The Summer Day 

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

 

In Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town, Emily who died in childbirth was given the gift of going back to spend one full day with her family. After the day is over, she sobs as she tells the stage manager, “We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed…do any human beings ever realize life while they live it, every, every minute?

Stage Manager answers, “No, the saints and poets, maybe–they do some.”

At its most basic, 10 Minutes of Stillness is an invitation to realize life while we live it. A way back to wonder. That’s what this episode is about.

And as Mary Oliver pointed out, it’s the perfect practice for your summer day. 

 

 

Maybe your life this summer includes more staycation than vacation. Your car is parked indefinitely on the driveway and you are a hometown tourist which apparently, I just learned, is a movement and a hashtag all its own. Novelty is good for the brain and fantastic as we begin to practice 10 Minutes of Stillness. We’re on the lookout for a rich experience of the senses. Open your camping chair beside the creek in the park and let your children play in the water. Sample the coffee at a shop a few miles away, holding onto a warm mug. Sit on your back porch and close your eyes as you listen to the birds. Dig your toes in the sand and listen to the waves. Or throw a pink flamingo inflatable into the pool and float. 

Here’s a story of an adventure that was thwarted and how I learned to become a hometown tourist.

 

 

I needed a day off. I could feel the crankiness rising. I had created Monday’s schedule to fill, refresh, and build something worth standing on for another week, a Sabbath.

But because we were about to take a trip to grandma’s, there was just this one other thing to fit in: the oil change. 

No problem, I thought. But the voice on the other line said he only had one appointment left…smack dab in the middle of my well-planned day. 

I had dreamed of a hike around Slippery Rock River, skipping stones into the current or a slow saunter around a bookstore latte in hand. 

Noon? I could feel a whine rising. Our ancient minivan would take an hour, we’d be stranded in the waiting room with the blaring tv, and the day’s schedule was now smeared. 

We would have to be content on our own familiar streets.   

I pushed the button for the garage door to open. “Xavier, we’re going for a walk. You lead.” Exercise always clears my head. He swung his thin four-year-old leg over a BMX, still balanced with training wheels. I held onto the black leather bike seat and pushed him up the short hill toward town until he could pedal forward himself. 

“Left or Right, Xavi?” I had lost the heart to lead: 

”Left!” 

Again and again he pedaled north taking us beyond our normal boundaries, one block after another, straight down Beaver St. We landed at the bottom of the hill in Edgeworth in a triangle of a park, huge oaks, small brook, inviting child-size stone bridge. Sometimes you don’t need to leave town to visit new kingdoms.

 

 

We scrambled down stone walls directing fast moving run-off water. He combed through the pebbles with his fingers and then piled them together to build a dam. Looking up again and again to see if I was watching, eyes shining. He walked under the bridge, he spread out his arms, a strong man holding it up. I sat down in the middle of his joy.  

My own stuck stream of delight was undammed by entering into NOW, senses alive, scrambling on rocks, listening to water grate over pebbles, breathing in the freshly mown grass. Simple, I know. But I wondered, how often am I truly here in the Now?

 

 

Back at home, I took out the dollar-store bottle of bubbles and the “fancy” camera. Just last year he could barely blow a bubble, more soap would spill on the concrete than spin through the air.

 

 

As he blew into the wand, I held my breath. How often do I live life in a tangle of emotions and long lists, when Life can be full right here in the present?

I’ve always wanted to be one of the fully present people. Available. An “icon” of Julian of Norwich hangs above my writing desk. Julian was cloistered in Norwich’s cathedral, literally living inside the walls of the nave, present to the Presence, anchored.  But so often I spin through life, caught in the web of my own self-made narrative. 

And I wonder: how often do I walk the streets of my own life eyes shut to the sweetness? 

 

 

……………………………………………………..

I’m on vacation with my family on the Chesapeake and I packed an entire suitcase full of brain science & present moment awareness. The benefits of this practice, 10 minutes of stillness is astounding. I’ll share more in following episodes. But here’s a taste.

First,

As we just talked about, we’re invited to clue into the joy and wonder of everyday life.

Second,

Brain scientists tell us that even while we’re experiencing the joy and wonder of the present moment, we are actually strengthening the muscles of many areas of our brain. In fact, many studies show that this work actually shrinks the almond-shaped amygdala which is where our reactive emotions stem from, including the overachieving fight and flight messages and the stress hormones when we get flooded.  More on the brain science in a later episodes. But what’s important for those of us who are easily distracted or anxious, through building this muscle, we are learning to take thoughts captive, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:5. We are building the capacity to take unruly thoughts captive, put the brakes on the run away merry go round of toxic thoughts, and turn off the facet on our stress hormones.

Third,

and I’m having trouble putting words around this…but Becoming fully Present ourselves opens the gateway to the Presence of God. We become present, sit down in the gift of NOW, and begin looking around for the Other, the I AM who is always with us.

 

Some through Christian history have called this practice, the sacrament of the present moment.  I’m using the term 10 Minutes of Stillness to give it a gentle, accessible boundary for all of us beginners. 

The Sacrament of the Present Moment: 10 Minutes of Stillness

First.

Choose your setting. Rich in the life of the senses.

Second.

Turn off all your beeps and buzzes but put on a timer for 10 minutes. It gives our brain a sense of permission.

Next.

Take deep breaths. 

 

Then, practice opening up to the senses one at a time:

1. Sound
2. Touch
3. Sight. Look around you. What do you see? Let your eyes stop on a detail of life. Study it.
4. Smell
5. Taste.
6. All together.
7. Gratitude. Allow the practice of the senses to send you straight into thanksgiving. Thank God for what you are seeing, hearing, feeling, touching, tasting. 
8. Become aware of the truth of God’s Presence with you. Invite Him into the moment. Are you seeing this with me Lord? Are you hearing this? Enjoy His company.

…………………………………………………

This is Flickering Mind by Denise Levertov and will serve as our prayer as we end:

 

Lord, not you,

it is I who am absent.

At first

belief was a joy 

I kept in secret,

stealing alone

into sacred places:

a quick glance, and away—and back,

circling.

I have long since uttered your name

but now

I elude your presence.

I stop

to think about you, and my mind

at once

like a minnow darts away,

darts

into the shadows, into gleams that fret

unceasing over

the river’s purling and passing.

Not for one second

will my self hold still, but wanders

anywhere,

everywhere it can turn. Not you,

it is I who am absent.

You are the stream, the fish, the light,

the pulsing shadow,

you the unchanging presence, in whom all

moves and changes.

How can I focus my flickering, perceive

at the fountain’s heart

the sapphire I know is there?

 

“Never let yourself think that because God has given you many things to do for Him: pressing routine jobs, a life full up with duties and demands of a very practical sort that all these need separate you from communion with Him. God is always coming to you in the Sacrament of the Present Moment. Meet and receive Him there with gratitude in that sacrament; however unexpected its outward form may be, receive Him in every sight and sound, joy, pain, opportunity and sacrifice.” Evenlyn Underhill