Lessons in Gratitude Day 711

Posted on June 24, 2013 by mtchamblee

I am grateful tonight for the ripple effect of random acts of kindness. The very phrase “random acts of kindness” has been so overused as to be cliché, but I hope the concept never goes out of date. I am a big believer in doing whatever I can in as many ways as I can–some large, but many very small–to make the world a better place. I have paid for people’s gas, given people food, helped jump start cars, shoveled people’s driveways, returned runaway pets…all kinds of things over the years. Like gratitude, generosity is a practice, generosity in this context meaning offering of oneself not solely of one’s financial means. I’ve tried to live it and model it for my kids. I can remember one time giving away my gas can that I kept in my car for emergencies to a man who had run out of gas and had no way to get any.

“Mom, why did you give that man the gas can and some cash?” One of them asked me.
“Because he was in a bad situation and needed the help.” I replied. “And because one of these days a complete stranger is going to help you when you’re in a difficult situation and you’re not sure what you’re going to do.”

And I believe that to be true. I don’t do things looking to get something back; I simply believe that it’s a principle of the universe. I try help people as best I can in any given situation, some of them I know and others whom I will likely never see again. I don’t do things for what I might get out of or back from it, but each act of kindness becomes a kind of prayer that whatever good I might do for someone today will come back around and help someone I love later on, and/or that it becomes a springboard that encourages the person I helped to be generous to and help someone else. When we all do that we can’t help but make the world a better place, right? It has that whole “pay it forward” notion that feels right.

I have had moments, particularly over the last few years, when my personal finances were so tight that I could not give much in terms of financial contributions to charities or sometimes even to people I would pass on the street. During those lean financial times, however, I gave of my time and creative energy to serve others. This was especially true during the 15 months I volunteered at the Berkeley Food Pantry. It didn’t matter that I had no money to give; what I could give was my time, my strength, my encouragement, and other intangibles that made life–mine as well as the people I served–better. I would not trade that experience for anything, and I find myself thinking about how to make time in my life now to volunteer here in my local community. We shall see. But in the meantime I’ll keep looking for opportunities to exercise generosity by engaging in random acts of kindness and compassion. May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. So be it!

Enjoy this video that a friend shared on my Facebook page. It demonstrates the ripple effect of small acts of kindness.

Posted in Compassion, Generosity, Gratitude | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 710

Posted on June 23, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I went and looked for the moon, but I couldn’t find it. I got in my car, along with my four-legged sidekick, around 8:30 and set off in search of an open enough space from which I could see the super moon that had been promised. This morning when I’d awakened, it was raining. “There goes seeing the super moon,” I said to myself as I watched the steady rain drenching the day. I waited for it to let up before I took  my typical Sunday trip to the grocery store. It was cloudy all morning, but in early afternoon there were breaks in the clouds and blue sky began peeking through. By this evening there were equal parts of blue and gray with sunshine breaking through. Still, here at the end of the day when I went to look for the moon, I could not find it.

I confess that I struggled a bit today: I couldn’t seem to get myself together to get much done, though I did manage grocery shopping and laundry, so in that sense the day was not a total loss. It isn’t so much that I had a massive to-do list for the day, it is that at the end of the day I find myself wishing I’d done a little more with it. Alas. As I’ve often quoted from the night time prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book, “What’s done has been done; what has not been done has not been done; let it be.” So I reckon I will do just that: I will let it be.

I am grateful every day, even on those days when I feel disgruntled and cranky. This is a practice, a discipline of sorts, flexing the gratitude muscle when it is difficult. Gratitude, like faith itself, is not simply something that one trots out when everything is going well. It finds its way through the fog and gloom of ambiguity and uncertainty, sometimes being the only clear thing in the midst of confusion. I draw breath, I move my body with relative ease. I have mental capacity and physical dexterity, I am a spiritual being. I have food to nourish me, clothes to cover me, a home to shelter me, family who loves me. These things I can bring to mind without effort and express gratitude for them every day. Every day.

