Making Time to Play

“It takes courage to say yes to rest and play in a culture where exhaustion is seen as a status symbol.”

Brene Brown

Before spending a few minutes blogging I zoomed with a young woman who is terribly certain of who she is and what she wants out of life. She is driven and ambitious. She is hitting her “targets” and taking no prisoners. She is checking off the boxes and I can only guess that her family must be very proud and probably a bit intimidated by her. She is living the American dream. And she is miserable.

Almost a year into the pandemic, she is beginning to question herself. This is new and quite scary for her. I suggested she take some accrued vacation time and find sanctuary. We talked about what that might look like, and she could barely stand the idea long enough to hold up her end of the conversation.

Finally, she said - “What if everything I thought I wanted in life was someone else’s idea?”

Great question.

So, in solidarity with my melting down friend, I’d suggest we all take some time to consider whose dream we are living. This will need to include rest and play more than another self-help book or redoubled efforts at the current favorite spiritual practice blowing over the religious landscape.

Yesterday Pete and I went walking in the snow. Baby, it was cold outside. But the snow crunched under our boots and our skin tingled with the fresh air. My heart soaked in the silence that only a snowfall can bring to our suburb. Afterwards, I spent several hours working on a puzzle of tea cups. It’s 1,000 little pieces consisting of shards of various bright colors sneakily repeated through the picture and devilishly creative shapes were challenging. I focused hard and then upped my game. I worked in silence in front of a warm cozy fire. I talked to no one and replied to zero texts.

Finally, my eyes worn out and squinting, I went to bed.

In the middle of the night I was startled awake by a solution to a problem that I had been noodling over for 6 weeks. I grabbed a pen and wrote it down in a notebook that I keep in my bedside drawer for situations like this. This morning the solution seems as plausible and well-formed as it did in the darkest part of the night.

Listen, I do not think our obsession with success is going anywhere in this country. We can rail about what we’re missing with this singular focus or we can work with it. Want to succeed? Then rest. Want to feel like your life was worth living? Play. Maybe as we rest and play we will find new ways of being in a world that values what we do sometimes to the exclusion of what our actions cause us to become.

A Prayer For When It’s Too Much…

Some days are just TOO MUCH! Too much arguing, too much paranoia and suspicion, too many labels and judgments. TOO MUCH! When those days hit me full in the face, I often grow withdrawn and silent. Prayer seems like a thing other people do. When this happens to me, I turn to the scriptures. Inevitably I find a passage that matches my state of mind. If the pandemic and political unrest feel like TOO MUCH - here is a psalm that soothes me into prayer. It reminds me that God is listening even if he is silent. God has habits I can count on - inevitable, true things about God - that I can trust in, even if I lose trust in everything else. Let us pray...

Help, God—I’ve hit rock bottom! Master, hear my cry for help!

Listen hard! Open your ears! Listen to my cries for mercy.

If you, God, kept records on wrongdoings, who would stand a chance?

As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit, and that’s why you’re worshiped.

I pray to God—my life a prayer—and wait for what he’ll say and do.

My life’s on the line before God, my Lord,waiting and watching till morning, waiting and watching till morning.

O Israel, wait and watch for God— with God’s arrival comes love, with God’s arrival comes generous redemption.

No doubt about it—he’ll redeem Israel, buy back Israel from captivity to sin.

Psalm 130, The Message

“Hey, Who Pulled the Plug?”

“Sometimes it takes hitting that rock bottom to realize you’re done descending and it’s time to rise…”

Mandy Hale

Part of growing up involves learning stuff we think we should have known earlier but are only getting around to figuring out AND not blaming ourselves for what we did not know. When our kids were little we usually went to the beach on vacation. Eager beavers that we were we’d often end up at our destination before we could get into our rental.

We’d find some place to park and head immediately to the beach. One summer we arrived at high tide. The next morning, the tide had receded. One of our littles said, “Hey, who pulled the plug?” The only body of water that he knew of that acted like the ocean was the bathtub. It was a logical question for a three year old.

The truth is, there is stuff we just cannot know until we know it. Like the way our life is like the ocean, or a bathtub, depending on our viewpoint. Sometimes it feels like a mysterious hand pulls the plug and our joy drains from us. We lose hope and confidence. We doubt that anything will ever feel right or normal again.

This is life. Psalm 130 (you can look it up or wait until tomorrow when I post it in the blog) talks about this. It gives us an example of a group of people who feel like God pulled the plug. But it ends with “right remembering” - that inevitably God restores and rebuilds.

So when we’re feeling like we are at the end of our rope, let’s push off the bottom and kick our feet in an act of solidarity with a God whose intention is to eventually make things right. We wait. We paddle. We try to rise as an act of faith.

Learning From Regret

Instead of waiting to see if you measure up, start letting everyone else know that they don’t have to.” Melissa Camara Wilkins

I suspect anyone who pays attention AT ALL and lives long enough can find one or two things to regret. I for one wish my little girl self had understood that it was not healthy for a childhood accident to be met with punishment without first checking for broken bones and glass shards. Now, I can regret not having a different experience and ruminate over it (which I have done) or I can lean in and allow my past to be my past. I can learn new ways to understand it, which is helpful. I can also use it as a lesson for how I want to live my life.

I can WISH for a different experience or I can choose to give others the gift of an experience I have learned is valuable.

I have a friend with abandonment issues. He has reacted to this problem by making sure he leaves relationships at the first sign of turbulence. Better to be the one who walks out than the one who is left behind. Lately he has started to question his choices. He’s wondering if maybe this is not living in a true way.

Maybe, he thinks, he could learn how to be the kind of friend who sticks close as a brother because he knows what it is like to be left behind. I like the way he thinks.

When in Self-Doubt…

“Do not belong so completely to others that you do not belong to yourself.”

John Mason

I am prone to look outside myself for authority figures I can trust because I am full of self-doubt. Others are more self-referencing, guided by an internal compass. My husband is more self-referencing. When he is noodling over a problem, he often researches, prays, and plans in his head for a long time before he mentions the issue. By the time he speaks up, he usually has a plan for solving his problem.

I’m the opposite. I like to talk things out. Part of this is related to my desire to have someone other than me make hard calls and big decisions. My “false self” who lives falsely, tells me that I am bad or stupid. My “true self” who lives truly knows that I am a grown up woman who can make my own decisions without constantly needing others to reassure me that I am not a little girl who drives a red flyer wagon through a plate glass door because she is stupid and an embarrassment to her parents.

I have had to learn to speak up and be clear: I own this problem. I will work it out. I can also recognize that it helps me to hear myself think out loud. Living in true versus false ways is a daily journey of acceptance, self-discovery and course corrections.

Offloading problems can be a lovely thing, but it is not the best strategy for growing up. Authority figures are helpful, but as we grow and mature, we have the awesome responsibility for becoming an authority on the subject matter of living our truest life. This is our work to own. It’s great to have guides and mentors, but this is, as Mary Oliver says, OUR one true and precious life!

How are you increasing your spiritual muscle and leaning into your truest life?