Seeking peace.

I've wanted to write.

I've had nothing to say.

Last Wednesday's storming of the Capitol Building by white supremacists has made anything I could say seem trite, small, not enough.

I've done too much scrolling, trying to find something that gives me hope.

There isn't a lot out there.

And, I'm not up for a rant...although Chuck has heard a few.

We've also cried together at news reports, taken turns lying awake in the night, and tried to make choices to limit the amount of media we will allow into our lives, especially in the evenings.

This morning I began the day by looking at an email that had links to all of Richard Rohr's devotionals from last week. In his weekly devotional roundup, he always ends with an idea for a spiritual practice. In this email, he recommended a breathing meditation/prayer where, with the inbreath, you allow yourself to remember the things that are difficult. Then, in the outbreath, you offer healing thoughts and prayers specifically for those things you are thinking about. You start with yourself, and then expand out, breathing in and remembering, breathing out and offering hopeful prayers.

Then on to Yoga with Adriene. I'm a little behind with her 30 days of yoga for this year, so I'm on day three, which includes a focus on ocean breath. In and out through the nose, but with an audible breath, like a strong inhale followed by a long healing sigh. It sounds like waves on a beach. This works really well with the breath prayers I'd already learned earlier. A gift.

I moved from that to my devotional, which was on Psalm 131. I have a lot of favorite Psalms. This is one of them.

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,

my eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

liked a weaned child with its mother;

my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord 

from this time forth and forevermore.

This one really got to me. First, understanding these times IS too great for me. I can't grasp all of it. There is so much that needs attention and change and justice and mercy...too much for me to understand.

Second, I've been missing Mom especially much these days. I'd like to talk to Mom, ---just hear her voice. I wondered why I missed her so much at the very time I'm so glad she does not have to worry about what is happening in the world right now. But it is the sense of needing to feel OK. Like a weaned child with her mother. 

I was grateful that these words were chosen for today.

The anxiety and worry isn't gone, 

but it feels like I have a strategy to manage it.

In the meantime, I've got plenty to read and study.

In the last couple of weeks, without knowing that things were going to blow up in the capitol, 

I'd already signed up for a book study as well as a four part training on anti-racism. These are important as we anticipate the impact of emboldened white supremacy.

We still get outdoors nearly every day at sunset. The top picture was not taken today, but it was recent. And it is too marvelous for me. So is watching the geese fly overhead. And sharing lunch and conversation with Ben and Daniel on the front porch at noon, and so many things I forget about when I'm too wrapped up in anxiety.

So for today, breathing my prayers, noticing the marvelous, and working on the hard.