Travelin' with Charlie: Letting Go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6pKX3whms8
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Letting Go
Seems like we always have plenty of things that tie us in knots, imprison us, keep us from being free to love and be loved.
Lately I’ve been struggling with some changes in the Catholic Church. They’re really fairly minor: some of the ecclesiastical powers have decided we need our ritual language to be more poetic but also more pompous, more true to the original Latin translations but less relevant and real to our lives in the 21st Century. I spent most of Saturday at a workshop listening to all the explanations for this. I sat there simmering, thinking only that there are so many more important issues for the Church to deal with and that I would have to be learning a bunch of new Mass settings in addition to the new responses that will take effect this Advent. I was so frustrated and angry I was considering leaving my parish and the larger Catholic Church.
This morning our homilist talked about detachment and freedom. I realized immediately that my negative emotional reaction to the changes is something I need to let go of. God will not let a few little changes in liturgy and music come between us, so why should I allow that to happen? It’s my reactions to it that create the fissure. I get caught up in self-righteous anger and ownership of things that are comfortable for me. I see the sleight-of-hand happening in Rome that keeps our energies focused away from the real problems, and I allow that to really get to me. I know we are being worked and we can’t do a thing about it.
But God is in none of that, and my relationship to God doesn’t have to be, either. Rather, I can do as I see so many people who are upset about this doing – bow my head, accept, let go and move on. Try to find the gift in it, and trust that God will use this, too, as an instrument of grace.
OR, I can decide whether my lifelong membership in the Catholic Church is itself an attachment that keeps me from freely being the person God made me to be, from abandoning myself completely into God’s arms. Looking out at my congregation today it occurred to me that they are all an important part of my journey and part of my lesson. It is not yet time to turn my back on that connection. Perhaps some day it will be, but not now.
This afternoon I decided to give Charlie a bath. He was getting very smelly from too many weeks without one. My son Karl, grandson Jesse and I filled the wading pool with warm water. Charlie stoically stood while I soaped him up then rinsed him off. He loves water – wading in it and swimming in it. But baths are another matter. He tolerates them. Even with his boy Jesse helping (as much as a three-year-old can help), Charlie badly wanted to get out of the pool. But he stuck it out, he accepted the unpleasant parts of having water poured over him.
Afterwards, as I was drying him, he became very playful and exuberant, wild with joy. Was that because the bath was over, or because he was getting so much attention, or because so much dirt and hair had been washed away, making him feel free? Probably some of all three, but the idea of washing away the dirt and excess hair hit home: getting rid of “stuff” that weighs us down, restricts us, creates burdens in our lives.
It reminded me of a video I saw recently where a team of whale scientists freed a young humpback whale that had been badly tangled in fishing nets in the Sea of Cortez. She was nearly drowning because her fins and tail flukes were so entangled. They were able to slowly free her and when she swam away, her joyful exuberance was exhibited in countless leaps and breaches. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6pKX3whms8
Oh how wonderful it can feel to lose the ties that bind us, the attachments that hold us and can eventually drown us! Sometimes cutting those ties can be difficult and take much time and perseverance. Sometimes we have to be patient and stoic and put up with unpleasant initial experiences. But the rewards can be amazing.
Just let it go. Feel the freedom.
Lately I’ve been struggling with some changes in the Catholic Church. They’re really fairly minor: some of the ecclesiastical powers have decided we need our ritual language to be more poetic but also more pompous, more true to the original Latin translations but less relevant and real to our lives in the 21st Century. I spent most of Saturday at a workshop listening to all the explanations for this. I sat there simmering, thinking only that there are so many more important issues for the Church to deal with and that I would have to be learning a bunch of new Mass settings in addition to the new responses that will take effect this Advent. I was so frustrated and angry I was considering leaving my parish and the larger Catholic Church.
This morning our homilist talked about detachment and freedom. I realized immediately that my negative emotional reaction to the changes is something I need to let go of. God will not let a few little changes in liturgy and music come between us, so why should I allow that to happen? It’s my reactions to it that create the fissure. I get caught up in self-righteous anger and ownership of things that are comfortable for me. I see the sleight-of-hand happening in Rome that keeps our energies focused away from the real problems, and I allow that to really get to me. I know we are being worked and we can’t do a thing about it.
But God is in none of that, and my relationship to God doesn’t have to be, either. Rather, I can do as I see so many people who are upset about this doing – bow my head, accept, let go and move on. Try to find the gift in it, and trust that God will use this, too, as an instrument of grace.
OR, I can decide whether my lifelong membership in the Catholic Church is itself an attachment that keeps me from freely being the person God made me to be, from abandoning myself completely into God’s arms. Looking out at my congregation today it occurred to me that they are all an important part of my journey and part of my lesson. It is not yet time to turn my back on that connection. Perhaps some day it will be, but not now.
This afternoon I decided to give Charlie a bath. He was getting very smelly from too many weeks without one. My son Karl, grandson Jesse and I filled the wading pool with warm water. Charlie stoically stood while I soaped him up then rinsed him off. He loves water – wading in it and swimming in it. But baths are another matter. He tolerates them. Even with his boy Jesse helping (as much as a three-year-old can help), Charlie badly wanted to get out of the pool. But he stuck it out, he accepted the unpleasant parts of having water poured over him.
