Let Me Know (On Letting Go and Taking Flight)

 

Let me 
know
when you
are ready
to go.

I've 

taken

that leap 

before.

I know,

the fear,

the lies

that bind you

to the edge

of that prison

wall.

They 

boast such 

certainty.

"This

is all

there ever,

was, all  

there ever 

will be,"

they say.

But, 

if your heart 

whispers shadows 

of another land, 

let me know.

I will

stand

at the edge

with you.

I, too, 

know 

the fear 

of falling,

of landing 

in a wilderness

far beyond

settled lands.

But, 

I also know

what they will never know:

the rush of wind

on your face, the feeling

of taking flight; the courage

it takes, the love.

- K. Chripczuk

As a new year approaches, I'm pondering the things I have left behind this year and wondering what more might need to go. Letting go is never easy, but it's worth the work it takes. Perhaps, you are facing a difficult letting go. Let me know, I'd be happy to "stand at the edge with you." I can't wait to see your life take flight. 

A World in Transition

"Monarch chrysalis on butterflyweed" by Martin LaBar is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

We walk daily circles around the yard, stretching our legs amidst long hours spent working on screens.  Frost arrived this weekend, impossibly early, and now, as we walk and watch, we witness the world - birthed in spring and matured in summer - receding, one plant, one insect, at a time. 

Frost has blackened leaves on the pepper plants in our garden, indiscriminately shriveling some while others remain unmarred. This morning, after three nights in the 30s, most of the Zinnias bear damage – some petals bleached white, others prematurely shriveled and brown. 

It’s strange, how the touch of frost’s icy fingers produces an effect so similar to fire, both burn at the touch. Too hot or too cold, the impact is the same – the shriveling, blackening, pulling back from life. 

The new purple Aster, a fall bloomer and late food source for honeybees preparing for winter, has yet to form buds. But our mums are crowned with hundreds of tight-fisted possibilities, green buds with just a hint of color foretelling the shade of flowers to come – rusty gold or brick red. 

Every day, I check the progress of a monarch cocoon that dangles precariously on the underside of a giant milkweed leaf. The cocoon is still largely green, and I wonder at the frost’s impact on the caterpillar’s delicate transformation. Will new life emerge in time to wing its way south to Mexico or will it be forever suspended, stunted, neither able to return to what it was or emerge into what it will be? 

Our kids are happy to be back at school, walking off to classrooms and tethered to laptop screens. My husband continues to work, steadily, at his make-shift desk in the unheated mudroom. I alone, have no place to be. I have no work to return to and what I will be, what I will do beyond the daily, has yet to emerge. 

I feel in myself the anxiety of being suspended between what was and what will be. Perhaps, this is why I visit the monarch each day - hoping for its transformation to be complete, hoping it emerges in time to head off to a balmy winter retreat. The chrysalis invites me to a stark surrender, a willingness to let go and wait to see what emerges. 

Today, I scooted around behind the giant stalk of half-eaten milkweed, hoping to catch a blog-worthy picture of the cocoon. Crouched behind the plant, I saw the prominent gold specks dotted around the top of the cocoon, like a crown. There is beauty in the process. 

The Hidden Life and Its Questions

If I were to tell you one more thing, it would be this: Do not believe that the one who seeks to comfort you lives without difficulty the simple and humble words that sometimes help you. His life contains much grief and sadness and he remains far behind you. Were it not so, he would not have found these words. – Rainer Maria Rilke

I was thinking about these words from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet in the shower this morning as I pondered this online life of mine and the hiddenness of the life that lies behind it. Online, you see what I show you and I try to show you what edifies, but I also try to be truthful, as much as is possible without causing harm.

For example, I posted a picture on my personal fb page yesterday, a picture of my cat and dog taken after eating lunch on our front porch, surrounded by sun and sky. It was a good picture and a lucky day (mid 70s!) to be eating lunch at home. It was the best part of my day and I shared it with friends online.

