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We sang "Ring Out, Wild Bells" in church on Sunday, a hymn I always love, but we only sing it once each year. The music, by Crawford Gates, is gorgeous and enriches Tennyson's lovely poetry . The poem is fairly explicit about what we're ringing out--falseness and darkness. It also is clear about what we're ringing in--truth and Christ. The next day at yoga, our instructor focused on our breathing and stretching, helping us open ourselves to new possibilities, making room in our lives for what we want to enter. I couldn't think of what focus I want to make room for in my life.
I know what I usually want--calmness, joy, warm sunshine, summer, plenty of money to spend, friends, family, health, freedom to do what I want--isn't that what almost everyone wants? I think it is. Only the catch is that we never get all of that for any length of time. I've come to the conclusion that life is really about having the right outlook and trust in the Lord to face whatever comes our way. Hard things happen--people get sick and die, children go astray, we make mistakes, the economy tumbles downhill, people lose money, they get addicted to drugs, or can't find their way for lots of reasons. Beethoven went deaf, and John Milton went blind. Bad things happen to all, and no one's life is really the way it looks on the outside.
Our internal life is what's important, the peace and joy we find within the constraints of whatever system we inhabit. I'm one of the lucky ones who generally has enough of everything. I don't have huge excesses, but I have enough. Bad things happen to me--I've been very sick and hurt and have also felt betrayed and stressed at work. However, as I look back at this year, I see that terrible things have happened, a divorce in our family, friends who have been diagnosed with terminal illnesses, but good things have happened too. I spend time with people I love every day. I am reconnected to friends and neighbors. I retired and I have time and energy to visit people who can't get out; I don't mind taking the time to go to the zillion weddings we're invited to each month. I am happier than I was last year at this time in spite of the bumps along the way.
So...the question is, exactly what do I want to make room for in my life? I want to keep making room for learning how to paint watercolors. I want to spend more time writing and reconnecting with people. I want to spend time practicing piano and organ, and I want to be a blessing to other people's lives.
For Christmas, I gave all my children a quilt block made by my grandmother. They are stunningly lovely things, hand-stitched and delicate with a crazy-quilt pattern and extraordinary fabrics. I want to write about my grandmother. She was such an influence in my life, and I want to be an influence in the lives of my grandchildren. I can help my family reconnect with our past. My mother died last Christmas day, and this year, I want to help make her story more alive and true for my children and grandchildren. I'm getting two new grand babies this spring, and I want to spend time with them and their families.
A true gift of writing is that we discover what we're thinking as we write. I know my focus for next year--reconnecting with my past to make my progenitors more alive to my posterity. However, that's a project I can take on. I also realize I need to work on a more ephemeral trait-- I want to learn to be less productive. I am a producer. I get things done. I am dependable. This year, I want to become more at east with producing less. As we walked this morning, my friends and I talked about the dilemma of gradually not being able to see our value as someone who is productive. Very old people usually aren't as productive as younger people. If we only see ourselves as producers, we're in for trouble when we're able to produce less. So to that end, I want to give myself permission to have unproductive days when I really don't do much. Maybe it will be days of reading a good book, just playing the piano, painting, sitting in the yard. It will be hard to learn to not judge my day by what I have accomplished, but it is something I want to do to have room for trust and calmness about whatever befalls me.
Blessing to all for this coming year.
