Lessons in Gratitude Day 431

Posted on September 17, 2012 by mtchamblee

Oh Lordy, what a day. I am still kind of shaking my head. No, there weren’t any particularly earth-shattering, bone-rattling events that happened, not exactly anyway. I can tell you that I went for a pretty wild ride on Mephistopheles (my pet name for the mechanical bull of life) and I stayed on for the full eight seconds before sailing through the air and landing neatly on my feet. Well, this is my metaphor and I am a fiction writer after all…

This morning, just after I’d finished my journal writing (which I wrote about the struggles with various realities I have to grasp about moving to a new relatively expensive place to live) I checked my email and saw I had received a quote from a potential moving company that so far exceeded what I am able to pay that I was nearly speechless. Nearly speechless, but not quite. I immediately flew into an emotional tirade: anger, tears, screaming, swearing, cursing God, etc. “Why isn’t anything EVER easy?” I screamed. (It was subdued screaming as it was still relatively early in the morning and I have neighbors to consider.) I had a pretty good tantrum for perhaps about 10 minutes–during which I sent a frustrated email to my sisters and my best friend and stomped back and forth across my bedroom. (Honor was so unnerved by this behavior that she skulked into hiding under my desk.) Then as usually happens, I calmed down, realizing that my problems are my own to solve. No one swooped in to save me, fix my problems, dry my eyes, and make everything alright. I still don’t have everything sorted out just yet about what I’m going to do, but I’m going to do something. I have to. It’s that simple.

I am grateful tonight once again for the resilience of the human spirit that allows us to bounce back from setbacks and roadblocks that occur in our lives. Sometimes it’s sheer act of will that causes me to push through all the challenges–actually my reaction to the challenges it what I am pushing through–and end up on a relatively even keel.

I took some steps toward solving my problem a bit later in the morning, and have yet more to do tomorrow morning. I managed, nonetheless to end the day in a much better place than I began it. So many sayings, quotes, song lyrics,  bible passages have passed through my mind over the course of the day, each one offering insight into my current situation or encouragement that in fact this too will pass. We really do learn what we are made of only by going through some challenge, by being tested in some way. One could suggest that they’re perfectly content not knowing what they’re made of, and I can’t blame them. But I believe every human being has been tried in some way that challenges them and helps them realize that they are, that we are, somewhat more capable than we had first believed. Some of us have probably earned our PhDs many times over in the school of hard knocks, but I somehow believe I am better for it, having been sharpened and honed, forged and refined by experiences that have made me who I am.

The old folks say, “wouldn’t take nothin’ for my journey,” meaning that no matter what has happened–the good, the bad, and the ugly–all those things are part of my journey, of my life and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. They are the fires in which I’ve been forged and shaped. I am grateful for the fire, the tears, the pain, the challenges. Does it feel good in the moment? Heck no. But as the writer says, “afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” I am looking forward to rejoicing. After all, life is not all about suffering and keeping a stiff upper lip and all that stuff. There is a season, there are times for rejoicing and I am looking forward to them. In the meantime I’ll do my best to stand strong in the face of the struggles, to embrace the challenges that come, and take those bruising, whiplash-inducing rides on Mephistopheles. I’ll see you back here tomorrow for another helping of gratitude, maybe with a little ice cream on the side.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 430

Posted on September 16, 2012 by mtchamblee

I am taking this brief commercial break to offer gratitude for simple things: good strong boxes, a good strong back, and good strong acetaminophen. I am tired and sore and it’s only 8 p.m. here. Again I worked all day, and again am mildly amazed at how slowly things are still going. A few hours ago I pack a “hybrid” box that contained some organized, systematic order along with a smaller box labeled “Total Crap to be Sorted Later.” I didn’t want to do it, but I did. I suspect tthat’s going to happen more and more frequently as time for the move approaches. I must say, however, that overall I believe I am hauling less absolute crap out East than I might have if I hadn’t been trying to pack carefully over the last several weeks. As I still have a lot of work to do, I will keep tonight’s blog relatively brief.