But I didn’t share waking up at 5 am and being unable to get back to sleep. I didn’t share how I curled up in bed at 7 pm while the boys were out with John. My daughter came to find me, and I told her, half-joking, “Come get me in twenty minutes, I think I might have depression, or maybe it’s just PMS.”

//

I resigned from my job as Associate Pastor at a local church just over a week ago. It was not a decision I was planning and was not easily made. It’s a choice that comes at a great cost to my family and me. It’s a choice I was privileged to make.

I am grieving. I am free. I am wandering through days suddenly empty, unpacking the contents from my office at the church into my office at home. I’m grateful all over again for the shelter of this place we call home, for the animals and children to tend, for the office and work of my own.

I am grateful. I am grieving. I am wandering. I am free. All of these statements are true.

But I’ve been careful in what I share.

//

Looking through Rilke’s letters, I find another line that rings true for this time: “Do not draw conclusions too quickly from that which is happening to you. Just allow it to happen.”

I’ve been thinking about the space between a thing and its naming; how mystery and possibility dwell there. The space before naming invites a posture of curiosity, which is open and probing, rather than judgement, which is closed. When we name a thing – an experience or person – we lose access to all the other names that might have been. Labeling an experience ‘good’ we deny the bad. Naming a person ‘evil’ we sign an unspoken pact to overlook any glimmers of goodness.

Think of the way naming the humble dandelion a “weed” blinds our eyes from the glory of this roadside yellow friend. There’s one even now (in March!) in my front flower bed, but I won’t celebrate its golden head with anything near the welcome I offer to the purple crocus nodding just two feet away.

There’s a space between a thing and its naming and I’m living there these days. It’s a space of mystery and possibility. It’s a space of occasional fear and dread. For the most part, I’m trying to lean toward Gerald May’s summation in The Dark Night of the Soul: “To be immersed in mystery can be very distressing at first, but over time I have found immense relief in it. It takes the pressure off.”

Few of us are very comfortable once the pressure’s off. Sure, it’s good for a day, or maybe a leisurely week or two. But most of us want to be quickly back at it, whatever it may be, if only by naming experience, cordoning it off, somehow checking a virtual box marked “done.”

Which brings me, finally, to another piece of Rilke's advice: 

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

"Live everything," Rilke says. This is the point. 

Do you see what he does there? So often we live for the answers, as though they were the point, not the living itself.

Live everything: Live the grief. Live the freedom. Live the gratitude. Live, also, the fear, when it comes. Live it all.

Even if it never quite all makes it onto your newsfeed. 

What I Wish I'd Said

“What’s with the bracelet?” he asked. 

The cuff in question, made of brightly colored fabric and secured with two snaps, circled my left wrist.  Across the top, the word, ‘joy’ was written on a piece of frayed ivory canvas.  I was making my rounds at physical therapy - moving from arm bike, to squats and leg lifts – when the young therapist posed his question. 

“I made it,” I said – an honest answer, but short of the full truth. 

“Oh,” he said, “do you make jewelry?”

The conversation moved on and did not circle back around, the moment was lost.  I was left mulling my reticent reply and wishing I’d been clearer.

//

Have you ever lost something and, when you found it again, you wanted to do everything you could to keep from losing it again?  That's how it is for me and joy.  So, I made a bracelet in all the brightest colors, the happy, vibrant ones, and wrote the word “joy” on it.  I wear it to remember to hold on to joy.    

//

I don’t know what that young man would have said had I unloaded my frightfully serious reasoning on him that day.  But, I wish I had, because it was the truth and sharing truth with others often helps solidify it in the deepest parts of ourselves.  

This summer, as I prepare to transition from working at home to working at a church again, I’ve been looking over these past seven years of life and taking an inventory of sorts.  What have I been given in this time that I want to carry with me for the work ahead?

One these gifts is joy - the reminder to cultivate and choose it, to recognize it not as an optional add-on to the spiritual life, but as a fruit of the spirit, an essential marker of the presence (or absence) of God in each of our lives.  To remind myself of this truth, I made a small painting to hang in my new office, a painting filled with gorgeous colors, patterns and textures and one simple word: joy.

