In his poem, “The Peace of Wild Things,” Wendell Berry writes that when he awakes at night in despair “for the world,” for “what (his) life and (his) children’s lives may be,” he goes to where the “wood drake rests … the great heron feeds.” For a time, then, he is able to rest in the “grace of the world” and be free.
I too fear for our future as a society, when I look around at so much divisiveness, so much fear, anger, pain, and even hatred. But I believe amid all this turmoil, grace is to be found. How? Surprisingly, I find an answer in my thirteen-year-old self.
A DAILY PRACTICE
When I was 13, I struggled with all the insecurities a young teen suffers, particularly when she is taller than most of the other kids in the class. Throw in bouts of anxiety and depression, a family home on the “wrong side of the tracks” –– even though we lived at the top of a hill –– and a father who drank too much, and you have me.
I look back on that year from time to time and see disappointments —– a nun dismissing the idea of my writing and staging a class play; friends excluding me from pick-up games of basketball. Then there were the times when I was the disappointment –– slacking off my duties as a helper to the nun who taught first grade; trying to blame my best friend for jamming the candy machine when we both tried to rig it so the machine would release an extra candy bar.
Despite all of this, I see the year as a good year. I felt connected; I felt as if I moved in grace. Classmates, whom I didn’t realize appreciated me, voted for me to lead the May procession where we crowned Mary Queen of Heaven. And I was the first girl a boy asked to dance at our eighth grade graduation party.
An astrologer credited a certain planetary alignment as the reason for such a sense of wholeness, and that may well be. But I cannot help but think it had to do with something much closer to home. Eight blocks to be exact. That’s where Sacred Heart Church stood, a beautiful stone edifice where I made a bargain with God. If I went to Mass and Communion every day, God would bring my brother Jack home safely –– he was a helicopter pilot with the U.S. Army who shipped out to Vietnam in September of that year. I kept my end of the bargain and so did God. But it wasn’t the deal I had made that enlivened that year. It was more basic: it was the discipline –– my daily practice of going to Mass.
Honestly, I got little out of the ritual of daily Mass. I was often bored. But one does not undertake a spiritual practice for enjoyment. Instead, the impulse comes from something deeper. I couldn’t understand that then. I was just trying to save my brother’s life. And while I cannot say in the process I saved my own, I did tap into something that is only visible when viewed from a distance –– and that is what is possible when we make a commitment to a practice beyond ourselves.
SOMETHING NEW
Prayer and meditation are not new to my life. But for most of my years, any practice that I had was erratic. Like many others, I find it so easy to get lost in the demands of my days. So many things, so many people, beg for attention. It is hard not to move from one expectation to another, whether that expectation is of my own making or that of others, and be faithful to what I know can ground me.
In The Contemplative Heart, James Finley writes: “We know by experience that in a relative, but very real sense, we are the arbiters of our journey, that we must take responsibility to cooperate with the grace of being faithful [emphasis mine] to our contemplative practices. If we do not meditate there will be no meditation in our lives. If we do not patiently work through the obstacles encountered along the way, we can lose our way and lose ourselves in the process. But at a deeper level, the entire journey is one in which we are called over and over again to surrender to a self-transforming process not of our own making.” [1]
In other words, yes, we are responsible for our own lives, but we are not without guidance. And we may best cooperate with that guidance through a spiritual practice that grounds us, and ultimately transforms us into our true selves.
IN THE SILENCE
Self-transformation. As I move into my elder years, that is what I most want. Many speak of coming to self-acceptance at this time in their lives, and that, too, is significant and certainly of value. But when I look to the needs of the world, I see self-acceptance is not enough, at least, not for me. So awhile back, I began cultivating a practice of what I call listening to God. It’s basically a meditation practice where I put aside my list of wants, prayers for myself and others, and just try to be quiet and listen. It has become my version of daily Mass.
Consciously, I hear only silence, but I choose to believe on an unconscious level I am garnering quite a bit of direction. How do I know this? The proof, for me, is found in the spontaneous thoughts that come to mind during the day that I am moved to act upon. The phone call to a friend who, unbeknownst to me, needs support just at the moment. The words coming out of my mouth that need speaking yet are not of my creation. The work that could have been done at some other time, but I completed, as it turns out, just when needed.
We all have those experiences, those “I always go left, but for some reason turned right and there I was needed” moments, which many dismiss as coincidences. But I see these experiences as moments of grace pushing through because we let ourselves get out of the way.
In his song, “The Wonder Deep Within,” Joe Jencks sings of how “… it is up to me to create a sacred place at the center of my life where only (God) can live.”2 And that is what I find myself being drawn to do these days. I want to create that space in my life, inside myself, where the presence of the Divine is not only welcome but is my way forward.
FOR REFLECTION: Do you take time for a practice that grounds you spiritually? What have noticed when you are faithful to that practice? What have you noticed when you are not?
1James Finley, The Contemplative Heart (Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2000), 207.
2 Read lyrics: https://www.joejencks.com/songs/f/The_Wonder_Deep_Within. Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-omdFwiMYQ
Top image: Sacred Heart Church, Bellevue, Kentucky, Constance Sanders Photography
Side image: Pixabay/EnergieDeVie
