Attentive to Joy

I write every day in my “notebook” that serves many purposes. 

I record circumstances of my life, other people’s stories I hear, what I’m thinking, what I my wonder about and my prayer-like reflection.  I also use my notebook as a “commonplace book” where I copy snippets of other people’s words from whatever I am reading.  Sometimes I remember what has captured my attention and often, when I look back, I’m again surprised how those words help me make sense of my world again. That was the case when I saw the quote from Richard Wagamese’s novel, Dream Wheels.  This is what I wrote 5 years ago:

December 11, 2018

 Claire is talking to a Detective when her son in jail didn’t want to see her — Dream Wheels, by R. Wagamese

I have this friend, he says that old-time Indians used to routinely give away everything they had in order to take on a new direction.  He had an Indian word for it that I can’t pronounce but it comes down to being disencumbered.  According to him it freed you, allowed you to meet the world square on, like how you got here, he said.  And the act of it, the giving away of what everyone else regarded as important, returned you to the humility you were born in.  That’s how he said it.  And that state, the state of being humble, was a spiritual thing, a powerful spiritual thing that made the new journey stronger, made you stronger.  
	
I think of things— things that seem right and then I talk myself out of them.  Do I really trust God if I second guess the things that seem like ideas from my heart?  No, I rely on my own understanding.

Psalm 25: 4-5  Make me to know your ways…lead me in your truth, and teach me.

I will learn by responding to the things put before me— kind of a paradox—let go of figuring things out.

Now, as I look back, Claire’s words speak a little differently to a five year older me.  Perhaps, giving away everything— what everyone else regards as important— could also mean giving up expectations or former ways of being in the world, like our profession or doing what we think counts.  Do I spend more time wondering how to live my life instead of actually living it?  

Mitch asked a question in his sermon this week that seems to fit me here: “Will we be so caught up in meeting expectations that we miss the hope that God offers to us?” …disencumbered, to meet the world square on.