Paying Attention

The first Monday after daylight savings time, having lost an hour, I decided to wake to an alarm and begin my day in the morning darkness – to pay attention and listen.

“To pay attention this is our endless and proper work.”

– Mary Oliver

It is just a small challenge, really; I am only getting up at 5:30 am. A need has sprouted in my soul for some sort of practice connecting me to my creative center. The Spirit tugs at my heart with whispers to write more, which means I must listen more. I scratch words onto a page in my journal attempting to know what my life is speaking to me, or rather what I need to hear from my thoughts and feelings I tucked away in the busy moments of living. I am learning to love commiserating with the morning darkness. Nothing great comes of it, yet something good opens inside of me when I make more time for solitude and listening.

Some solitude is uncomfortable, hard work; but more naturally suited to my personality. I feel quite at home in solitude. But still I must tend to it; I must make space for the necessary solitude. In the quiet I am able to listen, write and pray while something awakens in my spirit. I don’t always know what awakens, but experience a sense of my own blossoming in the silence. I am learning to listen in the chilly darkness while snuggled in a fluffy blanket. At first I write whatever comes to the surface and then I use writing prompts.

I like how Leeana Tankersley describes her own early morning ritual in her book Begin Again,

“My subconscious mind has not yet been interrupted. Nothing has intruded my senses. Out the windows is only stillness. I sit and drink black coffee and listen and write. Undistracted. I write on the top of my paper: God, what do you want to say to me this morning? And I just listen . . .”

By 8:30 am, the neighbor’s tiny dog, wound up and hyper-vigilant, consistently emits a high pitched bark directed at everyone passing by (or so it seems). The nearby middle school makes their morning announcements so loudly I’ve heard each syllable of The Pledge of Allegiance (grateful they still say it) and I know whose birthday is celebrated on any given day. It takes a lot more energy to infuse my time with quiet while neighborhood sounds bust through all barriers: doors, closed windows, walls and sometimes ear plugs (truly). And yet I embrace solitude whenever I can grab hold of it.

The beauty of growing older is the freedom to drink deep from the quiet when I so choose. So later in the morning, after having breakfast and coffee with my husband, before I take a stab at my to-do list or prepare for clients, I spend time reading and meditating on God’s Word and praying. This discipline opens a tender space in me, tuning my heart and soul toward the work of paying attention and being directed. There are times when I feel like a field left fallow; nicely plowed with nothing planted. But I have learned over the years this time is not wasted. The daily practice of showing up and paying attention scatters seeds I do not recognize, but not before the dark places in me have been laid open and exposed. Unaware in the ordinary dailiness of being and doing, life germinates.

“The cultivation of attentiveness to God’s presence should be the soil out of which all prayer arises.”

– Opening to God, David G. Benner

I have carried more guilt than I care to admit over the amount of time I have invested in “being” over “doing.” But surprisingly I still get a lot done – a lot of the things that truly matter to me. Last fall, my brother walked Jim and me through the process of developing a life plan, leaving us with one significant phrase summing up our purpose and focus. And we both knew without a doubt this one thing matters greatly to both of us. But we left with a stack of papers graffitied with our thought processes which were condensed into a one sentence directive. We had no idea how to sharpen our lives to that point. Out of the quiet places of my day ideas, thoughts and possibilities have been breaking ground. And just the other day, after I shared with Jim, things coming to life in me he said, “Maybe this is meant to be a part of our life plan.” In my spirit I sensed he was right.

“The ways God can communicate with us are infinitely more creative and diversifies than we could imagine.”

– Opening to God, David G. Benner

In the evening light as birds chatter loudly in the tangerine tree, the “what ifs” press in on my spirit planting doubts. Have I exposed too much hopefulness in these written words? Quickly I am reminded this hope is not in me, but in the One Who made me, the One Who “began a good work in [me].” Sigh. I relax. This is His doing, not mine. All I had to do was pay attention.

Transforming A Meltdown

How can an application for a licensure exam be cause for a meltdown? But it was. There I was laying on the rug in the living room, tears in my eyes and asking God where this all went wrong. I had started the day in the Word and in prayer; how could I be in such a dark place now? My husband laid down on the rug with me. He said, “It seems like you need help holding down the rug.” This was his way of showing empathy; it was best for him not to risk saying too much. In that moment everything in my life seemed to have gone wrong (tell me you’ve been there), when really I was just being challenged by paperwork and experiencing some anxiety about not getting it right.

It isn’t like this was the first time I attempted the process of filling out this paperwork; no it was actually the third. It seems drilling a website on my own through several links and form options is not one of my strengths. But there it is – paperwork took me down. I was feeling alone in the process, but there was my sweet husband holding down the rug with me as I ranted about everything while feeling incompetent and like a failure, when in actuality I was afraid and anxious.

For all the healing God has done in my life, there are still things that trigger feelings of inadequacy and in the struggle I may be found wrung out limp on the rug. Prior to wrestling myself down before God in my helpless state, I wasn’t able to give myself grace until I beat up on myself a bit. Or maybe a lot. Then the Father takes my hand and guides me away from the ugly abyss of self-loathing; He pries my fingers from the edge and doesn’t let me fall and drown. He reminds me it is OK not knowing how to do all things well and He does not want me to give up. More than anything He wants me to learn to lean on Him and listen to His whispers of reassurance.

