Falling
I hate falling. It scares me. I hate that loss of control, the moment of panic when my mind races worrying about what will hurt, what will be broken, where the bruises will be.
I hate falling: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. But, I find the most vivid descriptions of Why in the physical form.
I’ve barely been out of the house for 2 days now. There was ice and snow. Not a lot by many standards, but enough to make walking tricky and at times treacherous on our iced over driveway. I’ve fallen on ice a few times, and they stand out vividly in my memory: once, wearing ski boots at a ski resort in Boone NC and another on the St. John’s campus in New York. Both proved painful, and extremely unpleasant. Neither resulted in anything being broken. I’m not sure about bruises. But, I remember, in my gut the sensation of falling and the pain upon hitting the ground.
My balance is not as good as I would like. I can recount stepping through the ceiling in the attic (a fall stopped by the ceiling joists) which resulted in bruising from the back of my knee halfway up my butt. Or two falls on the Camino. Or falling and cracking a rib running to get out of the rain on campus; falling in the Chili’s parking lot in pouring rain causing a rotator cuff tear.
And there is the grandaddy of all falls in my memory — falling off of the front porch (four steps high, no railing) into a pyracantha bush. I must have been 5 or 6 at the time. To this day, I am very timid about leaning out or jumping ditches or anything where I might fall.
Get the picture? We haven’t even gotten to mental, emotional or spiritual falls… but, let’s just say I’ve had a few. Some of them, I am only now beginning to understand as falls. I’ve miss opportunities because of this fear of falling. There are times I simply cannot or will not let go (and let God) because I am so terrified of falling. Even in battling depression, it seemed impossible to let go and fall to the bottom, trusting that there was indeed a bottom to stop the fall.
Funny thing is that when I do let go, when I do allow myself to risk falling, I don’t always fall. And, so far, I’ve been able to get up again when I have fallen. But, still, it holds me back. What if I don’t bounce back? What if I lose it all? What if I lose something? What if I speak the truth and you never talk to me again? Or you laugh at me? Or write me off and pretend I don’t exist? What if I sell everything to buy the field where the precious pearl is buried, and then discover I hate pearls? Butch and Sundance had to jump and fall into the river to escape. Me? I would probably have died on the cliff out of fear of the fall into the river.
I really hate falling. And yet, it seems that to move forward, to growth, to love, I’m going to have to risk falling, even if I am scared.
Watching
Watch your thoughts, for they become words
Watch your words, for they become actions
Watch your actions, for they become habits
Watch your habits, for they become character
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny
One of my 30-something friends posted this on Instagram and FB this morning. I’ve seen it before. But, today the word(s) that leapt off the page was WATCH.
When I pause in my day and take the time to pray I find that some sort of contemplation or meditation is my mode. When I make time to try to sit quietly and clear my mind and listen, I find that the thoughts still come. WATCH. Those who are far better at these practices than I, often remind us that we cannot control those thoughts. Therefore, as they wander through our minds we can allow them to come and go without attachment to them.
And so, I Watch my thoughts… they tell me a lot about what is going on with me. They tell me where I am uncomfortable and where I relax. I don’t have to make them turn into words (which lead to actions, habits…) I can do that, but first I must watch them and learn to let them go and let them be.
I certainly cannot control my thoughts! If I could, I wouldn’t think of my friend Henry every time I buy a lottery ticket, and I might win! Henry told me once that he had bad luck, and that even thinking of him when buying a lottery ticket would insure that it was not a winning ticket. Bingo! I seem to have no control over thinking of him when throwing my money away on the lottery. I’ve tried replacement (think of something else) but Henry always shows up. I have to let the memory of him walk into my mind and then walk on by.
So, indeed: Watch. Be awake. But, don’t hang on to those thoughts like you own them. Don’t believe you actually control them. Control what you do with them? Oh, yes. Open yourself up to transformation so that the Image and Likeness of God shine through more easily? Oh yes. Those thoughts tell me a lot about where I am on my journey, but the are not ME. I can learn from them, but I cannot hang on to them.
Every Valley…
It is hard to believe, but Advent is here. Time flies, it seems.
When I was walking the Camino back in October, I would often sing to myself to get me through. On mornings when the fog was so thick that I could barely see 10 feet in front of me, I would hear in my head: “We walk by faith, and not by sight…” complete with various instrumental accompaniment. And, when climbing or descending steep slopes, several songs of Advent would pop into my head. You can imagine: “Every valley shall be exalted, and every hill made low” type of thoughts. So, it should be no surprise that I chose an opening song for mass this morning that begins “Let the valleys be raised and the mountains made low.”
Normally, people in my neighborhood [, town, state, country] travel from place to place in motorized vehicles. We travel mostly by car. And, in traveling that way, we lose touch with the ground beneath us. We are no longer acutely aware of hills versus flat areas. We lose consciousness about changing landscape and the energy required to ascend or descend a hill, or walk on uneven ground, cracked sidewalks and paths littered with twigs, leaves, acorns and pecans (or walnuts or chestnuts). We forget just how much easier it can be to travel a smooth, flat road. Boring maybe, but still generally a more gentle ride or walk. Only when we get out of our comfortable space, get on foot or some human powered form of transport, do we begin to be awake to the world around us. And only then can we begin to appreciate the proclamation of valleys being raised and mountains made low so that our God has an open, direct way to approach us.
