Headroom
L. L. Barkat knows a thing or two about years. She spent one in her yard. I was thinking about her year-long pilgrimages, not mine, when we had a brief Twitter conversation about a recent Curator article she’d written. She explored the idea of committing to a particular journey for a year and whether such a thing is just a “stunty” gimmick or the avenue to unexpected discovery.
The question she asked me was one I’d not asked myself: Any years inviting you lately?
I considered a detached, impersonal response. I liked the article in theory, but didn’t see myself committing to anything quite that intentionally. Before I’d hit the @Reply, I realized that the reason I liked the article so well is that I was, unintentionally, engaged in just such a pursuit already.
Every Tuesday for the past six weeks, I’ve taken a trek about 20 miles to the west to a Benedictine monastery in time for day prayers. The journey’s duration had been open-ended, but all of a sudden a year sounded about right.
I go to this place because, set in the quiet of the hills, it’s open, spacious, and still. That’s the way it’s made. As you probably can tell if you’ve been here for any length of time, my heart has been yearning for a place that doesn’t drown God out and doesn’t pack him in.
The process is a reach for me. I go in ignorance. I don’t know liturgy from larceny. I bumble through the office. I imagine I’m a little high maintenance for the patient and gracious monks. At times, the phrase Stand up! Sit down! Fight! Fight! Fight! passes through my not-very-spiritual mind.
While I have been warmly welcomed, I feel out of place much of the time.
I go as a child.
But I go because I’m finding God in this quiet. I trust that as I learn to find him in the quiet there, I can learn to find him in the noise here.
::
The trek has complicated my writing somewhat. Writing is one way I find him. But we sort of had a deal, God and I, that I wouldn’t write here about the monastery except in passing reference. We both, I think, had a concern that if I were writing about the time there, I’d focus on what would make a good post, rather than just meeting God and letting that shake itself out.
That agreement has made it hard to write here.
All the same, I’ve still been writing as a means to work out the journey. I journal in detail after each visit. And I have what my friend calls my “secret” blog where I scratch out an excerpt from the journal, random observations (not the least of which involved nose blowing, tator tot hotdish and the smell of pee) and an occasional photo when I can discretely sneak one.
With the practice now fairly well entrenched, I think I have clearance to make the “secret” blog not a secret. Making it not secret is not the same as making it a big deal, however. I invite you to take a look around if you’re interested, but certainly don’t wish for you to feel obligated to pay any attention to it. It’s really about untying my own hands.
If it is of interest, you’ll find Making Headroom here: http://makingheadroom.wordpress.com. You’ll get the full breadth of my ignorance if you start at the archives and read from the earliest forward as the are chronologically progressive.I’ll add the RSS feed to my sidebar here so it will update as the weeks go on.
That said, I hope to do a better job on this side of my writing life.
::
Six weeks in, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. But I know this: it’s not a “stunty” gimmick.
The quiet is growing on me.
First, where do I send your penny?
Second, thank you for allowing my iron to sharpen against yours … by allowing this read.
It’s really about untying my own hands.
There was a time when I realized that even though God had unlocked the shackles around my wrists… my hands and fingers were still clenched and frozen clutching the chains. Sometimes the untying, unbinding comes slowly doesn’t it? One link, one thread at a time.
2011/11/28 at 12:07 AM
p.s. a girl in Michigan is up late with tears in her eyes, thanking God for a girl in South Dakota.
I clicked on the follow button at Headroom and just couldn’t go through with it… confirming my subscription…. because I didn’t want my name or face showing up and interrupting your holy ground… sacred space… so, I’m going to watch and read from here. I didn’t see a gimmick anywhere in sight. I am deeply blessed, honored to have read your thoughts. Isn’t it comforting to know he knew them all before you wrote them down? i am overwhelmed.
2011/11/28 at 12:50 AM
Thanks Pat. And, your smiling face is never disruptive. Never.
2011/11/28 at 2:06 PM
Intrigued by your secret place. Think I’ll wander over quietly–you’ll never know I was there. Hope I don’t pull a classic Lucy-and-Ethel-trip-and-spill-my-coffee, making a fool of myself while wandering around in your quiet place.
