Finding Time To Be Alone

The Importance of Being Alone

            When I awaken early in the morning before sunrise, I am groggy and sluggish.  I make my coffee and begin writing thoughts in my journal.  I make out a daily prayer list and what I hope for each of these loved ones.  I search the Psalms for praises and meditate on those songs of ascents and love.  I reflect upon yesterday’s activities, lessons, and understandings of other people.  I am alone with the I Am.  This is the beginning of a wonderful day.

            How do I know?  Because I have carved out time to be on my own little island.  This refreshing paints my day.  The Creator stirs in me what I should write, paint, or draw. He directs my steps. Sometimes my creativity is brought forth in a meal to share with others.  Mostly, I bask in the presence of the Creator knowing He will lead me.

            Even drawing requires great meditation, quietness, and focus.  I must close out worries of the day and open my mind to see in a new way.  I don’t draw what my mind sees, but I seek to see through my eyes a new dimension or wonder.  If I am drawing the simplicity of a seashell, I find the memory of the sunset in its color.  I discover the complicated entry to the inner shell.  It is winding and deep, and  I observe I cannot see to the inner most part of the shell.  I relate with the shell closely.  Others cannot see my most intimate thoughts, but I know God can because He created the seashell and me.  Drawing is a very spiritual activity that takes time and aloneness.

            Today I realize how we are so busy in our contemporary lives that we stress or feel guilt about stopping, meditating, taking time to just be with ourselves.  I think this is why I love coming to the island each winter.  I am on an island with others who respect my island boundary.  They too have come for a respite in the sun, a time of meditation opened by the view of the vast seascape.  Folks are friendly but honor each other’s time alone when walking the beach or in the mangrove forest.  It is a time of rejuvenation and an awareness of all that is within. I watch as others stare into the endless sea for hours at a time.  I see the openness of the waves and understand I am a part of those great teal waters.  I hear the patterns of the waves and watch the sandpipers weave back and forth dodging each new curl of the ocean.  I become the sandpiper dodging business, responsibilities, and hardships.  I  weave with nature like a giant tapestry. I am at peace and know that God’s love endures forever.

            Each of us need an island experience of refreshing.  Perhaps it is meditating on beautiful photos of nature, reading a stirring poem, singing a song in our heart, creating a painting or scrapbook page,or writing a song or message.  I learn each winter how important it is to seek alone time to renew my mind and spirit. 

            Would you share your “island” experience and help others find quietness in this over processed world of technology, demands, and expectations?  I would love to hear how others find their time alone each day.

Soul Work for Writers

Soul Work

Soul work comes in various  forms through different people.  I recognize God's mercy to me because He has sent so many friends and set me in a family that has shaped my soul.

Recently.my meditations are on soul shaping.  I marvel at God's constant interventions even when I am so unaware.  For example, I have been working on the Midwest Writers Workshop .  The event was last weekend.  Each monthly meeting is focused on how to make the next workshop better.  It involves monthly meetings  discussing finances, speakers, authors, agents, and what sessions are needed to meet the needs of aspiring writers as well as published authors.  Sometimes the meetings are filled with laughter, and we munch on cookies made by Barb, one of the committee people.  Other meetings drag on as we get snagged on a detail or budget need.  However, by the time the end of July roles around, we have an organized program, gifted speakers and agents, and tasty food to inspire the participants.  As they walk through the door for the intensive sessions, my heart feels warm and my emotions are high.  I marvel who God sends each year.

I think of the specifics that are involved.  The participant must have this weekend free, have money to register as well as lodging and transportation.  They are hand picked.  This year we had more than a hundred new folks and many  repeaters.  The returning veterans are like family.  We hug and celebrate the beginning of a new understanding of writing, publishing, and  progress.

I have been involved as a participant for over twenty years and have been on the committee the last three years. I never realized when I attended as an eager student how much went into the planning .  Now, that I am on the other side, I perceive that helping the writing community is such a privilege and gives me so much fulfillment.  We hammer away at the statue each month molding it into an art form.  We spend endless hours discussing, writing, searching the internet, and planning.  At the end of this building and organizing process, an opportunity is created for writers. The process brings forth a statue like in the photo.  Many hours are needed.  Many hands are used especially the hands of Jama Bigger, our director.  The sculpting tools are not chisels, but instead, the minds, words, and hearts of the committee.

I know that this is like God's work on our soul.  We make choices.  We pray.  We write, reflect , and meditate.  We study  God's word, and ponder His part in our  own story.  His intervention and grace creates soul growth.  He sends friends, books, movies, and family to use as his "faculty".  Simple objects and gentle folks mold our souls into the image God intended. We are His "workshop" .  He forms us into His image.  All of us are writers involved in life.  God gives us opportunities to share His love through our words.  Soul work.   I realize that my husband  helps God mold me.  Do I know the person ahead of me in a long line just might  be there by God's design?  Soul work is happening each moment of my life.  I realize how much God cares for me.  "He will perfect that which concerneth me."  Psa 138:8

I

Walden's Pond

Walden’s Pond

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." These words by Walden inspire me to live life fully. I, like Walden, do not want to come to the end of my days and discover I missed life.

I embrace this idea of living each day by various means. Sometimes living is sitting and listening to a friend’s hurts and concerns. It is taking a morning out to pray for those ill with cancer. It is walking through the golden leaves and feeling the carpet was laced just for me. Other days, it is reading poetry and pondering the earth’s pangs of destruction. Pondering is an important part of the day. It is taking a “time-in “as opposed to a “time-out”.

