Presence, Security

Darkness as an Invitation

November 11, 2023

Also? Time Changes Are Dumb.

A beautiful Costa Rican sunset. Photograph by my daughter, who is off working with sea turtles. Her photos make me happy. Also, she did not have a dumb time change!

I am not a fan of this time change, the one that set the clocks back an hour last Sunday.

It’s nearly dark by 5:00 pm here now (when it was 6:00 pm last week!). This darkness continues to descend earlier and earlier, day by day, for more than a month. I don’t know exactly when sunset comes earliest in December, but it’s around 4:40 pm here. Really! But then? Magically, mystically, wonderfully: the light slowly, slowly returns.

I need to remember these days that the light always comes back. Because I am now in this empty nest period, which should not have been a surprise. I’ve known it was coming for decades, that someday my kids would move along. But still! One day they were here. The next they were gone. My son has been away at college for more than a month, my daughter at her internship for two weeks. Some days, I wake up and wonder what all the fuss about the empty nest was, why everyone was warning me about it. Because it’s not all the way terrible. I haven’t minded not having to wake up with my son to make sure he gets breakfast and to school on time. I like not having to buy so many groceries. If my first work appointments are at 10:00 am, it’s nice not to have to leave the house until 9:00. These moments of “Hey! This empty nest is not so bad!” are generally in the mornings.

But then it’s evening, and it’s dark by late afternoon, and it’s just me and the cat and the dog and the spider that is still living above my kitchen sink in the house. I could work on my book. I should work on my book. I want to work on my book! But instead I somehow get sucked into watching twenty minutes of Instagram reels. Good for me, though, that it was only twenty minutes. Could have been longer. Maybe I’m glad that my phone was about to run out of battery.

For the first time in decades, I am living alone. Thankfully, I have a good job. I have friends. I have a home that I love. I have a wonderful community through Mercy Center. I have a book I’m trying to finish and then self-publish. It’s not like I’m alone. It’s not like I don’t have plenty to do. So what is this strange sadness that arrives after the sun sets, a kind of depression that makes me want to scroll endlessly through Instagram? So many spiritual teachers and mystics promise that God comes to us in silence. If I have any sense at all, I would purposefully dive deeper into the darkness.  My house is pretty quiet these days. Seems like a perfect time to see what the dark holds. Because I suspect that this darkness could actually be some sort of invitation.

Presence, Security

A Rich Life

November 4, 2023

A rich life might include time for walks beneath the dogwood trees

I have been thinking lately about what it means to live a rich life.

Not rich in assets or monthly income necessarily, although that is all very nice, but rich in the things that fill me and make me feel nurtured and cared for, things that give me hope and purpose.

I’ve heard financial influencers and gurus chide people who spend money on a daily Starbucks latte. “If you saved that $6.50 a day and invested it in a retirement account that earned eight percent interest, then in 40 years you would have one billion dollars!”

(They do not say that exactly, but something close.)

Except what if that daily latte is the thing that makes them feel like their life is rich? Is it a foolish purchase then? I used to think so. But now I am not so sure.

For me, it’s little things that make my life rich. My daily tea with cream makes me feel rich, and luckily for me it’s something I can make at home. Free time during the week to hike with my daughter when she was home for an unexpected few days makes me feel rich. Also, possessing the things that make hiking possible: sturdy boots, water bottles, food for a light lunch that we eat while sitting on a rock at the side of a lake.

A kitchen table to write at. A blanket on my lap. A dog on the blanket at my feet. Blackberry flavored sparkling water. A fire in the woodstove. Wood stacked and covered not far from my backdoor. My garden, which produced enough tomatoes and basil to keep us in pesto and salsa all season long. A quilt my grandmother made. An afternoon out with one of my best friends from high school, and the fact that we have been friends for forty years. My centering prayer circle, time with my spiritual director, online groups that support me in my spiritual journey, my work as a massage therapist.

Also, a phone call I got today from my daughter in Costa Rica, with special gratitude for the miracle of Wi-Fi and how it lets us talk to people half a world away, basically for the price of an ordinary phone plan. Later, there was a phone call from my son, who was wondering if it would be a problem that he accidentally started the wrong dryer when he went to finish his laundry, and it locked, and could that possibly start a fire if the lint trap was full? I reassured him that I did not think there was any way that a dryer running for a few minutes without clothes in it would be a danger to his dorm building.

I wish that all of my children’s worries were so easily put to rest. Continue Reading…