The Hardest Exercise of All

Beloved:

              Every now and then I hanker for a different house.  Something smaller to neglect like I neglect my current rooms and flower beds.  Just the thought of moving kills the hankering, and I remember that I can only ever occupy a single spot on earth – so how about I occupy this one fully?  I might choose to watch the seasons pass through the trees of this backyard.  To learn the different sounds of traffic on this stretch of highway.  Were I to pay attention long enough, I might become an expert of this place, the expert not only of this plot of ground but the terrain of this particular human heart.

              If I could just stay here, of course, which is the hardest exercise of all.  Trusting there’s nothing inside the memories and dreams which I cannot afford to sift through, like forgotten souvenirs.  “They can be ours to relive and be glad for, or to weep over and forgive,” Richard Rohr* writes, “without ever having to fix them.”

              So, practicing the wanting to stay put is my thing these days.  It hardly rolls off the tongue like prayer or contemplation but amounts to pretty much the same.  Be here, Now.  In this house, with these people.  On this ground, with these plants and animals.  In this body.  In this mind.  In this heart with all its shadows and regrets.  Visit often and stay longer every time, long enough to discover that there is always more to see and hear.  More light.  More beauty.  More life, than we can ever, ever hope to comprehend.

~ peace & prayers,
pastor annette

* Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs - The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, Crossroads Publishing, 2003