What will you do?

This month I'm inviting us to "unpack" a New Year's reading by the Rev. Kathleen McTigue: 

The first of January is another day dawning, the sun rising as the sun always rises, the earth moving in its rhythms, with or without a certain as the day of new beginning, separating the old from the new.  So it is:  everything is the same, bound into its history as we ourselves are bound. 

Yet we also stand at a threshold, the new year something truly new, still unformed, leaving a stunning power in our hands: 

What shall we do with this great gift of Time, this year? 

Let us begin by remembering that whatever justice, whatever peace and wholeness might bloom in our world this year, we are the hearts and minds, the hands and feet, the embodiment of all the best visions of our people.  

The year can be new ground for the seeds of our dreams.  Let us take the step forward, together, onto new ground, planting our dreams well, faithfully, and in joy.

By now you know the drill -- we've looked at the first and second paragraphs already.  Today, let's look at the third which is, I believe, the most important of them all:

What shall we do with this great gift of Time, this year?

Whether you think of this reading as pertinent particularly to he beginning of the new calendar year, or the beginning of any new chapter of a person's life, this question is one of the most fundamental we can possibly consider.  

Mary Oliver's poem, 'The Summer Day," lifts up this same question while also pointing rather clearly toward an answer.  (Her death this year truly was a great loss.  I know many people who have experienced her writings as, if you will, contemporary scripture.)

The Summer Day
Who made the world?Who made the swan, and the black bear?Who made the grasshopper?This grasshopper, I mean --
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

So, tell me ...

Pax tecum,

RevWik

A New Normal

This month I'm inviting us to "unpack" a New Year's reading by the Rev. Kathleen McTigue:

The first of January is another day dawning, the sun rising as the sun always rises, the earth moving in its rhythms, with or without a certain as the day of new beginning, separating the old from the new.  So it is:  everything is the same, bound into its history as we ourselves are bound. 

Yet we also stand at a threshold, the new year something truly new, still unformed, leaving a stunning power in our hands: 

What shall we do with this great gift of Time, this year? 

Let us begin by remembering that whatever justice, whatever peace and wholeness might bloom in our world this year, we are the hearts and minds, the hands and feet, the embodiment of all the best visions of our people.  

The year can be new ground for the seeds of our dreams.  Let us take the step forward, together, onto new ground, planting our dreams well, faithfully, and in joy.

Last week we looked at the first paragraph, noting how often the advent of something startlingly new for us bumps up against the experience of business-as-usual in those around us.  Today I want to take up the next part of Kathleen's reflections:

[W]e also stand at a threshold, the new year something truly new, still unformed, leaving a stunning power in our hands: 

It is important for us to recognize and honor the fact -- and it is a fact -- that when we go through a truly transformation experience like the birth of a child or the death of a parent, for instance, something really has changed.  To those around us who were not, are not, as intimately involved in may want to go back to "normal," may urge us to do so to, yet it's okay for us to affirm that there is no going back to "normal."  Perhaps more accurately, for us there is no going back to that old "normal;" there is, as it's often called, a "new normal."  When I'm talking with grieving family member after the death of a loved one I'll often stick my arm out, palm up, and tell them to expect to feel as though the world has "turned upside down."  I'll turn my hand over, palm down now, by way of illustration.  "It's also important to realize and prepare yourself to accept that the world will never turn right-side-up again.  This upside-down world will become your "new normal"."

The same is true of more easily recognized as "positive" transformations.  Our lives have changed.  Despite being "just another day" in some respects, this "new day" is new.

It's also worth noting that this is true on a much smaller scale with each and every moment of each and every day.  Yes, when I go home this evening after work, my dogs will start running around, barking for their dinner.  And after I feed them they'll start charging for the door and their walk.  It's happened a thousand times before.  And yet, at the same time, this particular running, barking, and charging has never happened before.  If I am awake, if I am aware of my life -- rather than just sleeping through the assumptions of it -- then I will notice that this moment has never come before, and will never come again.

What helps you to savor the uniqueness of this particular iteration of something that's part of the normal course of things?  How have you been able to acclimate yourself to a "new normal"?

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Same Old, Same Old

Last week I called our attention to something written by the Rev. Kathleen McTigue, a meditation for New Years:

The first of January is another day dawning, the sun rising as the sun always rises, the earth moving in its rhythms, with or without a certain as the day of new beginning, separating the old from the new.  So it is:  everything is the same, bound into its history as we ourselves are bound. 

Yet we also stand at a threshold, the new year something truly new, still unformed, leaving a stunning power in our hands: 

What shall we do with this great gift of Time, this year? 

Let us begin by remembering that whatever justice, whatever peace and wholeness might bloom in our world this year, we are the hearts and minds, the hands and feet, the embodiment of all the best visions of our people.  

The year can be new ground for the seeds of our dreams.  Let us take the step forward, together, onto new ground, planting our dreams well, faithfully, and in joy.

Let's look at just that first paragraph: 

The first of January is another day dawning, the sun rising as the sun always rises, the earth moving in its rhythms, with or without a certain as the day of new beginning, separating the old from the new.  So it is:  everything is the same, bound into its history as we ourselves are bound. 

The start of something new can often leave us breathlessly disoriented, whether it's something we think of as "good" or "bad."  When we start a new relationship, decide to become engaged, get married -- each of these happy events can "rock our world" and make everything seem almost distractingly new.  I remember having a hard time driving for several months after my wedding, because I' was described when I saw the ring on my finger every time I looked down at the wheel.

When a couple decides to separate, or when the divorce papers are filed, or finalized, life can take on a similarly strange and almost unrecognizable cast.  So, too, when a baby is born, or a new job materializes (or an old one disintegrates), or a loved one dies, or we receive shocking diagnosis ourselves, or ... you get the point.  No doubt you can offer your own examples of times in your life when everything seemed to change.

And yet your friends and neighbors still got up and went to school or work just as if nothing had happened.  You had to, too.  Oh, people may at first have indulged your repeated exclamations of how disorienting things were now, but after a while they seemed to tire of it.  It's not unusual for the loved ones of someone who's recently died to find that their friends seem to be "returning to their regular lives" while they, themselves, are still deeply grieving.  This, in itself, can throw us off balance.  What is, for us, a New Day seems to everyone else to be Just Another Day. 

Is this something you've ever experienced (on either side of that equation)?  How have you made sense of it?  What has helped you to find a center in this midst of this paradox?

Pax tecum,

RevWik

This Gift of Time

When I (re)launched Pathways of Spirit back in March of 2018, I reference something my friend and colleague, the Rev. Kathleen McTigue, wrote.  I noted then that it had originally been written for New Year's Day, yet could also be considered apropos for the "new day" at the beginning of any new venture.  Given that we've just passed the calendrical New Year's Day, I thought I'd point our attention to it again:

The first of January is another day dawning, the sun rising as the sun always rises, the earth moving in its rhythms, with or without a certain as the day of new beginning, separating the old from the new.  So it is:  everything is the same, bound into its history as we ourselves are bound. 

Yet we also stand at a threshold, the new year something truly new, still unformed, leaving a stunning power in our hands: 

What shall we do with this great gift of Time, this year? 

Let us begin by remembering that whatever justice, whatever peace and wholeness might bloom in our world this year, we are the hearts and minds, the hands and feet, the embodiment of all the best visions of our people.  

The year can be new ground for the seeds of our dreams.  Let us take the step forward, together, onto new ground, planting our dreams well, faithfully, and in joy.

For the rest of this month I'm going to "unpack" this passage a bit, because I think there's a whole lot in there for us to play with.

Pax tecum,

RevWik