We take counsel with our certitudes, not our doubts and fears.

George Buttrick’s words, an excerpt from Prayer, have accompanied my own meditative time and even my thoughts throughout the day for a time now– most often when doubts and fears are my initial reaction to the day, the news, the new turn of events. Taking council with our certitudes is kin to “dwell on these things” from Philippians 4: 8 that frames this blog.  Whatever is right and true are certitudes.  That I am a beloved child of God who is always present in my life is a certitude.

Knowing that in my head is not the same as living that truth.  It is so easy to pay attention to my doubts and fears; to the what if’s or even the what is that seems to be true. These things seem more real. What if my application for a new job is just a few days too late?  What if they already have someone else in mind, someone they already know for the job?  I am unknown to them.  I don’t meet every single criteria on their wish list.  This and this and that and that would have to “work out” for that to even be a possibility.

Time for another certitude.

God equals abundance.  There isn’t one job or one book or one solution to each challenge. Certitude is beyond this one moment.  Coming into this Presence of certitude, of faith, Buttrick says is best as a by-product of a mind focused on God. It involves the work of living with the certitude of another realm that as one of my friends said is deeper than my hopes and dreams and values.

The crazy truth here is that there is a place of divine consciousness that is beyond time or circumstance where this kind of certitude meets my everyday living; where I are intimately connected to God’s presence. It takes time and work to get there and attentiveness.

This Presence will make itself known, writes wisdom teacher Cynthia Bourgeault, not by the principle of linearity– that is in my time and logic– but by the principle of synchronicity: meaningful patterns of coincidence.  Traveling mercies.

I have been going more than usual this summer.  I’ve been to Ohio for a few days on three different occasions and to New Jersey, Arizona, and California.  That’s a lot for someone who really just likes to be home.  However, the time has been restorative and fun– to be in another place and time.

Traveling mercies.  People in my church travel to faraway places often so it isn’t unusual for requests for traveling mercies– which I interpret as safe travel, getting there and back home without too much incident.  When I was a young single adult and went to visit my dad in another state, he would pray a brief prayer as I was going out the door for traveling mercy.  And I guess that was answered because I always arrived safely even when the brakes went out on my car and I drove using the emergency brake for almost 100 miles.

Even after all my years, I struggle with the idea. What does asking really mean?  I do believe that God is with us– always.  I cannot rationally explain why planes crash.

I’m rethinking traveling mercies.

I am always traveling.  Trying not to stay in the same place I’ve been. Giving up old habits that don’t serve me and taking up new ones that do. Traveling through difficulties that do get resolved in unpredictable ways, often unimaginable ways. The joy is that there is a presence of hope, of possibility, of safe traveling–even when it doesn’t feel safe– that is noticable through this life and even into the next…

This image is titled “infinite time-clock.”  I do not know the original source. I first encountered it in a digital story created by a sixth grader, age 12, considering his life in the future.  He situated the image as going back in time wondering if he could do better in his life. I found the image again when I was searching for “eternal time,”  a concept that transcends chronological time.

I think a lot about time.  How long some things take and how quickly this past week went by.  Today I drove for four hours on the interstate that seemed like forever.  The truth, I think, is that time doesn’t matter– at least not the way I measure time.

To save time today I drove a little bit faster. I left clothes in the dryer. I only walked the dog down the street and back–not around the block or through the park.  I used that apple corer thing to cut my apple into wedges instead of a knife.  I still had to use a knife because I couldn’t get the “core” straight in the nice round hole.  So what did I do with all the time I saved?  I don’t know.

Maybe I need to pay attention to what I am doing in time rather than what I am doing with time.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, 

for tomorrow will worry about its own things.

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.  Matthew 6:34

Each day holds joy that will escape you if you are preoccupied with tomorrow or even an imagined tomorrow that may never come.

In the daytime, I can usually manage. But the middle of the night is a different story. Why do things– everyday conversations, an upcoming picnic, a job interview, my family troubles, the dog’s bad leg — become demons in the middle of the night?  The conversation is possessed with hidden agendas; I rethink my answer to every interview question; the dog dies and family troubles are born anew, and no one brought charcoal for the cookout. Irrational thoughts or worries?  And they aren’t the day’s troubles, they are between the days.

One thing I am learning is that the more I practice centering my thoughts during the daytime, the easier this is to do at night.

For several months I have been practicing centering prayer. And yes, there is an app for that, that actually has been very helpful.  One of the encouragements on the app says “to persevere in contemplative practice without worrying about where we are on the journey.” I need to know that.

For this prayer choose a word or phrase to evoke God’s presence and action within and meditate on this word.  Just like in the night,  it is difficult to focus my thoughts on one word or phrase for even a few minutes. Guidelines for centering prayer remind me that when other thoughts come, similar to those errant intruders in the middle of the night, to return “ever so gently” to the sacred word or phrase.

I don’t practice centering prayer in the night, it is for the day, but the joy of this sustaining presence disciplines my memory. In the nighttime, when my own demons race around, to focus on a word or phrase, an image, or even the steadiness of my own nourishing breath helps me surrender to rest and let tomorrow’s troubles go.

According to the urban dictionary, “suspension of disbelief” is the point at which you must give up all skepticism, and just accept what goes against all that you think you know.  We do that during a magic show or reading fantasy or even a happily ever after tale, and maybe even on vacation.

I just returned from several days, actually 9, at the beach with family.  On the way, I attempted to finish some work that I thought needed to be turned in before I left.  It didn’t and after my first day, even when it was cloudy and raining in sunny southern California, I didn’t think about it again.

