EAST MONTPELIER – One of the ways I deal with my anxiety about the state of our country and world is to stay busy. It serves as both a distraction and a way of feeling I am doing something positive, especially if my busyness has the purpose of helping others.
But sometimes that very busyness can create distance between me and others, and from the practices that feed my spirit. I recently reread something I had written after a friend rescued my nose from the grindstone, reminding me to stop, take a breather, and appreciate the world around me. I share this experience with you in the hope that it might remind you, too.
It was my day off, but the morning found me at my desk, doing background study for my sermon, because I couldn’t afford to take a day off. A friend called and asked me to go for a cross-country ski. After I told her what I was doing she gave me an earful for working on my day off. I decided to go.
We skied across a beaver pond, into balsams on the other side, then up through hardwoods to a field at the height of the land.
We stood in silence there, taking in a spacious view of the surrounding hills.
Snow was falling; the kind of snow that gives the feeling of being inside one of those shake-up snow globes so loved by small children.
It was a mixture of single flakes and fat clumps, all drifting earthwards. As I watched, I realized that the snowflakes didn’t fall at the same rate. Some were uninterrupted in their downward drift, while others were caught by slight currents in the air and sent sideways, or even back upwards, before resuming their fall. The air was alive with little currents made visible by the snow.
We stood for a long time, mesmerized by the dance of the falling snow. It was an interval that filled me with more quiet and peace than I had felt in some time.
My contemplation of the snow became a prayer of gratitude for the beauty all around me and for the grace I feel when I simply take time to be in the mystery and wonder of the natural world. I stayed as long as I could in that place of peace until my freezing toes told me it was time to move on.
That experience is a reminder that while staying busy is an effective, and productive way of dealing with the stress and anxiety of difficult times, it is only one way. And, in the end, it can be a distraction rather than a solution.
Taking the ski and watching the snow brought me to a place of deep quiet and appreciation where my anxieties fell away.
I suspect that if I sought out these experiences more frequently, they would do as much, if not more, to help me cope with the stress of our world as my busyness.
Benedictine monks have a commitment to “ora et labora,” prayer and work, that recognizes contemplation and action balance each other: that both are necessary for living a balanced life.
Even if we don’t have a formal practice of prayer or meditation, time spent outdoors, letting the beauty around us quiet our restless minds, can bring us the kind of deep peace spoken of in a Celtic blessing, which includes these words:
“Deep peace of the running wave to you,
Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep peace of the shining stars to you,
Deep peace of the gentle night to you,
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you.”
May it be so.
Rev. Rona Kinsley is Pastor Emerita at The Old Meeting House in East Montpelier Center. Previously she was the interim pastor at the Greensboro United Church of Christ.