It is of course a catch 22 to sit down to write, because now that I’ve been sitting for a while I find that my body doesn’t want to get up. My guess is that I’m mostly done with the physical work for the day and will move onto the emails and internet research I need to do for the move–there are myriad details to be attended to and they are almost as daunting as the packing has been. So many little details, so little time. I’m grateful to have a sense of humor about it all; somehow in the midst of all the chaos I still find myself smiling and laughing at various things. I do not take that for granted, not even a little bit.

In response to yesterday’s blog about having to be satisfied with and grateful for the work I managed to get done yesterday (which I lamented hadn’t been as much as I’d hoped) one of my sisters shared with me another portion of the night prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book:

“It is but lost labour that we haste to rise up early, and so late take our rest, and eat the bread of anxiety. For those beloved of God are given gifts even while they sleep.”

I believe she was trying to tell me not to sweat it, that everything is going to come together as it needs to. And while I have indeed risen early and gone to bed late these past few days, there’s no need yet to “eat the bread of anxiety.” Over the past several weeks I’ve eaten the bread of anxiety, smeared with the butter of uncertainty and washed down with the wine of worry, all of which leads to significant emotional and mental indigestion (if such a thing were possible…) I continue to work hard on remaining calm in the midst of the chaos, and so far it seems to be going surprisingly well. I do expect that the next seven to 10 days are going to be hairy, and I’ll be taking several rides on Mephistopheles the Mechanical Bull. Nevertheless, I am equal to the task and will keep at it no matter how I get flung and spun and whipped around. I will continue to laugh, smile and be grateful. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. See you back here tomorrow!

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 429

Posted on September 15, 2012 by mtchamblee

My sister tried to tell me not to do it, but I did it anyway.

“Ter, don’t sort through any more boxes, the time for sorting is over. Seal up those boxes and you can sort through them after you’ve moved and are getting settled.”

But did I listen? No. I simply had to bring home those four “junk” boxes from the storage unit so I could sort through them, throw much of away it, and repack what’s left into fewer boxes. The trouble is, I brought them home, started digging into them, and ended up making a bigger mess in my living room than I previously had. What happened to the day? What happened to my plan? “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/ Gang aft a-gley,” or translated from 18th century Scottish, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” I could hardly consider my outline of the day as “best laid plans,” but I had hoped at the end of this day to have had more clean space in my house not less of it. But alas, here it is 10:55 Pacific and having worked literally all day–except when I sat down to eat–just now getting to the writing. Even West coasters who read my blog won’t get to until tomorrow sometime. In spite of my irritation with myself I am grateful nonetheless to be at the end of this day.

The “night time prayer” that I share here periodically, most recently a few days ago, contains a passage that is very appropriate to this evening:

It is night after a long day. What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done; let it be.

Ah yes, let it be. Grateful to remember that the day is done and I’ve done the best I can with the time I had. Even the times I sat down to eat and watch a few minutes of college football were important to recharge my batteries enough to get back up and keep moving. I have to get back at it tomorrow for another dose of the same medicine. I will likely work all day and into the night again. And yes, miles to go before I sleep.

I am grateful for what I got done today, grateful for the stamina to be able to keep at the infernal sorting and tossing. I am getting closer to following my sister’s advice–tomorrow will likely begin the sealing up the junk boxes. But at least I will have four fewer than I had today. That in and of itself is a small victory. Tomorrow is another day, and I will face it as I often do when I first awaken and throughout the day, rejoicing and being glad. So be it.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 428

Posted on September 14, 2012 by mtchamblee

There is no doubt in my mind that everything happens for a reason. I know, I know. That has to be one of the more trite statements, to be sure. But it’s true nonetheless. Of course, if you’re like me you spend way too much time trying to figure out what the reason is. I mean, how many times have I said, “Why in the heck did that happen?” Or “Could someone please explain to me how my cell phone ‘randomly’ phoned someone or sent a text I meant for one person to someone completely different?” How on earth do those things happen? Those sometimes relatively innocuous, “random” occurrences happen and at the time we think, “Huh, that was weird,” and go on about our business only to discover later that what seemed a little weird sets in motion a chain of events that alter the course of our lives. Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? But it’s often true. It certainly has been in my life.

