Category: Beginnings

“I’ll Follow the Sun…”

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I’m loving the extra light within each day as summer approaches. Every morning I’m greeted by a stunning sunrise creeping over the jagged mountain peaks, stirring my soul and taking my breath away as it gradually lights and touches them with rainbow hues. But…I should say that’s true–the light stirs my soul and takes my breath away–only if I let it. I must take the moment to breathe deep, to be still, to take in all that goodness–a surprisingly difficult feat. That act of stillness is a gift of kindness I can show myself or share with others. Most days, I drive myself on to the next thing and the next thing without taking the time to stop and accept the series of similar gracious gifts I’m given, forgetting what Mary Oliver says, “Sometimes I need only stand wherever I am to be blessed.” 

 

I’m currently taking a wonderful course from Life is Good Playmakers called “Compassion is a Superpower.” It highlights the fact that human beings are all wired with compassion and empathy but that these are qualities that can be controlled. We can each either choose to repress them, as we often do out of busyness, or cultivate them. Yet the simple act of being PRESENT, opening our eyes to truly see those around us, can help us to show more empathy and grow the quality of compassion. Research has shown that different areas of our brain respond and grow as a result. Learning about this science takes me back to the importance of breathing to slow down each day, reminding myself that life is not an emergency. 

 

Another study I’m doing highlights verse six of the Twenty-Third Psalm: “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” As author Jennifer Rothschild says, this promises us that “…goodness and mercy invade every scene of our stories” (emphasis mine). Jennifer also asks, since that is the condition we are being left in, do we also allow goodness and mercy to follow us when we leave a room or an interaction? I want to live slowly and intentionally enough that this is true. I also know that I can’t give what I don’t have. If I am to show empathy towards others, I must first allow enough space and grace in my life that I can practice self-compassion. An unknown author encourages us, “Validate humanity without highlighting brokenness.” What an important practice in both the way I treat myself and others.

 

I want to “Follow the Sun,” as Xavier Rudd sings:

 

 

“So follow, follow the sun…

The direction of the bird,

The direction of love.”

 

 
When I think of living in the light, I think of living in the full-fledged Presence of God. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote, “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire w/ God; but only he who sees takes off his shoes.” If that’s true, I aim to walk barefooted through this one great life we’ve been given. I hope I can stay with this thought from Max Lucado: “Next time a sunrise steals your breath or a meadow of flowers leaves you speechless, STOP, remain that way. Say nothing and listen as heaven whispers, “Do you like it? I did it just for you?”

“Your Love Awakens Me…”

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I’ve noticed that when I can’t be still, when my OCD tendencies kick in and I’m operating on overdrive when I’m spinning in circles in a wild attempt to fix everything, that I need to stop and pay attention. Something is going on under the surface. Instead of numbing through activity and efforts to keep things under the illusion of control, I must be willing to sit with the discomfort. And this…this is hard.

 

As author, researcher, and speaker Brené Brown says, we all have ways of numbing. For some, they come in the more blatant form of substance addiction. For most of us, it’s subtler. We escape the pain of conflict, life, or difficult seasons or relationships with Facebook, food, television, or shopping…even cleaning. Not that any of these things are bad. They are all necessary and good in moderation. But the question is…are they bringing us pleasure and rest, or are they deadening our senses so that we feel we can cope?

 

Although I often retreat to unhealthy spots, God continually calls me out of these places, reminding me, “Come out of hiding, you’re safe here with me…You’ve been on lockdown and I hold the key…..(Steffany Gretzinger & Amanda Cook, Bethel Worship)” He is perpetually opening my eyes to the world around me, helping me learn that it’s connection, not escape, which helps me survive. Brené Brown also states that letting go of numbing and powerlessness is one of the ways we cultivate a resilient spirit and embrace wholehearted living.

 

This reminds me of what the great poet Rumi said, “Your task is not to seek for love, but to see and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” It also brings to mind a recent worship song, by Phil Wickham, but also sung by McKenna Sabin, “Your Love Awakens Me,” which states:

 

“There were walls between us,

By the cross you came and broke them down…

You called me out of the grave. You called me into the light.

You called my name and then my heart came alive.

Your love is greater. Your love is stronger.

Your love awakens, awakens, awakens me.”

 

It’s a continual process, but I ask that this day, moment by moment, I can allow His love to lead me out of the darkness and into the light, to break every chain, to awaken me. As poet e.e. cummings once wrote,

 

“I who have died am alive again today…

now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened.”

“Always We Begin Again…”

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As I walked my dogs the other morning, I looked out onto a world made new. The crisp azure sky highlighted jagged mountain peaks covered in a dazzling fresh coat of snow. Cat Stevens’ song rang out in my mind, “Morning has broken, like the first morning. Blackbird has spoken like the first bird. Praise for the singing, praise for the morning….” Creation is continually sustained and remade, just as we are.

 

The new year and decade remind me that no matter where we’re at, whatever regrets we have or roads we may wish we had taken in the past, whatever has us feeling trapped or stuck, it’s always possible to find redemption for the areas in which we fall short and start over. As the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke prompted, “Let us believe in a long year that is given to us new, untouched, full of things that have never been.”

 

Leeana Tankersley writes about the prayer of St. Benedict used to call the saints of old to the holiness of repetition, “Always we begin again.” As an intention for each new year, day, or moment, it reminds us that all of life is about the openness for continual renewal. As Tankersley writes, “…that’s what so much of life is–learning how, and learning how again, over and over.”

 

Colombia has one of the oldest standing guerilla armies in the world and a long-standing internal conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands, affecting over nine million. Executive Jose Miguel Sokoloff and a group of peacemakers led their native country in transformation over several years during the holiday season.* Initially, they covered a path from the jungle where the guerillas hid with Christmas lights and left a message stating, “If Christmas can come to the jungle, you can come home. Demobilize. At Christmas, everything is possible.” The message worked and soldiers began to lay down their arms. The next year, Sokoloff’s group put bouncy balls that lit up into the rivers with personal messages inside from families who had soldiers fighting. Several soldiers a day returned home. Eventually, as many as 17,000 laid down their weapons. 
If this kind of societal transformation is possible, what is conceivable within our own individual stories? Will we allow the things that break our hearts to also crush our spirits? Will paths that fizzle out become dead ends or opportunities to forge a new road? Will each new day be a reminder of the time we’ve lost or of all that awaits? Emily Dickins exhorted, “The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience…DWELL IN POSSIBILITY.” If we are open-hearted and open-minded, willing to embrace a life that will consistently surprise us and a Creator that will continually transform us, the possibilities are endless. We can always begin again.

*(1) Lisa Shipley, “Christmas after Christmas: How a Colombian ad exec helped demobilize guerrillas by advertising peace,” The Bogota Post, December 3, 2017.