Oct
7
Written by:
Magsbreen
10/7/2010 10:58 AM
There’s this thing that started happening when I was younger. I associate it most clearly with my early teens. This thing happened after I had learned the meaning of a new word especially words that were fun to say like serendipitous or nuance or naiveté. It would happen when I was absolutely sure that I had never heard the new word before. After I had been introduced to the word it would suddenly start popping up all over the place, and I mean all over the place. I would hear it in conversation, on TV, in stories, on the radio. People who I was absolutely sure had never used the word before would casually drop it into their speech. The word would appear in ordinary places, places that it had just never been before. Then after it had appeared in about six or seven different locations it would seem to disappear as quickly and wonderfully as it had come, but ready for me to pull it out should I need it in the future. I remember this satisfying sense that there was some kind of cosmic language arts teacher just making sure I really understood what this new word meant before we moved on. It thrilled me as a child. It was this secret thing, just for me I believed. It made me smile and let me think that I was being taken care of by the universe.
As I have grown and let people know about this secret and wonderful thing, I have learned that I am not alone in the experience. It’s been explained to me as being associated with our readiness to learn and with the way our brains integrate new knowledge. But honestly it still delights me that I really do in some sense have a cosmic teacher opening my eyes to new things and I get butterflies when I still catch it happening. It happened recently. It happened with the word “wait” and what it means to wait. Now I thought I already knew this word. And it didn’t necessarily have positive overtones for me. Waiting means being kept from something else, something better, and something more satisfying. But no, apparently there is more, lots more, for me to learn about what it means to wait.
I started my internship with Craig Rennebohm of Mental Health Chaplaincy last week. Craig becomes a gentle companion to those who find themselves shut out of community due to homelessness and mental illness and he makes the journey with them as they find their way from the street to wholeness and stability. Myself and two other interns from Seattle University get to work with Craig at The Community Lunch in Seattle’s Capitol Hill for the next nine months. This program feeds on average between 250 and 350 people every Tuesday and Friday. The Lunch gathers food from local donors and provides a hot meal and a place to be for so many that find themselves without food or shelter or a community that’s ready to show them they are loved.
On my first day with Craig he asked me to go through the line, get some food, find a seat and stay there. Pay attention, he told me, to how you feel compelled to engage those around you and to what you notice in yourself and in others. I was feeling really uneasy and he smiled as he took time to explain that the Spirit is at work in what we notice as we encounter the other. This is not a critical noticing but a waiting and a paying attention. It involves noticing what’s going on inside of us as much as it does paying attention to what we notice in those around us. “You are sensational” he would tell the group of interns later. He wasn’t just trying to make us feel better as we embarked upon this new and unfamiliar work. What he meant, he explained, is that we all have senses. Our senses - all of them - what we feel and taste, what we see and hear and smell have things to teach, particularly about the presence of suffering and how we are called to respond. Knowing ourselves and the other through our senses is part of who we are . Craig was asking us to take off our professional hats and all that we thought they meant and wait and pay attention to what we sensed – human to human. It’s a noticing that can’t be rushed, it involves being with people who, at first, might seem different, who might makes us feel uncomfortable. It involves waiting and paying careful attention to what we sense about what’s going on and how to respond.
Well, my cosmic teacher is having a field day and I realize that the opportunities to wait, to pay attention to what we sense, are everywhere, in all these places I hadn’t seen before.
- When it feels like a youth member is trying to explain something, when a conversation feels unfinished, maybe all we need to do is simply wait and notice and pay attention. