Cindy on February 22nd, 2009
Waiting is the yeasting of the human soul. — Sue Monk Kidd
One of my favorite traditions at our local church is the silent meditation service held during the Lenten season. The midweek candlelit service is organized by church members, and sometimes an organist provides soulful background music.
The service is offered during Lent because it is, as T.S. Eliot wrote in his poem, Ash Wednesday, âa time of tension between dying and birth.â It is the perfect opportunity for reflection; a time to meditate on the fearsome darkness of the tomb and the pending miracle of Easter.
While a silent service is simple enough to plan, it isn’t as easy to carry out. Few of us are comfortable âbeing stillâ in a sanctuary with other people sitting near us. We expect to be enlightened, educated, entertained, preached to, or otherwise distracted from the white noise in our heads. Meditation makes us fidgety.
As Sue Monk Kidd notes in her midlife memoir, When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions, one of the guiding principles of American culture is âAll lines must keep moving.â Even when we’re home alone, we rush to fill the void with mindless activity or television. Kidd says we resist getting quiet because we’re afraid to confront our own darkness.
Yet real miracles occur during moments of being still â and waiting in the dark. Spring bulbs do their hardest labor underground before blooming. Our minds sort out conflicts in dreams while we’re sleeping. Likewise, the work of spiritual growth and healing is done in silence.
The time I woke up alone in a dark hospital room immediately comes to mind.
It was just past midnight, a few hours after my second hip-replacement surgery. Barely conscious, I awoke to discover my legs were strapped to a large foam wedge to keep me from moving. While I realized this was essential to my recovery, I still felt trapped and terrified. Equally scary was the sensation of waking up alone in a strange room. (I didn’t recall being wheeled in after surgery.) And while most hospitals are buzzing with activity during the day and evening, the earliest hours of the morning are eerily quiet.
Breaking the silence, I shouted for help and pushed every button within reach. It was the first time I’d experienced a full-blown panic attack. When my nurse arrived, she explained that my panic was probably triggered by withdrawal from the anesthesia. She promised to check back periodically. Meanwhile, I kept a light on above my bed. Afraid to fall asleep, I kept vigil until daybreak.
By the time the sun rose, my drug-induced paranoia had worn off, and I accepted my temporary state of immobility. And in a luminous moment of grace, I suddenly knew I’d been given a second chance. I knew that I would heal and walk again. It would take time, but everything would be okay. And it was. Three days later, I was released early from the hospital to recover in bed at home.
A week before that last surgery, my friend Jenny had sent me a note of encouragement, which included a quote by Patrick Overton. Here’s how it begins:
When you come to the edge of all the light you have and must take a step into the darkness of the unknown, believe that one of two things will happen to you: Either there will be something solid for you to stand on, or, you will be taught how to fly.
I’ve posted that quote where I can see it on my desk every day. It’s the one I like to remember when I’m stumbling in the dark or feeling stuck — or waiting impatiently for a new season to begin. — Cindy La Ferle
–This essay appeared in slightly different form in The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak, MI) and is included in my essay collection, Writing Home–
Cindy on February 19th, 2009
Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born. – Helen Keller
Have you ever found yourself in a position of extreme vulnerability — when you had to rely on others to help you navigate even the most ordinary routines? Most of my life, I’ve struggled to appear self-reliant and capable. My first hip-replacement surgery changed all that. You can read more about it in this week’s MIDPOINT column in the online edition of The Oakland Press.
âIf you missed the introductory âMidpointâ column in The Oakland Press, click here.â
Cindy on February 4th, 2009
“The imagination needs moodling — long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling, and puttering.” — Brenda Ueland
Right now, the landscape outside my office window looks more like the moon than southeast Michigan. Even when the sun shines, my seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is always at its worst in February. Meanwhile, several of my friends are heading to Florida this week. And I’m not.
When SAD strikes, I find it hard to concentrate or to get motivated. I get crabby and impatient and fed-up with people I’m usually fond of. But after years of battling it, I’ve learned that the best antidote — barring a trip to Bermuda — is a long afternoon of guilt-free puttering.
Cheaper than air fare or psychotherapy, puttering lets your mind wander while your body hangs out around the house. And unlike fall housecleaning, which involves physical energy and high-powered appliances, puttering puts you in a Zen-like state of bliss. Not to be confused with slacking, fidgeting, fiddling, or piddling, puttering is good for mental health. In fact, Brenda Ueland, author of the classic If You Want to Write, insisted that long periods of “moodling” (her word for puttering) are essential to the creative process.
Sadly, ours is a goal-directed, work-till-you-drop culture. And since most of us like to boast about how terribly busy we are, puttering is never easy to pull off.
For those who practice on the sly, like I do, puttering styles are varied and highly personal.
Puttering can be the act of sorting through a box of college textbooks in the basement; tinkering under the hood of an old Chevy; or rearranging things on a shelf while you listen to jazz on the stereo. In other words, puttering is a way of clarifying life’s myriad details, especially when it’s done with reverence for the objects at hand. It’s an opportunity to reconsider what we most enjoy in our homes, and to make a mental list of what we’d like to edit later.
Feeling sluggish and blue last week, I decided to putter in the kitchen. Taking inventory of my good china, I lost myself in happy memories of the two grandmothers who had actually used all the serving pieces for holiday dinners. I marveled, too, at how both sets of dishes have survived several moves and kitchen renovations â and somehow outlived their original owners.
If puttering still sounds like a chore you’ve postponed, it’s only because you haven’t found a method that cheers or relaxes you. One man’s notion of drudgery, after all, can be another’s idea of soul craft.
“I can’t explain it, but I enjoy doing dishes,” writes Thomas Moore, a former Catholic monk and author of Care of the Soul. “I’ve had an automatic dishwasher in my home for over a year, and I have never used it. What appeals to me, I think, is the reverie induced by going through the ritual of washing, rinsing, and drying.” Thomas Moore can come over to my house and wash dishes any time he visits Detroit (especially if his visit coincides with another power failure). Meanwhile, I’ll keep loading my dishwasher.
Still, there’s merit in savoring the ordinary tasks of daily living.
A lot of us spend our lives reaching for lofty goals, or at least trying to look productive 24/7. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if so many of us weren’t scratching our heads and wondering what’s missing even after we’ve won all the trophies. (Consider all those baby-boomer executives who can’t wait to retire.)
âMy life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?â observed Charles M. Schulz, creator of Peanuts. Charlie Brown, after all, was pretty good at puttering. — Cindy La Ferle
– Parts of this essay are excerpted from Writing Home –
