This last week I had the chance to take a walk with my neighbor, Riley, who is 5 years old and will start kindergarten this Fall. I can hear Riley correcting me on this—actually he is 5 ½ years old and will have a birthday before too long. Riley’s mom asked if on this one day I could help Riley get from his kindergarten orientation at our local school to his day care center. So, on a sweet Summer afternoon I walked to our neighborhood elementary school to meet Riley, and together we walked the half mile or so to his day care.
We hadn’t gotten very far when Riley noticed some nuts that had fallen from the many black walnut trees in our neighborhood. He picked up one that was fully wrapped in the green covering, compared it to another one that was partially opened to reveal the hard, walnut shell, and compared both of those to the one that had been crushed by the tire of a car, revealing the soft nut meat. He tried to crack one open on the sidewalk, and we wondered about how strong a squirrel’s teeth and jaws must be in order to be able to get through all of those layers.
As we walked Riley noticed the letters and numbers stamped in the cement of the sidewalks, tracing them with his finger as he named each out loud, putting words together. “Why do they put their name in the sidewalk?” he asked, and said “Some of these are really old!”
He invited me to play a game of not stepping on the sidewalk cracks, “Don’t step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back!” he said. He noticed that it is much easier to see the cracks in the new sidewalks because the older ones are filled with dirt and grass. “It’s not real,” he said, “It’s just a game. But if it were real, how many cracks do you think we’d have to step on? “
Toward the end of our walk, we came upon a spikey green plant laying on the sidewalk. I thought it looked like a flower, Riley thought it looked like a mouth, declaring it “disgusting.” I could tell that “disgusting” was a new word for Riley as he used it a lot, trying it out to see how it landed with him and with the adults around him. As we went on, we found another spikey, green plant with the acorns still attached. We looked up to see that we were under a tall oak tree, and that the spikey green thing was what attached the acorn to the tree. As Riley picked it up to look at it more closely, he said, “Oh, I understand now. It’s not disgusting anymore.”
“I understand now. It’s not disgusting anymore.” That was just one bit of his wisdom that Riley shared with me on that day. This walk together was a lovely reminder for me of how the world is experienced by a child, seeing beauty, hearing music, feeling wonder, noticing that the ordinary is extraordinary and magical. Perhaps you have experienced this reminder, too.
We forget. In our busy lives focused on our To DO lists, in our culture that determines our worth by how much we do, we forget that there is value in being, just being, in the moment. This moment. Now.
This is the core of most religious traditions—be in this moment. The mindfulness practice of Buddhism teaches us to relax our bodies and focus our minds on what is now; to be present to what is right in front of us; to notice and experience what is real.
In his first letter to the Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul instructs this new Christian community to “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” In this instruction, I hear a call to notice what is in this moment, rejoice and give thanks for the wonder of what is before us.
The Jewish practice of sabbath is all about being. Observant Jews set time each week to gather, worship, share food, connect to God. The laws of Shabbat specifically instruct us not to do—no business transactions, no writing, no housework or yard work, no turning on or off anything that uses electricity. Those who practice Shabbat step outside of their usual schedule to create sacred space and celebrate connection—to themselves, to each other, to God. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel describes it this way in his book titled The Sabbath:
There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.”
Being in the moment is a daily practice for Muslims. One of the five pillars of Islam is salat, the duty to pray. Those of us who practice in this way will stop what we are doing to pray five times each day. The practice is to face the Holy Mosque in Mecca, pray in Arabic, and move in a ritual way. At that time, Muslims are present to that moment, connected to Allah, seeking guidance, courage and strength.
Each of these practices reminds us to stop and notice, to see the magic and wonder in what is around us, to appreciate and give thanks for all life, and to connect to the divine, however we experience it. We can find these reminders in all kinds of practices–a walk with a child, time in nature, enjoying and making music. Some would say that anything we do can be a spiritual practice of being, depending on how we do it. If we do with mindfulness and intention, whatever we do can be a practice that will nurture our spirit and being.
We tend to create a polarity that places doing and being as opposites, as if we need to choose between one or the other. In fact, they are more like yin and yang, two sides of the same coin, intertwined. The reality is that we bring our being to all that we do, and all that we do can fill and sustain our being. I believe this is what it means to pray without ceasing-being in each moment as we are doing; being and doing, both.
On a warm, Summer morning a few weeks ago, about 50 of us gathered in the South Waterfront area of Portland for an action at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office. We met each other by telling the story of what brought us there that day. We heard the text of the letter we would deliver to the head of the ICE office asking for the release of the immigrant detainees in Sheridan federal prison. A rabbi led the charge for “Let Our People Go!” and offered a prayer. We walked a few blocks to the ICE office and stood in the scant shade of an overhang, watching a delegation deliver the letter to the front door of the office. While we waited, we sang together:
Oh, prepare me to be a sanctuary.
Pure and holy. Tried and true.
