6 Things I Learned this Winter (2022-23)
The turnings of the seasons come in all sorts of ways - suddenly, simply, surprisingly, silently, circuitously. Noticing and recording the turning seasons four times a year (both inside and out) has become a favorite practice of mine.
In the words of theologian Stanley Hauerwas,
“I depend on friends to help me think and write.”
As we often learn best together, here are my winter lessons. Maybe you will find one or two we share.
Why I’m not using the self-checkout line at the grocery.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it did not sit well with me.
Our favorite grocery store, favorite because it is small and quaint with a flower shop out front, put in self-checkout registers. It wasn’t only that it mucked up the cool artisan gift aisle with local chocolate bars. It was that. But deeper, too.
I realized I want to greet a cashier, ask how they’re doing and really mean it, that is look them in the eye and wait for an answer. Even if they don’t want to talk, we can still look into each other’s eyes and recognize our common humanity. Our shared imago Dei can connect and conspire for beauty. We can sense inner weather that sometimes peeks out behind our eyes- joy, weariness or heartache.
I want to look a living cashier in the eyeball and see their glory.
This is all part of my deeper call to pause and pay attention, to care more in the mundane, to stop being fast and efficient. Lord, have mercy on me as I am trying to break my old worn habit of being hurried and maneuvering to the shortest checkout line.
Don’t hear me wrong. There are still times for an express line or online grocery shopping for pick-up or delivery. I wish those had been available when I was a mama of young ones, especially when one or all of us was sick or tired or sick and tired.
But these days unless I am sick, I’m choosing not to choose contact-less grocery shopping and I know why.
2. What to do when church services are cancelled.
Just last week, two seasons clicked together mysteriously. On Ash Wednesday, that particular turning point of Epiphany to Lent, tissue paper snowflakes swirled from an ironclad sky like ash stirred in a cold fireplace.
We were suddenly snowed in, prompting the cancellation of Ash Wednesday services. Normally, I love a good unexpected evening at home, but we had anticipated the feel of that thumb-smudged cross on our foreheads all day long.
Of all the heartache of Covid-19 pandemic, and there is lots of it, a few gifts remain in the ash. One of them is knowing how to worship intimately and meaningfully from home when necessary.
Like many of you, I have been thrilled to get back to the in-person community of the shipwrecked.
But after a moment of true disappointment, Mike and I knew where to begin. We grabbed our Bible, Book of Common Prayer, a hunk of bread and two glasses of red wine. We lit a fire in the fireplace, ahem, flipped a switch. We lit a candle with a wooden match and collected the ashes on our thumbs.
We put our heads together in front of a cozy fire and read Scripture and prayers in unison and alternately. We offered each other communion and smudged crosses on our foreheads, saying each other’s names out loud. We forgot we had ashes on our thumbs and found charcoal fingerprints everywhere. We laughed, washed our hands, and went to bed.
And these words from Richard Foster rang more true,
“Even with lack, we bring our own contribution.”
We woke the next morning to this view and our hearts full, even with the loss of our community Lenten service.
3. Keep risking your high hopes.
Going home is complicated. It is not only one thing. It is a beautiful, uproarious, tender, criss-crossing, time-bending, high hopes, magnifying glass kind of experience.
While we (about 14 of us ragamuffins) were visiting my folks, my oldest son tried to prepare his 5-year-old Dyl Pickle for the state of unknown bunk beds in sight-unseen Airbnb.
He said, “Don’t get your hopes up too high. I cannot guarantee there even are bunk beds or if they are sturdy and safe. Mom and I will look and see.”
To which she replied, breathless in a unicorn dress, “But Daddy, my hopes are are already so high!”
I have caught myself lowering my hopes to avoid disappointment. Dyl is teaching me to have high hopes even when that means risking deep disappointments.
That’s how we live breathless, joyful, resilient, and creative.
A few of the Wonders in my life. Dyl is in the middle.
4. Don’t forget your rumply sleepy dreams.
Laity Lodge.
I first heard about this retreat center in the Texas hill country about forty years ago. It was more in passing than any particulars. But somehow in the back corners of my heart, I thought I might visit one day. Then we moved away, first from the hill country, then from Texas. We raised four kids in the Pacific Northwest. Our nest emptied out. Our kids began having kids.