Every night I write this blog. Increasingly I find it difficult to write. More often now I spin the RNG wheel hoping to be inspired by something I’ve previously written. I still manage to find things to zero in on for this daily reflection on the power of gratitude, but some days it’s a struggle. I started writing this blog at a time of significant upheaval and turmoil in my life, at a time when it would have been just as easy to crawl under a rock. I chose not to crawl under the rock–it’s not my style to do that–and instead found ways to remain a positive contributor to the world around me as I prayed that my life would sort itself out. It did.

My life right now is not perfect–far from it. And yet I continue to walk as best I can the path that is laid our before me and to do so with grace and strength. I look across my bedroom to the picture of my aged father saluting into the camera, saluting at me. I salute back, as I often have. I have kept that picture across from my bed always where I can see it, where I can salute back at Dad, assuring him (and myself) that yes, I will soldier on, no matter the struggle. And so it is, and so it shall be, even and perhaps especially when I don’t feel like it.

I am grateful too for those of you who have been on this journey of gratitude with me; some of you have read every day since the beginning nearly two years ago. Thank you for sticking with me through my trials and triumphs, funny times and sad ones, wild rides on Mephistopheles the mechanical bull, and everything in between. I will continue to express my gratitude as best I can for as long as I can until I am released and led to do something different. For so many, many things tonight I give thanks.

Posted in Gratitude, Overcoming Challenges, Perseverance | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 709

Posted on June 22, 2013 by mtchamblee

They say that trouble comes in threes, but I believe that beauty can as well, at least that was my experience today.  It began with an early afternoon trip to Great Falls with my sister and her family. It was a perfect day, weather wise to go out to the park and see the water. Our plan was not to stay for very long; we were mostly there to “do recon” and see if it was a place worth spending time at. The answer is a resounding yes, though I have to explore different areas of the park until I find a place that feels just right, where I can sit for a time and enjoy the sounds of the rushing water. There are two parks, one on either side of the Potomac River–one in Maryland, the other in Virginia. Today we were in the park on the Maryland side. Next I will go visit the Virginia side of the river to see what there is to see there. I was grateful for the experience of the sound and beauty of the area and to be able t spend that time with my family.

As we walked along the main path, I spotted a deer in the woods across one of the small waterways. After watching it for a minute or two, I realized that it was a fawn and after watching for a few minutes more discovered a second fawn that had been lying in the tall weeds close to the first one. I pointed it out to my niece, handing her my camera and encouraging her to get some photos. Tonight when I got home and looked at the photos she’d taken of the deer, the falls, and other items of interest at the park, I was caught by the beauty of the markings on the fawns–the white splotches against the light brown fur was remarkably beautiful. And I was reminded of the sheer beauty that surrounds us all the time. Failure to recognize such beauty is a shame. It reminds me of the line from Alice Walker’s, The Color Purple, “I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don’t notice it.” I’m don’t know whether it pisses God off or not, to me it’s simply sad to be surrounded by beauty and not notice and give thanks for it.

Twin Fawn, Great Falls Maryland

The final bit of beauty I witnessed was so small I almost missed it. As I was closing the blinds in my bedroom as evening descended I noticed a flash of light outside. Wait…was that what I thought it was. I waited for it to come again, before jumping up with my camera and running outside. Lightening bugs! I grew up in the Midwest where the arrival of lightning bugs in June signalled summer had indeed arrived. The flashes of light I saw this evening were the first fireflies (which we grew up calling “lightening bugs”) I’d seen since I’d moved away from Michigan nearly eight years ago. You would have thought I’d seen the rarest and most elusive creatures ever and had any of my neighbors seen me burst out the back door headed for the backyard might have thoughts I was nuts. But I had to see the lightening bugs and welcome them back into my life. I definitely now know that I am indeed back in familiar stomping grounds: between the lightening bugs, the northern cardinals, the snow in the winter, I am most assuredly back.

