Blog Archives

got delight?

7/21/2020

“The capacity of delight is the gift of paying attention.”
Julia Cameron, The Artist Way

During these times, delight can seem hard to come by. Yet, perhaps it is exactly in times such as these we need to be open to the possibility. The good news is that delight can be discovered almost anywhere if we are wearing the right eyes. You might be the only one to see it.

The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay, is a collection of essays from a year-long daily practice of writing about delight. I love this book because it describes delight rather than defining it. Defining some words is like using a butterfly net to catch a sunrise. Delight is one of those words, it needs be lived and witnessed not captured.

Before shelter in place, a friend took me out for ice cream for my birthday. We shared an obscenely decadent and delicious ice cream sundae with three different ice creams, hot fudge, caramel, bananas, strawberries, almonds and whipped cream. We moaned with every bite, each one a new creation. Next to us, a table of three hovered over their ice cream. However, as they ate, they ignored their ice cream and instead with that glazed-over screen stare, edited and shared photos of their ice cream on their smart phones. I’m not sure what they were eating, but I think delight is supposed dance on your tongue and then melt.

Delight belongs to another world and yet it invites us to dive in. It’s unexpected, yet it is a kind of remembering. It holds a thing longed for without the conscious understanding that it was missing. But when we see it, our heart says, “Oh, yes, there you are!” Delight is precious precisely because it’s only a glimpse. It’s so easy to miss. It appears to eyes that are looking but not looking, like the visitation of a sunrise. It helps to be easily surprised, which is say, life lived with attentive but soft eyes. As a kid every Sunday I heard my dad proclaim with his booming preacher’s voice, “This is the day that the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalms 118:24. It was a good reminder of the gift of a new day, but sounded more like a commandment than an invitation. My heart is more likely to rejoice and be gladdened by a sunrise with a softer touch. I like Maya Angelou’s delight salutation, “This is a wonderful day. I have never seen this one before.”

Pre-COVID19, mom’s nursing home, the Plum City Care Center, had a Happy Hour every Friday. A local band would perform oldies. There would be snacks, and beer, wine and pop (for those who need a regional translation of that fizzy beverage—soda, soda pop, coke, cola) in Dixie cups. The music made toes that lived in feet that no longer walked, tap. The lyrics and melodies, stored in muscle memory, made lips move and heads bob. They moved, smiled, and nodded not simply because they enjoyed the music, I think delight was dancing and melting in their bodies.

And then COVID19 happened. Plum City Care Center has been amazing in their decisive and early response. They closed their doors to visitors, changed all the ways they gathered in groups, and instituted labor-intensive safety protocols. Over these last four months, they have persevered through all the challenges, uncertainty, and extra work. Deep bow of gratitude to all the staff at the Plum City Care Center for their conscientious and compassionate care of mom and all the residents under their care. You are heroes and your daily acts of kindness, often without notice or appreciation, are making the unbearable bearable. Thank you. Thank you.

So, Happy Hour, Friday’s afternoon delight, in its pre-COVID19 form is gone. Yet, the staff at the Plum City Care Center have dug deep into their imaginations and have found a quarantined version of Happy Hour. Every Friday they do a themed party that travels to each room. They bring costumes, music and snacks. It looks like imaginative play or Halloween or just silly fun. I am amazed how the seniors respond. These Midwestern men and women of sturdy stock let appearances and self-consciousness float away, and they find something younger and unencumbered. They smile and play. It’s infectious—the good kind.

I was showing these pictures of mom to Susi Stadler, Founder and Executive Director of At Home With Growing Older, a nonprofit dedicated to re-envisioning and improving the experiences of later life, and her response was immediate, “Oh, this nursing home understands delight.” I smiled as I recognized it too. During this time, especially during this time, I think our heart longs to be moved by the mysteries of delight. It shouldn’t be an extra, after all the other things on the to-do list are done. It is essence and elementary and provides wings when we feel grounded. I’m going to keep my eyes open for happy hour. Yes to hearts that are still beating and still can be moved by living.

1 Comment

Compassion In - Compassion Out

7/2/2020

2 Comments

I offer this story from the other 2020, right before sheltering and distancing and virtual connections. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’ve lost one of my senses, the sense of touch, the connection that comes from being physically proximate. People who lose one of their senses often report that other senses get stronger. I hope so. But it has me thinking about compassion, from the Latin “to suffer with,” it’s a connection that includes intention and action. At a time of great restriction, we are also called to great action, Black lives need our voices and our feet, our broken country and world need our imagination, engagement and our votes. Yet, can this moment hold the possibility of a pause, connecting to the invisible energy that moves the heart and thereby moves and sustains our action? Compassion is this energy, a two-way flow that must include ourselves and others. Compassion in, for me. Compassion out, for you.

