Wednesday, May 14, 2008

shalom in salem


When I returned from my vacation, I knew that the next three weeks were going to be challenging. I had timed my calendar to give me enough time to complete several projects -- all within a week of each other:


  • A quarterly summary of legal cases, PowerPoint presentation, and script -- in three sessions

  • An adult Sunday school lesson

  • An outline for my Monday night small group Bible study

  • A keynote speech for a Salvation Army fundraiser

  • A summary of legislation, PowerPoint presentation, and script for a group of workers' compensation attorneys

I am not complaining about the list. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a performer just waiting for my next cue. And that list is almost the equivalent of an actor in a long-running television series who is asked to star in a serious Broadway play while filming his breakaway movie.


OK. The analogy is strained, but you get the point. I was happy to do each of the presentations, but it would be a lot of work.


On Sunday afternoon, I was half way through my list and making good progress on completing preparations for the other half. My dog (Professor Jiggs) does not understand these things. All he knew was that it was a clear sunny day and there were bushes in the park that needed sniffing.


My solution was to combine my preparation with the walk. I picked up my small group book (Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline), and headed off to the park with the dog. While he was enjoying himself, I was walking along, reading, taking notes. The topic was "solitude." I chuckled when I read it -- considering the hectic week I was facing.


A part of one paragraph grabbed my attention, though:


What are some steps into solitude? The first thing we can do is to take advantage of the "little solitudes" that fill our day. * * * There can be little moments of rest and refreshment when we turn a corner and see a flower or a tree.


For whatever reason, I looked up from my book at that very moment. I was in front of my neighbor's house -- the picture at the top of this post. (You may want to click on it to see the full impact of the colors.) I do not know whether it was the colors, the vibrancy, or simply seeing the whole scene anew. Whatever it was, it almost took my breath away. In the beauty, there was a moment of "little solitude."


I had just finished reading an obituary of Albert Hofmann in The Economist. He was an incredible chemist, who had a list of pharmaceutical discoveries to his credit. But he will forever be known as the "father of LSD." After discovering LSD, he experimented with it in the hopes that it could be used either as a psychological tool or as a "sacrament of the modern age." He soon abandoned the latter goal -- for many reasons. But he firmly believed that it was possible to get to the same place without any pharmaceutical assistance.


He related a story of his childhood. He was wandering on a forest path, and upon encountering a windswept field of chrysanthemums, he was "suddenly filled with such a sense of the radiance and oneness of creation" that he thought the vision would last forever.


Albert Hoffman and Richard Foster make the same point. There are ample opportunities for solitude in our lives -- where solitude can create an open space where we can be found by God.


I closed the book, and enjoyed each moment of my walk with Jiggs -- finding the rest, the relaxation, the shalom שָׁלוֹם that exists in every moment.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

con permiso I interject some thoughts about relaxation.

Based on reading your Blog of a couple of months and having lived a rather frenetic life in Los Angeles and the Oregon some time back, I think you will have a task to look forward to - learning to relax.

When folks from the city (almost any) come to visit us - it always amazes me how difficult it is for them sit still.

A few weeks ago Bonnie was here at Ursulo Galvan - our first visit (and then another) - I couldn't help but notice how frazzled and frenetic they were - especially her sister.

When our son visited us in Colorado a year ago after having lived a frenzied life in Los Angeles for a year - he could not adapt to the peace and tranquility.

Relaxation is an acquired taste and a learned quality of life -

People in the whirlwind - even when they enter the eye of the storm can not really relax.

You will have to spend a couple years learning to relax - don't believe because you eat and read in the hot tub you know how to relax - because it is different. And it is different from looking up from a book while you are walking your dog ;-)

But, if you follow through with your dream and end up in Mexico you will learn to relax - it is a way of life down here ;-)

John Calypso

Steve Cotton said...

John -- You are absolutely correct. The habit of hectic living is a hard one to break. People seem to develop a sense of self-importance according to how busy they are. Of course, it is all an illusion -- not much different than owning the "best" stuff.

And I can see it best in myself by watching others. Several years ago, a group of us from work were on a cruise together. We stopped in St. Martin for the day. Three of us had been to a great French restaraunt the prior year -- so, we all headed off to the village. We arrived an hour before the restaraunt opened. Five of us decided to just sit down and enjoy watching the village come to life. The sixth paced back and forth and started compaining that we were wasting our vacation time. To calm him down, we all piled into the van and headed off to another part of the islad where we finally had lunch. But he never did calm down because of the time we "wasted."

I love recalling that story because most of us have exactly the same problem. I am going to talk about that in tonight's post.

Thank you for the reminder. I need to start getting into that mode right now.

Anonymous said...

Ahhhh...and Amen. Thank you for a lovely post and photo.

It is as Eckhart Tolle writes in The Power of Now....now, of course, is all there is, and I am having to return to now a hundred times a day (a thousand some days...) as I plan my move to Mexico. Being in the wee stages I must repeatedly bring myself back to the journey (I'm not one to want the seedling...I want to bring home the tree...) Doing research is incubating, as such, a very important stage, and I must surrender to the magic and marvel of it. I delight in it and yet want to BE THERE!

Thank you for the reminder to slow down and breathe! : )

Barbara