As tempting as it was, I didn’t jump into my car to go looking for the “super moon” this evening–I was too tired.  It’ll have to keep until next year–unless I get out and catch it tomorrow. I’m just nutty enough to do that very thing and be perfectly happy about it. I am grateful for the beauty that rests all around me and for the capacities God has given me to appreciate it.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 708

Posted on June 21, 2013 by mtchamblee

TGIF. Tonight I am exceedingly grateful that it’s Friday. It has, once again, felt like a really long week. I’ve gotten up earlier and gone to bed late each night and by this evening, that has taken its toll. I am readying myself for an early night.

Today is the summer solstice–the longest day of the year, and so it is. It was a beautiful day today; unfortunately I spent most of it inside my building at work. Still, that’s alright. Tomorrow is likewise supposed to be lovely. Perhaps I will, after I sleep in a little bit, finally find my way down to the water–some water, any water. I don’t think I’ll have the energy to drive all the way down to the Chesapeake Bay–it’s not a 15 minute drive from home like the San Francisco Bay was when I lived in Northern California–but perhaps I can make it to Great Falls, which is a little bit closer. Great Falls is where the Potomac River “builds up speed and force as it falls over a series of steep, jagged rocks.” From the pictures the falls aren’t dramatic, as in those that have a long vertical drop, but the whitewater looks impressive and I bet it sounds impressive too. I love the sound of moving water, listening to the voices in it, hearing what they have to say.

I am grateful for the beautiful weather and for the upcoming “Super Moon,” this weekend. It’s the largest and closest the moon will be in 2013. I took several pictures of last year’s super moon from my home in Northern California. We lived high up in the hills so I was often treated to relatively unobstructed views of the sky. I’ll have to figure out a good vantage point from which to view it this year. For this night, however, I am taking myself to sleep early.

In honor of the summer solstice I once again offer the poem, The Summer Day by Mary Oliver. Among my favorite lines: “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…” It’s been a while since I fell down into the grass. Perhaps I can find some nice field or meadow in which to do that…after I find the water! Enjoy…

The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver

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?
Posted in Gratitude, Nature | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 707

Posted on June 20, 2013 by mtchamblee
“What’s it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about, when you sort it out Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give, or are we meant to be kind?

This morning as I drove to work, I was listening to the song “Alfie,” by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, written back in 1965 for the film of the same title. The song has always resonated with me, as it did again this morning as I played and replayed it (several times) singing really loud and pondering the words. One of the lines that stands out for me is “If only fools are kind, then I guess it is wise to be cruel.” So often people who have gentle spirits, kind and loving hearts are thought to be weak somehow. I grew up with such a person: my “baby sister.” At one point during our childhood when she was being bullied by the another little girl next door, my brother and I commenced to teaching her how to fight. I’d hold my hands out, palms facing her and encourage her to punch my hands, telling her to pretend she was punching the neighbor girl.

“Jab!” I’d shout and Ruth would throw a jab.
“Uppercut!” I yelled and she would come up with an uppercut.
“Cross!” I’d holler and she’d swing a wicked left cross.

After what was probably some minimal amount of “practice” we deemed her ready to take on the little neighbor girl. “So the next time she starts to harass you, kick her butt,” I encouraged, practically shoving her across the yard and over to the neighbor’s yard. When she came home some time later and I asked her what happened, she reported that she “just couldn’t do it.” I think at the time I wasn’t surprised, but was a little disappointed. While I wasn’t particularly bellicose myself–not being the type to instigate a fight, I also didn’t back away from them. My mother once was told by my second or third grade teacher that I had been “fighting” on the playground. Like as not I was defending myself, though I’m not sure that’s how it was viewed at the time.

And if only fools are kind, Alfie,
Then I guess it’s wise to be cruel.
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie,
What will you lend on an old golden rule?

Ruth has always been kind-hearted, or at the very least kinder than I. And if it’s true that only fools are kind, then I reckon I am a fool, or at least I’m striving to be one. I want to be like Ruth when I grow up. No, kindness and gentle-heartedness should not be mistaken for weakness. It requires an incredible amount of strength to be kind in the face of all the unkindness in the world around us and to approach everyone as best one can with compassion and love.

