is WHAT WILL I WEAR? I stand in my closet and stare. I page through catalogs that come to the house and look online, too. No one will be looking at me, anyway, but the "right" outfit will make me feel more at ease. 

Another example: Our 50th college class reunion is coming up, and we have each agreed to be on one of the planning committees. (Bruce and I both graduated from St Olaf in 1970.) One of the things I know about my introverted self is that having a role reduces my anxiety, so being on a committee is a good thing. However, I am anxious about writing the autobiographical statement. When the instructions arrived last week, I was relieved by the November 15th deadline. Good, I will have time to write and rewrite. And rewrite again. But then, thanks to an email from the committee chair, I discovered those of us on the communications committee need to complete our profiles before a meeting on September 25th. Oh no!!! 

What else raises my anxiety level? 
* Being on time, but not too early.
* Finding parking in a busy or unknown area. Come to think of it some parking ramps make me nervous and please, I don't want to parallel park! 
* Paying bills. 
* Fixing the Thanksgiving Day turkey.
* Making phone calls. Texting and emails were made for me! 

See what I mean? These are minor anxieties.  Still, even though often trivial, they capture my attention and take away time and energy from more important things in my life. When I am anxious about something, I lose focus. I forget to be present to the gifts of the moment. 

In most of these cases I am able to laugh at myself. Laughing, by the way, requires breathing, and often that is what I most need to do. Breathe, Nancy, just breathe. 

Of course, over the span of my life, as is true for everyone, there have been larger, more major reasons to feel anxiety. And I know there will be more ahead. Perhaps, these minor anxieties invite me to practice ways to cope and to learn how to respond in healthier, more life-enhancing ways. One thing is for sure, they are prickly reminders of my humanity! 

An Invitation
What causes you minor anxiety? I would love to know. 

Connections: Tuesday's Reflection

Spillville
Text by Patricia Hampl
Engravings by Steven Sorman

This summer Patricia Hampl spoke at the Memorial Service for Melissa Sorman, Steve Sorman's wife. We have known the Sorman family for many years. Bruce knew Melissa from college days and later when he was in family practice he delivered their daughter Clare. We were living in Ohio when Melissa and Steve moved to New York, and one night they stayed with us. I have a vague memory of us at the dining room table, but that's about it. A long time ago!

I can't believe Melissa is gone. 

This past weekend we went to a gallery opening in Red Wing. Steve is an internationally acclaimed artist with work in museums throughout the world, and how lovely it was to see a roomful of his work. When we checked in with him and gently (I hope) asked him how he was doing, he said, "I'm not lonely, but I am so alone."

I caught a glimpse of Patrica Hampl across the room, too, and I thought to myself, "That's something she might say in one of her books." 

I have an Ohio memory about Trish (I always think of her as "Trish," although I think only close friends call her that.) as well. I was in our farmhouse kitchen. As always, I had the radio tuned to Cleveland Public Radio and heard that Hampl was going to be on the Diane Rehm Show broadcast from Washington DC. I decided to call-in to the show and tell a story about Hampl. Much to my delight, I was selected to tell my story on air. 

Here's the story: Hampl was a frequent and much loved customer at Odegard Books in St Paul where I worked at the time. One night she asked all of us on duty to help her select the title for her new book. Her editor was pressuring her. She recited several possibilities, and we voted for A Romantic Education, and, in fact, that became the title. When the book was released, Dan Odegard, who along with his then wife Michele were the owners, handed out copies of the book to each of us on staff. We were so excited to have been part of the development of the book. Of course, we had a big booksigning for her. Hampl seemed so touched by the story when I told it during the program. 

Back to Spillville. After the service for Melissa, I decided to re-read Spillville, which is about the time the composer Antonin Dvorak and his family spent in Spillville, Iowa.  The summer of 1893. Spillville was a Czech settlement. Melissa had encouraged Hampl and her husband to collaborate on a project, and this was the result, a book published in 1987 by Milkweed Editions, a Minneapolis publishing house.  

One day last week I camped out in the snug, thanks to a de-energizing cold, and re-read Spillville, cover to cover, and now I yearn to re-read A Romantic Education and Virgin Time and her newest The Art of the Wasted Day. Her essay, " Memory and Imagination" in I Could Tell You Stories is mentioned in every class on memoir writing I have ever taken it seems, and it is a wonder. In my library her books sit right next to Maxine Hong Kingston's Warrior Woman and my collection of journals by May Sarton. When it is time to disperse my shelves of books, those titles will remain. I'm just saying! 


Steve's engravings in the book are simple and sensuous. Flowing and full of intersections, and Trish's words lead me on pilgrimages through known and unknown memories and places and connections. I wander the Iowa roads with Trish and the Sormans, including little Clare, and this time I noticed what I might not have when I first read the book in 1987. Thoughts about immigration that seem just as relevant today-- as a form of "banishment. A reference to cilantro, and I am quite sure at that time I had never heard of cilantro and never ate it, and now I grow it in my little herb garden. In the acknowledgements a list of familiar authors from Minnesota--people who used to come into the bookstore or I had met in other ways, like Christina Baldwin. I blame (and honor) her for the bins of my journals stacked in a storage closet. What will become of those? 

