Everything Belongs

"I could have just kept sleeping." These are often the words I mutter as I turn my alarm off on Monday mornings and begin shuffling my way to the bathroom to splash some water on my face. I'm not sure what it is about Sunday nights, but I always sleep so hard and so soundly during them--so much so that getting up and going makes Monday mornings EXTREMELY difficult for me. 

The difficulties don't stop at getting up either. I'm slow to brush my teeth, I'm slow to pop my contact lenses in, and I'm slow to get dressed in warm clothes for my morning walk with Hank. Heck, my Monday morning coffee cup (yep, I'm that person) is one that I got at the St. Louis Aquarium, and it has a sea turtle on it with the words, "Slow until I get my coffee" printed across the front. The struggle is most definitely REAL.

Once I'm outside, one might think that the struggles are over...not so. As Hank and I start our way up the hill from our house, the negotiations begin:  "Okay, I'll just go up the street, then I can turn around." "We'll just go around the block--the small block--no, the bigger one--then we'll head for home." "I'll go until something hurts." Over and over, new negotiations happen, and over and over I keep walking--one foot, then the other. Lather, rinse, repeat, as needed. And before I know it, as if by magic, I've walked my 30 minutes with Hank and we're heading for home--our walk doing what it always does:  Improving my mood, getting my stiff joints gelling, and getting a little energy burnt off of Hank. 

As great as that outcome is, however, it is NEVER enough to get me going straight out of bed. I'm pretty sure it never will be. There is no amount of motivation that will ever psych me up enough to move when morning comes too soon, when my osteoarthritis has spent my sleeping hours stiffening what seems like every joint in my body, or when Hank has snuggled into that sweet spot behind my knees on a cold morning. Motivation waxes and wanes. It is not a sustaining force. The only thing that sustains is the repetition of showing up. Consistently--morning by morning. 

But it's more than just consistency, it's also learning to re-frame the way I view my Monday morning resistance. So often, I view the slowness and the stiffness and the negotiations as obstacles, but they are not. They are not things that I need to overcome or experiences that I must train myself to lay down. They are not evidence of some moral flaw or of something that I lack that super together people (whoever they are) have in spades. Rather, they are simply part of the process. They are neither for me nor against me...they simply ARE. Whether I accept that they are, well, that is up to me.

Fr. Richard Rohr says that “All of life is grist for the mill. Paula D’Arcy puts it, 'God comes to us disguised as our life.' Everything belongs; God uses everything. There are no dead-ends. There is no wasted energy. Everything belongs.” This doesn't mean that transformation isn't possible. It most absolutely is! It just means that it will not come through our willpower. It will not come through sustaining an unsustainable level of motivation. It will not come through self-judgement or spending our lives wishing away what is. Transformation will come as we accept that everything--our resistance, our negotiations, our sore muscles--EVERYTHING--belongs. 

And it doesn't just belong, it is precisely where God works. In our ordinary lives. In the quiet moments before we resign ourselves to getting out of bed. Every step we take. Every moment that feels like an obstacle. Every experience of resistance and negotiation. God is working--using our very ordinary lives and our very regular experiences to bring us somewhere new...to make us new.

So friends, what is it in your life that belongs that you continue to fight? A busy time at work? A longer-term health issue? The ramifications of growing older? How might God be showing up in it? How might God be coming to you disguised as your very own life?

On the contemplative journey with you,
Pr. Melissa

---