As sure as I believe there’s a heaven above, Alfie,
I know there’s something much more,
Something even non-believers can believe in.
I believe in love, Alfie.
Without true love we just exist, Alfie.
Until you find the love you’ve missed you’re nothing, Alfie.
When you walk let your heart lead the way
And you’ll find love any day, alfie, alfie…

I’m not sure I ever saw the movie Alfie. I read about the plot line, so I know it’s not my kind of film, but as a songwriter, I love the lyrics. I find myself so grateful for the power of music to transport me someplace else, to lift my mood, to allow me to experience and express pain, joy, peace, and so many other emotions. And love. After all, without true love we’d just exist…

Posted in Gratitude, Love, Music | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 706

Posted on June 19, 2013 by mtchamblee

Have you ever “popped the clutch” to start a car? (I know, I know, I’m dating myself.) You hardly ever see anyone doing that kind of thing anymore, and it’s been years (decades) since I’ve had to do it, but back in the day it was one of those tricks you played on your car or other gadgets that malfunctioned, broke down, etc. You got someone to push you downhill and then when you got some speed going, you “popped the clutch.” Of course you had to have a stick shift, and who gets those these days unless you drive a sports car. Anyway, sometimes getting ready to write my blog requires me to pop my proverbial clutch. My battery is dead and I can’t seem to get myself moving. I need a push to get some momentum going then a slight hill to get going even faster, then boom! I take my foot off the clutch and the car–or in this case the blog–takes off. It really helps to have the hill or you have to push longer, harder and faster. It also helps to have someone else pushing while you steer or vice versa: popping the clutch isn’t an easy thing to do by oneself.

Sometimes writing can be an arduous task, like trying to start your car by popping the clutch. Daily writing can be particularly strenuous, and after 705 days writing this blog it sometimes feels like I’m pushing the car up a long, gradual incline rather than coasting down it. But somehow on most days I manage to gain enough momentum to get through the blog with a complete, coherent theme. Somedays, not so much.

Tonight I am grateful for the written word. Each day I sit here with my laptop burning my legs and I try to squeeze from my often-tired brain some bit of wisdom related to gratitude, thankfulness, etc. Most days I surprise myself and manage to find something to write about that people find helpful. Some days I am dry as a sun-bleached bone and decide to try and spin the RNG wheel and ask the fates to give me something I can write about. And on still other days, even the RNG fails me and none of the posts that pop up speak to me. Such was the case tonight. I spun the wheel at least four times and came up empty. It was the universe’s way of telling me to relaxe, take a few deep breaths and write something.

So I am indeed grateful for writing. Sometimes when I write my blog, I go to visit about 20 other websites before, during, and after I write. I find ways to distract myself. It’s like circling the field a few times before landing. Tonight in my procrastinatory web surfing I ran across a Mary Oliver poem I really like. I am grateful to have been introduced to Mary Oliver from a few different people, but only in the last year or so have I come to appreciate her poems more fully. There is something in her words that speaks to me at so many levels and I find myself wishing yet again that I were a poet. My poems always rhymed, much to my distress, until I realized that my “poems” were actually song lyrics and that for the most part song lyrics are supposed to rhyme. That made me feel much better. So as a songwriter, a blogger, and an all-different-kinds-of-writing writer, I am grateful for and so deeply love the written word and use it regularly to express myself. So I will keep writing, even when I am forced to “pop the clutch” to get it going. Here for your reading pleasure is “Wild Geese,” by Mary Oliver.

Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
– Mary Oliver
Posted in Gratitude, Writing | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 705

Posted on June 18, 2013 by mtchamblee

There is trouble at the bird feeder. First of all, the little birds that to my embarrassment I haven’t bothered to identify because they are so “common” have been eating me out of house and home. I fill the feeder up in the morning and by the evening when I get home from work it is over halfway gone and by the next evening it is virtually gone. The little as yet unidentified birdies…pardon the expression… flock to the feeder, sometimes as many as six perched on various parts of it, gobbling down seeds and harassing one another, chasing each other away from the feeder. It’s gotten quite contentious. I think when I run out of seed–which is likely to be any day now–I won’t buy any more until the autumn. For one thing, I can’t seem to keep up with the voracious appetites of these little critters and I’m not anxious to contribute to the mob wars that are taking place outside my living room window.

Frenzy at the Feeder

Tonight I sat watching the news as I ate dinner, like usual. Two stories caught my attention. The first was about the effect of music and singing on the healing and nurturing of premature babies in the neonatal units of hospitals. I must confess that my heart does a little flip when I see newborns these days–so small and precious…but I also felt a pang of sadness as I watched the tiny little babies, hooked up with tubes and monitors. They, like so many of us, respond favorably to music; being sung to as they lie there in their incubators, or being held and sung to by music therapists, hospital staff, or their anxious parents, slows their breathing, quiets their racing hearts, and soothes them. I am grateful for the impact that music has had in my life–how it provided me a means of self-expression that I hadn’t experienced before, how it allows me to reach out and connect with people in powerful ways, how it soothes my soul and spirit in similar ways to what it does for the babies. What a blessing music continues to be for me. I am grateful to be able to play an instrument, sing, and write songs that allow me to share a piece of who I am with anyone who listens. It is truly a gift.

The other news story today talked about the healing power of animals. The report followed a teenager who’d had heart transplant surgery. The hospital allowed the family to bring his dog in to visit him in the his hospital room. As was the case with music and the preemies, the presence of the dog helped speed the boy’s recovery from surgery. Increasingly, hospitals are experimenting with allowing dogs and cats in as a comfort to their ailing human companion. The animals are bathed, groomed, vaccinated and carefully screened before being allowed in the hospital, but once they’re in, their presence has a positive impact on the patients. (So far there was no mention of people being allowed to have their pot-bellied pig or their pet snake in the hospital, but who knows?) This story made me turn to my canine companion. I am so grateful for her presence in my life, her patient, sweet, funny disposition. I’ve no doubt that she helps keep my blood pressure down, calms my heart, lifts my spirits on a regular basis. I am grateful for her every day.

Honor Rides Shotgun Across Ohio-October 2012

What gives you joy? What soothes your mind when you’re anxious or preoccupied? What connects you with other people? I am grateful for those things in my life that take me out of where I am and lift me to a different space: that bring a smile to my face, a deep sigh, a good belly laugh or touches me in some way. Tonight I am grateful for the nightly entertainment at the bird feeder, the joy I get from listening to as well as playing music, and of course from my four-legged companion, who daily shows me what unconditional love really looks like.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 704

Posted on June 17, 2013 by mtchamblee

Oh dear. The journey of 1,000 words begins with a single sentence. And so as I find myself staring at the screen and the blinking cursor of death I stutter my way through halting  words trying to jump start my energy to have another go at my nightly endeavor: the gratitude blog.

I am grateful this evening for the will to keep moving. It has stood me in good stead for many years, particularly of late. There have been times when I simply did not want to take another step, to struggle through another day, to even get out of bed in the morning. But I did, every time, every day, no matter what. I actually amazed myself at times. I can remember being bone weary, packing up boxes and hauling them to my storage unit as I prepared to make a move before I even knew where I was going. I had just about run out of options and knew I was going to have to move but had no idea where. No matter how tired I got, I had to keep moving. No one was going to come in and do it for me. So I kept on pushing, kept working, kept fighting. I could not, would not, did not quit.

Lately I have been thinking about ease, about the cessation of struggle and embracing what’s easy.  I wrote in my journal the other morning, “I’m feeling some struggle and I want to–as odd as it sounds–really work to have things be easy.” I decided to ask myself in any given situation, “How can I have this be easy?” I want to pay attention to the tensions I feel when I am struggling with something, when I feel like I’m swimming against the current. I want to stop and observe the struggling and see what it’s about. And if I can identify the struggle then perhaps I can begin to effect a strategy that involves letting go, relaxing, and allowing something to happen naturally rather than to force it to happen unnaturally. I’m not quite sure how this will work or what it looks like, but I’m committed to trying it to see how it goes.

