Tired Feet
February 23, 2009
There is a slight lifting of the air so I
can smell the earth for the first time, and
yesterday I again took possession of my life
here. May Sarton
God is at the heart of all life, in both
the visible and invisible. We don't have to
try to reach God through acts of devotion,
for God is closer to us than our very breath.
We have been given union with God whether we
like it or not. Our flesh is his flesh, and
we can't jump out of our skins. Rev.
George Macleod
Mother Pollard was one of the elders of
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery,
Alabama, during the bus boycott of 1955-56.
When her pastor the Rev. Dr. Marin Luther
King Jr., suggested she go back to the buses
because she was too old to keep walking, she
told him, "I'm gonna walk just as long as
everybody else walks. I'm gonna walk till
it's over."
King marveled. "But aren't your feet tired?" he asked.
"My feet is tired," she replied. "But my soul is rested."
My obligations stacked up this week (not unlike a pile-up at a NASCAR race). I had too much to do, and admit that some of it is my own fault. I forgot that the word NO is in my vocabulary.
I gave in to a little self-pity (actually I milked it pretty good for an entire day). But it ends up as a kind of weight that makes you want to get in bed and pull the covers up over your head and listen to Patti Griffin sing, "sometimes I feel like I never been nothin' but tired."
So it's not just about being tired. There's something else going on. The composer Liszt talked about times when we suffer from a "fruitless virtuosity, a soulless, senseless delivery of masterworks."
Have you ever had that? Almost like a paralysis, or disconnect. Those times when we are not present. And can't absorb beauty. We are going through the motions, as if we have lost all the good stuff: longing, hunger, focus, zest, compassion, appetite, hope and passion.
So tired is one thing. Being soulless is something else altogether. Mother Pollard knew this. I doubt she went to a workshop to figure it out. She just knew in her bones; that she is whole, and filled with grace and sufficiency.
Which meant that for Mother Pollard, her rested soul allowed her to live fully into this life. (I read that the best beauty product is to actually have a life.) She walked toward, and not away from, life. This life, her life, with its contradictions, frustrations, weariness, tired feet and injustices.
Charlie Brown's sister Sally went to camp. She was supposed to be gone a week. But, she came home the day after she went. "Why are you home," she was asked. "Well, they told me that going to camp would be good for me. That told me that going to camp I would find myself. Well, I got off the bus and there I was. So I came home."
Mother Pollard knew who she was. Her strength came from that place. Because she did not see herself as a victim, she could live with intention, beyond circumstance or public opinion. In other words, tired feet was not an impediment. And from that soul flows tenderness, tenacity, compassion, delight and passion.
I don't deny that there should be priests to remind men that they will one day die. I only say it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet. GK Chesterton
Today, Mother Pollard is my priest and poet.
I am in California conducting a Parish Mission in the northernmost part of Orange County. After four morning Masses, I am spent, so I take a drive to let the wind blow through my hair. The landscape in nearby Carbon Canyon is stark and visibly altered, and it hits me that I am in the region of a recent devastating fire that evacuated neighborhoods and devoured homes.
The hills are still patterned with trees, although now charred vestiges. Some look like charcoal scarecrows, others contorted letters of the alphabet, and some only solitary trunks pointing toward a dull grey horizon. My car slows. In this austerity, there is beauty, because the scorched trees reach out tenacious and hopeful from an olive green carpet. Three months after the fire, the hills have come to life from recent heavy rains. What I see today is a panorama of life, a soul-filled life, sharing the very soil that previously held loss and grief. And tired feet.
I smile. And am grateful for the gift. As if I spent the day in the arms of grace. And love.
Today, I wish for you a rested soul.
(Mother Pollard story from Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald)
King marveled. "But aren't your feet tired?" he asked.
"My feet is tired," she replied. "But my soul is rested."
My obligations stacked up this week (not unlike a pile-up at a NASCAR race). I had too much to do, and admit that some of it is my own fault. I forgot that the word NO is in my vocabulary.
I gave in to a little self-pity (actually I milked it pretty good for an entire day). But it ends up as a kind of weight that makes you want to get in bed and pull the covers up over your head and listen to Patti Griffin sing, "sometimes I feel like I never been nothin' but tired."
So it's not just about being tired. There's something else going on. The composer Liszt talked about times when we suffer from a "fruitless virtuosity, a soulless, senseless delivery of masterworks."
Have you ever had that? Almost like a paralysis, or disconnect. Those times when we are not present. And can't absorb beauty. We are going through the motions, as if we have lost all the good stuff: longing, hunger, focus, zest, compassion, appetite, hope and passion.
So tired is one thing. Being soulless is something else altogether. Mother Pollard knew this. I doubt she went to a workshop to figure it out. She just knew in her bones; that she is whole, and filled with grace and sufficiency.
Which meant that for Mother Pollard, her rested soul allowed her to live fully into this life. (I read that the best beauty product is to actually have a life.) She walked toward, and not away from, life. This life, her life, with its contradictions, frustrations, weariness, tired feet and injustices.
Charlie Brown's sister Sally went to camp. She was supposed to be gone a week. But, she came home the day after she went. "Why are you home," she was asked. "Well, they told me that going to camp would be good for me. That told me that going to camp I would find myself. Well, I got off the bus and there I was. So I came home."
Mother Pollard knew who she was. Her strength came from that place. Because she did not see herself as a victim, she could live with intention, beyond circumstance or public opinion. In other words, tired feet was not an impediment. And from that soul flows tenderness, tenacity, compassion, delight and passion.
I don't deny that there should be priests to remind men that they will one day die. I only say it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet. GK Chesterton
Today, Mother Pollard is my priest and poet.
I am in California conducting a Parish Mission in the northernmost part of Orange County. After four morning Masses, I am spent, so I take a drive to let the wind blow through my hair. The landscape in nearby Carbon Canyon is stark and visibly altered, and it hits me that I am in the region of a recent devastating fire that evacuated neighborhoods and devoured homes.
The hills are still patterned with trees, although now charred vestiges. Some look like charcoal scarecrows, others contorted letters of the alphabet, and some only solitary trunks pointing toward a dull grey horizon. My car slows. In this austerity, there is beauty, because the scorched trees reach out tenacious and hopeful from an olive green carpet. Three months after the fire, the hills have come to life from recent heavy rains. What I see today is a panorama of life, a soul-filled life, sharing the very soil that previously held loss and grief. And tired feet.
I smile. And am grateful for the gift. As if I spent the day in the arms of grace. And love.
Today, I wish for you a rested soul.
(Mother Pollard story from Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald)
Poems / Prayers
Walk. Or Dance. Live fully. Enjoy.
youtubedance
For The Children
The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.
In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.
To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light
Gary Snyder
We believe in God, in Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit, and in you and in me.
We believe the Holy Spirit works through
--ministers, clanging cymbals and silence, noisy children and loud music, choirs and banners, touching and praying, spontaneity and planning, faith and doubt, tears and laughter, hugging and kneeling, dancing and stillness, creativity and giving, words and listening, holding and letting go, thank you and help me, Scripture and alleluias, agonizing and celebrating, accepting and caring, through you and through me, through Love.
We believe God's Holy Spirit lives in this community of dancing, hand-holding people where lines of age and politics and life-styles are crossed.
We believe in praising God for life.
We believe in the poetry within each of us.
We believe in dreams and visions.
We believe in old people running and children leading.
We believe in letting go and new beginnings.
We believe it the Kingdom of God within us.
We believe in rested souls.
We believe in love.
Adapted from Ann Weems Reaching for Rainbows
Peace,
Terry Hershey
