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Four Topics that Challenged Me in 2023

I can hardly believe that we are about to end a year and launch a new one. As I reflect on 2023, four topics stood out as ones that consistently challenged me.

THE MESSY MIDDLE 

In this increasingly polarized world, there are very few spaces where people can dialogue across difference. This can quickly lead to the de-humanization of the ‘other’. Though it can be uncomfortable, I want to spend time in the messy middle. I want to co-create opportunities for us to learn from one another, to understand what informs our choices, and to develop empathy for the challenges and trauma experienced by others. I believe this helps to remind me/us of our common humanity. I also hope that this can lead to increased advocacy and support for the people and places that desperately need it.

CHANGE IS HARD AND GOOD

I have been reminded in 2023 that change, even the best kind, is hard. For example, after years of doing The Dale’s Monday lunch as a meal-to-go, we got a space to move back indoors and re-launch our drop-in. For some members of the community this was a return to something they knew well, except in a very different location; for others it was a first, knowing The Dale only through the pandemic; for the staff team it was both exhilarating and exhausting, a dramatic shift from our well-established routine of the last 3.5 years. What became clear very quickly was that we couldn’t just replicate what was in the past, not because we changed our values or vision, but because this was a new time and a new place. Change for us required being gentle with ourselves, and the community. We are still settling in, each week feeling better and better. Change, though hard, is also very good. 

NO ONE CAN DO EVERYTHING

This is a lesson I have been learning my whole life. There were days in my teens and early twenties when I tried to do too much because I thought it was required, not just to be “successful”, but to be loved. I have learned along the way (through struggle, crisis, therapy and my faith) that I am beloved not because of what I do, but simply because of who I am: a child of God. It’s not always easy, especially when there are so many things to do and battles to fight. The Dale team will attest to the fact that I talk a lot about choosing what we can do, and then working really hard to do it well. One of the greatest gifts has also been discovering the gift of partnership and community: when we rely on and support the gifts of one another, so much more happens.

SABBATH IS A GIFT 

To some the notion of Sabbath (in order words, intentional rest) feels either like a punishment to self or to others. If I stop, then I won’t get through my to-do list. Or, if I stop it will potentially come at a cost to the person who relies on me. Or, if I stop [fill in the blank]. Stopping can be scary- at least it has been for me. After years of practicing Sabbath, I have discovered that all of the things that made me worry about it have not been the issue. Stopping actually enables me to get through the to-do lists. Developing a plan for the people who rely on me has meant we both learn to rely on a broader community, and we both learn of our capabilities. So, what is the issue? It goes back to that basic fear that I have to earn love by doing. Sabbath reminds me that I am no one’s saviour and that life carries on without me, both humbling and freeing truths. 

On the cusp of a new year, I am challenged by these words of Henri Nouwen, “Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love?’ These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will be many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.” As I consider these questions, I also hope for more opportunity to sit in the messy middle with people who want to do the same (let’s get another Story Day happening friends!), to navigate change with gentleness and persistence, to work hard at the things I can do and remember that we can do more together than on our own, and to rest. May we all be strengthened with hope for peace this coming year. 

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Griefs, Observed

The sun was shining on my most recent Sabbath, which for me is always a Friday. I had a quiet morning, during which I made myself a coffee and decided to sit in the backyard. There is a fountain next door, so I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of running water. A bee leisurely buzzed around me, a squirrel scampered by, and what at least sounded like an owl offered a “hoot”. I had brought out a book, which my hand rested on. As I took a sip of my drink and went to read, I was struck by a vivid memory of my mom sitting on the dock in Killarney, the place where her parents built a cottage though we always called it the “camp”. She loved to sit and read for hours, listening to the waves. 

I began to cry.

My mom moved from the dock to the chair beside me. I could imagine her enjoying the same sounds as she sat with a coffee (always strong and black) and a selection of short stories. I looked up and suddenly pictured my dad walking toward the backyard, likely having gone to the corner store for the one thing I was missing for our meal. He liked to do that. I realize how I often think of my mom as sitting and my dad as walking. I make a mental note of that to reflect on another time.

My tears gathered momentum at this point. I was now surfing the wave of grief. 

