Living the questions… the title of a video course I attended this week and also a sort of epiphany for me.  That is what Henri Nouwen’s words mean for me, now.  Living into a new way of thinking means living the questions that I wrestle with rather than just posing them.

Pondering “what do I need to let go of?” like I did last week has another side in the living of it.

The air where I live is crisper, cooler, and encouraging these days. There is just a hint in the air that the leaves are about to take on new color.  On closer examination, however, I notice other signs.  Squirrels with puffy cheeks carry fall’s bounty as they dash across the streets.  Green husks camouflage rich walnuts I step on walking through my back yard.  Leggy flowers and herbs are “going to seed” as the season for harvesting wanes.

Seeds?  That was the ah-ha moment.

In a previous post I alluded to Carrie Newcomer’s song, Leaves Don’t Drop They Just Let Go (click on this link and enjoy).  The refrain of her song:

‘Cause leaves don’t drop they just let go
And make a space for seeds to grow
And every season brings a change
A tree is what a seed contains
To die and live is life’s refrain

The other question… the one that is lived along with letting go.  What new thing is being redeemed inside of me?  What new thing will be able to grow now?

What do I need to let go of at this point in my life?

Can I let go of the things that make me feel useful and significant?

The second question is one I probably copied eight years ago, when the elementary school where I had invested a great deal of myself was closing.  That job teaching second and third graders; the incredible young people, families, neighborhood and colleagues with whom I shared community did make me feel useful and significant despite the institutional and political view of us as less than capable.

Now, with much greater educational accomplishments, I’m wondering the same thing.

One thing I know.  I could let go of the thing that makes be feel insignificant and inadequate; comparing myself to others, like I did yesterday, reliving what I intended to do and what I haven’t accomplished. However, that wasn’t the question.

Henri Nouwen and Parker Palmer are two people I perceive as having struggled with these questions and maybe answered them with a life.  In the forward to Palmer’s first book, The Promise of Paradox, Henri Nouwen wrote:

Parker has shown me how true it is that you don’t think your way into a new kind of living but live your way into a new kind of thinking.

I haven’t read this Parker Palmer book, but I have read many of his others and know much of his story of struggle.  I have read Nouwen’s The Road to Daybreak that chronicled his journey from the world of academie to his life in the Daybreak community for children and adults with physical and mental challenges.  These men lived the paradox of letting go of what seems to be of value in the world to find a new self.

I know how they answered the question with courage and uncertainty.  The thing is– I know the end of their story.

Can I let go of the things that make me feel useful and significant?

 The answer involves living with a new kind of attention.

Letting Go.   I read this piece by Frederick Buechner yesterday.  While it seems extravagant to just quote someone else, I need Buechner’s wisdom to tell my own story.

I quickly read this I might add; I needed to get on with my work for the day.  I did, however, feel that the words were serendipitous or synchronicity or some kind of miraculous coincidence that these were the words I just needed to ponder for the day.

WE FIND BY LOSING. We hold fast by letting go. We become something new by ceasing to be something old. This seems to be close to the heart of that mystery. I know no more now than I ever did about the far side of death as the last letting-go of all, but I begin to know that I do not need to know and that I do not need to be afraid of not knowing. God knows. That is all that matters. Out of Nothing he creates Something. Out of the End he creates the Beginning. Out of selfness we grow, by his grace, toward selflessness, and out of that final selflessness, which is the loss of self altogether, “eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man” what new marvels he will bring to pass next. All’s lost. All’s found. And if such words sound childish, so be it. Out of each old self that dies some precious essence is preserved for the new self that is born; and with in the child-self that is part of us all, there is perhaps nothing more precious than the fathomless capacity to trust.

– Frederick Buechner, Originally published in A Room Called Remember

My thoughts for the day rested on the last few words “the fathomless capacity to trust.”  But I re-read the words today and that wasn’t truly where I needed to land.  It was this part: I do not need to know and that I do not need to be afraid of not knowing.

Part of my own letting go means letting go of an “expected” unfolding of my life now. Letting go of what I thought and think is possible.  Letting go of how I see myself as valuable that is usually tied to a job or professional life.  Letting go to be faithful to what I know to do each day that may not make sense or “get me” anywhere.

