Daily Dose (August 11 – 14)
TUESDAY AUGUST 11 —
“We live like ill-taught piano students. We are so afraid of the flub that will get us in dutch, we don’t hear the music, we only play the right notes.” Thank you, Robert Capon.
And in yesterday’s Sabbath Moment we met Ellen. Who made a tapestry for her church—from her heart. A tapestry rejected because the dimensions were “not quite correct,” according to the church committee.
And we took to heart Ellen’s poignant wisdom, “I’m going to be okay. Do you know why? Because I didn’t make the tapestry for them.”
Yes. “Tapestry making” is about living the moment—this present moment—wholehearted, and without any need for “approval”.
Ellen’s story is not about who “won” or “lost.” It is about being at home in your skin and living from your heart.
Which brings me to this life-giving story Dewitt Jones tells about visiting Marion Campbell, considered the finest weaver in all of Scotland. She lived in the Outer Hebrides. Jones visited to photograph Marion for The National Geographic. When she answered the door, she seemed surprised (no wonder considering that the Hebrides are a remote island chain, the whole string of 65 islands with fewer than 27,000 inhabitants. I expect she didn’t see a stranger very often.) Marion told Dewitt, “I’m sorry, but now I am taking care of my brother who is sick and near death.” Dewitt felt an understandable embarrassment.
“No wait,” she told him. “Give me an hour. I’ll join you then.”
After the hour, he found her at the loom. She talked about her creations, and stories about scraping lichen from rocks for dye. Dewitt took a few photos. Still nervous that he had interrupted Marion, he started to leave. “Oh no,” she told him. She escorted him into her dining room where she had put out biscuits and tea. Dewitt wondered if he was in the presence of a great sage, and waited for pearls of wisdom. “What do you think about when you weave?” he asked.
“I wonder if I’ll run out of thread,” she answered.
She must have seen the puzzlement on his face, and added, “When I weave, I weave.”
There it is.
When I read, I read.
When I celebrate, I celebrate.
When I pay attention, I pay attention.
Living the moment—this present moment—wholehearted.
Embracing the sacrament of the sacred present.
It seems that the nagging question, “But what if this—the life we chose, or the life we are living—is the wrong life?” Or, “What if I have the wrong dimensions for my tapestry?” are not that important after all.
Have I done bone-headed things with my life? To be sure.
Have I miscalculated and misused talent or opportunity? Assuredly.
Have I wrestled with depression and the weight of life gone awry? Yes, I have.
Does it benefit me to wish that I were elsewhere and otherwise? I don’t think so.
What I know for certain is that starting down that path of determining “right or wrong” life, assures the fact that we will avoid (and definitely miss) this life.
This week, let us hear the invitation—embrace the freedom to be awake and invested, in this life, in this moment… the very one we are living today.
As Dewitt Jones puts it, “To not only be the best in the world, but to be the best for the world.”
I love this. Not only is this the life to live…
In doing so, you bring your whole heart.
In doing so, you make a difference.
Thank you, to every one of you, for the difference you make. “This little light of mine…”
So… “Let us not darken the joy of resurrection,” Thomas Merton reminds us, “by remaining in captivity and darkness, but let us live as free men and women who have been called out of the darkness and into the light.”
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 12 —
Thank you, my friends, for being a part of Sabbath Moment. I am grateful for the community. If you know anyone who would enjoy, and benefit from Sabbath Moment, please invite your friend to join us.
Prayer (poem) for our week…
Never Give Up
No matter what is going on
Never give up
Develop the heart
Too much energy in your country
Is spent developing the mind
Instead of the heart
Be compassionate
Not just to your friends
But to everyone
Be compassionate
Work for peace
In your heart and in the world
Work for peace
And I say again
Never give up
No matter what is going on around you
Never give up
Attribute to, His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Photo… “Hi Terry. I recently went to the Chicago Botanic Garden and took some random photos–sharing with you! Here’s a bumblebee buzzing around an Allium Millenium,” Ina Strickland… Thank you Ina… And thank you all for your photos, please send them to tdh@terryhershey.com
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I am so very grateful.
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