awaken… surrender…repeat
I’ve never been one to declare New Year’s resolutions. I can’t conceive of a world where turning the calendar could motivate me to address my shortcomings in ways that guilt and shame have never accomplished. But I’m all for taking stock, for reflecting on what’s been as I prepare for the unknown to come.
I’ve played a supporting role in most of what has shaped me this year. The tales of bravery, love, and loss, belong to those I know and some who I love. Few details in my life have changed, though I have been deeply impacted by the events in the lives of those to whom I’m connected.
The grand stories of love and loss are not mine to tell this year. This feels an ominous blessing.
I know that the dance with grief, (the gut-wrenching sort that leaves you rudderless and in a fog that won’t lift), will see me in the lead role one day. But for now, I play my supporting role with relief. It’s like I’ve had the privilege of standing at a far enough distance from the heart of the world’s great suffering and its overwhelming joy, to offer what might resemble objective insights. Except that’s likely a lie, because the more I surrender to life the more closely connected I find myself to life, in all its horror and beauty.
“We live between the act of awakening and the act of surrender,” wrote the late John O’Donohue. “Each morning, we awaken to the light and the invitation to a new day in the world of time, each night we surrender to the dark to be taken to play in the world of dreams where time is no more … At birth we were awakened and emerged to become visible in the world. At death we will surrender again to the dark to become invisible.” Awakening and surrender: they frame each day and each life.
The rhythm of awakening and surrender has been alive for me this year and woven throughout is a growing persistence to witness to the beauty I find in both acts. In truth the line between awakening and surrender feels increasingly blurry. I have a hunch that the greater the surrender required of us, the deeper the opportunity to awaken to the beauty.
a bold glimpse of beauty
A dear friend died tragically in a car crash this fall. She was feisty and smart, passionate, and fun. She loved her vocation just slightly less than she loved her people – and wow, did she love her wee family of four! When it came to her children, she was like a mama bear bringing out her fierce love whenever required. Her humour was sharp and witty, and she could speak the truth in ways that left you feeling both seen and naked. I’m still so angry and sad and confused that she died.
"beauty makes everything easier."
Our family watched the funeral online. At the end of the service her partner in life, love, and parenting, made her way to the centre. She could have been a limp, numb shadow of herself and everyone would have understood. But she was something else, she was an embodiment of holy love, like I have rarely witnessed in human form. With one hand laid firmly on her beloved’s urn and the other stretched towards the heavens, every muscle in her body erect, face skyward, she became a conduit for pure love, channeled between the realms of awaken and surrender with such presence it stirred my body through the screen. She was an embodiment of beauty.
subtle glimpses of beauty
Grief is a great revealer of truth. But beauty is not always so obvious. Most often I have to go looking for the ways beauty has stirred my heart.
A few days after a recent snow storm a neighbour was walking past my house with a snow
shovel in hand, on his way home. He’d been clearing a spot the plows had missed at the end of our dead-end street. Our elderly neighbour likes to stroll to the nearby grocery store with her walker and this patch of snow was keeping her house bound. He mused about those who complain about the city not doing its job without considering what it means to be a neighbour. beauty
And there was the moment my almost adult child looked me in the eye and said: “I appreciate what you’re doing for me.” beauty
I even saw beauty while walking down a busy downtown street last week, when an opportunist filched the donation bucket of a street musician, and the crowds pursued the culprit for a stranger. beauty
I find surrender difficult.
supporting role
As protagonist this year, my biggest life altering chapter was leaving a job that was sucking my passion like a slow leak in a tire and stepping into a job that feels like a marathon with ample water stations and great crowds cheering me on at every corner. It’s been good. I awaken each day with a feeling of anticipation for what is to come. This new job includes a
car commute and now every day when I merge onto the highway, the tragic death of my friend comes to mind, followed by thoughts of her grieving family and I surrender to the truth of the precious frailty of life. beauty
I find surrender difficult. I have a colleague who greets people, all people, with a lingering hug. It’s disarming. It makes me want to curl up and slink away. Each time I resist the urge to retreat, I surrender to the gift of her soft, strong hug. Each time as the hug ends, I have a felt sense that a bit of beauty has been born into the world. And every single time I am surprised at how light can emerge even when I first resist. beauty
Just before Christmas, when Notre-Dame de Paris was revealed, restored after being gutted by fire in 2019, the head of the restoration task force said this about the project: “Each day we have 20 difficulties … but it’s different when you work on a building that has a soul. Beauty makes everything easier.” I might not say easier but beauty does make things more bearable.
awaken…surrender…repeat
No New Year’s resolutions for me this year. Just a hope: if I do my best to practice awakening and surrendering to what is, maybe I’ll get a wee bit better at seeing the beauty that not only holds our lives but carries them into unknown futures.
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