While walking the Camino there was a space to open up and feel the road. There was a way to be grounded in the present simply because my feet were definitely grounded on the road that I walked. I was awake and aware of the world of my present moment and I could journey more easily than usual, letting the past and the future fade as I concentrated on the present. I get a lot of that when I run or practice yoga as well, but somehow walking The Way created a special image in me of being present in the current moment. It is an image that I hope to maintain and enhance.
In Advent, we are making a journey to the place where we receive God’s love in the form of a new life — Jesus is born as one of us, with all of the wonder and joy and tears and difficulties that we will face. I hope to walk this Advent rather like the Camino — one step at a time, in the present moment — and to arrive at last at Christmas with a sense of wonder and thanksgiving a bit like the joy (and sorrow and excitement) of arriving in Santiago de Compostela. To stay with the present and simply experience it.
Find it wherever it is…
Just as those yellow arrows appeared in so many different places along the Camino, God’s arrows can come be seen in some very unexpected, not-traditional places. You just have to be open to seeing them wherever they appear.
This summer, I took up a yoga practice. The physical stretching is good. The physical challenge in even beginning to attempt some of the poses is excellent. The deep physical calm that comes at the end of a practice is much needed in my life.
More than that, I find the emotional and mental practice to be a way to open up. It is, for me, truly an occasion of prayer. To get the benefits of a Yin Yoga practice, I must learn to stay where I am and stay with a bit of discomfort. I must learn to relax into the present moment and allow my entire self (body and mind and soul) to relax and sink deeply into whatever is being asked of me. I must listen to my body and learn what is pain versus what is discomfort. Sharp, shooting pain does damage. Staying with discomfort gives me a way to learn to be here now, to listen, to progressively relax and accept the limits of my current condition while pushing ever so gently to new depths.
To me, that is such a picture of my relationship with God and myself as a child of God. It is a picture of prayer. Learning to rest in God’s love. Learning to see from a new place. Being transformed into someone/something that is more than I knew before. And trusting that I can stay with the discomfort and not run from it.
I had a chance to practice that on the Camino. One step at a time — just one more step. I might have had a name for my goal for the end of a day, but I had to trust that this would be a good place. I had to take one step at a time and travel to places unknown. There were times when that was easy because the sun was shining, the view beautiful beyond belief and the light a photographer’s dream. And there were days when it was cold, blowing rain, slippery rocks and many hours of solitary walking. Each involved one step at a time. Each involved being open to what was happening in the moment and trusting where I was being led. And each involved an openness to being transformed by Presence.
I do not often find this type of prayer in a church, or in a mass or other organized group. But, I feel it is essential to my growing in love and wisdom and living the call I feel as a baptized Christian. I will look for these opportunities wherever, and however God puts them in my path.
Yellow Arrows
I’ve been back stateside for 2 weeks now… the trite, but oh so true, feeling is “so long ago and far away, and yet, only yesterday.” I spent 5 weeks walking the 500 miles from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. My job, as it were, was to walk — walk about 15 miles (25km) every day with a pack on my back. To walk in rain and sun, heat and cold, light and darkness and to be present in every moment along the way. And, that way was marked by yellow arrows.
I smile when I think of those arrows. Sometimes they jumped out at you. Sometimes, they had to be sought out. You might find a yellow arrow on a street or a sidewalk, or the side of a building. You might find a yellow arrow on a bench, a rock, a wall or a lamppost… on a tree trunk or a stone marker. They showed The Way. And, if you hadn’t lost your way, it seems that a yellow arrow appeared just at that moment when you began to question if you were on the right road.
We missed a yellow arrow one morning in misty darkness. The way felt “not right” but since there were few, if any options for turning or not once we had veered off the path, it took us more than a kilometer to find the path ending in a field. Yup. We missed an arrow. By this time, there were 3 of us headed in the wrong direction. Nothing to do but climb back up the hill until we found an arrow. Oh, and then follow it. Back on the path.
How many times in life have I just kept going despite strong misgivings and no arrows to validate my path? How hard is it to admit that I was wrong, and go back to a place where I can see the arrows? Hard to admit taking a wrong turn. Hard to hold back from blaming someone else for my error. So easy to say “Well — I wouldn’t have gotten lost if YOU had painted that arrow bigger, or brighter, or in a slightly different spot that would have been easier to see! Not my fault!” Hard to say — “Oops! That was a lovely path, but it seems it wasn’t the one I wanted/needed.”
Since my return from the Camino, I find that I must continue to look for something akin to those yellow arrows. I must follow these instructions, even if I don’t know much, if anything about what I will find on the path, exactly where it will lead or how far I will go today. I know that they will lead me to my goal and I really don’t have to know every detail of the path before it happens. And, if I miss one and find myself lost, then I must go back and find an arrow, and begin again.