Afterwards, as I was drying him, he became very playful and exuberant, wild with joy. Was that because the bath was over, or because he was getting so much attention, or because so much dirt and hair had been washed away, making him feel free? Probably some of all three, but the idea of washing away the dirt and excess hair hit home: getting rid of “stuff” that weighs us down, restricts us, creates burdens in our lives.
It reminded me of a video I saw recently where a team of whale scientists freed a young humpback whale that had been badly tangled in fishing nets in the Sea of Cortez. She was nearly drowning because her fins and tail flukes were so entangled. They were able to slowly free her and when she swam away, her joyful exuberance was exhibited in countless leaps and breaches. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6pKX3whms8
Oh how wonderful it can feel to lose the ties that bind us, the attachments that hold us and can eventually drown us! Sometimes cutting those ties can be difficult and take much time and perseverance. Sometimes we have to be patient and stoic and put up with unpleasant initial experiences. But the rewards can be amazing.
Just let it go. Feel the freedom.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Rest and Refreshment, Peace and Prayer
I’ve been feeling really tired the last few weeks but I think it’s mostly a function of not getting enough sleep: staying up too late and then waking earlier than I’m ready for. I’ve had a lot of company since the end of July: three of my siblings – plus their spouses, grandsons or large dogs -- have spent the night (or several nights). That’s a lot more dinners and breakfasts than I’m used to preparing, plus the late nights talking and then early mornings to get coffee made and breakfast started that often come when family members you get to see far too rarely come to visit.
My energy has been focused primarily on being a hostess and enjoying their company; doing both is sometimes a difficult challenge for me. Finding time to spend with God has also been a challenge and I feel like I've been neglecting that part of my life. And when you toss in the upcoming next book, the September fundraiser I’m co-chairing for a friend, my spiritual direction class preparation and other things, I’ve had a little stress in my life. Of course, I’m POSITIVE this isn’t a sign that I’m slowing down, getting older. Absolutely sure of it. Okay, so Monday is my birthday, but that’s only a day on the calendar, and the years are only numbers, right? I just need a good rest!
In spite of my abundant blessings of company this summer, I’ve still managed to struggle a little with loneliness. One of my closest single friends has – without seemingly looking for it – found a really great relationship. She and he had been corresponding on Facebook based on similar interests and three weeks ago he drove out to Portland from the Midwest. They have spent every available minute together and are apparently quite smitten with each other. He’s planning to go back to the Midwest, collect his things and move to Oregon to be with her.
In following their whirlwind romance, I have been alternately stricken green with envy, exhausted at the pace they are keeping in going and doing and exploring the world together, and completely delighted for her that she has apparently found someone who seems so right for her. It gives me a little hope that it could some day happen for me. But only a little: I am realistic. We talked the other night, and she reminded me that it was their common love – passion, even – for a sport that had brought them together. And things just clicked. She asked me what I love. That’s a tough one.
Sharing my misgivings about lacking a specific passion with my sister-in-law during her visit last weekend, she suggested my spirituality, my faith life, appears--at least to her--to be an area in which I seem to have a lot of passion. That thought had occurred to me earlier, as well, when I was musing privately over this quandary.
I spoke with my spiritual director about this today and, as always, Jack had a great deal of wisdom to share. In my chapter for the next book, Real Women, Real Wisdom: A Journey into the Feminine Soul, I write:
“My spiritual director often reminds me that accompaniment—being present and supportive to others in their journey—is a skill that not everyone is willing or able to develop. He encourages me to accept that skill as a gift to myself and others. Being present to people, being a supportive, listening friend on their journey is not an impressive skill or one our culture values very highly. But it is a way of mirroring God’s love and presence in our lives, of modeling God for others.”
Being present to my family is part of that. Jack also reminded me today that Jesus wasn’t noted for having had any big successes when he walked the earth with his 12 rather-sketchy and not-always-astute apostles. He didn’t build cathedrals, or start major corporations, he didn’t have money, control, a political role or even a role within the church. He was just with people, there for them, loving them. Jack also reminded me that even when I feel like I haven’t had time for God, God has been there, waiting for me. He encouraged me to consider it prayer when I am aware, paying attention to God being present in the world, and allowing myself to be an instrument of God in the world in whatever ways I am presented with. And, I might add, letting God be present to me, there for me to lean on.
This morning sitting with several friends in our contemplative prayer gathering, I complained to God how tired I was and that 6 a.m. was just too darned early for me to be getting up to drive into the city for prayer. “How about,” I suggested to God, “I just curl up in your arms, lean my head on your chest and you hold me while I sleep.” God agreed that would work. I didn’t actually sleep at all, but I felt peaceful, held in a safe, warm embrace as I imagined myself floating on the ocean of God’s boundless love. I meditated on the feelings of what it was like as a child lying on an air mattress floating on a gentle lake, caressed by the sun, listening to little birds singing softy and water lapping at the edges of my little island. And like that child, I felt cherished, rested and refreshed and ready to see what wonderful surprises God has in store to delight me as my 61st birthday approaches. More than I could possibly imagine, no doubt!
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