I think I would have had the same stand-up-sit-down cheer running through my head as well.
2011/11/28 at 8:47 AM
You can’t make a bigger fool than I do, Nancy. All other things being equal, I have inches on you. The routine is my salvation — they don’t throw me many curveballs.
2011/11/28 at 2:07 PM
Lyla, since we come from similar background, I think it will be very interesting to read how this journey has affected you. I only wish I could be there with you. I need something like that right now, and I’m sure your presence would a balm as well. Thank you for sharing this with us.
2011/11/28 at 9:29 AM
You would like, I think. Might you find a little quiet, soothing corner somewhere for your very own soul.
2011/11/28 at 2:08 PM
Lyla, this is exquisite. I’m so honored you would share it with us so early in the journey. I would have waited until the year was up.
By the way, did you know that I’m in the process of converting to Catholicism? I snuck into our small town’s one Catholic church at the beginning of Advent last year and something happened. I knew I’d come home.
2011/11/28 at 12:49 PM
Megan, I’m far too impatient to make the year without peeping. And the dual-environment thing was really beginning to muck up writing for me because the writing and the practice are both so tied to my inner life. I’m hoping to straighten it out soon.
This process you’re in the midst of — is it amazing where we find ourselves awakened? My pursuit is smaller than conversion, but I’m finding what I need in the last place I’d have looked.
2011/11/28 at 2:12 PM
I heart you.
2011/11/28 at 2:01 PM
And I you. I’ve missed you…
2011/11/28 at 2:12 PM
Good for you! It’s *worship* to step out like this. To follow the prompting in our heart. To stand and say “I’ll give it a try” and trust that All. Is. For. Purpose.
2011/11/28 at 2:46 PM
Thanks Amy. That’s it, isn’t it? “Give it a try.”
2011/11/28 at 6:35 PM
Funny, I too have a “secret” blog. Go figure.
Growing up Baptist in a very Catholic community I regularly attended mass and catechism with my friends but it hasn’t been until the last 15 years that I truly appreciate the deep rich heritage of Catholicism given to all of us Christ followers. Thank you for following where He leads and blessing all of us along the way.
2011/11/28 at 3:38 PM
There’s much to be gained, I think, from the way others practice their faith. If we pay attention.
2011/11/28 at 6:34 PM
i wonder… is it anything like doing the hokey pokey?
untying your own hands, that is.
i have started a year thing…
well, i guess i could do a post on it.
yeah…
2011/11/28 at 3:48 PM
You know, mentioning the Hokey Pokey always invites me to tell my story. When Larry LaPrise, credited with writing the Hokey Pokey, passed on, they had quite a traumatic ordeal at the funeral home. They put his right foot in, and then his left foot in, and, well, you probably know the rest.
In other news, I’ll be looking for that post…
2011/11/28 at 6:33 PM
cackling out loud.
2011/11/28 at 9:46 PM
Oh, gracious – me, too! Triggered a coughing fit, I laughed so hard!
2011/11/29 at 12:18 AM
Blame Nancy. She started it.
2011/11/29 at 10:14 AM
Begs me to tell some of my “growing up Catholic” stories… getting my toe caught under the kneeler; being ‘splashed’ from a distance with holy water, only to find out my sister was spitting on me… throwing up at the scent of the incense… and oh, how I could tell you what else they hid up those sleeves beside tissues… etc.
What is not to love about you Lyla
2011/11/29 at 10:49 AM
Pat:
2011/11/29 at 11:09 AM
Whenever i read about things like this, I immediately want to jump in. The truth is I tend to jump into too many things at once and eventually it all just peters out. It is often motivated by my desire to be like the people I admire.
I think this is wonderful Lyla. I won’t jump – I will simply try to be quiet enough to hear what it is He has for me. Lately everything has just been too much. I can’t even keep up with reading and being a part of the community. I’m not sure what it is I am meant to do.
I’ll visit you in that quiet place.
