All in a Day’s Healing
I’ve been known to work hard. Maybe sometimes too hard.
And I’ve also been known to take things seriously. Maybe sometimes too seriously.
How does one measure such things?
Well, for me it usually becomes clear that I’m doing those things when I lose my perspective on what matters most. If I can step back and see where my time goes and how my attentions are being focused, then sometimes I can see more clearly where I’m going down a path that doesn’t lead to life.
When I am able to find some respite in a day of work and serious pursuits, then the work and the serious pursuits fall more aptly into their appropriate place. Healing, abundant life, comes in the form of seeing presence and being present to the world along my way through a day. The sacred is everywhere waiting to heal, restore and buoy us up. But paradoxically, we have be ready to sink into those moments all along the way. . .
Here are some healing moments of the day. Yesterday.
Sharing lunch with friends and laughing. Hard.
Reading to a small child who was sitting in my lap.
Taking a five minute walk around the block and finding these beauties pushing up through last year’s dead grass and leaves.
Listening to this song and being bowled over at the simple joy and the creativity of it.
Worshiping and tasting the bread and wine. Feeling connected to moments and places and people beyond that present moment.
Talking to my family and hearing about my daughter’s excitement over a trip to the zoo.
Getting a massage at the end of the day.
These are moments of privilege, which means I can’t glorify them without also recognizing the network of privilege which made them available to me. Instead I can take the healing presence enfolded in each moment and the personal transformation of my soul that results to redirect my work and my serious attempts to participate in the healing of the world in all its brokenness.
Like thieves, too much hard work and too much seriousness can kill joy and steal life. But the words of Jesus offer another way. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)
