*
Last night, she announced to LeRoy, "Listen, I have a lot of schoolwork to do. I thought about giving up, but then Mom, she gave me a powerful speech and now I'm listening and I'm going to change!" Ah, well! Could someone please play that back? I have a feeling I need to hear whatever I said.
(Today Israel leaned in, her head resting on my shoulder, and said, "That speech you gave was the best one you ever gave. The rest of them are usually just frustrating.")
She and I, we're a lot alike. Only in so many ways, I see the younger version of myself in her. The parts where she's not afraid and possibilities are limitless. But limitless leads to loss of rhythms if we're not mindful. And we're creating too much chaos and not enough poetry lately. Time to reorder the day.
I'm reading Seven Sacred Pauses: Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day by Macrina Wiederkehr. I'm learning -- really, for the first time in my life -- to commune with God throughout the hours of the day. To listen. To follow. And oh! those blessed, blessed moments when I bite my tongue while I listen to the rant of a child until he loses steam and his heart softens again! Those moments when everything in me wants to go eat the other half of the chocolate cake but instead I slide next to a sulky teenager to wait... the humble offering of my presence an attempt to create safe space.
I am slowly, intentionally learning to integrate rhythms of prayer and art and creative work back into my day. Hour by hour, this monastic way of moving through a day is waking me up -- to live my days fully alive again, wonder restored. To live fully aware, fully surrendered to His leading... surely, this is what it means to experience the ultimate adventure...
*Photo of Israel and I in Vianden, Luxembourg, the Vianden Castle in the background.
A powerful speech, monastic moving, full surrender, why, a vat of adventure. This sounds good. A slow and steady rhythm, a heartbeat.
ReplyDelete