Now Might Be a Good Time to Try Meditating

How's your head these days? Are you clear, focused? Light in spirit? Centered?

Yeah, me neither.

My meditation routine had already slipped to the bottom of my priority list before quarantine began. I was trying to get everything done in preparation for going on sabbatical. And on my sabbatical, I would have plenty of time to get back in the routine.

(In retrospect, planning on go on sabbatical beginning April 1 - who does that??? I was just asking the universe to prank me. I mean, a worldwide pandemic seems a little extreme, but then, I did pull a lot of April Fools jokes in my life. Perhaps it was to be expected.)

Best time to meditate? On sabbatical.

Second best time to meditate? While in quarantine for a worldwide sabbatical, the length of which remains undetermined.

My friend M posted a graphic that sums up why all of us -- even non-meditators -- might want to give it a try these days:

I am no expert in meditating, so if you're interested in it in a serious way, join a meditation group where you'll find experienced practitioners. Our church's meditation group is now meeting online, and I bet others are, too.

But meditation is one of those things that you don't have to be great at to get something from it. It's a time to let the constant swirling of your mind settle down. One of the most helpful metaphors I've found was shared with me last summer at "The Point" (Southern UU summer camp for families) by the Rev. Aaron White.

He said to imagine that you've got a jar full of muddy water. You're walking around with that jar all the time, constantly shaking it. (Seriously, this is exactly what my brain feels like these days.) But if you set the jar down on the counter and let it just sit there, still, the mud begins sinking to the bottom. And the water on top grows clear.

Give it a try. Sit somewhere comfortable, maybe set a timer so you don't have to wonder about how long it's been. Start small. 10 minutes. Imagine the jar of water, and the dirt settling to the bottom. Breathe. Your poor brain is working so hard right now, trying to make sense of this, trying to figure out how to keep putting one foot in front of the other. If you're anything like me, you've probably been stuffing information in it, one article after another. And even when you're asleep, it's working, churning.

Give your brain a rest. Try meditation.

Comments

Me and My Collar

You may run into me on a Friday, in my neighborhood, so it's time I let you know what you might see. When I was doing my required unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), my supervisor suggested that any of us who came from traditions where a clerical collar was an option, take one "collar week," to see how we were treated, as opposed to wearing regular professional clothes. After a couple of days, I joked to the Catholic priest, "How do you manage the power?" In regular clothes, I would walk into a patient's room, and it would take about 5 or so minutes of introductions and pleasantries before we could really get down to talking about their feelings, their fears, the deep stuff. With most people, as soon as that clerical collar walked in the room, with me attached, they began pouring out all the heavy stuff they were carrying. I was riding the bus back and forth every day, and though not quite so dramatic, the collar effect was alive there, to...

Beloved Community: The Now and Not Yet

Rev. Christine Robinson has a great little post up about the phrase "beloved community" and why it's problematic to use that to describe a church. Like her mom, I can get cranky about the whole thing, but my crankiness lies in the misuse of what is, to me, such a breathtaking and profound concept. Martin Luther King, Jr., someone whose words I study in great detail, is the one we often think of as originating the term, but he learned about it through the writings of Josiah Royce. Josiah Royce (right) with close friend William James. Royce was a philosopher, studying Kant, Hegel. I imagine he would have enjoyed Koestler's theory of the holon , because he saw humanity as being both individuals and part of a greater "organism" that was community. As King's belief about Beloved Community would be rooted in agape , Royce's philosophy stemmed from what he called loyalty, and by that he meant, "the practically devoted love of an individual f...

CMFTMs 2: "I Want to Schtup Santa Claus."

You are not coming to a CMFTM for originality, or if you are, you'll be pretty disappointed. They're making these babies on the fly, baby, Time is Money, so who has time for originality? As such, most CMFTMs fall into certain oft-used-and-abused genres. Someone even made a handy bingo scorecard of Christmas movie tropes. Today's genre is "I Want to Schtup Santa Claus." This is an interesting genre of holiday movies that seems targeted to Gen X – Boomer females. Why does this appeal to us? I conjecture it’s because of the stop action animation special, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” in which a scarily thin Jessica-the-Teacher meets Kris Kringle, he gives her a doll, they get married by the Winter Miser and then she’s allowed to get nice and fat, and he still sits next to her, seemingly still in love, and eternally celebrating Christmas, but without bills or family members, or any of those other pesky things that make Christmas, ...

Boots and Blessings

Search This Blog