I was then joined by Rick Tobias. Rick spent a lot of time in the backyard, especially over the last few years. He would make the slow walk down the driveway with his cane, a cooler of ice and coke zero, a bottle of scotch, and a couple of his prized glasses from Iona. In fact, it was at this time last year that we had our last little gathering before Rick’s death on May 18th. But on this sunny day, Rick was back. I could almost hear his greeting and the sigh as he settled into a chair. 

I find that once I’m fully engaged in a moment like this, it is easy to begin picturing even more of the people I now miss. While that might sound overwhelming (and yes, it can be), on this particular day it was not. Everyone looked happy and relaxed, dare I say, whole. And I got to remain in my seat and welcome them all to the party.

I looked up at the blue sky with my tear stained face and began to take some slow, deep breaths. I prayed out loud. I finally finished my coffee and noticed that my book had fallen from my lap to the grass. The flood of memories stilled itself. I agree with CS Lewis who said, “Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.” While I might wish for grief to be a linear journey, it is not. It ebbs and flows, and sometimes includes visitors on a sunny Sabbath day. 

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A Vacation Log: What I Have Learned About Rest

It is a familiar drive, one done enough times that I have stopped counting. When I pull up to the cabin, a wave of calm comes over me. This place is shared with me by generous and loyal friends. It is the first week of August, the very beginning of my holidays. As soon as I am unpacked, I grab a book and head to the dock. I look out at the water and notice the sound of it lapping along the shore. A dragonfly lands on my arm. I exhale and close my eyes. 

As peaceful as my surroundings are, it takes time for me to settle. Sometimes I feel anxious, I think because my body is remembering my typical schedule and somehow believes I am forgetting where I need to be- at a staff meeting or doing a meal-to-go or on a fundraising call. I also recognize that I am not nearly done processing the past year, one that has been packed with transition and a lot of grief. I break out into tears multiple times, not even sure what I am crying about specifically at any given moment. I decide to give myself space for all of it. 

As the week wears on, I can feel a shift toward rest. I am drawn to dancing in the kitchen while I am cooking, watching the hummingbirds for extended periods of time, reading an entire book in a day, kayaking the perimeter of the lake, and napping in the sun. The solitary time, while not always easy, is good. It points me toward what is going on in my heart and mind and urges me to raise it up in prayer. 

I leave the cabin and return to the city. Some days are quiet and slow. Other days are full of visits and outings. Dion and I drive to Niagara Falls for a day. I get on a plane to fly to Nova Scotia to visit friends and family. While there, I officiate my cousin’s wedding. It is a beautiful day, one that I can only think to describe as magical. My feet hurt (in the best way) from all the dancing. I return to crisis that is now fortunately retracting its head. Today I am saying a tearful goodbye to friends-like-family who are moving across the country for a year. I am feeling all the feels. 

Marva Dawn writes about the components of Sabbath being ceasing, resting, embracing and feasting. I know that settling into that kind of rhythm is what I desire. And it is surprisingly hard work. I am learning that to truly rest I must cease, whether that be for ½ a day or a week or a month. This August I have been provided the space to journey from ceasing all the way to feasting. There have been bumps and distractions along the way. I am learning that rest does not promise a cessation of challenge. I am also convinced that it equips me to keep doing what I love to do. 

I sit in my living room and gaze at the darkness of the night through the window. I am happy to be motivated to write for the first time this month. I can hear a cricket. I’m thinking about making some popcorn to eat. In just a few days I will be picking up my daughter, Cate and like-a-son, Declan at camp. They are both going to be living in the house with me this coming year. I exhale and close my eyes, just as I did on the dock at the cabin. I feel many things, but not anxious. Soon I will return to work.

I am ready.

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Find a Quiet Place and Rest

Jesus was arguably a busy person, one who travelled a lot, healed people, and taught on hillsides and in places like boats and temples. What I also know about Jesus is that he believed in rest. He modelled how to recognize and tend to fatigue. He not only craved solitude but created time for it. I suspect he valued a good nap.

As the crowds gathered around Jesus and the disciples at the Sea of Galilee, he said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile”. It might seem a surprising directive given that people were pressing in with many needs and deep longing for connection. However, Jesus’ love and wisdom knew that space for recuperation after a very busy time was necessary. 

