Practice the Presence

This column is more political than my usual offerings. I can’t talk about spirituality as if it exists in a vacuum. Many of my readers will resonate with my thoughts and feelings. Others may not. But I must do what is mine to do.

I began writing this column in September, when I woke up thinking “hope.” Feeling hope. While that may not seem surprising, it was for me. In the middle of election season, I had been living with dread and fear about the future. No matter how deep it’s pushed down or how purposely ignored, fear sucks hope right out of a person. That was me.

What allowed me to throw fear out and embrace hope instead? The Democratic National Convention. Instead of the vengeful rhetoric espoused by some Republican candidates aimed at stirring up fear and keeping us down and apart, there was hope. There was a positive view of the future that included everyone. No hateful misinformation about the transgender community. No disparaging remarks about immigrants or calling for mass deportation. No whitewashing the part race and slavery played (and plays) in U.S. history.

When the cameras scanned the crowd, diversity was everywhere. It was celebrated by those who spoke and in what they said. It seemed possible that this country could embrace compassion and love of neighbor. It seemed possible that we could, together, move in a more positive way through the challenges and tragedies of our world. Perhaps we could believe that we are, indeed, more alike than we are different.

When I woke up on November 6, fear and anger again had replaced my hope, and dread for the future was taking over. The vision of inclusion, respect and moving forward together was replaced by one of negativity, revenge, and disrespect of “other.” The highjacking of “Christianity,” putting it into service of an approach that seems anything but Christian, continues to sweep the country. Efforts to enshrine Evangelical White Christian Nationalism as the official religion of the U.S. is grossly un-American.

I wasn’t alone in my “morning after” despair. Many concerned with climate change heard “Drill, baby drill,” with disbelief. Many concerned with women’s rights heard “Your body, my choice,” with dismay. And basic human rights? Democratic institutions?

Struggling with all this, I listen to many wisdom voices, past and present: my faith and spiritual/wisdom teachers of many traditions; civil rights leaders; psychologists and counselors; poets; good friends. In addition to eating well and incorporating exercise into the day, here are thoughts on getting through these difficult times:

Grieve Alone and Together

Recognize feelings and emotions. Experience them. Feel sorrow, anger, fear, and despair. Weep. Rant. Vent. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with friends who can hold your tears and love you when you’re a mess. Find communities where you can share your grief. When one member has no hope, someone there will. Remember, grief isn’t once and done.

Who are the people, the communities that can hold you, support you, love you? Who are those who share your sorrow? Who are those with whom you can both grieve and find hope?

Find a Place Where Grace Flows

The week after the election found me on Chincoteague Island with my daughter. The ocean draws me into a contemplative space, opening my soul to release emotions – joy, gratitude, grief, sorrow – as well as to receive grace of healing, wonder, and gratitude.

My salty tears mingled with salty air. I rejoiced at the birds’ antics and wondered at shells at my feet. I laughed, prayed, and sang into to the pounding of wave after wave on the sand. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with my daughter. Together we watched the Supermoon rise, the king tide flood the marshlands, and herons wait patiently along the banks until the water receded and they could resume their mindful-walking fishing practice.

My ocean visits are few and precious. I have other Grace places: a small, neighborhood woods; a local café where I go to write; art museums; a friend’s kitchen table; my favorite chair flanked with a handmade table that holds a mug of tea and a stack of books.

What are your ordinary as well as extraordinary places where Grace flows? As Robert Lax would advise, go there often.

Establish a Grounding Practice

page of nature journal painting of shell litter people walking beach wrirtint

Take time for spirit-nourishing practices.

At the beach condo, my daughter set up a long table filled with art and journaling supplies. Every day we showed up there, like pilgrims to a holy place. She painted. I created page after page in my nature journal: mosaics of small drawings, paintings, and words.

Journaling/Art

For some, journaling and creative arts are prayerful, centering activities. While on Chincoteague I didn’t work on my current book project. I didn’t write this long overdue column. Now, back home, those projects call for my attention along with piles of laundry, dishes, and routine chores. While I can’t give hours every day to nature journaling, I’ll try for one day a week. And I can be faithful to my regular journaling practice.

Quiet Time/Prayer

During information overload, refrain from too much news consumption and social media scrolling. Make time for quiet. I’m reestablishing a morning routine of sipping tea, twenty minutes of quiet prayer, and reading.Throughout the day I take a few moments, breathe deeply and remember that I live and move in the Presence of the Sacred, no matter what I’m doing.

Quiet walks around the neighborhood or in a park can provide mental and spiritual spaciousness.

Give yourself the gift of time to engage in practices that help ground you and sink deep into your center. Encounter the Sacred that dwells there. The Goodness that cannot be overcome.