I am grateful tonight for lessons learned. I generally have considered myself relatively intelligent and in some ways a very quick learner. In other ways, not so much. I could choose to look at how my life has unfolded over the past 12 to 24 months and say that I suffered from “a series of unfortunate events” and feel sorry for myself about all the “bad” things that happened. And to be sure, much of what happened had a profoundly painful and deeply difficult impact on my life. But rather than simply cry and moan, “why me?” at times I found myself genuinely asking, “no really…why did this happen?” To not ask the question is to waste an opportunity to potentially gain clarity. There’s a natural tendency toward sensemaking: how can I think about this situation in such a way that helps me understand not simply how I got here, but why and what is the lesson in it for me. (Dang, this is one of those nights when I’m having a hard time trying to articulate what I want to say…)

In September of 2010, my father died, leaving me and my five siblings orphaned–no matter how old you are when your parents both die, you’re still an orphan. A few months later, in January of 2011, my partner ended our six-year relationship. Two months later, I lost my job. In May, my son and I moved into a new place and I essentially started a new life, definitely not one I had envisioned for myself when I first moved to California seven years ago. I struggled for months trying to make sense of everything that had happened while simultaneously trying to figure out how to move forward. It was among the most difficult periods in my recent memory. Anyone who has read this blog periodically knows my story–it would make for a really sad old-time country-western song or perhaps an Irish ballad (though my friend JoHn who’s an Irish American musician would say that if no one dies in the end, it’s not really an Irish ballad…) But my story is not just about what happened to me, but about what it did to me, how I chose to deal with it.

The past two years has been in part about learning what I am made of; that through the proverbial storms of life, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, the fell clutch of circumstance, I didn’t crumble into dust and blow away. It has been difficult, and I have cried and freaked out and had many wakeful, anxious nights wondering how I was going to make it through the challenges I (and by extension my kids) faced. But it has also been about learning valuable lessons about family and true friendship, about the nature of suffering and what true suffering looks like, about listening to the still, small voice that tends to get drowned out in the course of the hectic pace of life, about seeing the beauty that is literally everywhere if one chooses to look, that broken hearts can be mended, that what you do for a living does not define who you are and what you’re capable of or what gifts you offer to the world.

My life is about to shift again. In a few weeks I am moving across the country to a new city to start a new job. In some ways it’s been a long time coming; in others it’s been the blink of an eye. What is two years in a lifetime? Five years from now assuming I’m still on the planet, how will I remember this time? Everything happens for a reason, to be sure. Even now as these months have been woven into the tapestry of my life, I can see the pattern emerging. I don’t have the clear picture, but this much I do know, I absolutely had to go through what I’ve been through–not just in these last two years, but throughout my life–to get to exactly where I am and who I am now and will be from now on. Those seemingly random things like renegade text messages and accidental phone calls are all tiny pixels that make up my picture, my life. I may not always know the reason–heck I might not ever know–but I do know there is one. And that’s good enough for me. #Grateful.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 427

Posted on September 13, 2012 by mtchamblee

Today is a good day. Well, today was a good day; the day has eased into night and I am in winding down mode as I often am when I sit down to write this blog. I am grateful for many things this evening, but find myself at least momentarily at a loss for words as to how to express my gratitude. Over the next few days when I catch my breath better I hope to be able to write more fully and openly. In the meantime, just simple gratitude for a good day and a calm evening.