As someone who can easily get very busy, I am drawn to Jesus and his desire to withdraw. I know he experienced hunger, grief and weariness. And though he is God, none of those things made him ‘less than’. As humans it is important to discover that doing is good, but not at the cost of being. Our value cannot only be found in our work. 

In the first book of the Bible we learn that God rested after the work of creation and asked us to do the same. Sabbath (meaning rest) is a gift. But how often do I forget about it or resist it? As we complete a very busy season at The Dale, I find myself ready to sink into the gift of rest. I recently heard someone refer to the rhythms and borders of life. I like that. We need to live into the tension that exists in all things.

The baby born on Christmas is the Jesus who, throughout the entirety of his life, modelled how to honour work and rest. He challenged his disciples to retreat, even when all they wanted to do was enthusiastically keep working. And in doing so, he was protecting them- from exhaustion, from the public eye, from thinking it was all up to them. 

The longest night of the year was this week. I know for many the nights have felt long and dark for much, if not all, of this year. As I sat in the darkness of the Solstice, my wonder grew at how the light begins to lengthen just before Christmas. The light is about to burst forth, penetrating the darkness and we don’t have to do anything to make it happen, nor can we stop it. We are invited to just sit in the glow. May it fill us up for our continued work.

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Go, Rest, Come Back

As of tomorrow, I will be on vacation for a month. This has been my rhythm for the last number of years, which is maybe why my body started anticipating the rest about a month ago. For a variety of reasons, I felt like I was hitting a wall in July. I think of Sunday as the start of my work week and for the last three in a row I found myself unusually anxious.

In those uneasy moments, most acute as I was travelling to The Dale, I prayed. In my weakness I asked for strength. In my fatigue I asked for energy. In my sadness I asked for joy. Sometimes I just sat there not knowing what to ask for at all. I cried. I listened to music. And then as I arrived at my destination, I took a deep breath and decidedly put one foot in front of the other.

Things didn’t slow down in July. But somehow, in a beautiful and spirit-led way I was sustained through it.

It’s never easy saying a long “see you later” to my beloved community at The Dale. Together we understand life to be fragile: a lot can change very quickly (something we know all too well from experience). Having said that, rest is important. In order to be in this for the long haul, I must retreat and replenish. My friends affirm this and keep telling me to go with their blessing. One person continually says, “I don’t like that you’re leaving, but I GET it. Go. Rest. Come back.”

Soon I will be picking Cate up at the camp she has been at since the beginning of the summer. Dion and I are looking forward to having her home and hearing all her stories. With the last bits of the house renovation nearly done, it will be nice to continue settling in. There will be a trip to visit friends, some time at a cabin, and many stay-cation activities, hopefully all punctuated with some serious sleep and a lot of reading.

Thank you to Joanna, Meagan and Pete who not only make time like this possible but do so in such a generous and caring way; to the Board, for always having my back; to our community who models what it means to both give and receive; and to Dion and Cate for supporting and loving me, spurring me on to live well into the tension of work and rest.

Happy August everyone. See you soon.

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Rest, Even On the Roller Coaster

I was recently asked to describe the last six or so months of my life. As I shared the variety of things that have taken place, I stopped and for a moment thought “if nothing else, my life is consistently a roller coaster”. Up and down, up and down, sometimes all in one day. This existence is good, and hard, and full, punctuated by gratitude and grief. Which is why I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of Sabbath: a day of ceasing, a time of rest.

Many people scoff at the idea of Sabbath. It feels like a punishment: as though you must stop everything you enjoy doing, risk falling behind at work, and feel guilty about both. I have come to understand that Sabbath is actually meant to be a beautiful gift, and isn’t just a means to be more productive during the week. As John Bradshaw put it, “we have become ‘human doings’ who define ourselves by what we do in the world. [Sabbath] teaches us to remember our true essence as ‘human beings’ and to practice the art of simply being”.

This is, at least for me, difficult. I enjoy being productive. I love being with people and very easily fill up my calendar. But rest calls me to something even more challenging than to cease being busy: it invites me to release the anxiety that I carry around. Many of the hardships I face are ones that I have no control over, and yet I somehow believe that if I worry or do enough, I will somehow be able to “fix” everything.

