Life, After All
is the Grace in Spaciousness or the Spaciousness in Grace?
September tempts us with the promise of normalcy. Year after year, I anticipate changing weather and re-ordered schedules. I look forward to fall’s renewed sense of settledness and spaciousness after the unpredictability of summer. But…
Transition is rough.
Despite thinking that I understand seasonal rhythms, I can’t control how they will hit. Somehow, the process of getting a new schedule up and running takes over the schedule itself. Instead of spaciousness, I get overwhelm.
When I look for the grace with which to move through chaos, the grace to excuse my lack of advancement or inability to cope, I can’t seem to find it. Maybe I need spaciousness to find the grace in the first place?
Whether overwhelmed about little things or big ones, when the stuff of life invades - a volunteer assignment that ramps up while traveling; plans that shift, then shapeshift, then implode, sending us back to drawing boards buried under piles of intentions; health bumbles, relational stumbles - we start to think that the only way to manage is with a slate wiped clean; neither progress nor peace without starting completely over. No baby. No bathwater.
It’s then that lots of us drop out. We may say “no” or ghost or skip out for a totally tangential, unplanned escape (possibly the way taken by yours truly this week😊) We may more dramatically crash and burn, let others down, just quit. Wanting the feeling of spaciousness and the freedom to chart our own paths, we reach for a reset.
But that’s not the only way.
Often, the magic of grace is that it arrives unbidden. Despite my talk of spaciousness and need, of overwhelm and impossibility, the out-of-control frazzle moments of my life offer unanticipated surprises: room to step up, patience to sit with discomfort, flexibility, opportunities to recenter expectations. A crisp, clean plan doesn’t necessarily move the goalposts. Contrarily, messy muddling might.
Instead of letting go of the things of the overwhelm, it may serve you and me better to let go the feelings. Easier said than done of course, but last I checked, the one holding guilt, shame or a sense of inadequacy over my head is usually me. The spaciousness I’m looking for has a lot to do with not serving that.
Grace that comes with acknowledging our lack of ability to control our successes or failures is sometimes what allows us to grow and find new ways. Creative ways. As with my pickleball game, letting go of pretensions to control allows for accidents that are occasionally mistaken for brilliance. Great fun, while it lasts!
Rather than cleaning house to make myself acceptable, I’m trying to move forward in mess, to find and accept a new, possibly unintentional, gracefully fortuitous perspective on clean.
When we rush and race, juggle and jostle, without the time or mental capacity to process or reflect, we’re bound to experience distress. Overwhelm is not a desirable normal for any of us. But this life journey can include letting that be okay, at least for a time. Though spaciousness of the type I seek might be in short supply this transitional September, grace comes in the form of wise partners:
Bridgitte reminds me that “life happens, and we just roll with it”
And Elayne lyrically notes, “Autumn does seem to have a way of bringing as many commitments raining down as it does raindrops or leaves!”
Yep. I’m neither alone, nor stuck. I’m just in progress. Still. Always.
So, this year - this week - I’m trying to move forward through a lack of spaciousness rather than trying to sweep things away. I’m practicing what Father Michael Marsh, of Interrupting the Silence, calls Living in the Maybe:
Maybe keeps us from claiming to know more than we really do or can know. It’s slow to make a final judgment or conclusion. It asks us to be willing to be surprised and live with curiosity. It offers another and ourselves the benefit of the doubt. It allows time for growth, change, and new possibilities. Maybe keeps our hearts soft and our eyes open.
Maybe is a field of possibilities and hope. Maybe it’s a field of wheat. Maybe it’s a field of weeds. Maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe tomorrow will be worse. I don’t know but I want to show up and find out, don’t you? I want to give life a chance. I want to give you and others a chance. I want to give myself a chance. I want to give God a chance.
I don’t want to be too quick to assume that I know who or what are the wheat and who or what are the weeds.
It’s a double-edged spaciousness, with room for possibility, but without satisfying my desire for a clean slate. Actually living in maybe sounds a lot like hanging around with the overwhelm I’ve been trying to sweep away. Can I do that?
How long will maybe last? Which truths will emerge? When will I know?
At least, instead of dashing around, I’ll be open in my waiting and wondering to receive grace instead of trying to manufacture it. I’m not good at this. But I’m willing to try.
Join me?
Each season for the past year, I’ve released a set of exercises for accessing creative inspiration. This month, I’ve put them all together in one document here. New free subscribers will receive them with their welcome letter, so pass this newsletter to a friend !!