"I don't make things up on purpose; it's the desire for accuracy that causes me to see these details, Hampl writes. (p. 83) and earlier

                 The paradox: there can be no pilgrimage
                 without a destination, but the destination is also
                 not the real point of the endeavor. Not the destination,
                 but the willingness to wander in pursuit characterizes
                 pilgrimage. Willingness to hear the tales along the
                 way...That's pilgrimage--a mind full of journey.

My mind was full of journey as I read: Being on a walking tour of F. Scott Fitzgerald landmarks in St Paul and the guide pointing out where Trish lived; reading a section of A Romantic Education to my long ago journal group and how they asked me to read it aloud again and then we sat in silence; walking in our old neighborhood wondering if Trish and other writers, maybe even Fitzgerald, had ever walked past our house; thinking about my present day self sitting in my garret writing, attempting to open to my own pilgrimages of thought and feeling. 

Friday afternoon I attended the monthly writing session at Wisdom Ways led by Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, and the topic was "Making Connections." She encouraged us to be receptive to "unexpected connections." She believes that doing that in our writing opens us to making connections in the rest of our life too. This is not about nostalgia or staying stuck in the past. Instead, how can connecting the past to present lead us into a new way of living and being now and in the future? Connections that are healing and inspiring and expanding. 

 "Don't try to force connections. Let them resonate, " Andrew says.

They are all part of the pilgrimage, I say. And I'm still on the path.

An Invitation
What connections between past and where your current place on the pilgrimage are appearing in your life now? I would love to know. 

Links
 Patricia Hampl 
Steven Sorman
Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
Wisdom Ways

Taking Care of Yourself, Part 2, Thursday's Reflection

When I wrote my post for Tuesday, September 10, I had no idea I would write Taking Care of Myself, Part 2! 

Today I need to take care of myself in a different way. I have a crummy cold. You know the kind--the sniffles and snorts, the wheezing and the nose-wiping, the coughs and crankiness, the sneezes and the short-attention span. You get the picture! 

Colds do end. Energy levels come back to normal. Soon I will be able to function more than a half day, but not today.

Colds require setting priorities. What do I most need to do today and can I accomplish that in a half day? 

Is this a foretaste of the things to come as I add on more years? Instead of sustaining a full day of productivity, perhaps I will need to adjust to a half-day and fill my glass only half-full. That is not easy for me to think about because I love all the things I get to do. Ideas and projects continue to sprout all round me and in many ways this stage of my life feels like my most productive and creative time.  

Perhaps having a cold is a way to practice the time ahead when the energy level is not the same as the desire to DO. 

So today I am practicing BEING in the second half of the day. 

An Invitation
What is your DOING part of the day teaching you about BEING? I would love to know. 

Taking Care of Myself: Tuesday's Reflection

When we lived on Sweetwater Farm in Ohio, one of my favorite activities was to get in the car and explore country roads. I drove past Amish farms and waved to children playing softball or to mother's hanging wash on clotheslines. I headed towards the Amish farmstead where a young boy sold me yet another jar of honey, along with vegetables and flowers. 



When we lived in Madison, WI, I followed back roads to  neighboring small towns. One town, Spring Green, is home to one of my favorite bookstores, Arcadia Books, and another, Mt Horeb, has a small cafe with the best quiche ever. Made with real cream, for sure. In the fall I made sharp right or left hand turns when I saw signs saying "Pumpkins For Sale." 


In Ohio we lived in the country ourselves and even though we lived in an urban area in Madison, it didn't take long to be out in the country. As much as I love our life in St Paul, I miss getting in the Jeep and going who knows where. 

One day this summer Bruce and I, along with grandson Peter, went to the Belwin Conservancy near Afton, MN, a surprisingly quick and easy 30 minute drive. We went there to see a herd of buffalo moved to the restored prairie there for a summer residency. I was stunned by the beauty of the area and how quickly we got there. 





I tucked away the thought, "I could come here and walk the trails." 

And that's what I did last week. 


I googled directions, put on my walking shoes, emptied a few essentials from my purse into a backpack, grabbed a bottle of water, and my "Girls on Safari" hat, and off I went. In thirty minutes I was there and on a trail, where I walked for 40 minutes or so and then in another 30 minutes home, congratulating myself for my spontaneity.





And for discovering a way I could meet a need, something I long for--not everyday, but sometimes. 











Bruce and I love to wander together. In fact, the next day we drove down along the Mississippi on the Wisconsin side and then home on the Minnesota side, stopping at Frontenac State Park with its glorious views of the river. But I know I need to give myself those roaming times on my own, too. Not often, but now and then. Now I know where to go. In the winter I will take my snowshoes. 




I felt renewed, restored. Awake. Uncluttered and unmuddled. Grateful and blessed. 

I felt more like myself. 