New dreams came into view- a writing life and non-profit work with sexually exploited teens. Old dreams also began waking their sleepy heads, yawning and rubbing their eyes: attend seminary, move to the country, visit Laity Lodge.
I started attending these one by one, listening for their time and place in my life.
This January, I finally went to a retreat at Laity Lodge.
It was a long time coming. I could have easily believed it was long overdue or the opportunity passed me by. The truth is, the seed had been planted way back, but my watering and sunshine had only begun in earnest a handful of years ago. Here’s how it happened over time.
First, I noticed the speakers and topics, featured musicians and artists. Zing! These were authors whose books I was already reading, artists and musicians whose craft I either enjoyed or enjoyed discovering. So, I joined their mailing list. The content dovetailed with my faith as a Christ-follower, work as a spiritual director, Rule of Life.
Soon I was checking lodge retreat dates against my actual work schedule. It didn’t click for a time. But back in the fall when the time fit and the content or presenter resonated, I was ready, well ready.
What I did not learn was that everyone needs to go to Laity Lodge, though I want to shout, “You will love it!”.
I learned my dreams need time for a whole process: planting, laying fallow, pushing up through the dirt toward the sunlight (or not), unfurling, waving around in the sun and wind for a bit to test their resilience, and finally blooming in their own sweet time.
But first, we have to name our dreams. Then, give them ample room to germinate, unfurl, or burst through the ground.
For me, visiting Laity Lodge made my heart bloom in every which way dear to me. It was a clearing in a hill country I love. Three days of no email, internet or phone, and no written schedule - only bells.
It was a time for wisdom and rest; a chance to deepen a dear friendship and forge new ones, hike up a chalky limestone hill to sweeping valley views and walk in moonlit oaks to an art studio where I could swirl watercolors until midnight. It was full of good questions and thoughtful answers, soulful music, inspiring design, good food and dark coffee, breathing in deep beauty and wide possibilities. All of my senses were tingling with life.
I wonder what kind of place, experience or relationship planted long ago might be calling you?
5. What is my “ert”?
Reading, writing, thrifting, nature walks, deep friendship, things my Wonders say, dark roast coffee, chunky rings and hoop earrings. These are a few of the things I love.
But what gives me purpose and zing? What edges me out of standing still too long?
Lisa-ann Gershwin, an American marine biologist, calls this “ert”, her original word meaning the opposite of inertia. She describes ert as that which gives you movement and purpose. Lisa-ann discovered jellyfish were her ert when seeing their moon-like bodies and flowing tendrils popped her out of a deep depression.
I loved learning such a word from Lisa-ann, who sees the beauty of the world through the eyes of autism, a view I am particularly fond of and been shaped by in love.
She says the secret to ert is that it is different for everyone.
Isn’t that just like the Holy Spirit to move and weave and express our imago Dei out into the world in such a particular and specific way?
I have noticed that poetry, art, architecture and autism, a writing life, Ignatian prayer, nature and deep friendship, creativity, and my work as a spiritual director and spiritual formation retreat leader combine in different ways to shape my ert.
“Ert is that tiny spark within us that reaches out of the mess of daily life toward what is good, and toward what it is we most crave to be, do, and love.”
Julia Baird
When your latest art and current reading seem to be friends.
6. Van Gogh might have painted The Last Supper in his Vincent way.
I stumbled on some fascinating details recetnly about Van Gogh’s “Cafe Terrace at Night”. It is a night scene painted mostly in shades of blue and gold and very little black. It was one of a trilogy of his paintings with a starry night. The stars in the sky are accurately placed for that day in 1888.
It also might be Vincent’s version of Jesus’ Last Supper with 12 guests in the light of the cafe being served by the waiter, Jesus and Judas as the shadowy figure leaving the terrace.
True or not, that possibility has me using my holy imagination more vividly and asking a few questions as we enter the second week of Lent.
I’m wondering what is lighting this terrace, what if I sat down at one of the empty tables, could Thomas be the one on the street, who are the people just outside the scene but still lit up? I want to see more of that large tree just out of view.
What made Van Gogh bring the scene down to street level? Where would Jesus gather his followers for a last meal today in our world? If I was there, would I be laughing, crying, or leaning on his shoulder? Would I be sitting at the table, busy crossing the street, or heaven help me, exiting with Judas?
I keep finding Lent is full of surprises, then and now. Jesus, too.