   

Keep Showing Up

I found myself in a bit of a funk last night. After mowing the front lawn, I sneaked into my office to pray for awhile. It helped. And then I saw my daughter outside and decided to join her because the hot humid day had finally turned cool and breezy. We road our bikes in lazy circles on the driveway and I noticed, again, the red roses blooming like fireworks along the side of the little house. I realized the Queen Anne's Lace was in full bloom too. After I parked my bike, I ran in for a vase and scissors and Sophia and I cut the first bouquets of the season. I felt immeasurably better then, I felt returned to my home, my self.

I painted this little plaque last year, based on a note I had taped above my painting station, "Keep showing up." My kids asked what it meant, and I said, "It means keep trying, keep being willing to be where you are, to start again in whatever moment you find yourself in."

I think that's part of what happened last night. Thanks to prayer and a cool breeze, I stopped worrying about what comes next and showed up to what was right in front of me - a riot of flowers, a lovely daughter to share the task of cutting the season's first bouquets.

In her book, An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor says, “No one longs for what he or she already has, and yet the accumulated insight of those wise about the spiritual life suggests that the reason so many of us cannot see the red X that marks the spot is because we are standing on it. The treasure we seek requires no lengthy expedition, no expensive equipment, no superior aptitude or special company. All we lack is the willingness to imagine that we already have everything we need. The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are.”

Today, friends, keep showing up, consent to be where you are, in whatever you are in. And, when you do, I hope you find flowers, or a friend, or even just a moment's peace and quiet that helps you move gently, hopefully, into the next moment and the moment after that.

Turn, and Be Saved

Photo by Simon Hesthaven on Unsplash

Sometimes, all it takes

is the slight movement of your eye,

a tilt of your head, your heart, to admit

a new angle, to see the way out, the way through

that was always there, but just out of sight, like God is. 

This can happen in the smallest pauses, like the rest

between inhale and exhale, or the moment just before

the words you will always regret find their way out

of your mouth.  This is the salvation we’ve been waiting for,

the one thing that's always given, if only we would turn and

receive. 

- K. Chripczuk

Goodbye, Hello (An Announcement)

Cliff notes Version: Friends, this is a rather long post - the short version is this: Hey, look, I have a new web address! To celebrate the new address and Valentine's Day, I'll be posting a short poem or story each day this week around the theme of love.  Check back frequently - next week I'll return to my usual posting schedule.  

A Field of Wild Flowers grew out of a vision that arrived in early 2011 as I sat praying in the calm, white, spacious place of my Spiritual Director’s office.  It came at a time when life as I knew it (i.e. planned it) seemed to have ended.  It came when, for reasons deep and wide, I could no longer see a clear path laid out ahead of me; my sense of destination as well as my means of travel appeared to be irreparably lost. 

Which is all a fancy way to say that my life was upended by the arrival of twins, by a departure from my job as an Associate Pastor, and by the slow surrender of my long-held dream of attaining a PhD in Biblical Studies.  Before the twins’ arrival, I lived cloistered in our culture’s fantastical illusion that life is a highway – a long, sometimes winding, but steady road toward a distant destination which, most often, goes by the name ‘success.’  And, although we may each define it differently, the successful among us all agree that steady and determined movement toward it is key.

But, like Dante, “Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself in dark woods, the right road lost.  To tell about those woods is hard – so tangled and rough.”  I worked through those tangled, rough woods for months before I was free enough to embrace a new vision – to accept my placement somewhat “off of the main road” and commit to really exploring it.  What came to me, in the wake of acceptance, was the image of a field of wild flowers – a place with many paths, a space for wandering and discovery, a place of being rather than going. 

Thus was born, A Field of Wild Flowers.  Words became the lens through which I explored the daily looking for signs of life in the middle of this wide open space on the side of the road.  For five years, now, I’ve lived and written from that field, finding God in everything from housework to hens.  The more I explored the field of my life, the more I realized what I feared most wasn’t my failure to reach life’s highway’s destination, but the idea that God was somehow waiting for me in that imagined destination - the idea that the love and acceptance, the presence I longed for, was tied up in success' illusory arrival.  Imagine, then, my continual surprise and delight, at discovering again and again that God is right here with me on the side of the road, picking flowers, tending house and home, incarnate in each moment as it comes. 

