Holiday Banter & The Terrifying Anonymous Solitude

A Holiday dinner typically brings an ideal space for my outgoing spirit to shine in its fullness - pulling out all the stops - delivering laughter, playful humor, and a toast for whatever the occasion - even if I have to make one up. This year, Kim completed the last of 4 important exams... and dad secured an extension at his work. There's always a reason to raise our glasses, I think - and togetherness and cheer give way to conversation, which I love the most! One meal, we went around the table and offered our favorite Christmas carol and movie - to which I proclaimed the predictable "Chestnuts Roasting... and It's a Wonderful Life" to some groans from the guys but a good feeling in my chest. I love to ask questions about things deeper than many people initially offer - and most find that engaging and meaningful - by the end. The wine helps, but all in all we cover a vast array of topics from parenting, childhood memories, politics, activism, God. This dinner, I found myself chiming in with great ease - filling in each quiet moment with another question, another observation, another joke, another topic. With several of us around the table, there is always someone to pounce on the bait - and so the conversation continues in rapid pace. It works. It's functional, and even appreciated. Its fun to be the "life of the party" as they say! But, this time I reflected on this and realized that the dinner was perfect in nearly every way except that we accomplished a myriad of words and a great pace, but lacked margin, quiet, space. It got me thinking about why we move so fast and what we miss out on. It made me think about how busy we all are - with a good sense of what is important in life, but poor execution year after year. You know, the typical things people on their death beds write poems about: taking walks for our health, wresting with our kids, writing hand written notes to people we care about, praying, and taking time to just rest long enough so we can hear our own thoughts and maintain our bearings.

A good friend gave me a book called Sabbath which I started reading over this holiday. Page 51 offered... For some people, emptiness can feel fertile and spacious, alive with possibility... But others feel emptiness as an ache, a void; something painful, in need of being filled. Most are far more anxious about having to confront whatever will come up in the empty space, when (we) are quiet and alone. Who knows what terror lurks in the anonymous solitude?

As the new year approaches, with it's customary invitation to make resolutions in our lives, I am considering embracing more of this emptiness- more of this intentional quiet and rest. For me, maybe the blessing of being gregarious also comes with an invitation to be more settled the need to rest. I think we are all afraid of the quiet - even the more introverted souls who stay busy at work or in the kitchen or with some other distraction. The invitation to all of us is to pay attention to how we engage conversations, to-do lists, and how much time we set aside for intentional quiet. Who knows what we will hear. It may be terrifying things we have been trying to avoid - or forgiveness we needed to know. I was blessed to find some of both this holiday - and wish the same for you. Happy New Year.

Just One Lesson

As I approach another birthday, I have been thinking a lot. Today, over lunch I was talking with a close friend and we agreed that we once thought, and even hoped, that the lessons we learned in life would stick with us - that we could retain them and build on them, but that has not been my experience with the really important lessons. We get into the hard moments in life (we're out of money and scared, we lost our job and loosing confidence, we lost a dream and now tired of risking again, we lost a friendship and tired of feeling alone). These hard moments seem to come as a total surprise and so we lose our bearings and grasp at false choices. Sometimes we give up and pull back and get depressed and worried like it's all to much to bear and the outlook is utter disaster. I feels hopeless when you just know it will end badly. Sometimes we hold on even tighter and try to make something happen, trying to control the entropy that answers to no one. Headaches set in, and traffic surrounds us. A trip to the wine store or Netflix provide a short-lived distraction... but the darkness is all back before long. It never occurs to us that the lesson we learned in the light (just 10 days ago or 10 months ago) was meant for this very moment. Oh, I remember the small lessons or pithy truths - like "don't cry over spilled milk" or "this too shall pass" and "the sun will come out tomorrow"... but it's the bigger lessons and truths beneath cliches that elude me. Is there someone, namely God, in control of everything? Is there someone who's ultimate plan is good? Does it all fall on my shoulders... or is there a force bigger than me that is blessing me, looking out for me, and even providing for me? If I stumble, will someone help me? In hard economic times like these, most of us will have to learn to live on less, many of us will struggle to make ends meet, while others will not even have bread and milk, let alone presents under a tree for Christmas. I wonder if they feel that God is small and has abandoned them, or if they know their God is big because they see how he helps them find a way every day. So, here I am again, rethinking this lesson... relearning this lesson... and realizing that there may not be 1000 lessons to learn in life; rather just 1 core lesson that we need to re-learn and re-experience a 1000 times.