Lately, when I’ve seen friends whom I haven’t seen in a few months, I have no story to tell. About what I’ve been doing, and how much I’ve accomplished.
I’ve begun to dread the questions: What have you been doing? What’s new?
I’ve had a bit of a hard-stop for the last three months. First, a bad fall, with severely banged-up knees and a broken wrist, resulting in a few weeks prone on the couch. Then, a bout of bronchitis for another few weeks.
Yes, I’ve been working, but I haven’t had the energy, stamina, or physical capacity to start new projects or finish some of the big ones I started at the beginning of summer. All in good time, they will get done.
It’s been interesting, though, to notice how insufficient I feel when I’m not accomplishing notable, visible, or new things, and when don’t have a story to tell about those questions. I find myself squirming in my chair, with nothing “meaningful” or exciting to say.
What I have been doing is paying more attention to my life. Taking real pleasure in The Ordinary Moments. Really appreciating and loving The Ordinary Things. Trying to just “Be,” and let that be enough. It’s not that easy, let me tell you.
First, the Ordinaries don’t hit the headlines, or even show up on the radar, of most people’s Most Interesting List.
Blank looks and stares and silences are the norm when I try to describe how the luminescent purple color of the asters stopped me in my tracks, or how I was taken aback by a rowdy flock of crows on my morning walk.
But what’s even more disturbing is that I judge it, and myself, as inadequate, when that is “all I do.” I begin to feel like I am put out to the junk yard, because I’m not contributing sufficiently to the world. Not earning my keep. And I’m doing it to myself!
I know that part of this just comes with the territory of our action-oriented culture, where we are generally valued according to our production and our visible, tangible contribution. It’s insidious, and there’s nothing I can do about that bit. But I can do something about the self-worth bit.
I used to go on retreat to a monastery, and the monks there continually faced criticism for their lack of activism, in a world in crisis. The question they faced was how can “just their prayer” be doing any good in the world? I didn’t have the guts to ask them that, but I wanted so much to believe that “just their prayer,” and their love, did make a difference, maybe a big one. When the subject just came up in the course of our conversation, I remember them sharing with me their conviction that merely the conscious choice to put loving, appreciative energy out into the world was making a difference.
I think I am being called to examine that premise, for myself, and to come to terms with it, about both what energy I am choosing to put out into the world, and about its sufficiency.
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