A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough (21 page)

I am no longer able to delay, put off, or postpone any possibility of joy, delight, or love for any presumably “good” reason. The heart knows nothing of reasons, and mine is fiercely incapable of tolerating any such foolishness.

My illnesses have taught me to do less, and more slowly. I have no words to describe the spacious, easy delight I feel when strolling around my neighborhood, taking time to notice each and every new blossom along the way. I am grateful with every step I take. It is not at all drama or hyperbole to say I know it may be my last.

Meister Eckhart, the Christian mystic, has been quoted as saying, “If the only prayer you ever say in your life is
Thank you
, that would be enough.” How can we imagine that everything we have, everything given, each thing taken, may, if our hearts become supple and tender enough to allow it in, become not only acceptable but a genuine, authentic blessing, however unexpected or unwanted, for which we cannot help but give thanks?

An Ordinary Miracle

Last month our next-door neighbors, and close friends, put their little dog to sleep. Our two children are close to the neighbors and in particular to their family of dogs, whom they visit nearly every day after school. Bear was his name, and before it was time for the vet to come over, the children were invited to say good-bye to him. We all cuddled Bear, and the children began to wail. Everyone was crying. It was almost too much, but I was aware of not trying to change the children’s feelings, just letting them experience the full sadness of losing someone they loved. As we walked slowly home, sniffling and heads hanging, a tangible sweetness came over the four of us—a shared vulnerability. It brought us just a little closer that day—to ourselves and to each other. You could even say that we were happy in our sadness
.

The trick, I believe, is to recognize that tiny little spark of happiness in our lives, no matter how small it is. And then to take that little spark and recognize that it is enough; it doesn’t need to get bigger or louder
.

The other night, while putting the kids to bed, I had a moment to myself on my daughter’s bed while waiting for her to brush her teeth. She was singing to herself through the bubbles of her toothpaste. In the room next door, my son was talking to
our dog. It was just an ordinary moment, just like any other ordinary moment, that could have been lost in the shuffle of the millions of moments in my lifetime. But this moment, for some reason, I thought to myself, This is enough; I’m happy enough. And with that thought, a load of concerns, angst, striving, and doubt just drained out with one huge exhale
.

Kelly Wendorf

Wandering and Bumping

I
was walking with a friend through the ruins of an old Anasazi pueblo, in a high-desert valley in northern New Mexico. It was a perfectly sunny, languid afternoon, the kind with no hurry in it, and we ambled gently, following the footsteps of a people who had lived and loved and prospered in this place many hundreds of years ago. As we walked, we reflected on the magnificent beauty of the sheer cliff walls lining the valley, the sweet, narrow stream meandering through the remains of the old village, on how they may have spent their days in work, harvesting, family life, and on their clear and obvious devotion to sacred ritual.

As often happens when two friends stroll without purpose, my companion began to describe to me an emerging confusion. He was of late feeling less and less clear about his personal and particular call to his vocation. He is a beloved rabbi in New York City who has, by any standard, accomplished many good things in his life. He was grateful for his ability, through scholarship, training, and a natural wisdom and empathy, to have been able to provide reassuring answers for people who brought him the more difficult questions of their lives. He has accompanied people through births and deaths, illness and loss, changes in fate and wealth, the inevitable joys and sorrows that saturate
any human life. These would be not unfamiliar to any clergy, healer, or shaman in any faith, any culture, anywhere on the earth.

Still, he confessed, since 9/11 he had been having a more difficult time coming up with the “right” answers for those who sought his counsel. Of course, he could, as before, recite sacred texts, suggest practices, prayers, and ways of living that had worked well for others in the past. And most would, as before, leave his company feeling deeply loved and cared for.

Still, he felt uneasy. He told me of going immediately to Ground Zero the very first day, and then every day after that for a very long time. “What did you do there?” I asked. He paused. “Anything,” he responded. “Everything. I would just wander around, and sooner or later would find myself in the company of someone who needed something. I just did whatever was required, whatever seemed right at the time.”

But he confessed that he was beginning to feel that “this is no kind of call, no real ministry, just wandering around all the time.” I don’t know if he was confessing a sin, or challenging me, or challenging himself—or perhaps challenging God to somehow make his work, his call, feel good and right again.

I smiled. We walked a while in silence.

“You know,” I said playfully, looking ahead, up at the sky, not at him, not at anything in particular, “you just described the entire ministry of Jesus. If you read the Gospels carefully, what did he do? He wandered around, bumped into people, and did whatever seemed necessary at the time. After three years, he had upset enough people with this kind of ministry that they just got rid of him.”

I continued. “He didn’t have any three-year plan. He had no goals, no objectives, no meetings, no minutes. He just kind of wandered around without any specific agenda—as we are so pleasantly doing right here, now, this afternoon, in this sacred place, without any plans or goals of our own. The Gospels say Jesus went here, then there, then some other place. They sometimes inserted or invented good reasons for why he went to this or that place when they wrote the Gospels down afterward, but there’s no real indication that Jesus had any need to know where he was going to be called next, or why.

“Sounds to me,” I concluded, “like you are following your call in the footsteps of a very ancient, well-respected rabbi. Perhaps we have stumbled on your true calling—the sacred practice of Wandering and Bumping.”

He smiled. We walked on in silence, only stopping to smell the bark of a ponderosa pine that smelled exactly like vanilla.

Setting the Pace of Our Days

I
n summer I walk in the evenings, the cool of the day. There are many ways to go for a walk. One is purposeful, determined, an aerobic exercise to raise the heart rate for health or to lose a few summer BBQ pounds.

Then there is the walk to the market, about a half mile from my home, to get a bag of groceries and save gas along the way. Other times I walk just for the pleasure of feeling my body move or simply to get some fresh air.

