To Be Last

For the Spiritual Thursday prompt this month, Robert Hamera asks, ‘How then do we slow down?,’ especially in the midst of our challenging world and its rapid changes. How do we not get caught up in the franticness of what is going on around us? ​​Check out his thoughtful reflections on this theme, and read the comments on his post for links to other writers and their responses. 

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The very question “How then do we slow down?,”  implies that we should slow down – and I totally agree. I have lived with myself long enough to know almost instantaneously when I am becoming too immersed, wound up, caught up in an overwhelming situation – and that everything I am doing is not helping to ‘solve’ whatever is wrong. How do I recognize this? I feel it in my body, recognizable in my inability to sit still, my pinball attention span, my reckless cravings for sugar and salt, and my general fatigue that is not nourished by a nap. Most painfully, I hear it in my voice, flagged by my short-tempered, rapid, sometimes sarcastic exchanges with loved ones. All these signs tell me that I have let larger, unsettled challenges take center stage inside me, at the expense of myself. I need to stop. Slow down. Breathe. Put aside whatever the BIG UGLY is, and take care of me. Give myself space.

What fills me with awe is that when I give myself space – permission to slow down, to not focus on the overwhelming but instead center on that which is right there in front of me – the challenges become less so. Always. I take myself out of the equation, and, in so doing, I fortify myself. Always. 

I read this Bible passage, recently –

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. - 2 Peter 3:8 (NRSV)

I find this verse both formidable and calming. It is a paradox. To me, it says – live with the understanding that what we do will echo through time, live with the understanding that this time in which we live is not the center of everything or anything, live with the understanding that what we do today matters very much, live with the understanding that what we do matters not at all. Yes, and. 

It is definitely helpful to spend time in quiet meditation after reading that! 

As a retired teacher, I am able to heed the need for slowing down on a much more regular basis. It is amazing to have this time and space, to quiet myself enough to be more fully present. An introvert by nature, it is a joy to begin my day very slowly and quietly. The first moments of my day are spent in quiet contemplation, with journaling and readings, a mix of meditations, prayer, and poetry. 

I try to slow down enough to write a poem from my journaled musings, to ‘catch my thoughts.’ Here is the poem I wrote this morning, as I studied a tree outside my window. I think it fits quite nicely with this theme of “slowing down.” (I wish I had taken a photograph of this tree in the morning light – perhaps I will tomorrow morning, and add it to this post.)

to be last

autumn turning to winter
bowing offering genuflecting
the ground is cold and brown
all the leafing trees are bare 

except this one dear oak 
who holds tight
unable to let go 
the morning sun mingles and kisses
dazzling her leaves a bright amber
her branches yield to the rippling wind
and offer a friendly wave, as if to say 
hello! good to see you!

this one dear oak is nestled
by three evergreens, who 
she towers above yet leans into 
resting on the conifers’ shoulders
conversing affectionately, whispering
you are who I want to be near 

is she keeping her plumage to be
like her friends, the evergreens? 
is she aware that others have moved on?
it is both pleasure and precious 
to be last

secret lives of trees? not really
they are lived in the open
if we only we pause to see