“For someone to develop genuine compassion towards others, first he or she must have a basis upon which to cultivate compassion, and the basis is the ability to connect to one’s own feelings and to care for one’s own welfare. Caring for others requires caring for oneself.”
The Dalai Lama

Glide Church’s Freedom Hall is filled with folding tables with colorful tablecloths. A large screen is showing Glide’s Sunday celebration. The room is filled with congregants, many unhoused or struggling with basic necessities, who prefer the coffee, and the casual and warm feel of Freedom Hall to the sanctuary upstairs.

“Is there anyone I should talk to?” I ask Pam, one of the hosts for the Freedom Hall celebration.

It’s mental health awareness Sunday. I’ve been asked to be available in case someone in the congregation needs to talk to a therapist. Yes, that’s as loaded as it sounds. Talking to a therapist is not like talking to a car mechanic. Mental health can’t be installed like a new carburetor. Yet, straddling my roles of a congregant and therapist, I’m committed to offer what support and comfort I can.

Pam nods, “Oh yes, over there. She’s struggling.”

She sits hunched over, perhaps in prayer? No, just bent over, as close to a fetal position as sitting will allow. A rolling suitcase sits by her feet. She is wearing sweats and a heavy coat.

“Good morning, my name is David, how are you today?” I hear my voice and think that I sound like a Starbucks’ barista and I’m not sure I believe in what I am selling.

She looks briefly at me with her bloodshot eyes and shakes her head. “Bad,” Her voice sounds like a rock that is sinking because it knows it can’t float.

I inhale, “Can I sit?”

She nods.

I sit down and ask, “What’s your name?”

Let’s call her Stella.

“Stella, what’s going on?”

The tears arrive before words, splashing over her eye lids, as if an overfilled pool is just waiting for my arrival.

Eventually sobs subside. “My best friend died this week. They found him in his SRO." (single room occupancy) "He died alone.” She bends, more tears fall into her lap.

I feel the familiar inadequacy of words and my privilege—housed, white, male.

“I don’t want to live,” she adds.

My mind begins to dart like a mouse chased by a cat. These are the words that can activate a therapist’s limbic system (the fear response of the brain to danger). There is a legal mandate for therapists around expressions of self-harm that requires an assessment and possible protective action and legal consequences if you get it wrong. It’s designed for safety, but the unintended consequence is that at a time when someone is desperate for compassion, a therapists’ nervous system hits the emergency warning system, removing access to resources like compassion, empathy, discernment and perspective.

“I’m afraid I’m gonna use. My shelter is horrible. People are mean. My sister is sick. They tell me I should just stop crying.” The cascade of problems falls as freely as the tears.

I begin to lean away. The most common reaction to fear is to leave (emotionally or physically). I notice my constricted breath and by some grace, pause. I take two slow breaths and put my hand on my own good heart and say to myself, David . . . sweetie, this is so hard. Then I silently remember my intention from my morning meditation, May I rest in love, and with my feet firmly planted on the floor, I counter my fear instinct and lean in.

“Tell me about your best friend.”

She looks surprised and then tells me story after story about a funny, generous, and flawed man whom she loved. For the moment, the storm passes over.

Against all odds, Stella remembers she has agency—among the many obstacles and closed doors, she sees one that is open. She tells me that she is going to her recovery meeting later in the afternoon and that she’ll get through this.

There is a palpable change of emotional temperature in the room.

“I’m hungry.” She looks at me sideways. It’s not a statement, it’s a question.

I notice that there is a Glide lunch bag sitting unopened on the table. “I see you got a bag lunch from the kitchen.”

“I don’t like it.”

I feel my heart clench and it begins to grow armor. Here comes the shake down. But again, by some unmerited grace, I pause. I’m going home to have lunch and I have choices—leftovers, or maybe a burrito or maybe Thai take out? What does she need—in this moment what does Stella need? My heart tenderizes and gets squishy.

“Stella, what would you like for lunch?”

“Turkey on sourdough with lots of mayonnaise she says with the confidence of someone who knows what she likes. She sits up in her chair for the first time. Her ability to choose brings something lighter—a smile.

This time my eyes fill with tears as I run across the street to Happy Donuts.

“Turkey on sourdough with lots of mayonnaise, please.”

2 Comments

got delight?

“The capacity of delight is the gift of paying attention.” Julia Cameron, The Artist Way

Compassion In - Compassion Out

Daily Bites and Blessings

Archives

“The capacity of delight is the gift of paying attention.”
Julia Cameron, The Artist Way