In her book, Begin Again, Leeana Tanksley writes “We do not punish ourselves into transformation. We do not begin again by refusing to forgive ourselves. I’ve come to believe that we make lasting changes because we know, somewhere inside us, that we deserve something better, that we are hardwired for wholeness. . . . We don’t make lasting, constructive changes in our lives because of shame or self-loathing. We finally decide we were made for something more. This might come to us in a very small sense of knowing, but it’s a change in perspective, and it is the soil for new life.”

In her introduction Leeana explains how the phrase, ‘Always we begin again’, from the Rule of Saint Benedict became her lifeline. “It was permission to be unaccomplished, to be a beginner, to be brand new. More than permission, too, a sense that I was right where I should be and that the beginning space was actually a holy space, not just a layover on my way to something better.”

To be in uncomfortable spaces like: beginner, new, unaccomplished, puts me in a place of vulnerability. In this place the Father isn’t looking down on me in disgust; He wants me to look to Him for help. He wants to take hold of my hand and walk alongside me with support, love, encouragement and strength. This isn’t me just being weak, it is me leaning, surrendering and trusting. It is the grace space; I don’t have to know it all or be able to do it all. I must look up and fix my eyes on Him.

I am reminded of words from the Jesus Calling calendar by Sarah Young. “Link your hope not to problem solving in this life but to the promise of an eternity of problem-free life in heaven. Instead of seeking perfection in this fallen world, pour your energy into seeking Me: the Perfect One.”

Had I stopped filling out forms when I started getting anxious and sought Him I may not have ended up collapsed in despair on the rug in our living room. But I did. And from a real person who was willing to turn herself inside out to help others in the journey toward wholeness, I am reminded it is absolutely OK and incredibly life-giving to Begin Again. I am grateful when I read a book that reminds me I am not alone on this rugged human journey, and I cannot and need not figure it out perfectly. I am and we are “perfectly imperfect.” How do you navigate the situations in life where you find yourself feeling defeated by helplessness, inadequacy or incompetency? What do you do to support yourself in those moments? How have others come alongside you? I would love to hear your story.

The Life I've Been Given

Somewhere I read, “Things are not as they should be.” This statement fits so well as I look out the window of the ICU ward and view the expansive beauty of the Pacific Ocean. On this clear, sunny day I can see downtown San Diego and Point Loma. In room 10 on the 5^th floor my mother-in-law stares, unable to speak with a tube down her throat. She has pneumonia, along with an unknown bacteria. We wait. We watch for signs of improvement.

And while our family rotates in and out of room 10 throughout the day, waiting for our loved one to heal, a car pulls up in front of the hospital and a young man steps out and returns carrying a newborn baby. While one struggles to breathe and hang onto life, another has wrestled free from the womb and breathes oxygen deep into newly formed lungs letting out a scream that brings a whole family to attention. Things don’t seem to be as they should be, but they are what they will be. While an aged couple faces the struggle to rein bodies giving out, an engagement is announced by a younger couple with most of their life seemingly still ahead of them.

Autumn leaves, past their season, let go and scatter about in the street as I drive by on my way home from the store with a bouquet of daffodils in my shopping bag. Life is full of incongruity and things are not often the way we hoped they would be. Life is far from ideal; the sad packages we are given can be wrapped in joyous moments and vice versus. All the signs we are human: babies, weddings, aging bodies and death are the ordinary stuff of being human. The joys and struggles of our everyday lives are the things God uses to draw our attention to Him. Like colorful leaves letting go out of season I sometimes wonder if the events of the day are all out of place, and I sigh hoping this isn’t real. But it is.

This has been a year for learning how to pray. It’s not like I had no idea how to pray, but how to be present to His presence and to listen for His voice. And in the midst of learning about prayer I see this part of me that spent a lot of energy wanting to get on with the life I am really meant to live – wanting to get past the hard things and onto what is joyful and rewarding. But I am learning a few things as I sit in His Word and open my mouth to pray and shut my mouth to listen.

This is the life I am meant to live, here in the midst of sickness, unfinished projects, babies, weddings, meals and laundry; it is here where He leads and speaks and loves in and through me. He is using everything – even things seeming not as they should be – to transform me. Though life experiences don’t come tied up in nice, tidy little packages with bows; there is beauty in letting go and leaving room for the unexpected. There is freedom in accepting things will not always be as they seem or as I wish them to be.

I am learning to let go of having things the way I want and to live the life I have been given. And trust me, it is not easy. I am a work in progress and return to this place more often than I care to admit. Always, when I show up again on His doorstep with a pout on my face that lets Him know I hadn’t expected life to look this way, I find grace. There I can fall into His arms, let it all go and be loved. Then He turns me around, as He did with Elijah, and tells me to go back the way I came. For even though “Things are not as they should be” life is exactly as it is meant to be in His kingdom and He gives me everything I need to live the life I have been given.