Idle and Blessed

For the past 3 months or so, I’ve been on a low-fodmap diet (weird and hard, google it) and seeing a nutritionist to guide me through the process of getting my IBS food sensitivities under control. Like any drastic lifestyle change, this diet has rocked my world, influenced every eating decision, and taught me so much about myself in the process. This post is not about what I can/can’t eat, don’t worry – but it is about what this journey has been teaching me about life, some important lessons to learn I think, no matter what your food philosophy is. For one, as someone with just an incredibly sensitive stomach (eye roll emoji), I’ve learned to accept that just like all emotions are valid, all feelings of pain and discomfort are valid. The measure of a person is not how perfectly they ate and therefore felt. It’s not how few fodmaps entered their system on a given day. What matters is not my nutritional perfection on this journey but my ability to hold it all, learn from every da...

I have the gift of stinginess. The other week I made Taylor put his last piece of broccoli in a tupperware because he was going to throw it away. He ate that piece of broccoli the next day and saved us probably a whole cent. Made me happy, I tell you. But I really shouldn't call it stinginess. I just don't like to waste things. If there's perfectly good toothpaste in the bottom of the tube, why open a new one? I like to think even if I had a million dollars I would still use that last bit of toothpaste, because, you know, landfills and fossil fuels. But it's also very exhausting to save all the leftover things of the world. I have no earthly idea why, but there is this sprawling garden near our apartment in somebody's sideyard that they don't tend at all. It's so large to my urban eyes, the plots of overgrown vegetable plants and wild things all twisted up together. I run by this place nearly every day, and never a soul is there. All summer I was ima...

It can be very easy to get swept up in the pace of life. Some people have a very hard time saying no to new opportunities, like maybe fulfillment is right around the corner, and it would be such a shame to say no at precisely the time you're about to find it. Other people say yes because they feel needed in some special way, like they're the only ones who are up to this particular task. I don't know, maybe the whole organization WILL fall apart if you don't take on those new responsibilities. Maybe you really are the only qualified leader in this situation. Who am I to say? But more often it seems like we just say yes and get busier and keep pushing and helping - going - doing - because we put heavy expectations on ourselves and live in an inner space where we are holding up the world. Holding up the architecture of the big world, all by ourselves on our little shoulders. We aren't. In actual truth, we are creaturely beings, born from the blood and sweat of our...

Quiet friend who has come so far, feel how your breathing makes more space around you. Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell.  As you ring, what batters you becomes your strength. Move back and forth into the change. What is it like, such intensity of pain? If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine. In this uncontainable night, be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses, the meaning discovered there. And if the world has ceased to hear you, say to the silent earth: I flow. To the rushing water, speak: I am. Rainer Maria Rilke,  Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29

You are the future, the red sky before sunrise over the fields of time. You are the cock's crow when the night is done, you are the dew and the bells of matins, maiden, stranger, mother, death. You create yourself in ever-changing shapes that rise from the stuff of our days -- unsung, unmourned, undescribed, like a forest we never knew. You are the deep innerness of all things, the last word that can never be spoken. To each of us you reveal yourself differently: to the ship as the coastline, to the shore as a ship. -Rilke

Method for coping with Atlanta summers as a runner: Start in the shade Follow all shady sidewalks Dodge sunny spots When you hit half your mileage goal, turn around Follow shady sidewalks back home If all else fails, escape to a shady oasis of trails. The drive is worth it. The shade-chasing method must be followed from April through October. It’s a rough 7 months. I’ve heard some people actually enjoy the feeling of scorching heat on their skin; I don’t understand. The persistence and intensity of southern summer heat never gets easier for me to manage. I remember growing up as a kid in Tennessee laying on the living room floor under the ceiling fan asking myself how I did this last year. These days in Atlanta I feel like I may be suffocating. The heat is so harsh. It’s incompatible with life. Inhospitable to flourishing. My entire exile in Atlanta, so far 3 years, has been one long summer. It has been a time of heat, a draining of my resources,...

what i am sometimes doing instead of going to church Yesterday I went to church. It's been a while. I often need (want) to stay in bed on Sundays, drink coffee, think my thoughts. Quiet mornings are rare and beautiful, like diamonds, or true love. Other times I'm traveling, especially this summer - to weddings or mountains or canyons and rivers. All days in the mountains are the Lord's Day. At least, that's my sense of it. Yesterday I went to church. St. Bede's Episcopal Church. A tiny home for a few members, a little group who's been doing the Sunday thing for enough years to get old together. They know the prayers, and I do too - repetition is a friend to the spiritual - and that makes me feel like I belong even if it's one Sunday per month. That and my plastic name tag available at the front. But my favorite parts of the service are always the blessings. "May the blessing of the God of Abraham and Sarah, and of Jesus Christ bo...