On another day I heard some disheartening news. I was concerned, but realized I was powerless in the situation, except to send my love. The concerns were backgrounded as I turned my attention and thankfulness for the gentle breeze and sunshine floating on the surf.

How does that happen?  Maybe it is a mind trick or maybe it is another form of suspending all the belief I had about what is important or necessary at that moment.  Maybe it is freedom to pay attention to the gentle breeze instead of the family storm. Maybe the key is the “all that you think you know” part.  All that I think I know isn’t what could be or even what is. Henri Nouwen in Bread for the Journey says

Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day.  The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain (and I’m adding worry) about what remains in the dark.  When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go.  Let’s rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.

I can see what is before me: a magnificent sunset, my precious sister, a loving husband, a delicious piece of strawberry pie.  I could choose to see: work that is still not finished, what might be happening thousands of miles away, wallow in the what if’s.  It is a choice.  It’s not running from shadows that are real or pretending that the tensions aren’t visible.  It is “sustaining reality,” what is before me, right now, that is worthy of my attention.

Imagining is a powerful way to practice the presence of God.  Particularly in the last year, imagining to know that God is going before me, not to carve out just one path, but many, has encouraged me.  Isaiah 30:27 reminds and reassures me of the kind of presence that a centering joy, the deep down presence of God, allows.  “And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left..”  that doesn’t seem like indecision to me, it seems like there is more than one way to find God in our worlds.  No matter where I am, “your ears shall hear a word behind you.”  Ahhh, behind me and before me, I can rest in that image that God surrounds me, going before me to drop bread crumbs for me to follow and going behind me, like today, when I know I will leave much I do, unfinished.  But even if I am unsure, unfinished, the word behind me will be saying, “this is the way walk in it.” I imagine God’s whispering or turning my head in the right direction that shows me a way.  The trick is to trust that presence, to imagine God’s hand upon my shoulder, guiding, comforting, inspiring, lifting, a real presence that I can rest in, even when I am busy doing.

“Each of us is a mixture of fact and fiction, a weaving of tales in our real bodies.”

Imagination is not an idle pastime, but real work I believe. What we know about and what is true about ourselves is not “just the facts.” The truth of the line from a pretty weird novel, Beatrice and Virgil, by Yann Martel that begins this post comes to my mind often.

That is what I am, a mixture and that is messy. That is why it is so hard to pay attention to my life sometimes. I don’t always know “what” to pay attention to really. For the past few days I have been working with focus in my professional roles. I realized this morning that, that has been a gift. The work is difficult but not overwhelming. Instead of just thinking about what I need to do, I am actually getting words down on the page (the job at hand). When, I get stuck I do something to help myself like walking the dog, centering prayer, cleaning something small or even re-imagining my work in different ways—that has been productive. Imagining leads me to actions that are true.

Someone told me today that God whispers.  She was right.  I even listen sometimes, but don’t always follow through.  Have you ever had an impression or maybe a fleeting idea that you knew deep inside was right? Maybe that is how God whispers with glimmers of possibility.  Unfortunately, when that happens, I think my way out of it.

Oh, its too late now to call _____.  

I don’t really have time today, I have to get _____ finished.

That will never work because…. (and I insert all the reasons here).

What would they think of me if I did that?

But today I paid attention. I heard the whispers in the kitchen when I was chopping vegetables. So, right then, before too much thinking went on,  I called my friend Sam who was expecting medical news a couple of days ago. The conversation was long, I listened, and realized what a gift she has that I was able to affirm.

Earlier in the morning, I had already planned to visit Ella, another friend, who is sometimes challenged to remember who I am. After the unexpected long phone conversation with Sam I started to think that it was too late in the day to go. What you think isn’t necessarily true and this was one of those times– so I went.  She showed me around her apartment, one large room, as if I’d never been there before. She acknowledged through her smiles and hugs, though, what she cannot always summon from her failing memory.  That was a joy to experience.

I didn’t do any of the professional work that has been pressing on me…I still feel a twinge of worry about that but I know for certain that it will be there in the morning waiting patiently.  And I will show up in the morning too, refreshed and ready.

Maybe you, but not me, would argue that words are not important here, helping or supporting. Supporting seems to be truer or maybe more equitable than helping. To me, supporting means I am honoring the other person. In my role as a teacher I want to be supportive more than helpful. I don’t want to be the knowledge bearer; we all learn and teach each other in relationship.

In an online class I taught a few years ago, a young woman struggled to remember to post her contribution to the class discussion each week. Her midterm project (that was work that progressed toward a final paper) reflected her lack of engagement. She asked to meet with me about two weeks before the end of the term. She didn’t blame circumstances for her failures. She fully accepted her lot but wanted to do the work she had neglected and fully engage in the inquiry that would result in the final project. And she did. She revisited those “lost” weeks when she didn’t show up in the discussion online and created her own discussion—even though I had made it clear that it wouldn’t “count” for her grade since she wasn’t part of the original time sensitive encounter with others in our class.

She took the suggestions I made on her midterm and went beyond what was required. Her final paper was exemplary. I did not expect such insights, given the circumstances I witnessed. Given another opportunity and some constructive feedback, she rose above the expected. I did very little “helping”. In fact, my efforts maintained my professional role and allowed possibilities. Going alongside, celebrates both our efforts.

The change from helping to supporting, it seems to me, is about intention. And it is about attention. Attention to another person. To see that person as God sees us, not in “need of help” even though we surely do, but to see us in the light of what is possible.