It takes discipline to create space for rest. I long for the kind of break where my mind is not preoccupied with all that I should be doing and everything that may or may not happen in the future. I suspect that if space is made, something that I’m not planning or counting on might actually happen. As author Marva Dawn once said and I’ve quoted before, “A great benefit of Sabbath keeping is that we learn to let God take care of us, not by becoming passive or lazy, but in the freedom of giving up our feeble attempts to be God in our own lives”.

I suspect the roller coaster is going to continue. As hard as it is, I’m grateful for all the experiences that are teaching me to touch life beyond the surface. My hope is that I will keep learning to put the brakes on. Maybe as I slow down I can be reminded how to be and not simply do. In the quiet, I might even catch a glimpse of the good things in store over the next crazy hill, and instead of being anxious, I can enjoy the anticipation.

rollercoaster

 

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Polarity Management: Living in the Tension

I was introduced to the idea of polarity management a number of years ago by my husband Dion. The illustration that I see consistently used to define it is this: in order to live we must breathe, but in order to do so we must participate in what are seemingly opposed actions: inhaling AND exhaling. The ‘problem’ of breathing is not solved by doing one or the other. Our lives are full of such quandaries: how do we do manage following rules and experiencing freedom or doing things efficiently and promoting creativity/innovation or (my personal favourite) working and resting?

Last year I started seeing a new therapist who mid-way into our first session said, “I’m going to flag ‘self-care’ as an issue for us to talk about”. Busted. She could see what I knew was true: I have a life full of commitments that could easily turn me into a burnt out mess (my words, not hers). Most of my commitments can’t be said no to and are deeply good. Many of them are blurred across the work/home divide. Desiring to do them well means that I have to manage the tension that exists between them and rest.

Last fall I came up with a list: take a Sabbath every Friday, see my therapist on a regular basis, get massage therapy when possible on my too-stiff shoulders and neck, eat properly, walk and take Zumba classes, meet with a Spiritual Director, make and get to regular Doctor and Dentist appointments, etc. Full disclosure: it kind of irked me and seemed counterintuitive that in order to participate in self-care I had to make a list of things TO DO. The truth is though, however imperfectly I keep it, the list has helped.

It helped me enough to realize that I also needed what I hadn’t added: vacation. Near the end of July both my body and brain were practically begging me to have an extended period of rest. I feel fortunate to be enjoying some serious time off this month with my family. At times it has taken effort to not create more to-do lists. There are moments when, for no apparent reason at all, my stomach feels anxious. Pushing through though has enabled me to experience the stillness that comes with not doing, but being.

Which brings me back to polarity management. I am convinced that enjoying life to its fullest comes with living well in the tension of work and rest. And by work, I don’t exclusively mean the paid kind. We cannot thrive doing only one or the other. I suppose my goal is to move more fluidly between the two. Since I’m putting this out there, maybe you can help hold me to it.

polarity_swish

 

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Working to Rest: Resisting An Attempt to Control

I am working hard to have a day that resembles rest this week. Doesn’t that sound wrong?

For the last few years I have intentionally taken a Sabbath at the end of the week instead of on Sunday, a day that is too much a whirl of activity to be considered restful. On my day off I find myself anxiously thinking about all the things I need to do, especially at The Dale. I worry about fundraising. I think of all the e-mails I should be writing. I craft a newsletter in my head because surely that will alleviate my concern about the budget. I plot meetings and what times they might work.

Oh, the irony and agony.

The crazy thing is that I know I need to rest and nothing is going to immediately change or get fixed if I do it right now. No newsletter is going to be written, laid out, printed and sent out in a single day; we are in a new year and the way our eventual year-end looks will not be decided in an afternoon; the meetings don’t need to be set until next week. Worrying, as I repeatedly tell myself, will not help.

I finally settle into our big arm-chair with a cup of coffee in my hand, close my eyes and pray. I remember a quote from author Marva Dawn, “A great benefit of Sabbath keeping is that we learn to let God take care of us, not by becoming passive and lazy, but in the freedom of giving up our feeble attempts to be God in our own lives.”

My own feeble attempt to be in control rapidly unravels. Fortunately as it does, I finally find rest.