The Car Game

This is a journal entry from a couple of months ago.  I was sitting in the back yard of an estate on the Back Bay in Newport Beach…gorgeous day for an extended time with God.

The sun is out, the sky is blue and there is a chill in the air. It is quiet except for the slight rustling of the trees as the wind gently blows. Every few minutes an airplane takes off from nearby John Wayne Airport. The loud engine noise breaks into the quiet.

I watch an airplane fly into the horizon and make a right.  I stare at it for many minutes until it fades away into a small dot.  I wonder where it is going.

My mind wanders back to my home up the Washougal River in Washington. When I was a child, I would play the “car game” with my parents. We would sit on the front porch, which was situated about an acre away from the river road. Cars would pass by here and there and we would take turns claiming cars as our own.

“That one is mine.”

“Here comes yours.”

“Ooooooh, that’s a good one!”

“I wanted that one!”

You definitely wouldn’t want to get the old clunker truck.  I was always waiting for a red Corvette to pass by.  Once in a while one did.

Leisure…time…slowness.  I had an abundance of it when I was a kid.  We had enough spare time that we would spend it watching cars go by. I miss that pace.

I wish I had easy answers for how to return to that, but we are in a different era.  This year I’d like to work on revving at a slower pace. This is a challenge in the OC, but I am going to try.

Inner Slowness…

There’s a chill in the air.  The clouds have moved in and it is likely going to rain.  I’ve made a fire and am sitting by its warmth, being lulled by sounds of the flames.  The sun is peeking out from behind the clouds just before it sets.  The golden light hits the tree in the front yard with a golden glow.  A bird flies through the air just behind the rustling leaves.  And in my mind I hear, “click.”  If I had a camera in my hand I would have just taken a picture.  The tree, the golden light, the wind and the bird…a miraculous moment.

These days I am striving to be slow enough inside to “see.”

Miraculous moments happen around me every day.

Am I awake enough to see them?

(From my journal, dated February 2011)

Experiments in Slowing Down

Here are a few experiments in slowing down and being present.  Pick one and try it on.  Notice what happens inside as you do it.

• Get in the longest line at the store and notice the people around you.  Pray for them.  Listen to them.
• Drive the speed limit.
• Stop at yellow lights.
• Return your own cart back to the front of the store.
• Park in the furthest parking spot and walk leisurely into the store, restaurant, building.
• Do one task at a time.  Do not multitask.  Do the dishes without being on the phone or watching TV.  Take a walk without listening to a book on tape.

A little more…

Take 5 minutes each day to just be.  5 minutes is not very long, but it is long enough to remind yourself that you are not the center of the universe.  It is long enough to remind yourself that you are loved by God.  It is long enough to take a breath and remember that your task that day is to love everyone with whom you come into contact.

Still Life – Roly Poly

As I was walking my dog, Lex, this morning I stepped over a couple of roly-polies.  Along with the ladybug, the roly-poly is one of the only bugs I would still pick up and think it was “cute.”  I remember as a child, laying on the ground, watching a roly-poly walk by.  I’d redirect it with my finger, pick it up and watch it curl into a little ball.  I’d swirl it around in my hand, amazed that it turned itself into a ball.

As a child, I had time for this.  I had no agenda.  There were no cell phones, texting, DVRs or answering machines.  I had time, space, leisure.  Of course, you say, you were a kid.  Kids don’t have to-do lists and calendars.  I realize that.  But I still long for a little bit of that spirit to come back to me today.  I don’t have to be busy every single minute of every single day.  Even when I’m not necessarily doing something critical, I feel my mind racing with the to-do’s that aren’t to-done.

I am working on having that same child-like spirit moving inside me, instead of this 21st century woman at the mercy of time-saving devices that seem to eat up more time than they save.  I long for my little-girl carefree ways and slow-mindedness.

As I always say, it is a good thing this is a journey.  We have time to learn, grow and change.  Hopefully, in the future, when I see a roly-poly, I will remember that longing inside of me to slow and enjoy.  And maybe…just maybe…I can come in contact with that little girl, on the ground, swirling a bug in her hand.

Patient Trust

My husband, Alan, and I have the fun and privilege of meeting twice a month with some very dear friends, Tom & Marla.  They came into our lives at just the right time.  Have you ever had a friend show up in your life like that?  Just the right person at just the right time?  What a priceless gift.

We were over at Tom & Marla’s home a couple of days ago and Marla shared this amazing quote from a book entitled, Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits by Michael G. Harter.

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually–let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that His hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.”

-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ

I have found this to be true over the course of my life.  God is making me into the image of Jesus day by day.  All of the various seasons and stages of my life have ebbed and flowed, and it is after the fact that I can look back and see the miracle that He has accomplished “IN me.”  It is these “IN me” places that bear fruit “through me” for the benefit of others.  It is important to keep this order in mind.