Lent 2020: Returning to Center

It was a rough meeting, and I needed to leave the room calmly to get some air. I excused myself and looked for an empty room where I could gather myself, reclaim my center, but all the rooms down the hall were taken. For an instant, I panicked, but soon realized I didn’t need an empty room. I could breathe right where I was. My center was just where I left it.

As we head toward Lent, which begins this Wednesday, each of us has the opportunity to reclaim our center. For some, that might mean excusing ourselves from our chaotic lives, if only for a moment. For others, it might mean something more substantial like a season-long practice or discipline. And for others, it might involve finding the kind of empty room a retreat can provide. However it happens, what I learned that morning is something to keep in mind no matter how we decide to re-center this Lent: our centers are right where we left them! All we need to do is decide to return. 

However we choose to do so, may we find our way back to center, back to our true selves, back to “home” . . . back to God.

Happy Lent.

Flying

Looking out a window, I saw a flock of Canada geese meandering across a field. Strutting as if kings and queens of their domain, they were clearly headed to a nearby pond. I watched in amusement, but then wondered, given their capacity to fly, why they were walking?

The minute I asked the question, it circled over the flock of geese and back to me like a boomerang. Why, when you can fly, are you content to walk, it asked. Such a question has as much inspiration in it as regret.

I believe we were endowed by our creator with certain inalienable gifts. Unique to each of us, we have all we need to fly, but we spend our time wanting the gifts of others, or doubting the ones we’ve been given. I also think the idea of flying scares us. So, we keep walking. We may puff out our chest and strut for all to see, but, the fact is, we’re still walking. God created us to fly. 

What would it take for you and me to stop walking? I think it would mean putting aside the paralyzing fear of not doing something perfectly. I think it would mean embracing gifts and not downplaying them. I think it would mean refraining from looking over at others in the flock and comparing. I think it would mean no longer listening to what others might say if we were bold enough to fly. 

Easier to think or write, than to do.

And yet, wouldn’t it be great to be the people we were created to be? Not the people we think our parents wanted us to be, our spouses, our children, or or neighbors want is to be, nor the people work pays us to be. No, I mean the people beyond such constrictions, beyond our imaginations - people who have the audacity to fly when everyone else is walking. I know, walking is easier and safer.

I guess it comes down to trusting that the one who made the earth under our feet also make the air under our wings. God’s got us. That’s the most important thing to remember. Yes, there’s a pond nearby, but, if we fly, we can find the sea.

Additional food for thought:

Watch/Listen to this song by Mary Chapin Carpenter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bduBIq433sI&list=RDbduBIq433sI&index=1

Our Deepest Fear

By Marianne Williamson

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. 
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. 
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us. 

We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? 
You are a child of God. 

Your playing small 
Does not serve the world. 
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking 
So that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, 
As children do. 
We were born to make manifest 
The glory of God that is within us. 

It's not just in some of us; 
It's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, 
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. 
As we're liberated from our own fear, 
Our presence automatically liberates others.

Learning and Unlearning

My days have become suddenly interesting. For reasons I don’t have room to explain here, I’m spending my mornings at a local preschool. In the halls and classrooms, wide eyes and runny noses abound. Because it’s all so new, what I’m most keenly aware of is the vast amount of learning going on around me. One class is learning about the letter T for the first time, while another is listening to a visitor teach about how to take care of one’s teeth. Even when they’re left to themselves - playing with playdough, racing toy cars, or looking at picture books - they’re learning, and I can’t help but want to follow their example. I want to learn something new, too. 

This morning, however, was the day I leave the preschool and go sit with my therapist for an hour. Under her care, I’m unwrapping my life and looking at all the ways I’ve learned to cope with the world surrounding me. We recently reached a point in our work where she said, “OK, here’s where the fun begins.” What she meant was we’d reached a moment of truth. I would have to look at important things and unlearn some long-practiced ways of thinking and behaving. 

Driving away from the session, I couldn’t help but notice the contrast between of the two worlds. In one, it’s all about learning. In the other, it’s all about unlearning. Rather than pick, I know that the balanced life I desire is found somewhere between the two. 

Like the children, I want to open my eyes wide, regardless of my age, and learn something new every day. I want to look at things and people with wonder, as if for the first time, and learn something I’ve never known. 

I also want to unlearn just as much as I learn. Maybe it’s a story I’ve told myself for years, an opinion that’s given me comfort, or a behavior that always makes people laugh. Whatever it may be, I want to live slowly enough, deliberately enough, to “catch myself in the act”, as a mentor once said, and try something new. In other words, I want to unlearn. 

Like a skater on ice, I want to push with one leg, then push with the other. Learn. Unlearn. Learn. Unlearn. Slowly, I believe, I’ll begin to move forward.