Minute Meditations

There is a restfulness in this acceptance of our limited lives. When we move low, back toward the soil from which we can learn the lessons of our true humanity, we are able to enter a kind of peace. Humility is not about struggle or diminishment but rather is the relief that we are not God, that we are mere creatures. Berry gives voice to this truth in one of his most popular poems, “The Peace of Wild Things”:

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light.

For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry, in seeking and finding the “grace of the world,” is following a thread of insight running from Psalm 23 to the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus calls us to live as sparrows and lilies, which is to say, to rest in the blessings of our givenness. To accept that we are creatures is to live into a kind of peace at the base of the world.

—from the book Wendell Berry and the Given Life by Ragan Sutterfield

The deeper my love the more particular it becomes and the more limited in scope. It is only through such particulars that we can come to save the creation. God may love the world, but we live into God’s image by reflecting such love on a proper scale— among particular places and people. We live into our love when we love our neighbors and, thus necessarily, our neighborhood.

—from the book Wendell Berry and the Given Life by Ragan Sutterfield

In letters written in 1740, Jean-Pierre de Caussade (ordained member of the Society of Jesus) wrote about the sacrament of the present moment. We are invited to choose to live each day as a sacrament (as a gift), enabling us to see, to hear, to taste, and to touch grace—the goodness of God’s presence in our world. We need to bring this sacrament back and allow it to be front and center in our lives. I’m pretty sure that St. Francis would agree. Franciscan spirituality is an incarnational earthy spirituality. Put simply: God is close, never far away.

—from the book This Is the Life: Mindfulness, Finding Grace, and the Power of the Present Moment by Terry Hershey

John Duns Scotus (a Franciscan theologian in the thirteenth century) talked about “thisness,” the particularity of the Most Extraordinary Ordinary Thing in the World. Thisness reminds us that being present is not about arriving at some Zen state of mind. And being present is not about dismissing what is current. Being present is about honoring precisely what is current—which means the wonderful scandal of the particular. Our mind is more pleased with universals—those never-broken-always-applicable rules and patterns that allow us to predict and control things. Well, such rules may be good for science, but they are lousy for life.

—from the book This Is the Life: Mindfulness, Finding Grace, and the Power of the Present Moment by Terry Hershey

Messiness exposes vulnerability. I will admit, vulnerability is not my strong suit. I do prefer self-sufficiency. And rising above. And yet, self-reliance sounds laudable, but can be an obstacle, because it is difficult to say the words “help” or “thank you.” So, here’s the good news: There is power in embracing vulnerability. And vulnerability never exempts us from the sacrament of the present. Because vulnerability allows us to rest in that touch, that blessing.

—from the book This Is the Life: Mindfulness, Finding Grace, and the Power of the Present Moment by Terry Hershey

To be blessed, is to know that place of no striving.

To be blessed, is to know that place of rest and dignity.

To be blessed, is to know that I am loved by a gracious Creator, and that I can own and celebrate my identity—this identity—knowing that it, and it alone, is enough.

—from the book This Is the Life: Mindfulness, Finding Grace, and the Power of the Present Moment by Terry Hershey

Let us pause and remember that savoring isn’t something you add or acquire. Unabashed joy is already inside. It springs from within. It is a well of abundance that you draw from. So, savoring is not a technique. And savoring is never an end unto itself. It is always fueled by gratitude. And gratitude lights up our senses. We enter into, we show up to the needs and cares of this day. I suppose that it’s a chicken or egg scenario. And which comes first, I’m not sure. I do know that savoring makes space for gratitude. And gratitude begets savoring. Either way, we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of the present.

—from the book This Is the Life: Mindfulness, Finding Grace, and the Power of the Present Moment by Terry Hershey

A Hasidic rabbi was interrupted by one of his followers while he was tending his garden, “What would you do, rabbi,” the student asked, “if you knew the messiah was coming today?” Stroking his beard and pursing his lips, the rabbi replied, “Well, I would continue to water my garden.”

So, before we decipher life, let us see life.

Before we wish for another life, let us feel this life.

Before we give in to “if only,” let us listen to this moment.

Before we succumb to “someday,” let us inhale this day.

Before we trade in this life for the life we “should” have, let us taste this life.

Each of the above is a choice; a choice to be open. To be available. To be curious. To be alive. To be willing to be surprised by joy. To know there is power in the word enough.

—from the book This Is the Life: Mindfulness, Finding Grace, and the Power of the Present Moment by Terry Hershey

I have lived most of my emotional and spiritual life with a heart condition. Because I have lived cautious and afraid, holding back my heart because of what it might cost, or require of me. Or fearing (running from) my brokenness, not believing that an open and broken heart is an invitation to live my days giving, creating, embracing, connecting, savoring, and celebrating. It is no wonder that, too often, I do not see. Hundreds of years ago, in an era much more fraught than ours, St. Francis learned to live without holding back his heart. His antidote to confusion and paralysis was a return to simplicity, one step at a time, one person at a time, one good thing at a time, the right-in-front-of-you idea of searching for the light even while living with the darkness. His genius was that he saw what was hidden in plain sight. It was so simple it is almost impossible to see; we are wired to be present.

—from the book This Is the Life: Mindfulness, Finding Grace, and the Power of the Present Moment by Terry Hershey