Move Forward

In a New York Times opinion piece “How Not to Fall Into Despair,” Brad Stulberg quotes Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl and uses his term “tragic optimism.” It involves acknowledging pain and hardship and in the face of it, moving forward in a positive way.

It’s the “both/and” stance central to many religions, including Christianity. Jesus lived acknowledging and confronting the evils of his day while still finding room in his heart to hold love, forgiveness, and hope.

He lived compassionate engagement, hanging out with the marginalized and calling his followers to care for the poor, widows, and orphans. Love God and your neighbor as yourself, he said. He didn’t list exclusions. He didn’t ignore the oppressors in power but didn’t let fear paralyze him.

What is mine to do?

One friend said she was taking the “left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot” approach. Not looking into the future but being present to the moment and to what she could do where she was, to put kindness and compassion into the world. Another is concentrating on volunteering for organizations that serve others in her city. Both are claiming agency rather than helplessness.

It involves what Stulberg calls “wise hope and wise action.” Not hope born of denial, thinking that if we just wait long enough, things will get better, but seeing things for what they are and still taking action.

In his final written message published in the New York Times after his death, the great civil rights activist John Lewis charged us to do that. To stand up and speak out when we see something that isn’t right. “Democracy is not a state.” He said. “It is an act.”

I am overwhelmed by what is happening. I feel helpless. But I’m not. I can do what I can do where I am. I can write. I can be kind to strangers and the marginalized. I can donate to organizations that support causes I believe in, especially those that serve targeted populations threatened by the wave of “othering” spreading across the country. I can stay informed, write to Congressional representatives. I can speak up to representatives in my state government when they propose and pass legislation that demonizes and oppresses monitories.

Darkness doesn’t have to win in the long run. Not when enough people inject the light of love and compassion into the night.

What is yours to do? How can you claim agency and move forward?

The Long View

looking out over ocean. Dark cloudy day with sun peeking through

Recently I stood with a woman on the beach, both of us looking across the ocean. “Stay connected to nature,” she said. “It will help with the long view. It will give you strength. It endures.”

Sitting in the National Gallery of Art in front of two van Gogh masterpieces I remembered that people suffering in all kinds of ways throughout history have been able to see beauty and hope through their grief and found ways to share it with the world.

In dark times, I find it difficult to believe that the moral arch indeed bends toward justice. But Viktor Frankl, John Lewis, and countless others, known and unknown, did. And they knew the truth of that saying depends on individual action. They lived holding both grief and hope in their hearts and found courage to move on.

Jesus did. Those who strive to imitate his life, to follow his Way, will too. It’s not a “Christianity” that storms the Capitol with violence when things don’t go your way. It’s not a “Christianity” that sees some people as expendable and deserving of disrespect. It strives to serve the common good. It’s a both/and faith. It’s a grief/hope faith. It doesn’t deny pain, oppression, and suffering. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. But he kept on going, living with compassion.

May it be so.

Sources

Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation by John Lewis

How Not to Fall Into Despair by Brad Stulberg

Palm Sunday is but a week away. I look back over my Lenten observances and think, as I do just about every year, that I could have done better. Six weeks ago, as Lent approached, I went through a mental list of how I might observe the season: Do Lectio on the daily lectionary readings, spend more time in quiet prayer, read the four gospels, pray the morning and evening hours, keep a special Lenten journal, re-read Brother Lawrence. The list became long, and I struggled to make a choice. All the spiritual practices on my list were admirable, and a commitment to any one of them would bear fruit.

The longer I sat, the more difficult the decision. Suddenly, I knew what practice beckoned me: Simply be faithful. Show up, notice, and respond to the moment. Be open to the Holy One, however present, and be grateful.

It sounds deceptively simple, but showing up isn’t easy. For example, as I write this, I’m working in the company of writers from around the world who have chosen to “show up” for an hour each weekday to write “together” over Zoom with the London Writers’ Salon (LWS) folks. LWS turned three today and is celebrating with a 24-hour writer’s sprint. We can check in for an hour or two or more. No matter the time, the virtual room is open.

Any writer will tell you, showing up every day is what it takes to get the work done. Some days a lot is accomplished. Other days are more “stare out the window” times or a “jot down a few disjointed notes in a journal” day when little or nothing makes it onto the page. As unproductive as it might seem, something is stirring in the mind and imagination. Recognized or not, the writing process is happening, and one day, the fruit of that work done below the surface will spill out onto the page.

Spiritually showing up is similar. Like writers, those consciously traveling their spiritual path will have practices whose benefits are not obvious but are awakening something deep within.

Once while on a year-long writing residency, I had a conversation with Benedictine monk. We were on our way to the Abbey church for mid-day prayer. Both of us had been busy with writing projects, but when the bells chimed, we left our work in the library and headed for our work in the choir stalls.

