quiet

Am returning to a voice after a year of what, according to my standards, was silence. Leaving a demanding and often draining ministry, coping with early elderhood, and re-entering critical care chaplaincy have all taken my focus.

Today a couple of days off in our rota of shifts at the hospital. Two weekdays, to theoretically prepare one for a seven-day shift starting on Saturday, on-call from Friday midnight until Monday morning. To get ready.

As Robin Williams said in that fun old '90's movie Jumanji, "There is no ready."

This sort of work/ministry/vocation calls for radical expectation in very concrete ways. The mischievous lithe grey pager slumbers until it chooses the right time to stop what one is doing--sleep, eat, sit, or more private affairs--and call one to God knows what. All too often death, sorrow, loss are involved.

One must go and be as completely present, appropriately vulnerable, to strangers in what may be one of the most intimate and tragic moments of their lives.

But still, today a break, some space. Have read Parker Palmer's thoughts during a recent week-long retreat of his. Strange how a stranger's intimate thoughts may become one's own.

This one that fits today, on an open day in which, if I am not watchful, I can import tons of my own inner tension:

"After breakfast, I read the January 12 entry in A Year With Thomas Merton, a collection of daily meditations:

'It seems to me that I have greater peace… when I am not 'trying to be contemplative,' or trying to be anything special, but simply orienting my life fully and completely towards what seems to be required of a man like me at a time like this.'

"Simple and true, but so easily lost in Type-A spiritual striving! What was required of me this morning was simply to make breakfast despite my well-documented ineptitude. The deal is to do whatever is needful and within reach, no matter how ordinary it is or whether I’m likely to do it well." *

Inhabit the day as it is. Inhabit oneself as one is. I never cease to be amazed at how the most profound "spiritual" truths are the most simple, the most open of secrets.

Remembering to breathe helps me. So does laughter. So does Tai Chi. After a recent weekend of Tai Chi, I wondered why people at the hospital seemed to smile more at me, seemed to draw physically closer when they spoke. Another chaplain said laughing, "You are at home in the you that is you."

http://www.onbeing.org/blog/parker-palmer-notes-from-a-week-in-the-winter-woods/8362