Getting centered after Thanksgiving... and Rosalynn Carter

 After a big event, I usually need some down time. Generally the day after the bluegrass festival and the day after getting home from vacation are sleep days for me. I don't know if it's my enneagram type? In spite of having a low tolerance for chaos, I've planned plenty of it into my world.

Today is one of those days.

Fritz joining me for down time

At my age, I should have already honed a strategy for getting reconnected with my center in the midst of the activity. But since our move, it has not come easily. Honestly, in the opportunities when I could reach for center, I've often grabbed instead for escape, usually in media. NPR, Instagram, and podcasts are my primary sources.

Much of what I find there are very hard stories right now...stories that fill any empty time with prayers and horror at the human caused pain in the world. Instead of centered, I find myself off balance, despairing, reactive, irritable.

So I've been grasping for a way back to myself, to the inner grounding that is supposed to hold me steady.

A couple of days ago I decided to return to using the Anabaptist Prayer Book app on my phone. I posted about it several years ago.

Each devotional begins with a call to worship and a psalm, and then moves into thanksgiving. The opening line in the thanksgiving section reads,

My heart is ready, O God

That line...

Those words are the truth. My heart is ready, more than ready, for the calm that comes with being centered in truth.

I know when I feel challenged or overwhelmed or any of those things, I need to focus on what is true. Being in nature, watching the birds at the feeder, staying present in the moment...all of those things can nudge me toward truth. But for me the right words are faster. They can open me up more quickly to all of those other wonders. 

My heart is ready...

to notice 

the red flash of the cardinal winging it's way over the snowy world

to hear 

the silence 

 the ticking of the clock

to breathe deeply

to be still

to be thankful

to be honest

to be humbled

to be strengthened

to be understood and loved

to rest there for a bit

to offer my prayers for the world 

for my closest loved ones

for my community 

for those who are suffering

for peace

for justice...

my heart is ready

*  *  *  *  *

On another note...

Funeral services for Rosalynn Carter are today. I've been reading stories about her life, and, as often happens, she has become more human as well as more super-human in those stories. She championed many causes in her life. A particular favorite of hers was mental health.

I learned today that she used many channels to do that work, one of them being a fellowship that granted funding to journalists to give them time to do the research and ground work to write in-depth stories about mental health. One of those fellowships was granted to an immigrant from Cambodia, whose family came to the United States to escape the horrors of the Khmer Rouge genocide. The grant proposal focused on reporting the long term psychological effects of that genocide. It was only after receiving the fellowship and beginning her research that Soreath Hok discovered Rosalynn had visited the refugee camps in Thailand and was instrumental as First Lady in bringing refugees to the United States, including Hok's own family.

Rosalynn's focus was on how her work, and the work of the journalists, could make an impact. Certainly for that journalist and for many others, she succeeded. May her spirit and values live on.