the needs of the day

“Thus, when you wake up in the morning, called by God to be a self again, if you want to know who you are, watch your feet. Because where your feet take you, that is who you are.”
― Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace

there are some books that i just need to read, and re-read and keep near my bed, because they hold truths that i seem to continue to forget.  my many moments can steal away the things i need to remember.  to not just remember, but to live in. the words of Fredrick Buechner, especially The Alphabet of Grace, are some of those words- poetic wisdom- truth- faith- but real real. he's not afraid of messy- he doesn't need packaging- he's not scared to leave us in the gray spaces.

today my feet took me down the path to church with my children following behind and mike and his parents and a visitor beside us. today my feet wore high heels and i had to watch them so i wouldn't fall.  today i was watching my feet for the wrong reasons- damage control- not reflection- not self-awareness.

today my feet walked with my children to sunday school, each with their own selves coming out.
bryn eager to please, announcing he didn't need me to accompany them.
jude concerned that if i left i'd never be able to find him after the adult service.
and zoe.  appearing fine.


but after a few songs and a definite sense of overwhelm- lots of kids, small spaces, echo-y voices- the unraveling began.  zoe began folding her hands inside out and stretching her arms and wiggling her feet and loudly whispering that she needed to go home.  the more i whispered a refusal, the more agitated and adamant she became.  and then i began to unravel- subtly- but  none the less- unraveling on the inside.

i have a desire for order, for dependable, for no surprises.  i don't want to have to go to children's church- i did that for 18 years- i want to go to the adult service- but zoe seems to need a helper. and if i have to make this sacrifice- then i want it to be rewarded with success- zoe being able and engaged in her class.  i don't want her to not be able to handle it- it reads as failure- it reads as messy.  and i don't want to have to leave in the middle with a trail of blond heads bobbing behind me.

but we did.  we left.  and our feet took us right out of the children's chapel and straight up the path to home. i was quiet as i hiked up in the blue suede heels- no longer watching my feet to avoid stumbling- now instead, watching where my feet were taking me.  very aware that this is my life.  that where my feet are taking me, that why my feet are taking me, this is who i am.

i began to think about what that means.

" 'What's to be done?'  and the answer that life gives is: live in the needs of the day.  What's to be done? Do what you need most to do this day and what is most needed of you. Where your feet take you today is who you are.  Guide thou my feet O Thou invisible, manifest thyself, clack-clack, in this visible day." 

the needs of the day.  the needs of all days.  they are dependable- they are the six feet wandering the path beside me.  some more needy than others.  some days more needy than other days.  and thank God they are full of surprises.

the needs of the day are to let my feet be flexible in their path.  to let them get up and walk out of sunday school if the need this day is to be with God outside- is to let zoe's feet lead her in who she is.  because really what i want is more than sitting in church, it's more than 'normal', it's bigger than sitting still because she's supposed to in class.  really what i want is to wake up in the morning, called by God, to be self again.  really what i want is for my children to each wake up in the morning, called by God, to be their selves again.  different selves from each other and from me.  really what i want is for our feet to walk in Grace- to walk us together- to who we are- even if it's right back up the red dirt path to home.  even if it's messy. because life is and so is faith.

"Faith is disorderly, intermittent, full of surprises....faith is homesickness.  faith is a lump in the throat.  Faith is less a position on, than a movement towards, less of a sure thing, than a hunch.  Faith is waiting..."

so here i will wait.

the world's asleep downstairs

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet."
— Frederick Buechner (Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC)


"We must be careful with our lives, for Christ's sake, because it would seem that they are the only lives we are going to have in this puzzling and perilous world, and so they are very precious and what we do with them matters enormously." — Frederick Buechner

"To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world's sake - even when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death - that little by little we start to come alive." 
— Frederick Buechner (The Sacred Journey: A Memoir of Early Days)


"The life i touch for good or ill will touch another life, and in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt."
— Frederick Buechner


i love frederick buechner- i especially love his book, 'the alphabet of grace'.  i have written down many of his wise words.  for some reason, i'm thinking on these things. about what we do with our years here- our months- days, and, hardest for me- minutes.  when i read these quotes, i automatically think large scale- i think career, or calling, or difference making.  i assume he's referring to macro-level choices.  but that's probably because for me, it's easier to think big.  to dream or wander into goals and purpose.  and there is nothing wrong with it- but i'm totally humbled by the minutes. what i can be really bad at, is the seconds even.

the word 'life' seems so big- until you see the last breaths- we are made up of them, the rise and fall of our chests- and with out those breaths - there is no life.  the micro-scale can not be forgotten.   character should be measured out by how we live in the mundaneness of our lives, not in the bright lights.  why is this so hard?  why do i get so bothered by the moments that disrupt my big picture?  why can't i live into those moments- those which are actually real- present-happening, when who knows what that next moment will even bring?  maybe i won't make it to the years.  maybe this is all i'll get. squandered by my planning.

this morning i was trying to have devotions- to read the celtic prayer book, the bible and to pray.  bryn kept climbing on me, my chair, jumping off onto the dog and making noise for the sake of making noise.  i was getting irritated after asking him to stop several times and explaining what i was doing.  finally i just snapped, " bryn! be quiet! get out of here! i am trying to pray!"  not a good moment.  what kind of a touch was that spreading? not a loving voice- not peaceful- but resentful, annoyed, selfish- and of all things, it wasn't because i was making dinner or talking on the phone- but praying.  i can just see God shaking he head and laughing at me- "oh, will she EVER get it?"

humbled by the moments.

i began to think about these quotes- and what if 'the world' really means the lives of my children- my friends-my neighbors. because it does. not necessarily glamorous, but the world starts at home.  my touch begins with three blond heads getting crabbily out of bed, missing their daddy, and changing their minds about which shirt they want to wear three times.  am i thinking about their 'deep hunger' or are my eyes looking to africa?  it has to start at home. am i journeying for their sake?

sigh. rats. foolishly i stumble through my days- amazed at my own inability to live out what i know, in the moment.

the grace, is in being loved anyway.  the grace is in forgiveness despite the absurdity of it and the repetition.  the grace is in another day- to slow it down, to remember a breathe, to live in that breath for a minute, to take pause, and then, to try again.

"Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace."
— Frederick Buechner