More and more I am learning to put things into perspective and pay attention to whatever is going on around me. I want to be in the flow of life, be carried along by it, rather than constantly swimming upstream. There’s a certain wisdom to be gained through and in the midst of struggle, but it’s meant to be a journey and not a destination. I’ve spent a little too much time in the land of struggle lately, I’ve observed it’s landscapes, mapped its terrain. I’m ready to float on over into the land of ease, maybe lay on the beach over there, relax and unwind. I can feel that I have gotten really tired and need some rejuvenation soon–some rest and quiet. We’ll see how that goes.

Sometimes life happens too fast to process. I am looking to slow things down and allow them to be easy. Some of this is about exercising my will: the same element that allowed me to doggedly put one foot in front of the other when I wanted to lay down and quit is exactly what I need to employ to move myself into ease. That is a goal to aspire to, one for which I am willing to expend some effort–exercising the muscle of letting go. What a wonderful, paradoxical world. I am grateful for the paradox and for the challenge. I’ll look forward to reporting in about what I am discovering about ease. In the meantime, I’m going to practice letting go.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 703

Posted on June 16, 2013 by mtchamblee

Each day brings an opportunity to consider one’s blessings and express gratitude for them. That’s what I’ve been doing these 700-plus days. There are times in the midst of this process when I am cranky and ill tempered. Even then I have disciplined myself to stop and find the blessings, pull my unruly thoughts together and formulate them into words that can convey to a reader the things for which I am grateful.  This night is no exception.

I am grateful for the love of my sisters that surrounds me and is now routinely part of my life. For most of my adult life I’ve lived in locations apart from my family. My siblings have mostly lived in one of two places throughout our adult lives: in our hometown in Indiana and in the Washington DC metro area. I was always the outlier, the only one who didn’t live in one of those places. When I lived in Pennsylvania, I lived a comfortable driving distance (less than four hours) from DC and could periodically drive down to visit my sisters. When I lived in Michigan, I lived a little over two hours away from my brothers and father. When I lived in California, I was thousands of miles away from all my siblings but had both of my children with me for a time. Now that I am live in the DC area near my sisters, for the first time in over 40 years I live in the same area as all three of them. Thus, no week goes by without my connecting with them in person or on phone. It is what sustains me when life gets challenging.

Today is Father’s Day–my third without my father. I am grateful for these opportunity to celebrate his life, though I find myself still surprised ad how much I miss him. Facebook today was lit up with peoples’ posts about their fathers: numerous old pictures of fathers in uniforms, black and white shots of fathers in various activities, and current pictures of my siblings’ children wishing them happy father’s day, of friends of mine whose fathers are still living. It all made me a bit sad. Still, I am grateful to have had my father in my life for as long as I did and to honor him for who he was to so many people. I am grateful for the legacy that he has passed down from him to me and my siblings and to our children.  I see in them and I see in myself various physical similarities and mannerisms that are so like our father it startles me. I am oddly comforted to know that sometimes the way I hold my hands or make a particular facial expression that I am a mirror image of my father. So on this father’s day 2013 I honor and celebrate my dad.

My Dad, Roland W. Chamblee, Sr.

