"the present"

“Each day, every moment, is a gift. That’s why they call it the “present.” --Anonymous

This blog is mainly addressed to those of you who are Type A personalities like me. I think, no, I deeply believe in my bones, that I’m only worthwhile when I’m producing something, leading some group, praying for a friend. Just sitting around being little ol’ me, not creating or brainstorming or caretaking? Not only boring, but dangerously borderline non-important, non-worthy, especially of God’s love.

Now I’ve read many books over the years to heal this perception, to transform such thoughts and feelings. I’ve participated in scores of self-help and spiritual workshops--and yet, in this stage of my newly retired (my friend suggests saying “refreshment”, not “retirement” and I think that’s brilliant), life, I find myself without deadlines, and a very short to-do list. A lethal combination in my former days, a certain doorway into depression.

I was sharing all of this with my EMDR therapist (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) last week. She told me, “Pam, I’m going to hold your feet to the fire. Summon up and walk into the feelings of loss and grief you have over leaving your church and friends in Virginia Beach.” I knew she was going to ask me this, and I was hesitant and yet also ready to don my suit of bravery and start walking into the fire.

It was so painful as I started sobbing. While I felt very good about what I had built with others in Living Waters Sanctuary for 10 years, now that community was gone. All I could cry out from my heart was, “How can I serve you now, Jesus? What would you have me do? Give me a project, an assignment, anything, to fill this empty space of worthlessness. Give me a way to serve you again.”

As I quieted down, I barely heard a small voice within me respond,

“Oh, dear Pam, don’t you think you serve me by looking up to the majestic mountains all around you and giving thanks for their beauty? Don’t you know you touch my heart when you rejoice at seeing a deer peek out of the woods right at you, or a lovely bird of paradise by the poolside? Do you know how you serve me when you ride your tandem mountain bike with your precious daughter and laugh at yourselves as you glide gleefully down the mountainside?”

Tears streamed down my face. “Observing these things is serving you, Jesus? Paying attention to your gorgeous creation or being grateful for the smile on my child all grown up is a form of worship, of adoration, too?”

Since my childhood, I’ve always loved the surprise blessing of a rainbow, or the flight of an eagle overhead, or the wonder of soft snowflakes or the tiny sprout of daffodils in the spring, but I felt that only I benefitted in these acts. Today I know KNOW that appreciating and even communing with a sense of Being grateful, BEING, not doing, is a form of worship, of service to our Creator. I shall strive, oops, there’s that doer again! I shall endeavor to relax into the peace of my being, as part of my dance to wholeness, to union with the Beloved and all creation, “Mitakuye oyasin”, “All my relations”, say the Lakota Indians. Blessed be. May it be so. Selah.