A new spiritual practice

I birthed a new spiritual practice recently when we travelled to Hawaii. (Since my glioblastoma brain cancer diagnosis spiritual practices have become particularly vital.) So most mornings during this weeklong vacation I snuck out for a sunrise stroll by the ocean, coffee in hand, waves lapping across my sandals. Don’t tell my family, but this may have been my favorite part of the trip. 

Why don’t I ever do this at home? I wondered when we returned. We don’t have palm trees or warm January weather, but there’s a lovely riverside trail not far from where I live. And so I’ve taken to weekend morning coffee strolls by the river.

This Sunday it’s crisp and clear. I snug my scarf up tighter to ward off the cold and bring my coffee mug to my lips with my mittened hand, noticing how the river water shimmers in the sunlight. I stop at a bench half-a-kilometer down the trail, tug my jacket under my bum and sit. I notice that my chest is somewhat tight, so I practice centering prayer: five minutes to just breathe and to release thoughts that wander in (1). Sitting in the sunny gleam on the bank above where people are fishing in the river, I remember a few lines from the poem I wrote a year prior, Find Me By The River and I recite them under my breath: Find me by the river/ with my heart laid bare/…find me by the river/all barriers stripped away…/find me by the river/Finally learning how to pray

Being Still

It’s hard today, this practice of slowing my soul. But it’s Sunday. And I believe this practice is vital for my optimal health living with glioblastoma brain cancer. So I press in. I set the timer on my watch. Five minutes. I close my eyes, feeling – really feeling- the warmth of the sun on my face. As people’s shoes crunch on the gravel path behind me, I hear portions of their conversations. It’s hard work to ignore, to keep my eyes closed, and train my thoughts to letting go. 

But I remember the snippet of a podcast my husband was listening to as we drove to my daughter’s ringette game a couple days ago. Diary Of A CEO podcast host, Steven Bartlett interviews Martha Beck, sociologist and Oprah’s life coach (2). Martha and Steven discussed deep gladness, though I don’t remember that in the moment by the river’s edge. What I do remember is Martha Beck’s reference to Eckart Tolle’s approach to Psalm 46: “Be still and know that I am God”. I know the passage well, but Tolle has a fresh approach which Beck describes: “In this verse is the name of God, like six different ways: Be is a name for God. Stillness is a name for God. Know is a name for God. I am is a name for God. And God is a name for God.

My eyes still closed, I press in to Psalm 46 one name of God at a time. Be. I pause. Still. I pause. And-. “And” grabs me and holds me, tangibly so. I let go of the rest of the verse and focus on “And”. “And” is God’s name too. Of course it is. My eyes well. Maybe from the gleam of the sun off the water. Maybe because I’m sitting at “church” by the river and the Divine has spoken. Softly. Pointedly.

“And”.

“And” is God’s name.

“And”.

I feel my soul’s warmth loosen my chest; “And” is the promise that there is more. That my story isn’t finished. “And”. I hold the word like a jewel. Precious. Simple. Almost unimportant. Yet utterly divine. I stop trying to release my thoughts and instead let them dash across my mind.

“And” is Hope- “Hope,” as Emily Dickenson so beautifully wrote “is the thing with feathers /that perches in [my] soul…that keeps [me oh so] warm…yet – never – in extremity/[asks] a crumb – of me”.  (3)

Oh Emily, you understand. I think.

“And” is also faith. “You cannot afford to lose faith that you will prevail in the end,” James Stockdale Eight year Vietnam POW said (more or less) in perhaps my favorite quote for anyone facing adversity. “Despite the courage you’ve taken to look the brutal facts of your reality straight in the eyes”.  Because “And” is believing for more, knowing that you may come up short. (4)

When the death bell tolls

I get up from the bench and make my way home, my insides warmed not only from the coffee, but moreso from my spiritual practice. Yet, when I get home and grab my journal paradoxically, I know – oh how I know-  as a member of the brain cancer community for eight years, that “And” can also mean that the death bells toll for me. 

Exhale.

“And” can mean the end. 

