Ashes and the Season of Lent: Maybe It's Time
Discerning the Place Your Find Yourself In
I once attended a retreat where participants were instructed to spend some time in nature and look for something that "spoke" to them. Whatever spoke to you, you were to pick up and bring back to the gathering-room to share.
Walking down a wooded path, I saw a white stone and bent to pick it up, but paused. The stone wasn't exceptional in itself, but its surroundings - green grass, pine needles, smaller gray pebbles - made the small, white stone stand out. I knew, if I picked it up to carry inside, I'd be removing it from its "place." I had a deep sense that the stone was exactly where it needed to be - in a place where it was both nestled-in and singled-out.
That stone helped me understand the importance of place, helped me accept that where I was was exactly where I needed to be. I suppose the message could have been different. All of us certainly find ourselves, at one time or another, in places we must leave posthaste, without looking back at all.
Knowing the difference, of course, is a question of discernment, one I've often sorted out in conversations with a Spiritual Director or close friend. Perhaps the best way to begin is with simple, non-judgmental, observation. Here are a few questions to get you started:
* What do you notice about the place you find yourself in (be honest)?
* How does it compare to other places you've been in?
* How might you know if this is a difficult, but important place for you to remain in for a season?
* What clear signs might tell you it's time to leave?
* Still feeling stuck? Shoot me an email (Chripczuk.kelly@gmail.com) to set up a FREE consultation - maybe Spiritual Direction would be a good fit for you.
What Remains in the Wake of Loss
I recently listened as a colleague ticked off a long list of losses. Each loss felt, to me, like an autumn leaf, brown and shriveled, dropping from a tree, from his lips, one by one. I could see the leaves falling, piling at his feet. I could feel loss upon loss gathered there, at the feet of the three of us, gathered virtually to listen.
In his poem, Fighting the Instrument, Mark Nepo speaks of the opening that often follows in the wake of loss. He is careful, however, to avoid minimizing the pain of loss. Two-thirds of the way through the poem, he makes it clear: choosing to value the openings created over the desire to fight or bemoan the often cruel agents of change, is never an easy choice.
"This is very difficult to accept," the poem says. The line is so brief and clear, it would be easy to overlook. But, I have stayed in that place of difficulty that precedes acceptance for weeks, months, and occasionally years at a time. Sometimes I think that staying, that willingness to breathe through each painful loss, is what leads to acceptance, is what creates the opening and the courage needed to live into it.
My colleague listed his losses and they fell like leaves gathered into a growing pile. We listened and affirmed the losses. But, even still, as the leaves were falling, I remembered the way barren branches reveal so much more of a winter-blue sky. I glimpsed, for a moment, the opening being made, and it gave me hope that there would be revealed, again, a "jewel in the center of the stone."
This post is a reflection on Mark Nepo's poem, "Fighting the Instrument." Visit Spirituality and Health to read the poem and the poet's own reflections on it.
Gratitude and Our Most Painful Losses
Occasionally, it's possible to catch a glimpse of gratitude bubbling up on the periphery of life's most painful experiences. This gratitude is bashful, hovering just to the side of things, small and round, like a spot of light, refracted. This gratitude invites a turning in those who want to truly embrace it.
This is not gratitude for the loss itself, but for the path it opened, for the spacious place in which you find yourself now - days or weeks or months later. It is a sliver of light, a glimmer in deep darkness. Such gratitude is best captured by peripheral vision - look too closely at it, slide it under the microscope of quantity, quality or necessary identification, and it dissolves like fog in the morning sun. But, abide with it, welcome it in passing; extend your hand, your heart, to it, as one might do with a skittish cat and maybe, perhaps, one day, when you least expect it, it will walk right over and curl up to sleep in your lap.
This post is a reflection on Mark Nepo's poem, "Fighting the Instrument." Visit Spirituality and Health to read the poem and the poet's own reflections on it.
Turn
Turn verb: to (cause to) change the direction in which you are facing or moving.