Another paradox– paying too much attention to one thing obscures the one thing we need… to let go.

I have a heaviness about my work that should not be.  Instead of couching this fact in vague generalizations about my life, or anyone’s live in general, I need to reveal my own insecurity about my adequacy as a scholar whose feet are on the ground; my desire to be perfect– to not have to dance between other’s expectations and my own evolving abilities and my deep desire to tell the story– the story buried in the academic writing I am trying to do.

I just read an email stashed in an old journal from someone, a colleague at the time, encouraging me to apply for a particular job. I did not hesitate in my reply.  While deeply flattered that she “can see [me] fitting well into the position… you would be so good.” I knew that this job would not be so good for me.  I would have been frustrated because inherently my beliefs did not match with those whom I would work for and with, and I had no doubts.

Of course there is always the hidden notion that I could challenge those beliefs, but I had already been swimming upstream so to speak.  My neighborhood elementary school where I taught had been closed because it was a failure according to political and institutional accountability measures. The failure I saw was that people (generalized of course) did not value or work alongside that school community; it was easier to restructure as a magnet school that divided and diluted the neighborhood. Policies and procedures and philosophies of the new magnet school excluded rather than included our neighborhood– the children usually referred to in statements like “all children can learn.” However, from my perspective, these young people had much to say and do of value– just not in the ways that easily counted in the political construction of school learning.

The point of telling this story is that now I am meeting another kind of challenge, similar at the core, but I am not confident about what to do- to continue or let go; to say “no thank you” again or try again; to know if I am compromising what I believe or just learning through struggle how to say what needs to be considered in my world?

I’m looking for my own burning bush– I know the place I am standing is holy ground.

Writing is thinking.  No question about that for me.  When I begin to write on any given day I don’t always know where the words will take me.  Even when I have a clear intention or a vague drift.

At the same time, thinking is a problem.  Writing might bring clarity and on the way there pass through layers of confusion that obscure that buried idea.  This summer I attended a workshop at Princeton Theological Seminary — a Writer’s Workshop that foregrounded writing as a spiritual practice and the work of writer Frederick Buechner.

Often, particularly when faced with too much thinking that only complicates any intention I might have, I reread my notebook from previous months or years to see where I’ve been with the hope that I might move toward where I might be going.

Today I was lamenting my lack.  Lack of skill as an academic writer.  Lack of clarity that results from overthinking and my lack of confidence.  Lack of proofreading skill that lets grammatical errors, unintended fragments, and sentences that just don’t make any sense disguise themselves as productive.  I usually don’t reread these blog posts for fear of finding the same thing here.  I did and I did.

So this morning I opened my notebook from the Writer’s Workshop and found this:

Writing as sacrament

• visible sign of individual reality
• outward sign of inward grace
• sacrament needs: matter, form, intention
• holy mystery
• grace in the everyday

At the bottom of the notebook page “mystery” is defined as presence of more meaning than you can comprehend.

Mmmmm.  Why do I continue to write?  Writing makes visible what I’m thinking, doing, feeling, being and how I interpret a world in that moment.  Those thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentional awareness become material when captured in words; by the very act of being named.  The paradoxical mystery is that at the same time those words hold more meaning than I can comprehend.  The words alone don’t just represent; they are an action, a form of participation in the world that matters.

As Buechner says the deepest part of who you are is speaking to the deepest part of yourself.  And occasionally, someone else might be listening in.

My choices daily

seem so casual and small;

I spend so little time deciding how I live–

yet step by step,

and choice by choice,

I build a pattern

by which I

myself am known:

a lifetime choosing either death or life!

My friend, Dan Bagby wrote these words over thirty years ago.  I’ve keep them all this time.  And again I return to the realization that I think more about what I want to be and do rather than making daily choices that get me there.

Ten years ago I wrote these words: What do I do with feeling restless, wanting change?  Is that God or do I just want a dream and I need to make the best of what I have?  Do I just focus on the good that I have or do I actively seek change?

The answer to my questions is not an either – or proposition.  Like many questions I have, the sense making comes in the struggle and that struggling isn’t a one time occurrence.