Then there is the purposeless walk, more of a stroll, an amble, nothing that could be called a hike. It is slower, subject to caprice and curiosity: Shall I turn this way or that? I wonder how the roses are doing at the park? What if I follow the sunset sky that looks particularly inviting if I choose to walk in that direction?

Each of these walks has a different pace. We easily feel the difference between a hike in the mountains and a stroll around the neighborhood. But in any case, whatever our pace, we can, if we simply pay attention, notice whether we are pushing our pace of walking or if we are following it.

Do you know what I mean? Try it. See if, when you walk, you find yourself hurrying ahead of your pace or following gently behind it. If I were to stop you on the path and ask you, you
would be able to tell me without hesitation which you were doing. You know the instant you pay attention.

Often we can be completely unaware of our pace. Only when we collapse in bed at the end of the day do we recognize some deep weariness, having pushed our way from the bed that morning straight through until the moment our head hit the pillow this very second.

Many of us feel that the pace of our days is determined by external forces, relentless demands and requirements, the tyranny of our to-do list, our emails—that in fact our work and family responsibilities control our schedule, our time, and decide, before we even get out of bed, the pace of our days.

What would it be like to attend more faithfully to the inner voices that speak to us of the way our body wants to move this day, the gentle tempo of our heart, the slower gait of a stroll—rather than a punishing marathon—through the events of the day? We tend to presume that pushing the pace of our days is the only way to make it through, to get caught up, to get things done. Yet how many of us have found, when all external pressure is relieved and we are left to our own natural rhythm, that we find we can actually get more things done, more easily and more effectively?

How do we feel when we fall gently into the natural pace of our day, following rather than leading? Can we imagine beginning our day with a gentle intention to set the pace of our day, the speed, the way we move in the world, the way we make our choices, attentive to the reliable inner rhythms that guide our body and heart?

Unshopping

V
iolet is the pastor of a small, inner-city Lutheran church. She has an enormous heart, an infectious laugh, and multiple sclerosis. Her faith and courage are inspirations to all who know her.

Because of her illness, Violet cannot drive. She must use public transportation to get around Philadelphia to perform all her ministerial duties. Last winter she wrote me this letter:

The work I do brings me into town. I get there by way of Suburban Station at 17th and Market. I could probably do a review of all the bathrooms in the city, and I can tell you that the women’s bathroom in Suburban Station is one of the worst I have ever seen. Pipes are exposed, and it’s always dirty. There is graffiti; and the plumbing rarely works.

When I complained about this bathroom to one of the station agents, his response was “You shouldn’t go in there, it is too dangerous.”

Now, I could take his advice and avoid that bathroom altogether, but you see, there is a problem. For a number of homeless women, that bathroom is the only place where they can change their clothes and wash up. For these women, that bathroom is part of their home. I suspect that this is part of the reason the administration does not clean it up. Avoiding that bathroom is not an acceptable solution, and so I intentionally continue to use it.

Last Monday, as I prepared to leave for my meeting in the bitter December cold, I thought of that bathroom and the women who inevitably would be washing and changing when I got there. I knew I couldn’t do much about the conditions of the bathroom, but I had this crazy idea.

I wondered, what would it be like to go “unshopping”? What would it be like if, instead of going out to buy things, I was able to share some of the many things that I had already bought?

I took out a shopping bag from Strawbridge’s and went into my closet. I chose two sweaters that were almost new; I carefully folded them and put them into the bag.

When I got to the station, I went directly to the bathroom. In the corner was a woman eating a meal by the heat. She wore a thin denim jacket. At first, she seemed afraid that I was going to chase her away. I used the bathroom. After washing my hands, I asked the woman if she would like a sweater. Without hesitation, she said yes. I laid the sweaters out for her, and she carefully chose one.

Like a child, she lifted her arms out to me. I helped her put on the sweater. She thanked me, and I thanked her for allowing me to share this with her. Then I left.

I was only a few feet away from the bathroom when she came out and “modeled” the sweater for a man who had come up to her. I walked back. It seemed that he, too, had been living in the streets. He asked the woman about another woman, one whose feet and shopping cart I could see sticking out of the stall. I decided this might be the recipient of the second sweater.

I walked back over and asked the woman I had just met if she knew of someone who could use the second sweater. The man looked at me and the woman and, pointing to the bathroom, said, “Mary needs a sweater.”

“Mary needs a sweater.” And I wondered if his name might not have been Joseph. I handed the sweater to the woman, and she went to help Mary put it on.

It took almost nothing for me to go unshopping. I gave away two sweaters; but in return, I received the vulnerability and trust of the woman who had so graciously allowed me to dress her. And in return, I had a face-to-face encounter with Mary—and Joseph—and I daresay Jesus, present in the rot and the filth of that train station bathroom.

Violet now makes a habit of going unshopping whenever she uses public transportation. Can you imagine going unshopping yourself? Or taking a few children along with you? We all have clothing and other useful items we give to charity. Why not skip the middle step and offer something you no longer need to someone who could use it right now? You may learn their story; maybe they will learn yours.

But perhaps you will learn something more than this, something I cannot tell you, something that you learn only when you leap across and listen to what the whole universe is aching to tell you, this minute, about love and hope and faith and courage and safety and abundance and love again and life, life, always life.

A Life Made of Days

W
hen people come to me as a therapist or a minister, they often bring some question or ache that will not let them alone, a lingering discomfort or uncertainty that has begun to keep them awake at night and interrupt their thoughts during the day. They may describe a specific relationship or event that sparked their confusion, but they soon uncover something essential in their life that once felt good or balanced, and now, somehow, things changed, are still changing, and they feel lost and afraid. Their old life no longer serves them, but no clear new life has emerged to take its place.