5 Things We Learned this Winter (2024)
All day(year)long I feel created.
Annie Dillard
This is that post that is always full of hidden surprises. When I look back over what I learned last season and invite you to look over my shoulder. That’s where I get the “we”. It might be new words, places I have been, books I have read or hope to read, new habits I am cultivating or mistakes made.
Let’s go, friends.
Its good to return to Kindergarten every once-in-a-while.
In January, I co-hosted a monastery retreat with my friend Andy. The theme was “Becoming a Child of God”. One session led by our friends Katie and John, was a re-enactment of Kindergarten with story time, free-play, permission slips and show-and-tell. We colored, played games, and shared childhood memories of favorite toys, stuffed animals, books, things we made, gifts given by someone who loved us and photos of ourselves.
I shared making God’s eyes with my Mama Mayerle at a summer camp and a book about a house moving, something that represented how I felt in a childhood moving around the world and back again several times with my family.
We remembered to LOOK (really look in wonder), how to play and share, and ice cream in little cups with wooden spoons are good for you.
2. A retreat (or two) is a good way to begin a new year.
For two years now, I have both hosted a retreat and attended one in the month of January. Both creating and receiving a retreat are part of my Rule of Life for spiritual growth and health personally and in my work as a spiritual director. One is at a local monastery. The other is at an ecumenical camp many states away. Both are contemplative with plenty of rest and reflection (and some teaching) and contain relationships I enjoy and want to invest in.
I don’t know that I want them to always remain so close together in one month (ahem, homebody and introvert), but that is how they are available for now. They seem to be working wonderfully for me, to use writer Emilie Griffin’s words, welcoming “a storm of grace”. I am appreciating what a beautiful way retreats are for beginning a new year with intention, creativity, new perspectives and landscapes, listening, growth, risk, and friendship.
It took me a while to figure out what I needed and where to find it. If retreats interest you, look for monasteries, retreat centers or retreat houses near you.
Or you can try Morning Retreat from the comfort of your own home. This contemplative retreat includes poetry, silence, time to journal or doodle, visio Divina and spaciousness for your soul.
Emilie Griffin writes,
Setting aside a morning, a day, even a week or more for spiritual retreat is one of the most strengthening and reinforcing experiences of our lives. We need to yield. We have to bend. Once we embrace the spiritual disciplines, we are carried along, often, by a storm of grace. Giving way to the power of spiritual disciplines becomes a step toward freedom, a movement into the wide-open spaces of the sons and daughters of God.
After hosting an individual request back in the fall, I added an option for a private personal retreat at your convenience. We can schedule it when it works for us. We can also make room for you to bring a friend for a shared experience.
3. Surprise yourself with regular time off during irregular times.
On a rainy night in January, Mike and I drove out to our favorite wood-fired pizza shop only to find it closed for a two weeks. At first, we were disappointed. Selfishly, we were looking forward to their crisp pizzas and scrumptious homemade monster cookies. But after reading it was for their employees to rest and spend time with families after the holiday rush, we thought, good for you!.
Now, we have our hearts alert to times we might take breaks for restoration that haven’t been obvious or we haven’t considered. up to now.
• We avoid travel during spring break and instead choose our Wonder’s fall break or winter break to visit. It’s unique to their school and not the whole city or country so we can visit our favorite gardens and museums without long lines, crowds or high prices. Good for budgets, introverts and tired children.
• I don’t schedule spiritual direction appointments for Fridays to save a day for writing, creativity, home projects or weekend travel.
• My next two visits to family are planned for midweek so we can just do everyday life together - run errands, cook dinner, play with the kids, nest around their home.
4. I want to be more free with my yeses.
I was invited to preach at my church in January and I said no. It seemed too quick, not enough time to prepare (translation - over-prepare). I had big commitments on the horizon.
Katie and John Taft said yes with little time to prepare and it was tender, beautiful, simple, authentic. I have kept one line near.
When we didn’t know what was next, we made a list of what we knew was true at that moment.
Turns out it was a short list, and significant.
We are married, we are saved . . . and that is enough.
I learned two things, maybe three: I wouldn’t have wanted to miss John and Katie’s message, I could have done it with trust for sharing what God was already up to in my life before I was ready, AND perhaps my “no” was just right for my commitments and my church family to hear John and Katie. All three can be true at once.
And next time the invitation came to preach just a month later, I said a resounding yes! And when a colleague invited me to teach, I said yes with joy and trepidation. And when the invitation came to take another step in my work, I said yes though the cost feels high. It is healthy to discern between fear and over-commitment.
I remembered Kate Bowler’s hard-won truth,
“So let’s just settle that controversy now: we can be faithful and afraid.”
5. 3 questions I am asking myself.
When I heard writer Anne Lamott had new book coming out called “Somehow” - thoughts on love and would be speaking within 120 miles of where I live, and at a high school auditorium (perfect), I grabbed a few of her books off my bookshelf for signing and Mike and I drove across the mountains.
It was everything we had hoped for: riff, rant and rowdy revelation.
One of the qualities I love about Lamott’s writing is the sense of life experience that leaves her changed, and not so effortlessly. Her grit has come at a cost. Her prayers, mistakes, and pain looked at honestly and taken to God have all transformed her.
She writes in “Help, Thanks, Wow”,
Imagining God can be so different from wishful thinking, if your spiritual experiences change your behavior over time.
Have you become more generous, which is ultimate healing? Or more patient which is a close second? Did your world become bigger and juicier and more tender? Have you become ever so slightly kinder to yourself?
Ever since hearing Anne, I have been asking myself these questions, and not only asking them, but noticing what I am doing when these changes hint at becoming real in my life.
Here are a few times I have noticed generosity, patience, kindness and a bigger, juicier, more tender world in and around me.
When I . . .
• take deep breaths and notice what needs softening in me
• listen to others (truly listen without forming an answer or judgement as they speak)
• walk outside, taking photos of mushrooms, flowers, the sky, the 8 Wonders of my world
• show up messy and vulnerable, make hard decisions
• admit my mistakes and let myself be loved
• savor Scripture wholly and slowly, but also Jesus living, crucified, risen
• be hospitable in my introverted way
• name specifically what I am fearful of and thankful for
• take a wholehearted leap or quiet myself
• let God pray in me
• look, really look, at a child’s drawing
• laugh, cry, plant something, bake bread, make soup, or light candles
• practice Sabbath with flowers, singing and communion
• hold spilled tears in my hand
• slow down and make time for poetry, art, reflection, forgiveness and the 8 Wonders of my world (currently ages 6 mos - 8 years)
I also notice the difference in me and between me, others, and God when I neglect or resist these moments; when I am closed, overprotective of myself or others, lack curiosity, hold competency over connection, and stand outside my life or other’s pain.
I guess that’s my prayer,
May we open ourselves to the faithful love of Trinity God and so become bigger, juicier, and more tender in our world. Starting small, starting now.