Considering again Dan’s words, I am choosing– with each small moment that I live– even when the choices are not conscious. I do spend time thinking about how I want to live.  Deciding happens in the casual choices I make daily.

Ten years ago I also wrote three “to do’s:”

• Rejoice always
• Pray constantly
• Give thanks in all circumstances

Again, it seems simple, but an affective stance that is difficult for me to maintain. The swing between hope and despair lately is a short ride.

Scott Russel Sanders in his book Hunting for Hope says

Hope is not prognostication.  It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.

My choices daily, casual or calculated or small or great, determine that orientation of my heart.  I like the idea of “muscle memory” here.  The notion that as you practice a certain movement you develop a physiological memory — a feedback loop that envelopes brain and body so that your brain tells your body knowingly, from memory,  what to do even after lapses in such activity.

So what will I be and do in this fine day that develops that pattern or orientation of joyful hope?

The idea of the spiritual, another realm of existence that is intricately woven into where I live my everyday life, is about surrender, rather than control.  I hold too tightly to trying to “figure it out.”  It is  true that I want to push, to find, to search, to strive to see; to be in the metaphoric light, to see what is in front of me.  I’m already forgetting what is. I have relationships that sustain me. I’ve always had a job and a place to live.  There is always meaningful work to do. However, like yesterday, I am derailed by comparisons to “others” named and unnamed who seemingly have, do, or are ….. and expecting — it doesn’t even matter what– to meet my constructed standard.

The real dilemma is that I want to belong, to have a place to stand– that is valued by the world.That is what seems to be elusive, no matter where I am.

In the book whose title I borrowed, longing and belonging, Allison Pugh considers how children and parents in particular interpret and use the ubiquitous consumer culture to construct belonging. I do that too, I consider the whacked out hierarchy that my academic world holds up as true, even though I can pay attention to another way of seeing.

Much like the hunger that Marjorie Thompson likens to “an empty stomach aching beneath the sleek coat of a seemingly well-fed creature, it reveals that something is missing from the diet of our rational, secular, and affluent culture.”

What am I missing?  Frederick Buechner in The Longing for Home ends with the notion that

The danger is that we hold on only to the moments that one way or another heal us and bless us and neglect the others… Woe to all of us if we stay only in the bright uplands of the Gospels and avoid like death, avoid like life, the dark ravines, the cave under the hill.

Bad things and even not so bad things that seem discouraging happen.  What do I do with those?  Underneath, above, around and through the dark and unknown places there is another, a Source, a Presence that blesses my struggle. There are moments and even many days when I don’t think the “right” thing; when I ponder the worst case scenarios and wallow around in the dark ravines.

I wonder, if like some others, will I always be on this journey?  Is there a promised land or is this it– what I can see but don’t continually live in.  I wonder and yet do see glimmers of hope in now.  Buechner’s piece ends with this ineffable mystery; that we know the divine presence in our experience of unknowing.

Gratitude for what is, what you are now, and to move toward the edge of possibility…   

I heard these words this morning.  I’ve come across that “edge” idea on a couple of occasions.  One, in exercise, means to take yourself to the edge.  This means that as I squat down slowly, heals up, balancing on my toes, my arms extended straight out in front of me; my legs are shaking, trembling uncontrollably.  Another edge is in academic work.  Now emeritus, Dr. M., didn’t just encourage, but demanded that what we did, how we considered what to study, began at the edge of what was now known.  In other words, I am expected to jump off that cliff or at the very least to lean forward enough to solidly peer over it.

What is the edge of possibility?   As I begin a new semester doing what I’ve been doing for a while, what could be new?  It is so easy to settle.  To settle in, settle for…to comfortably sit, not near the edge, but way back where I know it is safe; where I can be successful for now or not expect too much.

It is not personal striving, I need to make that clear to myself.  It is not working harder to reinvent the wheel, what has already been done.  Going to the edge of what is possible means to push the limits of what I know and have experienced so that I actively look for newness, the unexpected, beyond what I know is possible.  Possible is a limiting word.  What might I learn or experience if I do go to the edge; even the edge of what I’ve done many times before from another perspective?

I’m reminded of Patrick Overton’s poem that when we walk to the edge there will be something solid for us to stand on or we will learn to fly. 

