Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Keeping Still - September 08, 2009

If you have ever watched ants at work on a bare patch of lawn, you have seen us. They scurry this way, stop, scurry that way. They labor under the weight of the crumb they carry just so far before abandoning it. They meet and part, disappear into the grass and appear again or never do. Small things loom large-the fallen leaf, the rusty nail. Large things go unnoticed-the sky, the house, the enormous face in the air. They keep busy on their tiny errands.
Life is busyness for all of us. Keeping still comes harder. But stillness comes. Even the ant lays down her crumb. Even at our busiest and on the move, something within us pauses from time to time between the rusty nail and the fallen leaf, between stops on the subway, between laying down the pen and picking it up again. We keep still, and we dream.
By quieting our minds and keeping still, maybe most of all by just letting up on ourselves and letting go, I think we can begin to put ourselves back in touch with that glory and joy we come from and begin moving out of the shadows toward something more like light.

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