A day of gratitude, continued rest, curiosity, connection. And finishing Season Two of Outlander, which is a bit dramatically over the top for my sensibilities, but enjoyable all the same.
Human bodies’ capacities to heal are truly remarkable and I am so very thankful. Glad for how I’ve lived a rather intensely active life, which enabled my body to recover more quickly than it probably would have otherwise. Glad for a partner willing to remind me to sit my a** back on the couch, for horizontal rest no longer desired but helpful all the same. Glad for Mobility Fit, the physical therapy outfit I landed in for this recovery journey, and the two guys who have stewarded the journey–Gavin and Colin. Glad to know about various lidocaine/capcesium patches to distract my body from its pain, then lighter discomforts.
Mostly, glad to be sitting here as Brian reads his 4-5 five newspapers on his iPad, Nala paws and situates herself into a napping-nest after a kibble breakfast, and we all anticipate a luscious day of time together, good food, good wine, good and blessed life.
Given the time couch-surfing these past several days, I’ve landed in a variety of books, voices, authors. Abraham Joshua Heschel, for instance, in a little collection of snippets of his writings introduced by his daughter, Susannah Heschel. “Only those who are spiritual imitators, only people who are afraid to be grateful and too weak to be loyal,” he wrote, “have nothing but the present moment. … Memory is a source of faith. To have faith is to remember.”
I found myself startled, given so much healing work requires bringing awareness into the present moment, releasing the traumas lodged in the body from before, within history, within memory. But as I sat with his words and my startlement, both, I could feel a beginning smile in the belly.
Heschel urges a prophetic spirit rooted in the gracious acts of Godde, known in the bodies of human beings in the past, in the present. His was a voice for Wisdom stewarded within centuries of tradition, yes, but always as a lively happening, an event, breathed anew. “In the realm of spirit, only [she] who is a pioneer is able to be an heir. Authentic faith is more than an echo of a tradition. It is a creative situation, an event.” The name given to this particular essay–Every Moment Touches Eternity–speaks to a wedding of each present moment with all that has come before. Gift. Injury. Suffering. Healing. To have faith is to remember.
To remember is to have faith. To remember all of it, not just what we’ve been told to honor, even worship, but all of it we’d rather not see or hear. To co-create new life gently amidst the old, the present. And to be unafraid to be grateful.
Gratitude for all we get to know in our bodies, in this life. Grace in which to participate, together. No joy without loss. No wonder without pain.
Pass the gravy, then.
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