A Wilderness Reflection

How well do you listen for that calm, inner voice?

Since returning from our Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area adventure eight days ago, I had been unpacking the experience, listening (at least, I thought I was), trying to discern what to tell you. I wanted to write about something beyond paddling, wind, and water. Each day I asked the heavens for a thread of an idea. If one was offered, I missed it. Until today. A single thread showed up in not one but two devotional readings. (Okay, one was a New York Times opinion piece by David Brooks, “The Man Who Found His Inner Depths” but it was a tribute to Frederick Buechner who died this week.) Thank you!

In Rachel Hackenberg’s UCC devotional called “Ashamed,” the author spoke of how “being listened to without judgment allowed me to be everything I loathed myself for being but didn’t let others see…” For an hour, a friend simply listened as she wept. From that, Rachel began to trust that healing awaited even her. That's nothing like my topic but the word listening jumped off the screen as I read. This is it! Brooks’ piece (next week, I'll offer a reflection on some of Buechner’s words) accented that awareness.

As we paddled onto Lake One our first morning, I was struck by the near-palpable silence. The lake was calm. We were surrounded by nature’s beauty. Besides a variety of trees and undergrowth on all sides, we had already seen a large snapping turtle sunning itself on a log and countless smaller painted turtles on rocks that jutted from the water. An eagle flew just ahead of us as if beckoning. I felt awed. That evening, the quiet seemed so intense that my tinnitus (a symptom of the Lyme) grew to gigantic proportion. Listening can be hard, even painful, at times but it’s still a gift.

After nine days listening to my friend’s actions and silences, I know them more truly. I know myself better too. A few days in, it came to me as we paddled – epiphanies always came while paddling – I’m strong! Having spent so much time sitting and lying around the last two years, I’ve lost muscle mass, only some of which I’ve regained. Yet there we were – doing this amazing thing – venturing through a wilderness with only a map and a compass. And as we paddled for hours each day and carried everything across and over portages from one lake to another, I could feel my strength return.

Another day, another lake, another awareness. A sense of “all-right-ness.” Although these last years have been hard, I don’t need to fret. In the wilderness, I found I was capable. During the weeks before the trip, I had feared I was taking on too much, too soon but my limitations weren’t what I had believed. I did all I had to do. Even now, I have unplumbed depths. Reflecting further, I realize that it was only because my mind was clear of all save how to keep paddling through eighteen-inch swells that I could hear this message. 

Let me again express the hope that through the sharing of my experiences and learnings, you might come to know yourself more fully as well. We each have unplumbed depths. Through all the stuff that life sets in our path, our ability to continue putting one foot in front of the other, to get out of bed each morning, or to speak our truth and to go on from there, resides in our willingness to allow God as Spirit to empower us. To fill us and to use what is then in us for our own, and for the world’s, best good. This is our best superpower. After the isolation of pandemic, we may have forgotten. Let the reminder sink in. Even when you’re the solitary figure, fearful and empty, you need never strive alone.

Pathogens still inhabit every part of my body but while I work to eliminate their threat I’m also less consumed by it than I was before the trip. The world offers many things about which to worry (and pray) and yet, for now, I remain centered. I have breathed in a sense of rebirth on viewing lush green hillsides that only eleven years ago seemed a fire-blackened wasteland. Having heard that inner voice, I am uplifted, converted by a fresh sense that

All shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of thing shall be well. (Julian of Norwich)

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Do We Take Friendship for Granted?

We stood, facing each other in our black gowns and mortarboards outside Philips Hall, that Gothic-style building whose red-velvet-seated auditorium we knew well.

“Let’s stay in touch,” she said, handing me her address.

Surprised, I took the slip of paper. “Sure.”

Lisa and I had met while waiting to audition for West Chester State College’s School of Music, she on flute, I on clarinet. (I was accepted as a piano major, she as a bassoon major.) We became friends in the way classmates do, through regular interaction in classes and ensembles, in the halls. We each joined Sigma Alpha Iota, a women’s music fraternity (yes, fraternity, to highlight that this was not a social club) and eventually served as officers together. Yet for all that, I never felt that we were close. Still…

I really tried to correspond regularly but my efforts were repressed by an assumption and by another, well-meaning, letter-writer. Grandma McIntosh who wrote me pages and pages would include some version of “I wish you’d write more often” in each of her letters. This undid me. I hadn’t yet realized that we all think our lives are ordinary. No one would want to read about my life. Even when living in New Mexico teaching Navajo youth, a place and a situation completely unfamiliar to most, I’d lament, “I have nothing to say!”