So, it is possible to believe six impossible things before breakfast, I just have to be on the edge where I have another view.  And probably loosen my grip… let go, even a bit.

One of my favorite television shows was Joan of Arcadia– yes, like Joan of Arc, she saw her own kind of vision. Joan, a teenager, encountered God– a physical form of God– in seemingly everyday people. This form of God challenged her to take some kind of action or risk that eventually resolved a previously unknown dilemma  or supported another person on their journey through a particular life event.  The refrain of the theme song I can hear now,

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home

That isn’t even the part I think I want to talk about though or maybe it is.  Although God does walk “around in muddy boots, sometimes rags and that’s the truth,” as Carrie Newcomer so eloquently sings.

Joan, in the TV show, did very ordinary everyday things that responded to an ordinary everyday need.  This example will no doubt conflate several episodes but you will get the point.  “God” was sometimes a custodian changing a light bulb at her school, a child swinging on the playground, or a young man with tattoos, spiked hair, and face piercings that she met on the bus.  Sometimes when she was encouraged to “do something” or “pay attention” she wasn’t sure about the what.  The point was that she did it; asking the lady who was crying on the bus if she needed some help to end up babysitting for the lady’s terminally ill child so the mother could attend class that evening.  And, along with the support she builds an incredible relationship, even in the short term, with a child who caused her to learn more about life from his perspective.

Richard Foster in the introduction to Celebration of Discipline discusses “three empowering catalysts” in his own life. Two he termed “sharp and dramatic encounters” and the third that was “protracted and inconspicuous.”  These were amazing stories of events and people that foregrounded those things that come in our lives that are beyond our control yet are what a friend calls “cosmic flirts.”  Things that make you consider or know a path or truth for your own life even if you don’t know how to get there yet.

So I guess I’m wondering now where this is going. When I started it seemed to be that I wanted to be a catalyst. And I still do.

However, I’m thinking of the little nudges; casual comments, not so casual expectations, and those hidden thoughts that I am even sometimes afraid to think might be true. It’s so much easier to focus on what could be instead of what I can do in the moment to be. It takes courage and a catalyst to take a step into the dark of the unknown.

Thinking back to Joan…is that how God works?

I’m not a planner.  At least I don’t think I am.  One of the things I cherish about my days now is that I don’t have to get up and leave my house each morning.  I do get up early, write first, do some “work” that includes emails, writing, learning kind of things like reading & figuring out, and planning for class or meetings.  I have flexibility in how I structure my time for the majority of time.

For a prolific thinking and feeling recluse, this kind of freedom can be a little messy but I like messy structure. They can coexist.  I am learning that I don’t have a “plan”– that kind of structure– but I do have a framework. What is the difference?  A lot.

What I have to do everyday isn’t tied to my job or even the running of my household.  It is necessary for the running of my overall self.  Here begins another paradox.

I must read something everyday that elevates me.  This is the part I’m not sure I know how to explain.  What I read; a novel, a memoir, the bible, or a spiritual classic–old or new is not as critical as how I read.  When i say “elevates” I don’t mean that  it makes me more important– actually I forget myself–the part of myself that wants to be in charge, important, and foremost in my mind.  A space is created to remember that there is another realm of reality, another way to expand my view, another One who is intricately woven in.

I probably need an example here, to show you rather than just tell you.  I continually struggle with the question of what do I do and what does God do in my life.  The problem is the dichotomy, the first part anyway.  The second is that it isn’t so simple as either or.

Feeling a bit anxious about what to do on a recent day, I happened– okay probably a prime example of the combination of the two “do’s”– upon Frederick Buechner’s piece on anxiety. Buechner surmises that Paul, writing to the Phillipians to “have no anxiety about anything” does not deny, try to minimize or explain what happens away as God’s will, judgement, or testing our spiritual fiber.

He simply tells the Philippians that in spite of them–even in the thick of them–they are to keep in constant touch with the One who unimaginably transcends the worst things as the One also unimaginably transcends the best.

A framework.  Another way to consider that my spiritual self is my real self. And even to be so bold to know that this One and I are there together.  Now, this doesn’t mean that when I go about my day I don’t get sucked into the world as one of my wise sixth grade friends says; but it does mean I don’t have to stay there.