Choosing

Between the bitter and the sweet (or how to hold on to peace [an un-advent reflection])

This morning, there is snow. It falls from the sky in big, wet flakes. The ground is still too warm for much accumulation, but the trees and bushes are cloaked in white, the temperature rapidly dropping. The birds are in a frenzy, and I am wishing I had taken the time yesterday to top off their feeders. Right now, a male house finch joins me at the window, slowly picking his way through sunflower seeds, braving my movements through the glass, trusting the gifts I have left open for him in the window feeder. The Christmas tree lights are on, and I have lit a single taper to light the way as I write. Bonnie and I are cozy and warm under the heated blanket. Christmas settles in softly all around us.

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This week, my mind has been musing over shopping lists and holiday preparations, waking me at too-early a.m., refusing to let me fall back asleep. It’s not so much anxiety, as excitement, and I remember when our nest was full, how the days preceding Christmas were always a struggle to get our boys to sleep on a sane schedule. Now this old heart of mine is returning to that place of childlike anticipation, only it’s not presents that fill my dreams, but glimpses of the faces I love and how my heart wants to give, give, give.

I am trying to carry the peace of the second week of Advent with me.

Last night, I had dinner with a dear friend, one who has known me over many long years, one whose children grew up alongside mine, one who has loved me through many hard places in life. We spoke about our kids, of course—one of our favorite topics—then, as often happens with people we trust, somehow the conversation turned to talk of some of the people who have hurt us along the way. This time of year makes my heart tender and often, old wounds are places it returns to over and over. There was a somber shadow over our table at first, as we wondered about the many ways relationships grow cold. But my friend has this amazing ability for grace—it’s one of the reasons I love her—soon, our thoughts meandered to a better place. With a weak smile and a shrug we remembered that we are all prone to wander, prone to wound, prone to mistakes; and as we are all in this thing together, isn’t it better to love well? For us all, for my heart, for the greater good? As we talked, I felt my heart lift and today, I can see this is why deep friendship is important—this is why we keep meeting together and sharing our lives.

Yesterday, I finished listening to Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ audio series from the Theater of the Imagination. The final session is called The Story of Wolfen: On the Richness of Creative Life (a story that made me weep out loud as I listened to it on my drive home from work). In this session, Dr. Estés talked about choosing between letting our disappointments in life embitter or sweeten our hearts. She says that the meaning of the Old English word from which the word “sweet” originates is a far cry from that saccharine, Pollyannaish view we tend to denote to the word today. Instead, this word’s origins mean “to have the pleasure of lushness, to be expansive, to be open—wide open to all that comes your way.” She says,

“See what a great challenge it is to choose between the bitter and the sweet. It’s not a matter of saying, ‘Aww, it’s alright, whatever people have done or whatever circumstances have come my way or whatever fate has dealt me … it’s all right. No. …This is choosing to be wide open to all things beautiful, positive, lush, fulfilling, painful, hurtful, lifelong openness. … Especially after there may have been some detours, mistakes, or misfortunes along the way. Anyone who … decides to be wide open to love in all things is a courageous being.”

This morning, the world is laced with white, petite ice crystals cling to fingers of grass—winking in the early light. I cannot help myself, I go out in the back yard in my robe, knee boots pulled on hastily, and stand out in it, letting those heavy flakes kiss my face, settle in my eyelashes, wash me clean. Everything I touch melts and I tiptoe cautiously along the rim of this plot of land we call home. I am a clumsy giant in this fragile frozen world and diamonds crush beneath me. The birds are quieted and my hem is soaked clean through from the bending and kneeling, and I think, I should go back inside.

But I am standing in a wonderland and I wonder. How does the world not stop its turning in the wake of such beauty?

The things that disappear too quickly are begging to be noticed. This is how to hold on to the peace of Advent: let your heart be wide open to all that comes your way. All the sweetness and sorrow and beauty and pain. Let your heart feel it all.

I stand alone on this gossamer, small but seen, and I sing the Shema. I lift it all up: this beauty, that grief, all the loss a broken world must endure.

And it is sweet. It is oh, so sweet.

for your listening: