Emergency time out
"Most of the time fish are swimming around either eating or avoiding being eaten."
"I know a lot of humans that do the same thing."
"But fish know they need a break from the cycle of the food chain, and it happens at slack tide."
"So -it's kind of a universal time-out?"
"I call it Quiet Time, people would be better off
if they did the same."
Jimmy Buffett (A Salty Piece of Land)
Down the road from my house sits Fisher pond. It's a shallow lake, maybe five feet deep, but covers five acres. Along the back of the pond is a stand of Aspen trees, now without leaves, a one-acre backdrop of quicksilver bark.
Our winters are seldom severe, but once every seven to ten years, Fisher pond ices over. Enough to walk on. Enough to skate on. This past week it happened. On Saturday, people all over the island rummaged through closets looking for their ice skates.
My neighbor, Jack, told me his story. "I was on my way to a meeting. At church, on liturgy. It was for lay readers and acolytes. Driving by Fisher pond, I saw all the cars parked by the side of the road, and another friend out on the ice with his hockey stick and puck, wearing his Detroit Red Wing jersey. That settled it for me. I turned my car around, went back home for my skates and my two sons, and we headed back to the pond. My sons and I spent the afternoon skating and playing."
"As far as I was concerned," Jack continued, "this was an emergency. The way I figure it, there are different kinds of emergencies. The need to ice skate with your sons is one of them. I don't know if the people at the meeting missed me or not. I felt a little guilty at first. But I knew spending the day on the ice was the right thing to do. I guess I didn't realize how much I needed it."
Our Seattle Office of Emergency Management website has information on preparing for hazards-including earthquakes, windstorms, tsunamis, floods, bomb threats and power outages. Emergency planning, it tells me, saves lives. Unfortunately, I seldom take notice, until say, my house is doing an imitation of Noah's ark. Then, I panic, and hunt for instructions about treading water.
It is no different with my soul.
Emergency planning (care, mindfulness, rituals) saves lives.
A recent report says that 63% of us is stressed to the point of feeling "extremely fatigued and out of control." (Apparently the other 37% were too tired to respond.) Which means that when I do get around to "taking care of my soul," it's already at the critical stage. And yes, critical care (picking up the pieces) emergencies are necessary and vital. However (and this is an important however), if I notice only the urgency for critical care, I miss the necessity of maintenance-soul-care (practices that promote protection, safeguarding, fortification and stopping to replenish).
Yes, life is chock-a-block full. And our world is acclimated to speed and a crush of information. That's why we need (more than ever) maintenance-soul-care, to make space for wisdom, compassion, prayer, delight and respect for all life.
My neighbor missed his meeting. He had something more important to do. Sometimes it takes a frozen pond and a guy in a Detroit Red Wing hockey jersey to bring us to our senses.
Poems / Prayers
And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came
among these hills; when like a roe bounded o'er the
mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads than one
Who sought the thing he loved.
William Wordsworth, "Lines" (Tintern Abbey)
Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the infinite peace to you.
Celtic Prayer
Peace,
Terry Hershey
