Today marks 10,227 days since I was born. I wonder how many I have left. What will I do with them? Who will I love? How will I spend myself? These are the sorts of thoughts which keep me up on starless nights and dreaming awake during endless afternoon showers.
If I could let today linger in the calendar I'd invite each of you for some Thai food or a nice cup of tea to hear about your heart and catch up on all I've missed from your story. I don't get to see you as often as I'd like, but i'm afraid today won't tarry long enough for us to play with chopsticks and enjoy the comforting smells of citrus and meadows together. So this little note will have to bridge the gap of time until I get to see you again.
There's a practice in other parts of the world that I'd love to partake in if you'll permit me. In some places far from here when a person has a birthday instead of receiving gifts, they offer gifts to all the people they encounter that day. I like this tradition because it reminds me that a day isn't ever about one person. It's about us. Here. Together. Journeying on into tomorrow. That we all have a place and a moment to share in.
I'd like to give you a small token today I hope you'll carry with you for a while - a few reflections tumbling about in my head.
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Birthdays remind me of a lot.
They remind me that there are many things worth celebrating. Not just on holidays or special occasions, but with each rise and fall of the sun. Friendships. Accomplishments. Progress. A thousand things we let slip through the cracks because there is so much happening all around us. I want to be better about embracing celebration this coming year. Laughing with kids. Popping champagne over a job well done. Admiring the talent and effort friends put into their passions. Stopping for a bit to care about the small pieces we often let get shuffled among the rest.
I'm also reminded that there are many elements of living people care too much about. Things which don't matter at all at the end of the day. Lately i'm finding this is true in my own story when it comes to owning possessions. I don't think I realized until this year how much physical stuff comes into my life every day. It never seems like much until you step back and realize that you have a full closet, a messy laundry room, and can't seem to find the wine opener. One piece of paper here. A gift from a friend there. That free gizmo someone handed me as I was leaving. I read recently the average American household has over 300,000 items. When I hear that statistic all I can think is that must take a long time to organize, clean, repair, and maintain it all. Life shouldn't revolve around ownership. Which means many of us are weighed down in ways we're not even aware of. Chained and limited by what we own and kept from the living the stories we wish we could as a result. This past year has moved me farther along the path toward minimal living and into the lifestyle i'd like to have long-term. But it's a process; learning when to hold on to no and when to shout yes.
At times I pivot between whether saying "yes" is harder than saying "no". I'm not sure these days which is more difficult, but I'm finding saying yes to the right things is deceptively hard. Most of my life I've said yes to good things but failed to embrace the harder and riskier right choices. I haven't as often said yes to the things I knew I was supposed to be doing with my life, and instead settled for easier or more comfortable options.
Good is the enemy of Best.
I have more appreciation for Michelangelo as of late than I have before. The man in his youth saw a forsaken piece of stone as a work of art and spent hours upon hours chiseling away everything which didn't belong to create the vision of David he saw in the rough. My life, it turns out, is much like a piece of stone. Yes, there is the work of building on what is already present. But much of the work of life is not addition, or perfection, but rather subtraction. Carving away the rough to let beauty break free. Today has me pondering what else needs to be hammered at for a while until what is underneath can breathe.
Processes like this take time, don't they? This last year has been the slowest I can remember. The pace has been mild and leisurely; akin to walking on a beach at sunset. At first this feeling caused me a fair amount of panic. If life is slow I must be doing something wrong, goes the thought. Instead i'm learning to accept that seasons aren't all the same, and if life is good I can enjoy it instead of fearing i'm in the eye of the storm with disaster looming just beyond the moment.
The thing about disaster is it always passes. The good days can be relished and the bad days mourned, but they both pass on as the clocks change. One day moves into a week, and then a month, and before you know it another year has come and gone on the calendar. So if today is hard, or this month has been the worst you can remember having in a long while, remember it too shall pass. Stop and grieve if need be. Then know it will get better. It always has, and it always will. We are not spiraling down a drain clinging to whatever raft of comfort we can find. All things are being made new.
God is moving among us.
As it happens, God wants to spend time with us. It's staggering to look back at my life and see how much of it has detracted from that connection. To see how often my focus shifts like a bobblehead in an avalanche instead of centering on the one who loves me most. Part of hammering away at the unnecessary, learning to say yes to the right things, and letting the process of life happen are all branches on the same tree - making ways to come to God. You'd think there was a theme. Maybe this last year circles back to a few simple questions.
How do I make space for God in my life?
What really matters and how do I give those few things my attention?
Who am I meant to be today, just as I am?
Holding all these questions with open hands and engaging actively here and now in what God is doing is the hardest part of all of this for me. I'm so prone to play it safe, or jump to closing myself off the new things he is doing because I think I already know the answers. The future is ripe with the promise of hope and the past is marked with the dreams of yesterday. Today is when we meet the divine.
One more thought before you go.
I miss you. I love you. I hope you are well wherever you are. Tea soon.
Until then, I wish you see God in today's moments. May you find the courage you need and joy of celebration amid whatever happens.