I am once again grateful tonight for poetry. I was about to write here about all that I have to get done in the next few weeks and the words, “miles to go before I sleep” came back into my head. It’s an oft repeated theme for me these days when my to-d0 list remains long even on those days when I’ve worked all day to whittle it down. So much to do, and miles to go before I sleep. So I looked up the phrase, knowing that it came from somewhere in the literary world. And found it in the poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

It is a simple poem on the surface, though I read a few analyses of it that ascribed deep significance to various parts of it. It made me smile. People analyze everything, ascribe meanings to words, to works of art, to gestures, facial expressions, to everything. My purpose is not to engage in literary analysis of Frost’s work. I simply want to enjoy the poem without delving too deeply into its meanings and metaphors. I resonate with the last verse, particularly in these days when I have a lot of work to do to get ready to move. The woods, the path around Chavez park is calling to me; but I have things to do, promises to keep, and miles to go…

I am grateful once again for the written and spoken word, for the imagery it creates and emotions and thoughts that poetry and prose, fiction and nonfiction, speeches and sermons, song lyrics and all the various expressions of thoughts and ideas that emerge. As a writer and songwriter I enjoy both employing creative uses of words as well as reading and listening to them. I am appreciative to have discovered (rediscovered) this poem by Frost when I really wasn’t looking for it. I love when that happens.

I may have miles to go, but for now I believe I’ll go ahead and sleep.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 426

Posted on September 12, 2012 by mtchamblee

Today is another one for simple gratitude. I woke this morning at 5:30 and have been going pretty much nonstop for the better part of the day. It is now after 9 p.m. Pacific Time and my brain is shutting down almost as fast as the cursor is blinking and these words are clacking across the screen. (Well, perhaps not quite that fast.)

I am grateful for a good day at the Berkeley Food Pantry. We had a larger complement of volunteers this week than last–last week we were extremely short-staffed on one of the busiest days we’ve had on any Wednesday since I started working there 14 months ago. Today we were down a person or two, but we had sufficient folks to serve the clients, and the number of clients was smaller by about 35 families than it had been last week. And, we gave out a whole chicken to each family; this after several weeks of not being able to provide much in the way of meat protein. And we had peanut butter for the families with children. These things might not seem like a big deal, but it makes such a difference to be able to provide these things to the families and I must admit to being a bit forlorn when we can’t offer them. In that regard, today was a good day.

I am juggling a lot of details these days–I have a lot to do in a vey short period of time. I was telling my friend the other day that I have no idea how my head stays attached to my shoulders, that with all the stress and strain of managing multiple major projects and details it ought to come flying right off. She calmly replied that it was a good thing then that we really don’t have to do anything to keep any of our body parts attached. I laughed, which was exactly what I needed to do in the midst of such seriousness. I am grateful that I have actually been laughing a bit more lately, smiling too, without having to do it on purpose. There was a time in the midst of really intense pressures I was feeling, when I used to laugh and smile on purpose. I did my smiling “exercise” every morning when I looked into the bathroom mirror as I got ready for work, and every evening as I brushed my teeth in preparation for bed. Smiling and laughing “on purpose” has the same beneficial health impacts on us as when we are genuinely smiling or laughing at something funny. During a talk I heard a few years back by a “certified laughter leader,” I learned that simply by engaging in the exercise of  “fake” laughing, your body releases the feel good hormones (endorphins and such) just as it does when you’re laughing for real. Laughing for me has been nice lately though, because I’ve been laughing for real. And wow, does it feel good.

So tonight I am going to spend a few moments of mindless web surfing (finding things to laugh at) before settling down to rest.  The night time prayer reminds me that “the night heralds the dawn. Let us look expectantly to a new day, new joys, new possibilities.” I believe I will.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 425

Posted on September 11, 2012 by mtchamblee

Tonight I conked out on the sofa, nodding off  having eaten dinner and watching the news with one eye. I am tired. But that has been the normal state of affairs over the past several weeks, and is likely to continue in the weeks ahead. And I’m alright with that. In the midst of the hectic activities of packing, working, job hunting, and the mundane aspects of daily life, being tired at the end of a long day makes sense.

I am grateful to have a number of really terrific people in my corner, cheering for me, supporting me, listening to me. I’ve written a lot in this blog about my friends and family who have been so important to me throughout my entire life, but over the past couple of years in particular. Their love and caring has sustained me through challenging times and I deeply appreciate their constancy in my life. I want to write tonight, though, about a few other people to whom I might periodically refer, but have not spent much time writing about. I had just been thinking about one of them and she called me tonight to check on me, which she has done increasingly in the past few weeks. I am grateful tonight for three “professional” people in my life: my doctor, my acupuncturist, and my therapist, all of whom at one point or another have played prominent roles in helping me to maintain my wellbeing in what has been a decidedly tumultuous time in my life.

