Relearning Lessons

Daily Devotion - May 21

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)

while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

I like to learn things one time and know them forever.  I'd prefer to prevent all future mistakes, and also never repeat lessons. Once and done!
Unfortunately that's not how life works.
When I have to relearn something, I feel annoyed and impatient with myself.  But this strange time is requiring that I continue to relearn things.  I am working on receiving the lessons and letting them teach me again.

This past week or so there have been two:

The first is radical acceptance. I had already had a kind of awakening that I was living in resistance to all of this, as though embracing this life was saying, "I'm ok with it." Like I don't care that things are not how I want them to be.  "I'm good with losing all the plans I was looking forward to and the patterns of life I love."  I'm not good with that.  But I made a conscious choice try to embrace and accept this life, to settle my soul into it, because I really want to live fully present. So we started doing "Family Fun Night" twice a week - and they've been really fun. We've had a lip sync contest, casino game night, family bike ride, mancala tournament and more.  That's all well and good. But, in addition to all the sickness, and worry, and loss of lives and jobs, this week they announced that the 4th of July parade was canceled, and it sent me over the edge.  I still can't visit my grandmother, I hate avoiding people on the sidewalk, and my daughter's birthday is coming up and we are still in this damn thing.  So I found myself a mess of pent-up emotions all over again: anger, sadness, frustration. And I realized I had returned to resistance.  So here we go again - grieving, letting go,choosing to be here, now.

Another lesson I'm relearning is a longer-term one. I am a multi-tasker from way back. It's in my genes.  It was often proudly proclaimed that my grandfather "could fit 10 pounds in a 5 pound box!" I have been the same way for much of my life. But the past decade and a half has been a long, slow untraining of myself, (aided by an autoimmune disorder and a deep study of sabbath).  In this time, I have learned (or so I thought) how to put 5 pounds in a 5 pound box. Even, sometimes, I am able to stop at 4 1/2 pounds, and leave a little wiggle room.
I've taught about sabbath, and written about it, and tried to raise my children understanding the value of it. But in times of stress, we return to our deep dysfunction and act from our unthought patterns/ addictions/ methods of self-soothing.  It turns out - even though I've put some great boundaries in place during this time of lockdown (like not working past 4 pm, six days a week, taking Mondays completely off...) and made sure I have good support (like spiritual direction and my pastor group) - I've fallen back into some of my old patterns.

When we feel helpless, it feels good to be busy. We sometimes mistake busyness for fullness.  When there are no demarcations between 'home' and 'work', and even our days are running together - we do things that make us feel productive and useful.  At least, I do. And that's all fine. But I stopped retreating.
For nearly a decade, I have taken a 24 hour retreat once a month, turning off my phone and getting away. Every month. I need to be alone. I need silence, distance, nature and my journal on a regularly-scheduled basis.  That hasn't happened since February.
It happened last week. I got away to a cabin in the woods, and I surprised myself by crying for much of the time. I needed a shut-down and reboot moment.
I have learned what practices feed me in ordinary life. Retreat is one of them, and I need to reclaim these practices and return to them.  Instead, I have been treating this like it's an extraordinary time where the rules don't apply. They still apply.

We still need rest. We still need to do the things that feed us. I still can be careful and deliberate about putting 5 pounds (or 4 1/2) into a 5 pound box, and not say, "Because right now things are different, it's ok to jam more in."  It's not ok. When so much else is out of the ordinary, and the practices we take for granted (like shaking hands, hugging, going to movies, church services and shopping centers, getting together with friends, etc.) are not happening, the rules still apply.

We all jumped into crisis mode when this thing hit.  We treated the situation like it was temporary. It is temporary. But it's not short-term.  And there is no going back, only forward.

As we go forward, we will be relearning lessons again and again, like feeling our feelings, living in the present, recognizing what we can and can't control,  remembering our belonging to God and each other, having mercy for ourselves and each other, receiving the joy, and the need to rest.

So I am giving myself short-hand phrases to remember the lessons I keep relearning. I might even hang them on my fridge. Today's are "Radical Acceptance, and "The Rules Still Apply."

What lessons have you been relearning in this time?


CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

Let's end the day with the Evening Prayer again, from the New Zealand Prayerbook.

Lord it is night.
The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.

It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
what has not been done has not been done.
Let it be.

The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness
of the world and of our own lives
rest in you.

The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
all dear to us, and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day,
new joys, new possibilities.
In your name we pray.
Amen.