Lisa and I wrote back and forth for six or seven years. Her letters were prompt and full of newsy bits while I struggled to fill a page and a half (again not realizing that what I deemed ordinary would make good stories for someone living in New Jersey with a husband and three daughters). Eventually I received a “Dear Jayneann” letter: She needed a friend who made the effort to connect regularly and she was cutting me off.

As an adult, I’ve had friendships in tae kwon do class or with colleagues but none of them were close. (It’s no one’s fault; this is simply part of how I function. I take a l-o-n-g time to connect.) Not really understanding what close friendship is, I would listen longingly as others spoke of doing things together and about the friends who were always there for them.

This is the backdrop for my question:

Do you realize how truly amazing it is to have a friend?!

Researchers indicate that whatever happens in our lives, however wonderful or terrible the event, we will soon revert to our previous happiness set-point. You could win the lottery, lose the love of your life (or find them), travel the world for a year. In the end you'd be no happier or sadder than you were before it occurred. I have no reason to doubt this so I suspect that those of you with close friends seldom consider how truly blessed you are.

How do I know you’re blessed? Because I have a friend. And when I pause to consider our friendship I am blown away. This friend dropped everything to take me to and sit with me in the emergency room after I broke my foot last year. We hang out, talk and laugh together, hike or snowshoe… My friend tells me when I have food in my teeth and also that this thing that I do, this habit, is annoying. Wow…

Later this month, the two of us will head to the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area. I’ve wanted to visit there since hearing four years ago about endless lakes and meteor showers and old-growth red pines. Blueberries will be ripe. (Hopefully the bears will share.) The BWCWA is a designated Dark Sky Place and I look forward to seeing the night sky well again. The Milky Way. The Perseid meteor shower.

I’ve been lifting baby-weights to strengthen my shoulders. I’m uncertain about my stamina but we have no agenda so when the tick-disease-induced fatigue surfaces we’ll slow down. I’ve been tenting for as long as I can remember. And although I’d done almost no canoeing until recently I really enjoy it. Wild places nourish my spirit.

Soon, we’ll load up the Prius, head out and… the adventure will continue. I intend to return with great memories!

I'm taking a break for a couple weeks but I’ll be back after that. See you then!

Finding Guidance, pt. 1

Last week, I wrote (here) that I’d be visiting Sister Gabe while on retreat at the Christine Center. I was seeking input regarding my existential questions, among them… What does a meaningful life look like for me now? and… Will this transition time ever end?

Arriving Friday, my waking hours until our Saturday afternoon meeting were spent in contemplation, hoping to find a thread which, if tugged, would bring clarity to my mind’s chaos. I pulled lots of threads but none untangled the knot of confusion and dis-ease. Saturday morning, I walked and walked. At one point, not enjoying the aptly named Water trail, I asked myself, “How is this trail like my life?”

An elevated pair of boards is not my route but the “path” next to it is all high grasses and other plants. And standing water. I need to watch my feet and can’t appreciate what’s around me. When I forget, I nearly miss the board. As I round a bend I look ahead, hoping to see the boardwalk giving way to a green path yet each turning reveals more of the same. Given the limited choice, I prefer walking on the 2x8s rather than the 2x6es but the 2x8 sections are short and rare. Some of the boards seem soft, sagging under my weight. One audibly cracked as I stepped on it.

My life is not as I had planned. These past two years have been difficult and I’ve had to choose ways of living that I never would have done in other circumstances. I’ve needed to be cautious of distraction and to focus on all that would, or might, contribute to healing these tick-borne illnesses. When I’ve gotten caught up with other things, I soon noticed it in my body and mind. Healing will happen in its own time. While I can slow the process through poor choices, I cannot speed it up to suit me.

Phone calls and texts with my mother or my kids are gifts. So too the visits with a friend, the occasional outings, and the home improvement projects. I’d do well to see each one as the treasure that it is, not expecting too much of any one of them, but welcoming each for the delight it brings.

Eventually, the Water trail ended and I returned to the campsite, drank some water, and listened to the birds – lots of different birds.

