JohnLines

Snow beginner.

Yesterday, as it snowed, life slowed.

Somewhere, in the minds of those who didn’t have to venture out, there may have been a sense of unimaginable joy.  Of unexpected freedom.  Of the chains of the everyday being broken.

Trust me, you don’t have to be in school to feel this.  It’s been a long time since I paid attention to the TV scrawl with closing announcements.  (I didn’t know there was a school named St. Cripsin’s of the Hollow Woods ...?)

Why is this?

Snow, deep snow, is a fresh start after a complete stop.  It is beginner’s mind.  Where else could this joy come from? 

It is a all-too-infrequent reminder that being takes precedence over doing.

Soon the snow in the picture above, from our backyard, will have squirrel tracks in it.  Then dog tracks.  The grooves of the familiar will wear it down.  Doing will once again replace being.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Because it won’t.

3 Things I Did With A Free Sunday.

It is good for everyone when I have a Sunday off even, and perhaps most importantly, God.

First, the congregation doesn’t have to listen to me blathering. 

As for God, well She gets a Sunday off from me futilely trying to explain Her ways to Humankind.

Finally, it is good for me.  I get a Sabbath.  Since I drone all, all church year about the loss of the Sabbath, I think you should know I put my Sabbath where my mouth is.

#1: Reading the entire New York Times, cover-to-cover, sitting in an Adirondack chair in the shade, with several good cups of coffee.

    Two and a half leisurely hours. Everything from the Week in Review (great article by Bob Herbert: Tweet Less Kiss More) to the Travel section with places I’ll never see, the Style section with those glam wedding shots, all the Book reviews, all the blockbuster movies I don’t want to see.  I also came across a fabulous article on Sabbath (what are the odds?) by Judith Shulevitch:  Creating Sabbath Peace Amid the Noise Creating Sabbath Peace Amid The Noise.  I happen to be reading her book The Sabbath World, The Sabbath World so this was a little serendipity.

#2: Dinner with the whole family, at 2:00.

    Serious blast from the past here.  A slow, leisurely meal with Kerry, Chris, Mike, and Jon, Chris’ husband-to-be.  A lot of funny stories.  A lot of laughter.  Jimmy Fallon and Brian Williams Slow Jamin' The News  on the laptop while we were eating strawberries and blueberries in real whipped cream for dessert and trying not to choke.

#3: A nap in the hammock.

    For the last five years, In have retrieved the hammock from the basement and set it up in the backyard and NEVER ONCE sat in it.  Shame on me.  It stood there, taunting me, all summer long.  I curled up yesterday with sublime Tana French (ironically, she is Irish) and  "In The Woods"  a literate thriller that’s scary, funny and gruesome.  (Good law firm, there.)  I slept from the long shadows portion of the day into the twilight.

    Abraham Heschel said (I could be making this up) that Sabbath should be a glimpse of heaven.  Of yes, indeed.

    It was. 

Is staying the new going?

There is a family of cardinals who live in our backyard.

(All right. You’re going to do it anyway. Insert joke here.)

I don’t know enough about these birds, or their behavior, to know if the cardinal I see is the same one from years ago (how long do they live?), or whether this is a new generation.

What I find fascinating is these magnificent creatures have chosen our backyard in which to live. He and she share the feeder with the most unlikely of characters. Noisy blue jays, nervous little finches, the ungainly mourning doves. And the scavenger squirrels who have worn a circular groove underneath the feeder -- sniffing, snorting and sorting all the day long.

I have a picture from Venice above my desk. I think, if I am honest, I keep it there to remind myself I am worldly, well-travelled. That I am free to roam. It is a vanity plate.

The fact is, no place I have ever visited has really changed me. What has changed me is the unlikely set of characters in the community in which I live, and work, and preach. Congregational life can be frustrating: my foibles rub up against the foibles of others all week long. In this On-The-Road culture, the default is “I’ll Fly Away.”

Today, as I look out the widow at the feeder, I feel the tug of roots.

What’s that song about the backyard? I must learn it. And find out the life span of cardinals.