More akin to John’s revelation of the pearly gates than a freely fluttering bird. But I do not let this get me down. Instead I turn to a quote by Christian Wiman that I read awhile back in the book The Lost Art of Dying,(and have scribed as an epitaph in my memoir manuscript): “to die well, even for the religious, is to accept not only our own terror and sadness but the terrible holes we leave in the lives of others; at the same time, to die well, even for the atheist, is to believe that there is some way of dying into life rather than simply away from it, some form of survival that love makes possible.” (5)

 I’m comforted by Wiman’s words; “‘And’ is a ‘dying into life’ that love makes possible.” I scrawl into my journal. I’m reminded of My chemical engineer cousin’s words at my grandmother’s memorial: just as the laws of thermodynamics state the conservation of energy so too, the love energy from those we loved who have passed away stays with us. It is conserved when they leave this earth, it surrounds us and lives on. It’s in the flowers and in the trees, in the rain drops and rays of sunshine.” 

I thought if these musings ever became a blogpost this would be the end. It’s warm and cozy, despite the bittersweet subject matter. But days after my riverside mini-epiphany I find myself clinging on too long. Not to life. Oh, no, to something much, much more trivial.

In my journal I wrote, “I cling on too long – long past the point of purpose, function, usefulness- because it is so hard to say goodbye. In writing this I see that an outsider may wonder, ‘oh what is it that she has to let go of? The answer (brace yourself and please be kind not to laugh): Our gingerbread house. Gathering dust. In February. It’s still so hard for me to let go of this transient fixture of the season whisked away by Valentines Day. 

I cannot keep it all and that is hard for me this morning as I toss the cookie and candy house into the compost. 

And that’s okay.

It’s okay to feel.

Deeply.”

Living with integrity

In writing this, I gasp, oh gosh when it comes to feeling/grieving what really matters, it’s really gonna be hard for me. Since my brain cancer diagnosis I’ve been on a journey of learning how to feel. Like really feel my feelings, therapy-style, in order to stay my wellest self- no longer moving outside of my integrity (6.) It’s been healing. Also incredibly challenging. Now I wonder if maybe I can schluff off what I’ve learned and numb out instead of feeling. That would be easier. And busyness would do that trick. Just follow the flow I think, the wide path of the kids ballooning schedules and forget about feelings.

But I remember poet Andrea Gibson’s words: “…I don’t/ want to get out without a/ broken heart./ I intend/ to leave/ this life so/ shattered/ there/ better be a/ thousand separate heavens for/ all my flying parts.” I greatly admire Gibson’s courage to love and join them in accepting(ish) love’s promise of a broken heart. Accepting(ish) love’s promise of deep grief that surely one day will come- again- and may wreck me. Sending parts of me flying through the Universe. My Love-energy scattered. (7)

Be kind to yourself, Cheryl, I’ve learned to say. So, it’s okay that it is hard for me to accept(ish) the “terrible holes we leave” which negate the notion that “dying into life” makes any of this (insert swirling arms) easier. It’s okay that ‘And’ the small and comforting name of God is also hugely terrifying.

 I think of one more Emily Dickinson poem I’ve read lately and note that It’s okay that when “the frost of death [is] on the pane” I too will likely “[fight] mortality” “like sailors fighting with a leak”. (8)

It’s okay. 

Because ‘And’ will be there: Still. Knowing. Not asking – a crumb of me.      

xo
Cheryl

 

Notes:

  1. Centering Prayer explained. https://www.cynthiabourgeault.org/
  2. Martha Beck on DOAC (Diary of a CEO) podcast. https://youtu.be/fajtQSCHfvE?si=X499pj-ZZ8dKYcpp
  3. Hope is the thing with Feathers. Emily Dickinson.
  4. The Stockdale Paradox. https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts/Stockdale-Concept.html
  5. Christian Wiman on God and death: Life goes on National Post July 3, 2013 https://nationalpost.com/opinion/christian-wiman-on-god-and-death-life-goes-on  Accessed June 22, 2023As quoted in The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom. Lydia S. Dugdale.
  6. “integrity” is how Martha Beck describes when a person is living as their truest self
  7. “Take me with you”. You Better Be Lightening. Andrea Gibson.
  8. The Frost of Death Was on the Pane. Emily Dickinson.