My doctor has done for me what many doctors do: she’s listened to me talk about my various ailments over the years and suggested ideas, prescribed solutions, made recommendations, etc. It wasn’t so much what she did, it’s how she did it–with humor and compassion and genuine concern. I haven’t seen her in almost a year–I had gone to her when I started experiencing chest pains and potential heart issues (it turned out to be largely stress related and no apparent heart disease.) She took all the correct medical measures to ensure my health, but also in recognition of my limited finances went out of her way to suggest money-saving alternatives, provide free samples, and help out in whatever ways she could. And while I have no particular physical complaints these days, I will be sure make an appointment to go see her before I leave the Bay area. I am grateful to her for the care she’s provided in the seven years I’ve lived out here.

My acupuncturist is another wonderful human being. Besides her skill as a healer, her calm demeanor and compassionate caregiving were invaluable to me over the years. Even after I’d lost my job and I could no longer afford health insurance let alone alternative medical treatment, she still advised me on ways I could maintain mental and physical health without prescription medication. As was the case with my medical doctor, it was the combination of what she does and how she does it that makes her such a wonderful healer and good human being. Almost a year ago she guided me through a nutritional cleanse process, teaching me the importance of certain types of foods in maintaining health. It was an important learning time for me and though I’ve fallen off the wagon a bit in terms of healthy eating, the principles remain with me and I plan to get back to them in the months ahead. I will be sure to seek her out in the next few weeks.

The most important of the professional healers in my life is my therapist. We first started seeing her for family therapy not too long after my daughter and I first moved out here to California. My daughter wasn’t adjusting too well to life out here and was making life a bit challenging for me and my partner. It seemed like family therapy might help. Over time as my daughter matured through her rebellious phase and life got a little easier, our focus shifted from family therapy to couples therapy. And when my relationship with my partner ended, I continued to see my therapist to do individual work. I am immensely grateful for my therapist. She has been an anchor for me during the difficult days of the past 18 months. She has shown incredible kindness and generosity over recent years as I dealt with the death of my father in September 2010, the subsequent losses of my significant relationship, my job, my home and other challenges that swept over me in the first months of 2011, and the intense stress I’ve experienced throughout much of 2012. Through it all she has encouraged me, guided me through a variety of serious issues, and helped me draw on my own inner resources of resilience and perseverance. In short, she saw things in me that I couldn’t see for myself, often holding up a mirror reflecting back to me what she was seeing. She helped me see what I was made of and reminded me that I was growing and making progress even when I didn’t feel like it.

I am grateful for these three professional women who have been instrumental in helping me maintain some semblance of health and wellbeing in the midst of seriously trying times. My therapist in particular, who has seen me weekly throughout this time even though I haven’t been able to pay her, has played a vital role in helping me stand strong and stay sane. I owe her a debt of deep gratitude which I hope some day to be able to repay. I hope that as I move on to my what’s next I can find other wonderful professionals like these three I have been blessed to know. May it be so!

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 424

Posted on September 10, 2012 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am grateful for simple things. Very simple and abundant blessings.

Yesterday morning as I took Honor out for her twice-a-day walk I was struck by the beauty of the blue sky, the dark green of the trees, the silvery white of the last quarter moon hanging in the sky above our condo. It was one of those perfect-day moments that we get here in the Bay area. We’ve had a streak of “perfect” weather days: the sky is clear and blue (versus the “marine layer” of fog that often pushes in creating gloomy sometimes otherworldly darkness in the morning or evenings) and the temperature hovering around 72 degrees. In my view it doesn’t get much better than that.