I am grateful as always for all things family. Even though we have our share of bumpy relationships and thorny issues, my belief is that love will always shine through allowing us to rise to any occasion. But then of course I am a bit of an optimist. My hope and ongoing prayers is that we who remain will continue to be close and stay connected. I have to believe that it’s what Daddy would have wanted.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 702

Posted on June 15, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I sat contemplating what to write about this evening. It has been a good day: the weather was fine (as in lovely) and I was able to get out in it for a while, enjoying a leisurely lunch with two sisters, a sister-in-law visiting from out of town and a niece (daughter to the sister-in-law.) When I returned home, the work I hadn’t gotten to early in the day was waiting for me, so I settled in to do it uncharacteristically energetic considering I started up at around 3:30 p.m. Usually that’s when my brain starts winding down. I worked steadily on a number of documents and reports for work. They were leftover from the week and the deadline was today. I worked until about 7:00, when I broke to eat dinner before returning to take up another piece of work for something that is due on Monday. I generally don’t like to work at home: I did that for plenty of years and as I get older I’ve tried to do that less and less.

So this evening, though I have a number of thoughts on my mind, they are not coalescing very well. When I spun the RNG wheel it landed on a post I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading, as there was much in it that I would still apply to my life today, though my circumstances have changed since I wrote it back in March 2012. I share it with you in its entirety and hope that you find it helpful as I did in the rereading of it.

“Tell me,what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
From “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver

Tonight I was feeling some Mary Oliver and thinking about her rhetorical question. But then, is it rhetorical or have I merely rendered it that? Perhaps I have spent too much time mired in the practicality and predictability of modern adult life to consider my life either wild or precious. Perhaps it’s time to change that.

It is a perfectly good time for me to be pondering this question. Having been in transition for some months now I definitely have been in the planning life mode. What am I going to do to earn my livelihood? Where am I going to live? How am I going to create more connection and community with people so I don’t live in isolation? These are all related to the planning part. Sometimes I feel like I’ve gotten too busy with the day-t0-day crunch of surviving that I haven’t carved out enough time to truly sit and contemplate the “what’s next”in my work life, let alone spend time planning and taking considered, measured action toward the plan. My process has been a bit more helter-skelter than that. Envision, plan, do, assess, re-envision seems like a reasonable cycle for moving through one’s life. Unfortunately for me sometimes I jump from envision to take action without bothering to plan or jump around the circle in somewhat random fashion. Or I might spend a really long time in planning and and not doing a whole lot of taking action.

Planning Scheme

In the scheme of things,what has this to do with anything? Well, if I am pondering what I plan to do with my one wild and precious life then I could easily focus my time an energy on the planning part, when what might really be much more intriguing is the wild and precious part. In fact I have lived a fair chunk of my life doing the right things,playing by the rules that have been laid out for me by family, by society, by church, by the government, etc. There hasn’t been much room for wild and precious.

So yes, I am in a space where planning is important,but the wild and precious is there, hovering at the periphery just on the fringes of my vision. After 50 plus years of living a tame and domesticated life how does one capture the wild and precious? When one knows within oneself that they are called to be different, to live a larger, less careful,perhaps even unplanned and unpredictable, life how does one escape the bounds of safety and predictability to stretch toward the wild and precious? Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Easy for you to say, Ralph. I say to myself. But of course I have no idea whether it was easy for him at all. What I do know is this:there can be a cost to taking a different path, to deviate from plans that were laid out for you, to diverge from the carefully laid out road. Sometimes I feel I’ve done this my whole life.

So now as I continue to contemplate what I plan to do with my one wild and precious life, it is no wonder that  am dissatisfied with the planning I’ve been doing. It is solidly situated in the safe and sound. So the task is in part to figure out how to venture out a bit away from the shores of safety without totally plunging into the perils of the rapids. After all, it’s for each of us to figure out for ourselves what “wild and precious” means to us. I’m starting to think I need to figure that out.

Joseph Campbell put it famously when he first used the expression “Follow your bliss.”

“If you follow your bliss,you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you,and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are —if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.”

I am grateful this evening for contemplation and reflection. In another life I might have been a monastic spending time in retreat or a naturalist like Thoreau spending significant time outdoors, writing and thinking. I am grateful for the time I spend reflecting on the blessings in my life and sharing my thoughts with those who are interested enough to spend a little while with me. This is a journey we’re all on in some form or another. I am happy to share mine with you and to hear from you what you’re learning on yours. Good luck as you ponder for yourself what you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.

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