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Last week, I got an email from a friend saying that she loves me and that she is most grateful to the people who introduced us. It was just three short sentences. She was thinking those sentences down in Texas, and she took a few minutes to send them to me. Her email came out of the blue. It wasn’t my birthday, and it wasn’t Christmas, but it felt a little bit like both.
“Be kind and tender-hearted to one another. . . .” Ephesians 4:32
Yesterday, I got way off track. I started focusing on somebody else’s behavior -- on what she should have said and how she should have acted. I set myself up as judge. I was right, and she was wrong. Without saying a word, I created a wide and miserable gulf between us.
This morning, I remembered something very important: I don’t want to mind other people’s business anymore. I want to learn to live my own life and let other people live theirs. I want to allow others to be as they are (and not as I think they should be). I want to live and let live.
The wide and miserable gulf is already gone.
“When we choose to withhold judgment, we allow others to be as they are. . . .” Br. David Vryhoff
“Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate. Do not judge. . . .” Luke 6:36-37
I’m learning to welcome people with arms wide open. I still have a long way to go, but I’m learning little by little to accept and enjoy each person just as she is. She is a work in progress. She isn’t perfect. I don’t have to judge or label or categorize. I can see her faults and flaws and failures with compassion. I can imagine her whole. I can give her a break.
A few nights ago, in the middle of the night, I lay listening to a litany of failures and mess-ups and should-haves. All of a sudden, I realized that I would never talk to anybody else the way I was night-talking to myself. So I stopped. I decided to welcome myself with arms wide open. I said, “It’s okay. You’re a work in progress. You can try again tomorrow.” I gave myself a break. I went back to sleep, and I woke up glad.
“He accepts them as they are, and then gently turns them once again in the direction he wants them to go. . . .” Br. David Vryhoff (describing the way God treats us)
“By the grace of God I am what I am. . . .” 1 Corinthians 15:10
I went to the park with a two-year-old yesterday. He was Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and Neil Armstrong and Marco Polo. His whole small self was asking what-is-it: What is this truck? What is this sand? What is this slide? He didn’t meander from one thing to another. He trotted, leaning (precariously) forward in his eagerness.
He was all there. He was present. He wasn’t partly in yesterday and partly in tomorrow. He wasn’t bored. He wasn’t resigned. He wasn’t jaded. He wasn’t on autopilot. He wasn’t multitasking. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t worried. He knew that somebody who loves him was watching out for him the whole time. I wonder what it would be like to live that way, even for an hour.
“He tends His flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart.” Isaiah 40:11
I’m learning that my life works a lot better when I remember to keep it simple. Here’s one of my simple things: I stop here and there during the day, close my eyes and take three deep breaths. It relaxes me. It lets me rest. It gets me out of my head and helps me to see the big picture. Most of the time it literally makes me smile. It takes about fifteen seconds. The funny and sad part is that sometimes, before a deep-breath break, I actually catch myself thinking that I don’t have time (which shows how very much I need deep-breath breaks).
“[A] Sabbath (a rest; a ceasing). . . .” Exodus 20:10
A few days ago, I met a caricature of myself in the grocery store. I can still hear the awful click, click, click of her heels on the tile floor.
She was on a mission, fast and efficient as she crossed things off her list. Click, click, click. Grab something off a shelf. Click, click, click to the next aisle. I don’t think she saw anybody else in the store. At the checkout, she pushed her cart a few feet beyond the clerk and stood tense and taut, reaching behind her for the receipt. I guess she was hurrying home to cross more things off her list. It was a lot easier to breathe after she left.
I don’t want my steps to sound like hers anymore. I want to take gentler steps. I want to see the people around me, and I want enjoy the small gifts along the way. I want to learn to let life flow with beauty, ease and grace. I want to let go of a need for control that has kept me so often from joy.
I will practice today, one gentle step at a time.
“She was able to let go of a need for control that had kept her so often from joy.” Belden Lane (of his mother in her latter years)
“Because You are my help, I sing for joy in the shadow of Your wings.” Psalm 63:7
