I got up early this morning to exercise. Which, if you know me, takes a Herculean amount of self determination. 1) Because I’m giving up precious hours of much needed (and rarely gotten) sleep and 2) because I abhor exercise. It is a tool of Satan. Amen.
But I got up this morning to go walking because, I don’t know, I’m tired of my mostly sedentary lifestyle. Also, DragonCon’s coming up, and I want to look hot in my costumes. Real talk.
I’ve been thinking a lot about mindfulness lately, about living a life of attention.
As I left the Urban Cottage, the sky threatened rain. The clouds were dark and low and looked like they were ready to dump a metric butt ton of precipitation on my face. At any moment. But I kept walking, thinking, maybe the weather will hold.
So I ignored the occasional wet droplet I felt on my skin and walked the half a mile to my park.
I hucked my tired ass around the park and as I did so I tried to pay attention. To the different color green trees that looked less vibrant against the gloomy backdrop. To the pink, purple, and white flowers in bloom. To the overwhelming fragrance of what I think is jasmine. To the lack of other humans inhabiting my park for the moment.
And I thought 1) damn, my city has a lot of trees and that’s kind of why I love it here, even though when it rains kinda hard, those trees fall in the road or on my friend’s houses and 2) I need to start walking in the mornings because I basically have this place to myself and I kinda hate people sometimes.
I continued to walk, consumed more by the incredible ordinary sights than the impending storm. And it was glorious. Selah.
Half way around my park the lyric from an old Indigo Girls hymn (their music is my church music) so randomly popped into my head that it must have been Jesus who planted it there. “If the weather holds will I miss the point?” And I didn’t know exactly what that word from God meant for me at that moment but I was pretty taken with it.
Also I love when the Holy Ghost talks to me through the Indigo Girls, which happens a lot. Ah, to be known.
I passed some folks setting up for an event. And then I got to that critical point where I had to decide to do the second lap around the park, or carry my happy ass home. But I figured, it’s still dry and I had a lot of fried food this week (also quite a bit of alcohol) so I might as well go for the gold.
And so I began lap two.
My back was hurting. My knee was hurting (my knees suck y’all). I really wanted a pot of coffee. But it was beautiful and relatively quiet so, why not?
I got to the back of the park and I saw it happening. The sky, nay, the air turned white. And then the heavens opened up.
Within minutes I was soaked. But crazy lady that I am, I did not seek shelter like some of the other park patrons, I kept walking. In the rain. And I was smiling. The event people rushing to protect their items probably thought I was insane. But it was beautiful.
It smelled like Spring. Fresh, clean. My head had been hurting because pollen and sinuses, but the more it rained the more I felt the pressure on my brain abate.
In my Bible study we’re reading the Gospel According to John, that wonderful, mystical, cosmic of texts. This week we read John 16, which is a pretty cool chapter. Jesus is basically giving his homeboys a word of warning. And per usual, they’re not quiet getting it, but I don’t get half the stuff Jesus says either, so no judgement.
JC is all doom and gloom, telling the disciples that after he’s gone and before he pulls his reappearing act, it’s pretty much gonna suck. Crying, lamenting, sorrow, pain like that of a woman giving birth. Real chipper stuff here. And yet. He tells the disciples that their “sorrow will turn into joy” (v.20 CEB). And that like a woman who gives birth, ” when the child is born, she no longer remembers her distress because of her joy that a child has been born into the world” (v.21). When he returns, Jesus tells his friends that they’ll be “overjoyed” and that “no one takes away your joy” (v.22).
One of my friends in our group pointed out how it seems like the joy only comes after the sorrow, and we all agreed how that really sucks, but that’s how life is. Joy and sorrow together. They make for strange bedfellows, I thought. But then.
In a way it makes sense. We cannot experience joy without sorrow. Would we even know, could we even appreciate life’s joys without knowing shitty times?
The rain stopped shortly after it started and I finished my walk pretty jovially. I hauled it up the last two inclines before my house. All the while my brain and my heart were working things out in the background.
If the weather holds, will I miss the point?
If life were all sunshine and no storms would we appreciate how awesome a clear and bright day is? All last week it stormed horribly. And let me tell you, when that first sunny day rolled around I was outside, face upturned to the sun like a damn sunflower. It was awesome.
The weather didn’t hold for me today, but my walk was richer for it. And that’s the thing.
Toward the end of the chapter Jesus tells his bros, “In the world you will have trouble. But take heart! For I have overcome the world.” (v.33, Rori International Version, which is basically an amalgam of every translation I’ve ever read)
That’s as true for me, for us, today as it was for those fool disciples then. The world is a crazy, scary, beautiful place. I can’t watch the news because my fragile self cannot with all of the junk that goes on everyday. But the reality is that Jesus has overcome. He has. It doesn’t seem like it, but he has. That there is beauty and joy amidst the sorrow is evidence of his victory. That there are people who hold out hope in tragedy is a tangible reminder that all is not lost.
I didn’t miss the point today. Lord, may I never again.
theRorishow 