Blessed Stillness

credit:  Brooke McAllister

I woke this morning with my “to do” list playing a loop track in my brain. It’s longer than usual and my insides felt tight as a result. But remembering the words of my gurus (Martin Luther: “I find I have so much to do that I must spend two hours a day in prayer;” and the equally sage Anne Lamott: “Keep moving or you die.”), I pushed myself outside for a quick walk before tackling the tasks of the day.

I strolled off our property and into the adjacent woods. The first thing that struck me, besides the tangle of green that has burst into being in the last few weeks, was birdsong -- so clear and bright and immediate it seemed each bird had an amplifier on his little scissor mouth. The woods were full of throaty exuberance. “Listen to me! I’m a bird!” each one seemed to be trumpeting.

Then it was off the woodland trail and down to the Little Campbell River to a bench my farmmates have dubbed “the Listening Bench” where I go to, well, listen. My practice is to sit quietly and practice the presence of God through contemplative prayer – be present to the Presence that finds me there. I hadn’t been sitting for more than three minutes when he came. In the river’s current, brown from the recent rains, a bigger brown – a square face, flat ears, sturdy body and wide flat tail, like a flipped rudder. A beaver. Four seconds and he was gone – carried swiftly downstream and out of view.

The whole incident -- the temptation to tackle “to do's”, the invitation to stillness, the blessings of the birds and beaver -- put in mind of a Mary Oliver poem:

It Was Early
(from Evidence)

It was early,
 which has always been my hour
  to begin looking
   at the world

and of course,
 even in the darkness,
  to begin
   listening into it,

especially
 under the pines
  where the owl lives
    and sometimes calls out

as I walk by,
 as he did
  on this morning.
   So many gifts!

What do they mean?
 In the marshes
  where the pink light
   was just arriving

the mink
 with his bristle tail
  was stalking
   the soft-eared mice,

and in the pines
 the cones were heavy,
  each one
   ordained to open.

Sometimes I need
 only to stand
  wherever I am
   to be blessed.

Little mink, let me watch you.
  Little mice, run and run.
   Dear pine cone, let me hold you
    as you open.

Dancing Deformed

Credit: Mikey O.

     I taught at an international college in Lithuania. My students were lovely. Most had been about twelve years old when the Baltic republics succeeded from the Soviet Union. And most had stood in the human chain which stretched hand from grasped hand from Vilnius in Lithuania, through Riga in Latvia and north to Tallinn in Estonia – 600 kilometres of solidarity and peaceful resistance. Thanks to the drama and suffering they had survived nearly every student was an old soul and a survivor.

     One of my favourite classes was Oral Communications – a.k.a., How to Give a Speech. I taught my students to make eye contact, to speak in a moderate but varied tone and to use simple, but efficacious hand gestures. As they gave their speeches I scribbled comments on a sheet of paper and graded them on the spot. I made helpful suggestions like, “Make sure to look at your whole audience and not just the cute girl in the corner,” and “Bring a glass of water with you next time for that tickle in your throat.” On one occasion, mid-way through the semester, I wrote, “Hey, Laura, where’s your other arm!?” I thought I was being so jocular, cleverly drawing this student’s attention to the fact that she had given her entire speech with one arm tucked firmly behind her back, leaving her free hand the sole responsibility of making all the gestures. I docked her a few points for this bizarre oversight.

     I passed out my comments and grades at the end of that day’s speeches and traipsed off to my suite in the student dormitory. But the image of Laura standing at the front of room, one arm doing all the gesturing, stayed with me, so much so that I started to piece together a “portrait” of Laura in that class. Long, thick blond hair always cascading over her shoulders. A winter coat always draped over those same shoulders like a shawl. A shy and demure spirit. And as this portrait formed in my mind a sense of mortification grew within me. I slithered down the hall and found my friend Natasha.

     “How many arms does Laura have?” I blurted as soon as I saw her.

     “Well, one.” She replied as if everybody knew this, as if this was the dumbest question she’d ever heard.

     I collapsed into the nearest chair. “One, only one!? Are you sure!?” I buried my face in my hands and groaned.

     Natasha hurried on. “Yeah, she was born with only one arm. She’s really self conscious about it.” She paused. “That’s why she always wears her jacket over her shoulders.”

     I thought I might throw up. I had never felt like such a jerk. Hey, where’s your other arm?! I had jeered like a snot-nosed schoolyard bully. Ten points off for the missing limb, you freak!

     So I wrote a very long, very grovely note to Laura, apologising profusely, explaining my ignorance of her one-armedness, awarding extra points for bravery and begging her forgiveness for my incredibly insensitive comment. I might even have included a small sketch of a sparrow. (“Look! I drew you a picture!”)

     I learned something important that day. We are all disfigured. Some people’s disfigurement is more obvious (whether in body because they are missing a limb or whether in character because they mock those who are missing a limb). But we are, each one, disfigured. And therefore we journey imperfectly with moments of sheer knee-buckling insecurity or, worse, moments of self-aggrandising narcissism. But, never mind; we hobble on toward the good goals of kindness, of justice, of creation care and godliness. We are a mixed bag. But the point is to keep showing up, keep dancing, keep grasping the hand nearest and giving the speech.