And with thanksgiving, I’ll be a living sanctuary for you.
We were most certainly doing—social action and social witness. And at the same time, we were tending to our being with spiritual practice, connecting to each other and to the divine, connecting to our religious traditions through story and text, praying and singing. Not either doing or being, but rather both, and.
In these warm Summer days of August, some of us are experiencing another kind of spiritual practice—the sabbath called vacation. In fact, in our culture, we could name vacation as a spiritual discipline. It requires incredible discipline to disconnect from devices and from work, to step outside of our usual routine, to put away To DO lists and just be. The spiritual practice is to let go of our drive to achieve, to produce, to accomplish. Vacation invites us to be spontaneous, to enjoy unstructured time, to play.
Author Alex Soojung-Kim Pang speaks of this in his book entitled Rest. Pang’s thesis is that we and the world are best served if we are as intentional about our rest as we are about our work. (pause) We and the world are best served if we are as intentional about our rest as we are about our work. Pang explores the science of rest in great detail, telling us of accumulated research that supports our need for downtime to take in and integrate what we have experienced and learned. As Poet Mark Nepo says, “Information is not wisdom. How can you think clearly if your mind is full of undigested information?” We digest the information in our minds when we rest.
In his book, Pang describes the work days and careers of people like Charles Dickens, Ingmar Bergman, Charles Darwin, Alice Munro, Scott Adams, Frank Lloyd Wright, Winston Churchill and many, many more. He found that these creative and productive people had similar habits: they began their days early and worked intently for about four or five hours total. They worked for about 90 minutes at a time, and took regular breaks throughout the day that included a walk and a nap. Yes, you heard right. Naps are not just for children.
These creative people stopped working each day at a strategic place that made it easy for them to start up again.
They sustained their creativity with regular and restful sleep, regular exercise, time away from work for short periods, which Pang calls “recovery” and we might call vacation. They also took time away from work for long periods, what we might call a sabbatical.
These creative and productive people also practiced what Pang calls “deep play.” Deep play is activities that are rewarding and also have layers of meaning and personal significance. These activities are mentally absorbing, they use some of the same skills that we use in our work but in a different context, they are satisfying and rewarding, and they have a connection to our past. For example, Pang describes a scientist who had a breakthrough insight while playing billiards or pool, a game that he learned from a favorite uncle. Some creative people play musical instruments or paint or participate in other arts. Some sail boats, some climb mountains. Deep play is rest. Focusing on the moment, turning the information in our minds into knowledge, tending to our being.
The doing feeds our being, and our being feeds our doing. They are yin and yang, and we need both.
In our culture, we have no difficulty finding support to tend to our doing. We are constantly told to do more, work more, make more, consume more. Without ever being told explicitly, we learn that our worth and value is based on doing, that we must do more in order to be worthy of anything, including love. In his sermon last week, Bill reminded us that we are not good at loving ourselves. How can we trust that we are loved when we are told that we are never enough?
It is absolutely countercultural to tend to our being, to rest our minds and bodies, to reconnect to our spirits and to the divine. Poet Mark Nepo tells us, “…when I can’t find my purpose, I beg myself to sit in a field in the sun watching ants in hopes that I will meet my clarity.” Being in the moment, stopping to rest, reminds us that we are connected to all that is, that we are loved, and that we are worthy.
Whether we are still or moving, humming like apples or dancing like mice, we must help each other remember that we part of the wonderfulness of life. So, next time you greet someone, what if instead of asking them, “How are you doing?” you asked them, “How is your being?” There is a song that tells us we have 525,600 minutes each year. What if we measured the success of our days and years not in tasks or lists or money, but in laughter, sunsets and song? What if we measured our life in love, love for ourselves, for each other and love for the world? What if? What if?
I invite you to bring these questions into a time of reflection, meditation and prayer. Settle in. Relax your body.
Relax your neck and shoulders; your arms and hands; your legs and feet. Ground yourself by connecting to Mother Earth.
Notice your breath.
Feel your heart beat.
Notice the thoughts that cross your mind and let them go.
How is your being?
It may be weary, strong, busy, still, angry, calm.
It may be none of these or all of these.
Infinite web that connects all life, thank you for this wonderous day. Our hearts fill with gratitude for these precious moments when we can step outside of our routine and tend to our being. We gather, we sing, we pray.
In these moments, may we listen to the stillness within and around us. May we hear the small voice within us, the heartbeat of our neighbor, the music of nature. May we listen deeply to who we are called to be.
Sweet spirit of love, in the midst of our doing, help us remember to care for our being. May we make time for rest in whatever form that may take. In these last days of Summer, may we be warmed by the sun, smell the sweet scent of flowers, enjoy the bounty of the Earth.
May we learn to love ourselves so we may trust that we are loved and bring our much-needed love into the world.
May this be so. Blessed Be. Amen.
Topics: Celebration