Rilke

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I love this quote.  And this poet.  It matches my life experiences so perfectly.  A couple years ago, as I was walking out of deep grief, the phrase "to let" began to carry much weight for me.  It can sound negative and passive and something you resist at first.  But I realized that much of my pain came from the resisting and once I embraced the accepting I could also be embraced by the peace that was waiting for me there.  And here I am. 
Just keep going.  No feeling is final.

Just gathering sticks.

Happy Day of Gratitude! 
I am here at my mom's house with a set of Minnesotan grandparents, five baby chicks that I'm taking care of over break, and a missing sister (who is spending the afternoon with her boyfriend's family.......).  We have spent the later part of the morning prepping the turkey and casseroles so that we can be ready to give thanks and eat a hearty lunch by 1:30.  After the food was prepped my mom excitedly suggested, "Now let's make the table pretty!"  And so in the spirit of "doing" I grabbed a plastic bag and set out with a sense of tiny adventure and possibility to make a "nature lap" around the house and see what treasures I could find.

Without any kind of finished product in mind I gathered leaves, sticks, sprigs of green and a miraculous, lone feather.  Shrugging off thoughts of What are the neighbors thinking?  and What if I can't make anything beautiful out of these things at all?  Welcoming a sense of nonchalant bravery, softly singing to myself and offering this act as one more step of obedience into walking into His possibilities for me.  After a few failed experiments (an important part of the creativity process, one to hold with ease) here is the finished product.

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Add to the good.

Move

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Do.

That's a heavy word that's been staring me in the face lately.

Do good.  Offer good things.  This very active and moving thing. 

To move would be to create something new, to end up with some kind of product or performance that could then be labeled as "good" or "bad" or "right" or "wrong".

So then there's fear.

But something that's slowly growing in me, becoming stronger then the fear, is sadness, or regret.

A sadness when I think of my dusty violin, my empty sketch pads, songs unsung, words unspoken, my years filled with so many moments of passivity, of seeking safety and comfort as what is "best".

It evokes a mourning of sorts. 

Who I am supposed to BE has been left unfulfilled in so many moments...

To BE.

The best doing comes from being.

That's what I always forget, and why the pressure to "do" builds up into an impossible mountain.

But doing is simply the flowing from the being.

I have ways I see the world that need to be expressed, or something is lost.

And that product does not have to be "good" or "bad", but it will just simply "be"...because it is my reality in that moment.  My own heart's expression.

In community every voice is needed in order to truly be in relationship.

Expression is my calling.  I can do things in my own way, not how I believe it should be done.

It needs to be done in this way.