An Invitation
What landscape calls to your inner self, and how can you give yourself that gift? I would love to know.

My Spiritual Memoir: Thursday's Reflection

One day earlier this week I spent the whole day working on my spiritual memoir. 

That kind of spaciousness doesn't happen very often. However, this summer I changed my routine and wrote first thing in the morning. Just for a couple hours most days, but sometimes even less. No matter what else was scheduled or whatever else happened during the day, at least I made room for some writing time.

Earlier in the year I declared 2019 to be the "Year of Part II." My memoir is structured into three parts with about eight chapters in each part. Part I is done--until the next phase of revision--and I decided to give myself plenty of time to live within Part II.

To be totally truthful, however, I had hoped to put Part II to rest by the beginning of summer. That definitely did not happen. 

The summer was full--aren't they always--and I didn't have the sense I was making lots of progress or being very productive, but amazingly, I revised several chapters and even wrote a brand new chapter. Writing a rough draft is the hardest part of writing for me. 

My writing group met infrequently this summer, but each time we met I read a chapter to them, and the feedback I received was helpful and often positive. I admit I was disappointed when they sent me back to my laptop to revise yet again one of the chapters, but they were right. Oh so right! The next time I read that chapter to them, they agreed, "That's it!" Just what a writer wants to hear. 

Back to yesterday. 

I "finished" the last chapter of Part II. True, I haven't read it to my writing group yet. That will happen later this month. Even if they suggest more work, deeper work, I know the Year of Part II is coming to an end. 

What's next? Part III, of course. And my sense is that Part III will require the rest of this year and perhaps all of 2020. I am comfortable with that.

So what have I learned? 

Whatever time given to this project is time given to the project and not something else. And no matter how small the increments devoted to writing, eventually there are paragraphs and pages and chapters and whole big sections. Eventually, there will be completed manuscript.

This is not rocket science, but I needed to learn this for myself. In fact, I need to keep relearning it. Would I like to have more days like the one this week when the only task on my list other than making supper and taking a walk and a few important emails was to write? Yes, of course, but I have learned to use the time I have. Some days I have time beyond the initial early morning time--bonus time--and I have learned to dive right in for 30 minutes or an hour or longer, instead of whining that I don't have two or three hours. 

I am so grateful for the flow I have in my life right now. I flow between my writing, meeting with spiritual directees, and the volunteer tasks I do for our church, along with space for family and friends, reading time and rest. Each part of this flowing stream nurtures the other parts, and adds to the meaning and pleasures in my life.

I don't question how long this rhythm will be present or possible in my life, but for right now I am enjoying the view.

An Invitation
What project is waiting for you? I would love to know. 

Memories: Tuesday's Reflection

Meet Bennett. He is the almost one year old son of our niece Stephanie and her husband Justin. Pretty cute, huh?

We have not had the pleasure of a baby in the house for a long time, and as he walked on tiptoes around the coffee table or ottoman, I felt a surge of memories. Memories when our own children were babies. 

How sweet was the "mmmm" sound as his mother spooned food into his mouth or the light squeals as he turned page after page in a favorite book or the slap, pat, slap, pat on the wood floors as he crawled from dining room to living room. Baby sounds. 

My body remembered the post-nap cuddling and the feel of a small head under my neck just before bedtime. I felt my mind returning to a state of alertness, always aware of what our babies were doing or needing--or about to do or need. 

Throughout the weekend Bruce and I shared stories with these young parents--the waves of nostalgia were almost tangible. How pleasant to revisit the treasures of those earlier days through the gifts of the present moment. 

Macrina Wiederkehr in her book Gold In Your Memories calls these times "sacred moments, glimpses of God." and suggests ways to mine the gold of our memories:

              ...you will need to spend a lot of time with

              your soul. The soul thrives on remembering...

              there are soul prints in every fiber of your being, 

              even in the things you've forgotten. The soul is

              the keeper of memories. She knows where beauty

              is stored.  p. 13

Obviously, not all memories are happy. Some memories are not  golden. Joan Chittister points out, "Without memory we could go blithely on in life without ever really knowing what of that life was still unfinished, was still rumbling around inside of us, waiting for attention." Sometimes memory is the impetus to do the work of healing, releasing us from the trap memories can be. Instead memories can strengthen us, even open us even more to the present.

Having Bennett and his parents, such good parents, here allowed me to access a part of my life--not to dwell in it, but to remind me of its place in my life, my whole life. More words from Chittister:

                The wonder of being able to see life as whole,

                at any time and all times, is the great gift of memory.

                It makes all of life a piece in progress. With one

                part of the soul in the past and another in the present,

                we are able to go on stitching together a life that

                has integrity and wholeness. Because of memory life 

                is not simply one isolated act after another. It all

                fits into the image of self and the goals of the 

                heart. It makes them real. It makes them whole.

                                    p. 155 The Gift of Years

The present moment is a threshold to remembering, just as memories can heighten our ability to treasure the present moment.

An Invitation

What recent event or conversation has opened a door to memory for you? I would love to know.