Holy Balance Keeping
“To be holy is to keep our balance while the earth moves beneath our feet.” This is plucked from a recent On Being conversation between Krista Tippett and Barbara Brown Taylor. To me, this is reinforcement that life will (sometimes, it feels, impossibly) go on. The sun will rise. The birds will sing. The earth will continue to move. The idea, I think, is to have faith with whatever comes. This is easy to do when things are going well. When things are muddy, murky, uncertain, hard, exasperating - or more succinctly - painful - is when that “keeping our balance” part can go right out the window. If you are someone who feels like you’ve got this down, my hat is off to you. I am not like that. I’m better at it as I’ve grown older. I mostly welcome the opportunity to try to improve myself. Those who are regularly around me have heard me say right after that “I just didn’t realize it would be so painful.”
Conversations over the past nearly 20 years with cancer survivors, caregivers and other clients have included a frenetic undercurrent where they are tap dancing as fast as they can to stay positive. Just stay positive. We are not one thing or another. We are many things, and, in the midst of receiving the news of illness, death, grief of any kind, the last thing any of my clients want to hear is “just stay positive.” Believe me, this sends people packing up their hearts and into isolation. The Cancer Patient reveals this with example after example in a raw, humorous and real way.
How does one bridge the packed-upedness with this keeping balance in a holy way? Not overnight. There’s no quick fix-it available.
Willingness - this is a key ingredient. Being willing does not mean we enter into this faith, this trust without trepidation and perhaps even grumpiness. The first time I ever took part in a 21 day cleanse with Ellen Kittredge, one of the participants, before we even started, who knew she was taking a break from certain foods, making a conscious decision to do so, admitted that all she wanted to do was eat cheeseburgers and drink wine. So many of us on the call identified with that. When we think we will be deprived (even in this conscious choosing!), some part of us goes into let me get all I can before that first day.
Willingness to what? Be with what is hard. Be with what hurts. Be with what we would rather not face. How do you do that? One step at a time. It is hard to keep balance when we get laid off, have to do another round of chemo, be still with our broken hearts, say out loud what hurts even if we don't fully understand.
Barbara Ehrenreich talked about the difference between positivity and optimism in Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. I continue to be struck with this notion that the difference is that I am not tap dancing with anxiety to stay positive, and I am choosing, when I get up each day, that I will try to see the good in it; I will try to be grateful for all of my life not just the good bits; I will invite grace and compassion because I, for sure, will stumble. Then, I will return and try again. This, I think, is willingness toward holy balance-keeping. It is an opportunity. It is a practice.
In this practice, I choose to remember my father who died 4o years ago today. All of his children are now older than he was when he died. My brother sent an early morning text to my sister and me remembering this anniversary, touching on the long time-ness of it and that he loves us both. I lean into that remembrance, that long time-ness and that love. I remember Daddy in a slide show of sorts. Like that time he had Stoney End at full blast with Barbra Streisand taking the living room by storm on the then-new technology of boom boxes when my mother came in to fuss at one of her children only to laugh out loud.
Journal prompts to try:
How are you keeping balance while the earth moves beneath your feet?
What is your daily practice on how to view each day? If you don’t have one yet, how might you invite that?
What does it feel like to be willing?
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.