“Sometimes I wonder,” my monk friend said, “if all these years of reciting the Psalms, day after day, over and over, really makes any difference.” I guess, if one’s been doing that for decades, they’re entitled to wonder.

I couldn’t answer for him, but I did know that whenever I joined in the monks’ shared prayer, it was a source of grace for me. It was one of many. The bell chiming throughout each day encouraged me to pause and remember that God is always with us. The natural setting was stunning: lakes, prairie, wetlands, oak savannas, and wooded hills, all filled with wildlife. Nature is the first revelation of God. Grace flowed through the people with whom I lived and worked: writers, monks, those who ran the Institute. We shared long conversations, impromptu meals, and more formal dinners. We supported one another through grief and difficult times and celebrated ordinary joys and writing breakthroughs. Some of us even shared a poetry reading, complete with tea and biscuits, in a fish house on a frozen lake! Spiritually showing up looks different all the time.

That is how my Lent looked: different all the time. Take last week. Some days were spent supporting a sick friend who had traveled a long distance to see a doctor. Fixing food, making sure there was hot tea brewing, listening, and just making the house welcoming was my joy and my practice. When the house was empty again, I decided to take a day and put myself “in a place where Grace flows’” for me. I did PT exercises for an hour, taking care of my aging, imperfect body, honoring its gift.

Next was Writers’ Hour. I worked on a children’s book telling the story of a friend who was a Black American pioneer in aviation. Knowing it is work that is mine to do doesn’t make it easy. But I showed up and felt renewed enthusiasm for the project.

When the hour was finished, I tucked a journal and fountain pen into my purse and drove across town to purchase Caste from the indie bookstore, Gramercy. I bought a cup of coffee at the café next door and headed outside to write. Journaling is prayer for me, often leading along meandering paths of thought to places within I hadn’t expected to go.

I spent some time gazing at a graceful young tree beginning to bud. It seemed out-of-place, planted between buildings along a sidewalk and a busy street, but that’s just where its mercy was needed. I couldn’t take my eyes off its lithe, narrow branches – calm beauty amid the bustle and noise of the city. The tree simply being “tree” was an eloquent prayer. Such is the gift of creation. It can’t be anything other than its holy self.

After writing, I walked around the college campus across the street, enjoying the sun and cool, clear air. Aware of the time and peaceful place to enjoy nature’s gifts, I did as Brother Lawrence suggests and lifted my heart to God, acknowledging Divine Presence right where I was.

I walked into the library and took the elevator up to the Schumacher Art Gallery on the fourth floor. The special exhibit presented photographs of Native peoples around the globe taken by Dana Gluckstein. A large panel filled with text by Oren Lyon (Faithkeeper, Turtle Clan, Onondaga Nation) introduced the exhibit and detailed the long struggles of native peoples as well as the long-awaited adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the United Nations in 2007. Another panel featured words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu about the wisdom shared with the modern world by those peoples: “…the first law of our being is that we are set in a delicate network of interdependence with our fellow human beings and with the rest of creation.”

Wandering through the photographs and the adjoining room filled with African sculptures, I became acutely aware of the tiny piece I am of the human family that lives on this planet. How multitudinous are the ways of life, experiences, and relationships with the Divine. I stood still, surrounded by the photos. I showed up.

“You are a beloved child of God,” I heard in my heart. “So are these. So are all, each and every one.” Humility stirred in my soul. How little I know, yet still am a part of the family.

On the way home, I bought a raspberry-filled cookie from a French bakery. The day was, after all, the feast of Saint Benedict celebrated by my monk friends, Benedictine monastics around the world, and others who, like me, find Benedict’s wisdom helpful as they move through life.

“Celebrate every little thing,” I reminded myself. It’s a way of being grateful.

Back home, after enjoying the cookie and a cup of tea, I began reading a new book, This Here Flesh, by Cole Arthur Riley. Like the photo exhibit, it provided accounts of encounters with the Holy One different than my own yet connected in the “delicate network of interdependence.” I prayed to be humble and open to receive and reverence it.

Ordinary life filled the rest of the day: fixing food, eating dinner, gathering virtually with a small group of women with whom I’ve been reading books and sharing thoughts, questions, and grace for two years. Nothing and yet everything was extraordinary. The practice of showing up. Of being aware. Of being open so Grace can flow in and through and out. That is always the call.

Pistil of Thanksgiving Cactus flower open to catch falling pollen
Photo: Emily Holt

Sources:

The London Writers’ Salon

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

Practice of the Presence: A Revolutionary Translation by Carmen Acevedo Butcher by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, Carmen Acevedo Butcher (translator)

Dana Gluckstein DIGNITY Portraits

This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley

Holding Both Grief and Hope

Showing Up