It was hot as I walked to our meeting place. When I entered, the studio (she’s also resident artist) felt like the inside of a refrigerator. She said something about needing to have someone fix the air conditioner and led me to her house where ours would be the first such conversation since the room was converted to an office. I admired the green roof. “It’s different each year,” she explained, depending on rain and seeds and other conditions. After greeting her greyhound, we entered a cool but not frigid round room with a tree post at its center and natural wood supports at intervals along the ceiling and wall, everything arranged intentionally to create a space for spiritual conversation.

My hours of reflection probably helped since Gabrielle seemed to recognizewhat was troubling me. She spoke of natural intelligence, saying that my instinct in early July – “What would it be like if I gave myself priority this month?” – was part-answer to what I needed and suggested that I add each morning, “What does Jayneann need today?” It might be a task, a connection I’d like to make, the taste of a certain food, anything really. And then I’m supposed to make it happen. The object is to rediscover my preferences – what I liked before life’s shoulds intruded – and to expand upon them. She laughed at learning that I’m autistic. “All the autistic people I know either blog or paint.” (Yes, I’d told her about the blog.) When I said I’d gotten back into substitute teaching and still loved it, she asked how I might expand on that. Could I blog about teaching?

There’s more (although I’ve forgotten more than I’d like) but I’ll stop for now. I’ll tell you about my piano assignment another time.

Thought for this week…

When you look at your life, don’t push away the bad stuff.

Ask yourself what it has to teach you.

This sculpture “Lotus” was just up the hill from my tent. I thought it was flames.

I think I need some Guidance

I know little about the spiritual beyond an awareness that I need more of it. When, years ago, a District Committee on Ministry instructed me to work with a spiritual director, I first had to find out what a spiritual director is. Turns out, I wasn’t alone in my ignorance. Most Methodists would have been puzzled. Until recently, Catholics – who had kept the tradition alive through the centuries – were advanced far beyond Protestants who had only recently shown interest (after which they’d been learning from the Catholics). In asking around, I learned of a Benedictine community in the area with sisters trained in spiritual direction and made an appointment.

I confess that I did not find my sessions with Sister Ruth helpful. Maybe we were not a good match. Maybe it was that, in not knowing what I was doing, I didn’t know to direct our conversion or what questions to ask. I was doing what I’d been told to do by a group committed to helping folks like me begin our paths in ministry. I’m sure the committee meant well but, looking back, I wonder if the members were assigning me something that they now realized might have helped them in their faith journeys – without really knowing what it was about.

After that lukewarm introduction into spiritual guidance, my family moved and moved again. I went to seminary and earned an M.Div. I began pastoring congregations. My young daughter became a teenager. I ended my marriage. Life continued as, all the while, the seeds planted during those few sessions with Sr. Ruth germinated. Maybe that was the point.

When I returned to the Fox Valley area to serve another congregation, I was ready. And as we sat together in a meeting, I asked my colleagues for spiritual director recommendations. One person offered one name yet it turned out to be a good fit. Until just before her death four years later, I visited Connie regularly. I don’t know if we’re ever aware of spiritual growth as it happens yet I’m confident that it did. Though her training and experience was in psychiatry, Connie was a good listener. She asked good questions. I could bring any topic to our monthly conversations.

Since her death, I’ve been without again. Life continued with all its good and bad – friendship, illness, rejection, pandemic, healing… I’ve been wanting, needing, someone to accompany me spiritually but the timing has seemed terrible. Still, the feeling had grown more insistent until, finally, I called the retreat center recommended to me by a counselor I saw as I was preparing to transition out of ministry and into healing-mode. Tomorrow afternoon I will drive there. pitch my tent, take quiet walks, meditate and I know not what. On Saturday I’ll meet with Sister Gabe.

I’m hoping for good things but I don’t know what will come of this. I’m leery of over-planning which could lead me to miss synchronicities. Holy moments. So except for trip-taking organization, I’ve made few preparations. Is this a wise choice? I don’t know. My meditation and prayer times this week have set out the intention that I will be open to what will present. I’ve been thinking of topics of interest:

• What does leading a meaningful life look like for me, here and now?
• I’d assumed that times of transition eventually end but I’ve been floating in a netherworld for a long time now. What am I missing?
• Who am I, living alone in my 101-year-old fixer-upper, with no career and a very small circle around me? How can I matter?
• How can I practice accepting what I cannot change?

Four days away is not likely to change my life yet I confess to a hope that I’ll return, not simply renewed but also more ready for either the samenesses or the changes that will follow.