This morning as I was walking back into the house from yet another morning walk, I saw a fabulous spider web woven by the large spiders that abound at this time of year. The delicacy yet strength of the silken architecture and the creator perched in the center of it gave me yet another pause as I considered the marvel and artistry and beauty of the world around us. While I am not a huge fan of spiders, particularly inside versus outside the house, I have to admire their handiwork. The webs are large and impressive, as are the creatures themselves. I am grateful for the simplicity, for finding the beauty in even the smallest things around me. I think I will not lose this gift; I will work to hold onto it.

Seeing the beauty reminds me of the line from the book The Color Purple: “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” I’m not sure what pisses God off, to be honest. But I have to think that if we could learn not to walk by but to stop and take in the richness of colors, the distinctiveness of sounds, the sensuousness of textures and tastes, the pungency of odors the whole world would be transformed. I know, I’m a dreamer. And heck, I’m grateful for that too.

One other simple expressions of gratitude: I am grateful for watermelon. I have expressed gratitude many times for having food of sufficient quantity, quality, and variety that nourishes my body and keeps me strong and relatively healthy. But lately I have been particularly appreciative of watermelon, sweet, juicy, and completely satisfying. Racial stereotypes aside, I think there are few finer foods to eat, few more wonderful harbingers of summer than a deep red, sweet, watermelon. I have the remnants of one in the fridge right now. Even as we hurtle toward autumn, there are still watermelons in the grocery stores and as long as that’s true, it’s still summer. I feel the same way about cherries in the late springtime. Shakespeare said, “Summers lease hath all too short a date.” I would amend it to say, “Cherry season is far too short and watermelon season woefully brief.”

You can laugh at me if you want to, that’s okay. After weeks of writing about somewhat deeper themes in this blog, I decided to write about something slightly less serious, but one that also fills me with gratitude. It’s easy to be grateful for the big things (though people often neglect to be grateful for the significant blessings in their lives); it’s also really important to notice and value and treasure some of the smaller, less obvious ones. Some evenings as I prepare to write my blog I sit at my desk with a bowl of cut up watermelon or a handful of cherries or a mug of neopolitan ice cream. I sit there, murmuring appreciatively with each bite wondering what I can write that I am grateful for. The other night I said, “Hey, I should write about how grateful I am for watermelon.” I talked myself out of it, deciding it was silly, but today decided that it is not silly but rather a representation of all the small things in my life that add up to fill my heart with gratitude. So I continue to be grateful for the little things–blue skies and spiderwebs, watermelon and summer breezes, and the color purple.

Blue, green, silvery white...Sunday morning sky

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 423

Posted on September 9, 2012 by mtchamblee

Whew, I am a tired bunny this evening. I worked pretty much all day nearly from my waking until just a few minutes ago. During much of the day it was largely physical work–packing and moving boxes, uncluttering and dismantling my office furniture, hauling the pieces of it into the now empty room once occupied by my son. Toward the evening after a quick dinner it shifted to mental work, which was probably just as hard as all the physical labor perhaps because all of the physical exertion is now making mental processes take twice as long as when I’m rested. I am tired and sore and have a slight headache. In spite of all of this, I am grateful for this day in its entirety. I can safely say that there wasn’t a dull moment all day. Those times when I stopped moving long enough to eat and take a rest I was able to enjoy some football and tennis. I listened to my audiobook for part of the time, but for much of it I worked in silence, not even putting on music to pack by.

I won’t write much tonight. I am hoping that the Tylenol I just took will kick in shortly and I can go to bed. I am grateful for the motivation to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. The other day I saw a quote from Les Brown, well-known motivational speaker, that talked about the power of keeping up the movement:

“Keep moving! You may be tired, fired, burnt out, and don’t feel like it…but keep moving! You may have stacks of bills, and may be stressed out about to pay them….but keep moving! You may have drama or trauma in your life…relationships…children…or career….but keep moving…”

Right on, Les! I have been in keep moving mode for a while now. Today at times I ached to sit down, my back and legs were tired and strained. But, yep, I kept moving. There were times when I did sit down and watch a few plays of the football game or watch Serena Williams serving up aces at the US Open tennis tournament; but for the most part, I kept moving. And now it is night time–the time for stillness, darkness, expectation–and I am readying myself to take my rest.

