Being Faithful To What We Love

Contemplating the gifts of 2015 and what 2016 might bring, I consider a post I put up almost a month ago: "Find what you love & let it teach you how to live." Sometimes (often?) it is something (a way of living, a creative aspect of life, an involvement with community, a personal practice. . .) that we could not have imagined. So it might be just as accurate to say that it finds us. For me, writing has been like this.

It is a kind of grace, this being "found." And we have a choice- we can say yes or no to that which finds us- and sometimes there may be reasons to say no (or "not now.") 

When we say yes, we are committing to an unpredictable unfolding. Being faithful to what we love means we need to protect it from distractions, from idealized versions (ie- I can only write if I have months of solitude and silence- ha!) and from well-intentioned pressure to turn what we love into a means to other ends (like making a living.) What we love may bring all kinds of things into our lives, but our task is to simply give ourselves to it faithfully and receive what love is here to teach us. ~Oriah 

With gratitude to Karen Davis for her generous willingness to let me use and share her photos from Open Door Dreaming.

Encouragement

Here’s the good news and the bad news: human beings can be greatly influenced by those around them. It means that when we behave badly (and we all have our moments,) we encourage others to do likewise- and when we have a moment of remembering our shared humanity, that too can ripple out.

Walking down a main street in Toronto during rush hour, I paused to help an elderly woman who was walking toward me, crossing the street. She was vibrant and shining but a little shaky on the uneven pavement. No big deal. To my amazement, the bumper to bumper traffic not only paused to let us cross slowly, but then waited until I returned to the other side of the street to continue on my way.

I hadn't expected that, had turned prepared to wait for cars to go through, but several drivers smiled and waved me across. I waved back in thanks. Honestly, I could have been in the village of twelve hundred close to the rural home where I lived for a decade. But I was in this huge, noisy, busy city where drivers were jockeying for position on crowded roads at the end of a long work day.

It lifted my heart to be reminded that we all have generosity within us and a thousand little opportunities to take turns encouraging each other to behave well every day. I know it was a small thing that did not ask much of anyone in the moment, but It felt like. . . we might just pull this living together thing off after all.

~Oriah (For some reason, starry skies always make me feel hopeful, so this seemed like an appropriate photo by Karen Davis at Open Door Dreaming to put with this little story.)

For Eight Year Olds in a Troubled World

Last week, two stories about two different children in the United States popped up on my newsfeed at the same time. I want to warn you- these are hard stories. I’ll state them as simply and as briefly as I can, but there’s no getting around how hard they are. And. . . .there’s a hard piece of my own story mentioned here that I have not publicly shared before. . . which feels surprisingly vulnerable but necessary in pointing to what I hope would be at the centre of our motivation for creating change.

The first story was about an eight year old boy who has been charged with murder in the death of an infant. He’d been left alone with several children younger than himself including the baby, while the mothers of the children went out to party.

The second was about another eight year old boy who was in one of the houses in the neighbourhood where the police had a gun battle with the two suspects from the mass shooting in San Bernardino. When they heard the shots, the boy’s grandmother told him to get into the bathtub where he’d hopefully be safe from stray bullets. He did as he was told. He got into the empty bathtub. Then he laid on his side, curled into a ball, and quietly repeated over and over again, “No, no, no, no, no. . . . . .” as the gunfire continued outside.

I read these stories, and then I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe. Tears started to stream down my face as I sat in front of the computer. I wanted to pray, but the only words that came were, “Please, please, please. . . . “

I wish I could tell you that I was horrified by what happened to these children because it stands in stark contrast to my own childhood. But the truth is I was deeply affected because I know what it’s like to be eight years old and terrified. I remember feeling small, but at the same time certain that if I just tried hard enough- kept all the rules, watched for changing moods, was quick and smart and good enough- I could prevent the rage from coming at me again.

So, as I was reading I was there with these two bewildered eight-year-olds, terrified, afraid of the anger and violence of both familiar adults and strangers, trying to outrun nameless dread with frantic movement or a whispered chant. 

When I was eight, every night I prayed to God the Father and Jesus, not to take me out of there, not even to make the bad stuff stop, but to make me better, to help me please my mother and make her happy.