Now, five years in, I find myself again in a place of transition, though less lost and less afraid.  I’ve learned to make my home here in the field of God’s goodness and grace and discovered that this is, in fact, my destination.  Writing has been the means of both discovering and exploring this destination.  Over the past several months I've found a new sense of clarity around my intentions as I continue to nurture and expand this site.  

I want to create and hold spaces where others can consider the possibilities of God’s presence in all aspects of their one precious life.  I want to help others learn to live in and listen beyond the surface of their days, to begin to discover the heartbeat of God that rolls like a steady drum beneath the peaks and valleys of daily life.  I want to tell stories that explore the possibilities of God’s presence, that illuminate the incarnational realities of God’s dwelling in our midst.  As such, I want to open and share with you the joys, sorrows, hopes and heartaches of This Contemplative Life. 

My hope is that this new site will allow me to both broaden and deepen my reach online and through in-person events.  I plan to continue to post here once or twice a week and will also add a newsletter that will go out twice a month.  This site will continue to boast a wide array of stories, thoughts and reflections; my hope isn’t to narrow my content but rather broaden my audience.  

My newsletter, Quiet Lights, will, offer short, simple reflections, images or poems to serve as an invitation to contemplation.  The newsletter will also feature updates on upcoming events. 

While I’m a little sad to move away from the image of wild flowers, which continues to ground me in the present, I’m excited to move into This Contemplative Life.  This Contemplative Life will continue to be a space that focuses on the small, day-to-day stories of my own life, but my hope is that my practice of attending to the intricacies of my own life will inspire you to attend to the details of your own life – for, contrary to popular opinion it’s God, not the devil, who’s found in the details. 

As always, I'm grateful for the quiet, faithful readership that has grown up around A Field of Wild Flowers.  A change to a new web address is a bit scary and I'd love your continued support and help as I move forward.  Here are three simple ways you can help me grow this space:   

* Please share this webpage, help me build a growing audience.  

* Like my Facebook page (still working to update the name there!). 

* Sign up for the bi-monthly newsletter, Quiet Lights, and feel free to share that and the resources therein with others too.

Note: If you currently receive my blog via email, you may need to resubscribe to continue seeing posts in your inbox.  

Do What You Know (#SmallWonder Link-up)

I came into January with a head full of ideas - changes I wanted to make - and a vision of how I would move forward to maintain momentum on my recently published book and build audience for possible future books.  It all seemed clear and very exciting in a big-picture sort of way.  

Then, I started breaking it down into nuts and bolts and got stuck on how to move forward.  I knew a writing project I wanted to produce, but despite my showing up at the page, day after day, it wasn't coming.  I had visions of a new website and new business cards, but didn't know how to make the decisions necessary to move ahead while still keeping all of my other plates spinning.  

Added to my lack of momentum was the typical January need for a post-Christmas re-boot and a few new added time commitments.  Then the kids got sick one-by-one and now the cat too needs to go to the vet for a nasty head cold.  

In the middle of it all I've been feeling the stress of big plans and little progress building in me like a pressure cooker.  No progress I do make feels quite like enough compared to what I have yet to complete.  

This morning things came to a head, thanks to an accidental pot of decaf coffee and an extra nap after the kids hit the buses.  Suddenly I found the space to accept what I've known for some time now - I was putting off what I did know while waiting to figure out what I didn't and, in the process, I was losing steam and direction.  It was all so counter-productive.  

Do what you know, I thought, and let the rest go.    

What I do know is that I'm ready to be done hosting the #SmallWonder link-up.  I'm so grateful for those of you who've faithfully gathered and participated in this little community - thank you for journeying with me.  I've known #SmallWonder was coming to a close for some time and was hoping to make a smoother transition into some new things I have in the works, but, like I said, sometimes you have to do what you know first in order to build momentum to do the next thing and the next.  