I still have a lot of uncertainty in my life, though my picture of what’s next is starting to clear and I can see a little farther down the road than I had been able to before. I still take frequent rides on the mechanical bull of life, still being tossed and whipped around by the unpredictable bucks and spins and crazy whirls life takes. But I keep moving forward as best I can–whether I crawl or run or stride purposefully or skip, hopscotch or drag myself, as long as I’m moving toward my goal, it’s all good. “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams,” Thoreau suggested, but he didn’t specify the form of locomotion. I’ll get there however I can, and keep moving.

I am grateful for all that I got done today. I still have much to do before I am ready to leave here, and will do it largely on my own. But for today I must look over at what I accomplished and say, “It is good.” And as the prayer says, “what has not been done has not been done; let it be.” So, I’m gonna let it be. Because as Scarlett Ohara famously said in stating the obvious, “Tomorrow is another day.” And so it is.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 422

Posted on September 8, 2012 by mtchamblee
Lord, it is night.
The night is for stillness. Let us be still in the presence of God.
It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
What has not been done has not been done;
Let it be…..

The words of the nightime prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book (1989) are present in my mind this evening as I sit down to write, feeling tired and a bit out of sorts. It was another Saturday spent working to get myself ready to move, packing boxes, emptying cabinets and sorting things. I am beginning to think that my “stuff” is enchanted, bewitched in some way such that the more I pack, the more there is to pack, and the larger the mess I seem to be creating. Even though I’m putting things into boxes—which should, in theory, reduce the amount of stuff—everything seems to be multiplying like rabbits, spreading across my desktop, onto floors and over just about all of the horizontal surfaces in my house.

The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives rest in you.

I confess to having a hard time some nights. During the course of a busy, nonstop day like this one I don’t have too much time to think beyond what I’m putting into what box or what I’m going to do with all the remaining “stuff” that seems to have materialized out of thin air. But when night time comes and the frenetic activity of the day finally begins to wind down, the anxious, restless thoughts that I’ve kept at bay all seem to come flooding into my consciousness. Doubts and fears, sadness and grief, myriad other emotional states have swirled around me on many nights over the past months. And the fears of the darkness of the world also creep into my thoughts as I ponder not only my own future, but that of the state and nation. Just because I can’t do anything about it doesn’t necessarily free my mind from thinking about it. Those too I need to let go of.

The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us, all dear to us,
And all who have no peace.

I have often longed for quietness and peace; some nights it has felt elusive and far from me. I smile as I listen to the croaking and chirruping of nighttime animals, particularly riotous this evening. Quietness of spirit is what this invites me to, for even in the din of sounds outside my window, internal quietness and calm is possible. Oh to have that peace that “passes all understanding,” the stillness of spirit I have experienced in brief flashes throughout my lifetime. So many things are happening in and around me that it is at times difficult to maintain an even keel. I have learned to exercise the muscle of self-soothing, learning to quiet my heart, ease my fears, and calm my thoughts. I still have a way to go before I am very good at it, but am getting stronger over time. While practice might not make perfect, it does make one better.

The night is heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day, new joys, new possibilities.
In your name we pray. Amen.

I am grateful for every day and over the course of a given day I constantly walk in gratitude. This is not by way of bragging; there’s nothing to be gained from bragging as far as I can see. No, it is simply a fact, simply my way of being in the world. Today has not been a particularly good day; but neither has it been a bad one. I didn’t accomplish all of what I wanted to, as has seemed to be my lot the last few weekends, but as the prayer says, “Let it be.” And I think I will.

I get to start over tomorrow morning with a fresh set of grace, compassion, mercy and all good things and with a choice of how I want my day to go. Each moment, each hour that goes by I am deciding how the next moment, hour will go. So even if this moment is a struggle, the next can bring ease. Each morning I offer brief expressions of lovingkindness for myself, my loved ones, and all beings. Such a practice grounds me and prepares me as I go into the day. And as I close this day with the nighttime prayer, I hope to likewise ground myself, infusing myself with wishes for and thoughts of stillness, peace, and expectations for the new day. May it be so.

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