Sunday Best – October 1, 2023
In my dream the other night I was waiting to board a plane, in the muddled frazzled frame of mind that comes from too much motion and not enough stillness. As I tried to concentrate on a stream of inbound emails, I felt someone coming up behind me – a little too close, as often happens in a crowded terminal. Then another. Then another.
Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged it off, irritated and refusing to acknowledge the interruption. The hand returned, gently. I shrugged again. Finally, a third time.
I whirled around to confront the intruder, and there gathered behind me were all the people I’ve ever loved, past and present, patiently loving me back. As I scanned each precious face I just kept thinking, oh! You’re all here!
I did not have to want them there. I did not have to ask. They were already present.
Dear ones, help is all around.
May we offer.
May we receive.
Sunday Best – September 24, 2023
Beauty awakens the soul to act. – Dante
While thousands gathered for climate week in New York these past few days, I took a turn to a much smaller venue.
I listened to scientists, brainy and brimming with equations, highlight the importance of human connection.
I heard about a police officer stopping to photograph a rose.
I met a new place through the loving introductions of its people.
I sat by the sea and marveled at the spiral of a shell.
I told my own story of discovering Chagall’s Peace Window at the United Nations, shifting exhaustion to hope.
I felt the power of being surrounded by plants and art and music, where once these were scarce.
Dear friends, we know that beauty is essential,
and we are surrounded.
Whether seashell or sincerity or symphony,
let us see it.
Let us be it.
Artwork above by Charles Clary, who notes, “We either rise to the occasion or sink into despair.” Below is Chagall’s Peace Window, of which he said, “Stained glass has to be serious and passionate… For me a stained-glass window is a transparent partition between my heart and the heart of the world.”
Sunday Best – September 17, 2023
Despite the pumpkin-spiced energy that’s surrounding us – or maybe because of it – I found myself overwhelmed this morning, just not up to the task. Not the tactical tasks of weeding and emails, not the more vital tasks of being a good sister or daughter or friend, not even the core human tasks of feeling feelings or thinking thoughts.
Somehow I found myself sifting through the junk drawer, which was decidedly Not A Task on my priority list. In just ten minutes, the broken garage clicker, mismatched screws and nails, and worn-out markers were all cleared away, and everything felt clean and organized and fit for purpose.
Is the junk drawer a silly metaphor for my cluttered state of mind? Yes.
Is clearing it out a shallow substitute for taking agency over a non-controllable world? Also yes.
And.
It’s also an actual drawer, which is now better, giving me hope that bigger, harder issues can get better too.
Dear ones, inspiration is not always rainbows or poetry or the laughter of a child. Sometimes it’s dusty batteries and rusted paperclips and a candle stub from three storms ago.
Friends, whatever frees us up,
whatever gives us hope,
let’s give thanks.
Sunday Best – September 10, 2023
Early in my career, I was on a downward escalator in a faraway airport, grumpy from a missed flight, when I heard a familiar voice calling my name. A friend from high school had spotted me going the opposite direction, across the miles and across the years. After an awkward scramble we met up for a quick hug and hello, and in just those few moments I was re-rooted in my own life, no longer drifting as an unknown person in an unknown place.
This week brought some flashbacks of that feeling as I ran into a long-ago colleague at a business conference. In a sea of anonymous analysts suddenly I was a whole human again, one with friends and feelings and ideas that extended beyond that morning’s financial news. Even better, two different sets of dear friends rearranged their plans so that we could meet in person after a long time apart.
Sometimes it seems that time is not on our side. We are so much in motion that by the time we’ve fully arrived, we are already departing. We are caught in traffic of all sorts, missing connections both literal and metaphorical.
Dear ones, in these blurry bleary times, may we be the ones who stop on the escalator, the ones who call out across a conference room, the ones who cross town at rush hour to hug a friend.
There might be just a moment to spare.
But a moment can be momentous.
Sunday Best – September 3, 2023
Possibilities are always more interesting than facts.
– John O’Dononue
I’ve been spending these cooler early mornings with John O’Donohue, through the wonder-full compilation Walking in Wonder, based on conversations with his friend John Quinn.
Today I aim to practice his advice on landscape.
One of the lovely ways to pray is to take your body out into the landscape and to be still with in it. If you go out for several hours into a place that is wild, your mind begins to slow down, down, down. What is happening is that the clay of your body is retrieving its own sense of sisterhood with the great clay of the landscape.
Landscape is always at prayer, and its prayer is seamless. It is a high work of imagination, because there is no repetition in a landscape. Every stone, every tree, every field is a different place. When your eye begins to become attentive to this panorama of differentiation, then you realize what a privilege it is to actually be here.
Dear friends, let’s get into the landscape today, whether it’s a potted plant or vast forest.
Perhaps we will feel sisterhood with the clay.
Perhaps we will hear the seamless prayer.
Perhaps we will see a teeny tiny frog no bigger than a fingernail.
Perhaps we will realize what a privilege it all is.