I hope you'll all keeping coming around to say hi and I look forward to continuing to visit your blogs. I still believe, more than ever, in the power of small things to communicate the grace and love of God and that our capacity to be moved to wonder is a key to living in full humanity.  

So, here's to one last link-up - our 100th!  And if you have a word or two to share about what this community has meant in the comments, I'd really appreciate it!  Also, my plan is to continue to post here twice a week - likely on Monday and Thursday - so stop by for news, updates and to connect.  Or, sign up for my newsletter to keep on top of upcoming events and changes. 

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  Thanks for being part of our community!  

Faith For A New Year

What We Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

- Wendell Berry

After a few weeks of quiet here on the blog, I find myself carrying these words into the new year.  What words do you carry to remind you of that which is essential?  

#SmallWonder will be back next Sunday/Monday and I hope to have some exciting news to share.  Want to keep up to date on changes and receive great exclusive content?  Subscribe to my newsletter via the sign-up box on the top right hand column of my blog.   

They're Off (to Kindergarten) #SmallWonder

Oh my word, these two used to stand in the windows at our old house eating apples and watching the cars drive by on Franklin St.  

I hear, again, the patter of little feet upstairs.  It’s 7:30 pm, a good half hour since the song and a prayer and good nights.  But there he is in the half-dark hallway, a taunt wire of worried little boy.  I reach out my arms and pick up his long, strong body because that’s what Mamas do. 

“Are you worried?” I ask.

He gives me a wide-eyed exasperated look.  “Mom!  Do you think I wouldn’t be worried about my first day of school ever?” he says.

It’s true, he has every right to be worried.  “It’s ok,” I say, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

 

He looks away and Daddy arrives at the top of the stairs to take the hand-off and I return to helping the older two wash off the last remains of summer.  I joke that we may not recognize them when the scrubbing’s all said and done. 

Later, when the older two are sprawled on couches and I’m reading aloud, I hear a thump of feet hitting the floor above my head and a pitter-patter in the hallway.  Looking up I see him squatting there at the railing. 

“Remember that poem we were supposed to read the night before school to help us sleep better?” he asks.  “We forgot to read it.”

 

I remembered the poems after they were in bed and thought we’d let it go until morning.  But now that he remembers, there’ll be no letting anything go.  Up the stairs Daddy goes again, this time with the yellow school folder and poem in hand.  They open the folded yellow paper revealing a little bag of “magic confetti” inside.  The confetti, the poem explained, is to be sprinkled under one’s pillow to ensure a good night’s sleep. 

Levi scurries to his bed, shaking the little bag with vigor, making sure to get every last piece of confetti, talking the entire time.  It works and he sleeps through the night.  In the morning, though, picking out a new shirt to wear, he yawns and looks at me with baggy, red eyes.  “I’m tired,” he says.    

//

In the early morning chaos of fixing breakfast, packing lunches and sorting new shoes and shirts, Isaiah walks up to me with wide eyes. “I’m scared,” he says, “because when we get there, you won’t be with us.”  At the word “you” he pokes me in the chest for emphasis. 

“I know,” I say, squeezing him in a hug.  

Then the whirl of morning preparations pulls us in separate directions until I pause, putting bread in the toaster.  He approaches again, staring up at me with questions brimming in his brown eyes.  “Will there be bullies?” he asks.

“No,” I say, “there won’t be any bullies, honey.” 

//

Everyone’s ready a good half hour early and when it’s finally time to go outside for the buses, Isaiah is unable to smile for a picture.  He doesn’t cry, but his face is a grimace of worry. 

Mercifully, the bus is on time and they’re up the stairs before I can cling to them for one last hug and a kiss.  The bus driver tells them to head to seat four, but I call out from the foot of the tall, black stairs, “They don’t know the number four.”  

I will myself not to climb those stairs and help them to their seats, not to call them back for one last hug and kiss.  My husband, seeing their confusion, points to the window by seat number four and in a blink, two happy faces peak out smiling, waving, and then they’re off.