In this pondering state, I don’t necessarily meditate, but I do sometimes. I just take a period of time where I am not multi-tasking. I am just intentionally in a space where electronics and technology cannot control me. I don’t answer the ringing phone, look at a clock, listen to music, or check my texts. I just am. I am reaching into the deepest part of my knowing and pulling out a memory, a thought, a sound, a smell, or a dream. I begin to fondle it like a lover. I caress that memory and try to pull from it all the thoughts I can. I recollect how I felt when I sat by my father’s side. I can smell the cherry tobacco from his pipe. I can feel his gentleness, and hear his soft, low voice. I just stay there and reunite with that time in my life. If my mind tries to escape, I push it back into that day. If it is a childhood memory, I try to recreate the innocence in which I looked at life, at the little town where we lived, at the teaching given to me by my father. I embrace the presence of that moment and feel the warmth, or sometimes I discover a hurt with which I have never dealt. If it hurts, I may shed tears. If it is affirming, I may bask in that feeling of acceptance. I try to grasp what this moment in time taught me about life. Perhaps this is a whimsical activity to some. To me, it is becoming aware of those moments that shaped me, that formed me into the person that I have become today.

Oh, how I would like to go to the woods and live for two years as Walden did. He pondered how a pine tree’s odor permeated his pores. He observed woodchucks and made them into visitors in his lonely abode. He realized that morning was the most significant time of day. He said, “Let me have a draught of undiluted morning air. Morning air! If men will not drink of this at the fountainhead of the day, why, then, we must even bottle up some and sell it in the shops, for the benefit of those who have lost their subscription ticket to morning time in this world. But remember, it will not keep quite till noonday even in the coolest cellar.” I am inspired by Walden’s affirmation of the importance of the morning air. Morning is the most blessed time of the day. We awaken clear minded and in an almost pure state. If we listen to the news, read the paper, or enter into any aspect of worldliness, the freshness of that moment is lost. We must breathe in that “undiluted morning air” and practice being in the presence of the Lord.

I begin each day with writing morning pages of my wanderings. I sometimes begin by reading scripture and God highlights a specific word, thought, phrase or parable. I may have read this many times before, but it is in this morning time that I realize new truth and application to me life. I discover new goals for my life. I realize my shortcoming as God’s word shapes me in the mornings. It is in this molding and shaping that my life has taken direction. Just as in my pondering times mentioned earlier, I begin to wonder how I would have felt at the foot of the cross. I try to recreate the shouts and cries in my head. I see with my spiritual eyes Mary weeping, struggling, begging, and seeing her son dying in such an anguished way. I stay there in that vision. I pull myself back into the vision, the message, and the inkling within me. I stay there and ask God to reveal to me what lesson I am to learn. How can this truth make me really live life? I , like Walden, do not want to come to the end of my journey and discover I missed my morning messages. I don’t want to discover I missed my destiny. I don’t want to regret that I have not lived deliberately.

Loud Voices

Loud Voices

As Edna St. Vincent Millay said, “And the day is loud with voices speaking.” I often hear this line of poetry as I arise and try to organize my days’ priorities. When I was working full time and rearing sons, I always anticipated a day when no voices would make demands of my time. My expectations of retirement were long leisurely days of time. I have been retired ten years, and I still hear those voices.

The voices call to me, “Meditate, create, write, paint, garden, and sometimes clean.” I have listed these calls in the order I prioritize. Only one thing tumbles this order, when granddaughters can visit, when friends need help, when I hear God directing me to serve someone this day, this hour.

Meditation must start my day. For thirty-five years or more, I have begun my day with the Lord. Some days there is lingering with the Spirit and hearing His tender songs. Other days there is a word from the Bible that creates a new passion or understanding of God’s love, grace, or power. Often mornings are met with a random Bible verse that I view in a new morning light. I ponder and ask how I am doing at pursuing this truth or command. Early honesty is a must. I know that difficult verses are for easy days. Hard times and troubled days require simple verses that I can just cling and embrace. That is why I spend the first hour learning from God.

I tuck in each epiphany, new lesson, and awareness into a notebook. I reserve the right to pull out these many notebooks and review what God has highlighted. I understand that wisdom is built upon precept upon precept. Understanding of God’s character has taken me years, and I still know so little. Each day with God is graced with new meaning and understanding, and knowing His love. This is the consistent voice that calls to me early each day.

The rest of the calling is then prioritized. I sometimes just grab my paints and create a painting of God’s beauty. Other days, I begin by writing a blog or work on another piece of uncompleted writing. Other mornings after water aerobics, I just enjoy writing random thoughts from quotes or poems. The process of writing clears my mind and boosts my soul. I have kept a journal since I was fifteen. I guess that is why…to clarify my thoughts, inspire my day, and calm my soul.

Then, the voices begin to scream: bike ride, walk the dogs, clean the floors, visit shut-ins, cook dinner for someone, and hey, what about doing something fun with Denny today. The phone yells loudly as it reminds me of: board meeting, church meetings, and art commitments. The sweetest voice is the little voice of my granddaughters, “Mimi, can we come see you?” Those two little girls have dancing voices. I know our season is short. They will grow quickly, and I will no longer be so special to them. I am Mimi who plays house and dolls and does art projects. I must grab each opportunity because it will quickly pass.

I recognize that we all struggle with different demands each day. My neighbor points out that any of the voices that call to me bring a happy season. I am in a wonderful place and am so thankful for God’s provisions and grace. That is why I follow that first voice of the morning, my Creator’s.