The hardest thing about being eight and terrified is not knowing if an adult who has the power to do something will see what is happening and do something to change it. So please, let’s speak and listen and choose our words and our actions in a way that lets our children- and they are all “our” children- know that we do see what is happening, and that we will do everything in our power to keep their bodies, hearts, minds and spirits whole and safe.

Because if love- not sentimentality, but love that asks us to find the courage of a broken open heart- does not shape our conversations and our choices, the world we create will look a lot like the one we want so much to change.

~Oriah House © 2015

Learning from What We Love

There is so much more I could say about this- but I am going to keep this short because the writing for the new book is really taking off (Yay! I am so grateful I feel like my heart is overflowing) This is a truth I have learned from being a companion to friends and clients and students as they have gone through challenging times.

The things I love that teach me how to live are multiple: being with my sons; being in the wilderness; running full out on something I enjoy; being very still; solitude; being with friends who love ideas and make me laugh; and always for me, writing, writing, writing.

Sometimes we have to sit still and let what will teach us come to us, the way we would an animal in the wild- patiently, showing we are trustworthy, allowing the time it takes for what we love to show itself to us.  ~Oriah

(And I am so grateful that Karen Davis shares with us one of her loves in photos like this one from Open Door Dreaming​)

For Paris

Today, may we let ordinary things show us
How to make room for heartache and hope
Baking bread
Letting soup simmer all day
Paying attention to the taste of hot sweet tea
Letting the scent of cinnamon slow us down

Let’s make love to this day
In the way we linger and listen to each other
Finding a way to be still for three breaths
Letting our hands come to rest on the table
Sitting in the centre of Debussy’s “Claire de Lune”
Softening to the sadness

There is a way to be with anger and fear and grief
A way to hold them with so much tenderness
That terror cannot take root
Let us make a light of that tenderness
Leaning into each other, feeding each other
Creating together a heart that can hold it all

~Oriah House © November 13, 2015

Debussy’s Claire de Lune: 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fvo_iOuSck

Finding The Beloved

It’s not about doing anything
Not about earning or accomplishing
Not about trying harder or moving faster
It’s simply a whole-hearted willingness

To walk to the end of the dock
And let the rising sun
Fill me and ignite
The old forgotten hunger

And every time
Every. Single. Time.
When I let the longing guide me
When I turn my face just a little

The Beloved is there

~Oriah House (c) 2015

The spectacular photo (which inspired this writing) is from Karen Davis at Open Door Dreaming. Thank you Karen heart emoticon. For me, "walking to the end of the dock" is about clearing the inner chatter for a moment, breathing in a spaciousness and returning to my willingness and my hunger to meet the Beloved in this moment.

Learning From Yesterday's Story

I’m reading “All the Light We Cannot See,” by Anthony Doerr, the story of two children during the Second World War- a blind girl in France and an orphaned German boy with a passion and talent for building radios. The book opens in 1944 with the Allied forces bombing German-occupied France. 

Immediately I was gripped by the reality of civilians on the ground in any war. For them the bombs that fall threaten death whether they belong to occupying or liberating forces. 

And I think of the Syrian refugees piling their children into inadequate rafts in the hopes of getting their families out of the place where bombs are falling. 

Yesterday, on a CBC radio call-in show, listeners were asked whether or not we could do what our newly elected government has pledged to do and take in 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year. I held my breath and listened. Over and over men and women called in and said emphatically, “Yes, we can.” There were stories of churches, community organizations, and small collections of friends and acquaintances who are privately sponsoring refugee families or getting ready to support those who are government sponsored.

I was surprised to find my eyes wet with tears. I was moved and lifted up by people's profound willingness to help. 

Each year at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month- the anniversary of the moment when the First World War ended- I stand in silence with others, remembering the cost of war and honouring those, past and present, who risk and often give their lives in our armed forces. 

The slogan most often used today is: Lest We Forget. I am so grateful for the privilege of being able to remember. May we listen to and remember and be guided to offer what we can by the stories of war- past and present. May we honour the sacrifices and the suffering by working for peace in all we do. ~Oriah © 2015

(Photo from Paul L at https://www.flickr.com/photos/ny156uk/ )