Hello TSJ Peeps!
I hope your summer is going splendidly with nothing but joy-filled days and no problems. Okay. I have not really lost all sanity. However, I do hope your days are by far more filled with love-of-living moments than treading water.
And if we had no challenges it seems we would have no chance to build character, would we? Challenges (called by many names from irritants to disasters) are part of everyday living. And how we respond to them is both a projection of who we are at the moment and the “not-yet-there” aspects of virtues we are working on or developing, such as self-control, patience, kindness, etc.
Some of you will remember a blog I wrote a long time ago called “Sip it and Zip it” recommending a practice of stillness which I have playfully called my morning “tea with God.” It is the best way I can enter a state of being more fully present to God’s Presence. I sip my tea and zip my lips (inner speech). That is when I am practicing these virtues. Sometimes I fall off the wagon. Fortunately, once habits are formed it is easier to renew them (for the better ones and the not so good ones too!)
I had a small cup that has been my favorite for this practice. The other day I came home and found my special cup now has a broken handle. It was sitting on the counter. I took a picture of it for you. That is a picture of a little honey jar and beneath it the words read, “Savor each moment.” I added the question mark!
I was very sad to see that. Tom had picked it up and the handle simply fell off! He looked at it carefully, however, and observed it had been glued once before.
So it simply came unglued.
Hmm. It struck me as an object lesson of sorts.
We all have moments when we come unglued to some degree, even if it is vague and mostly internal.
We loose our grip. We just cannot seem to “get a handle on things.” And we need that handle when the cup (of life) gets hot!
And my cup says to savor each moment. I thought, “How ironic. The cup says that. But I need the handle in order to use the cup for hot tea. Suddenly the saying sounded ridiculous. A shadow crossed my attitude. Sometimes it seems like sweet sayings are just too sweet.
Yet, I do believe in the “Favorite Things” song from the Sound of Music. A mental shift can help us to not “feel so bad!” But is remembering your favorite things mean the same as savoring each moment?
As I pondered the saying a bit more, I was reminded that taking things literally can be very limiting. It leaves no wiggle room for creative thinking or entertaining a different perspective.
Upon further reflection, I noticed in our cup story, what it did not say. it did not say, for example, savor the object or the emotions of loss or disappointment, hurt, or brokenness. It says “savor each moment.”
How is that different? Admittedly, I do not really know. But it seems like it could mean we have to taste the fullness of this experience in order to develop into more fully conscious, aware human beings.
Still, if “savoring” means completely enjoying something like when we savor the taste of delicious food, then I have a long way to go on this whole idea! In fact, the rational brain simply will not accept such a preposterous position. Pain, either physical or mental is quite honestly tough to taste fully. If you have a sick or disabled child or family member or if you are in pain yourself, savoring the moment cannot mean savoring the pain. But if it means being fully alive in the moment that leaves room for deciding what you can learn and how it can shape you.
Tom is going to re-glue my sip-it- and zip-it- cup. And oh how I wish I could re-glue the cup of his life and the lives of so many other people I love.
But for each moment, I seek to savor the guidance and grace built in.
Playing in the pastures with grateful heart and a tube of glue…
Margie and Solomon