2011/11/28 at 8:18 PM
Linda, not jumping is as important as jumping sometimes. Don’t you think?
2011/11/28 at 8:30 PM
You are deep. And not at all ignorant. I am timid about approaching that “other blog” because this one here touches deep places in me and I find I can barely hold it together when I stop by. I don’t comment much, because it’s such a sacred ministry you have going on and my loud, rambunctious, cheerleader self might knock something over.
(And that L.L. Barkat? She’s another one who can open my heart right up – in 140 characters or less.)
2011/11/28 at 9:53 PM
You are too kind to me, Deidra. And you know how clumsy I can be. I knock stuff over all the time.
(yeah, that L.L. Barkat is like that…)
2011/11/29 at 10:15 AM
I find it revealing, Lyla, that the routine and ritual are providing a way for God to pour his affection on you and allow your dry bones to experience his holy marrow in them.
The significance of the usual is filling your lungs with God-breathed glory instead of cramping your style with ‘same old-same old.’
And the Life you’re receiving through a spiritual discipline is letting you listen to his heartbeat.
I knew God would find a way for you to be reminded how much he delights in you.
2011/11/28 at 11:07 PM
Funny, huh? Looking for change in a routine, life in a ritual? He comes however he wants to come, it seems.
2011/11/29 at 10:16 AM
I love those fragments. Having nothing much to say resonates with me lately, a struggle to speak in paragraphs what He says to me in disconnected sentences.
2011/11/28 at 11:26 PM
Go with the disconnected fragments, Jennifer. Sometimes we want him to say more words. He has a few he really just wants us to hear.
2011/11/29 at 10:17 AM
Lyla. Beautiful. Rich. True. Powerful. LOVE what you’ve written and deeply appreciate the invitation to follow along. And I did subscribe, simply because I want to see where you go. I have so loved my worship with the Benedictines. And I hear more scripture there than just about any worship experience in my life. And sometimes it’s sung – and that is the richest gift of all. Sounds like the perfect ‘year’ experience. Maybe I’ll write down some of my own in days ahead…it was so close and so moving that I had trouble going there on the blog last summer even though I wanted to. Maybe I can reflect on it from a distance…
2011/11/29 at 12:24 AM
Thank you, Diana. Your encouragement means so much. I’d love to hear more of that experience if you find the words for it.
2011/11/29 at 10:18 AM
About an hour ago, I wrote about enraptured hearts stretching toward God. That’s the kind of heart I want to have. I see that kind of heart in you. I am really, really glad you’re sharing the journey, Lyla.
This is beautiful.
2011/11/29 at 11:56 AM
I’m hopping over..
This is wonderful!
2011/11/29 at 2:44 PM
Oh, Lyla, I hopped over and I am enthralled with your journey. I can’t wait to see what all this becomes. Or keeps becoming. Or whatever tater tot hotdish becomes.
2011/11/29 at 9:40 PM
I shudder to think what tator tot hotdish becomes. Or what became tator tot hotdish.
2011/12/01 at 6:06 PM
Lyla – Oh my goodness, you go and start a secret blog and are keeping all of this good stuff from us? I LOVE all that you are learning from these brothers, and our Brother, the only begotten one. I think we long to get close to the mystery, and these places seem loaded with the presence of the Mystery in a way that is hard to describe. Thank you for telling us your secret and letting us be part of it. I’ve peeked around a little already, and am so glad for the privilege.
2011/11/29 at 10:12 PM
Hard to describe is quite about it. I’m coming to appreciate they mystery, not need to reach the conclusion. Not yet, anyway.
2011/12/01 at 6:06 PM
From a distance, you’re a kind of hero to me. Maybe more of a warrior. I admire your deliberateness. How you prize silence. And struggle toward it. I admire your footsteps and the path you cut. I sense peace and wisdom whenever I visit here. In a culture which longs to link up with as many mediums as possible, you go off and tiptoe into solitude. Thank you.
2011/11/29 at 11:41 PM
Matthew, thank you. I don’t know about heroics. Sometimes I think it’s just me getting old.
2011/12/01 at 6:05 PM