STOPPED

The sun-dappled porch was quiet and cool. I was lost in my thought. The ideas were stuttering their insight. The yellow legal pad tried to capture them before they wafted away on the breeze. 

In my effort to stimulate my thought, I was reading snatches of “The Writing Life” by Annie Dillard. As I work to carve out space for more writing, I thought it might help to read how others did it. It was liberating to read that it takes 2 to 10 years to write a book. Patience, Moseley.

As I reveled in Annie Dillard’s spare but vivid words, I turned the page and there, hiding between pages 32 and 33, as if waiting to disrupt my revelry, was a bookmark. The picture was of a cat standing on top of some books, underneath were the words
                Your Personal Bookseller
                 Mills Bookstores
                 Belle Meade
                 Brentwood
                Hillsboro Village
 And hiding under the bookmark was the receipt, still legible, $12.89.

And my mind whipsawed back some 25 years when I was trying to figure out how to write a book. And back to the old, tightly packed and chaotic Bookstore in Hillsboro Village in Nashville, TN, where I frequented not only when I was served a congregation there but also 50 years ago when I was studying at Vanderbilt Divinity School.

And there I was stopped in my tracks. My musings were hijacked as I was swallowed by the warm memories of small privately owned bookstores where books spilled out of the shelves, crying out for me to pick them, open them and have my mind introduced to new worlds. It was a place where you could talk books with those who knew them. I am so grateful for the chance to be embraced by such places.

I know there are still places like Mills Bookstore, but, I don’t live near them. And anyway, there are times when I just want to revel in warm memories. This is one of those days.

SURPRISED

The gold flashed in the sunlight as the Monarch butterfly flitted and flapped in and out of the shadows and sunlight. The Prairie grass waved its toast colored tops in the wind. A few of the trees were tinged with red on their edges. The cool morning air wrapped itself around me. I was hiking in the state park absorbed by the day.

And then my hand went to my chest.  It patted my heart. I felt bubbly inside. It was like a fresh breeze in my breast. It wiggled and danced for a moment and then it was gone.  What was that?

Then I remembered something I had read yesterday. I read about depression and its opposite. Roland Rolheiser believes that most adults live with chronic depression.  He is not talking about clinical depression, but the absence of energy and interest in life. He contends that we are often weighted down with the choices that we have to make. Our spirits drag around the weight of unfulfilled hopes and dreams.

And he says that the opposite of depression isn’t necessarily optimistic, upbeat, fun-loving. But, he says, “[t]he opposite of depression is delight, being spontaneously surprised by the goodness and beauty of living.”#  

And I realized that the involuntary hand to the chest was a sign of my being surprised by delight. I had not been trying to find it. I had just been doing my daily discipline of hiking, wandering around in my mind, sorting through the stuff of life.  And there it was—delight—right there for me to taste, to feel, to sense. And for a moment, I discovered the delight in the beauty of living.

I am not sure how delight found me. Maybe it just visits from time to time and when I am not too distracted by the compulsion of my own plans and desires it invades my soul and I am reminded how glad I am to be alive.

#(“The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality,” by Ronald Rolheiser, p.26)

GOOD MORNING SIR

As I was hiking the trails yesterday, the warm summer breeze was blowing helping me clear my brain. A young, solitary runner passed me. “Good morning, Sir!” he said with conviction.  What did he mean by that?  Sir? Does my gray hair and slower cadence belie my age?  He didn’t say, “Hey Dude,” or “Yo Bro,” or “g’day mate”.  No, he said, “Good morning Sir!”

And then I thought, “Am I afraid of getting old?  Of not fitting in with the younger crowd?” Why does it bother me that someone calls me “sir?”

But, then I decided, “Sir” means respect. As he passed me, he greeted me with respect. And he was not a friend.  He didn’t know me  or know if I was worthy of respect. He was a stranger.  And his greeting was a way of showing me, a stranger, respect.  He didn’t say, “Hey, old man,” he said, “Sir!”

And I began to wonder what our lives would be like if we showed respect to strangers. What if we assumed the strangers we meet are worthy of respect? What if others always greeted us with respect? Would we start living in a way that warranted their respect? I thought , “I need to reflect on my own life and live it as respectfully as I can.  I need to assume that the strangers I meet are worthy of my respect, not my suspicion or fear. Maybe the world would be more respectful if we treated strangers with this kind of regard.”

Toward the end of my hike, the young man lapped me. (obviously faster and younger). I stepped off the trail and let him pass. He said, “Thank you, Sir!”

And I quietly replied, “Thank you. . . Sir.”

SHOT

I got a pneumonia shot today. I didn’t cry. So, I thought, “I’ll get myself an ice cream cone.”  And I did.

How did those things ever get connected in my mind? Why did I think I should get an ice cream because I got a shot—and did not cry?  Is it deep in my childhood memory? Was I rewarded for not crying when I was in pain?

I am not sure, but I have heard of such a thing. We often reward children if they don’t cry. Or, we sometimes shame them if they do. When a child gets hurt, we sometimes say, “There, there, don’t cry.  It’ll be all right.” (As if the fact that it will be all right makes the pain any less intense.)

Why do we teach children to hold in their tears when they are hurt? Is it because we don’t like the sound of crying? Is it because we don’t want them to hurt and we can pretend it doesn’t hurt if they are not crying? Is it because we feel powerless to fix their problem?  Probably these and many other reasons explain our efforts.

But, I wonder what this conditioning does to us when we become adults and do not feel that we have permission to cry when we hurt.  What does this way of dealing with tears of children contribute to the inability of many people to express their painful emotions? 

Tears are a gift. They reflect our being in touch with primary feelings such as pain or hurt or sadness.  If we do not express these softer and more honest feelings, they can often get twisted and become hardened and then channeled as anger or aggression toward others. Tears help us release the tension that we often feel when we are overcome with stress or too many painful circumstances.

So, maybe we could try something to help us adults express our more primary feelings.  Maybe we could get an ice cream cone when we give in to the sadness and cry. 

OFFICE HOURS

Most of my life I have done work in service of others. I spent over 3 decades providing pastoral leadership in churches and another 15 years working at a seminary training people to become clergy.  During the past 7 years I have been an executive coach and congregational consultant.

One of the things that all three of these phases of my life shared was the unpredictability of the job. You could make plans but were never sure that someone might come along that would require that you change your plans. Office hours were terribly unpredictable.

But several years ago I finally found the sign for my office door that reflected the reality of my job. Deb and I were hiking the Milford Track in New Zealand and after a couple of days through the rain forest, we went over a mountain on which it was snowing.  In the hut at the top where we had some hot chocolate and a snack, I found this sign:

OFFICE HOURS

Open most days about 9-10,
Occasionally as early as 7 but some days as late
As 12 or 1.
We close about 5 or 6
Occasionally about 4 or 5
But sometimes as late as 11 or 12.
Some days or afternoons we aren’t here at all
But lately I have been here just about all the time—
Except when I am someplace else but I should
Be here then too!!

Now that I am partially retired and work only part time, this still adorns my door as a reminder that I have practiced this schedule all my life.  

And it has been a really good life!!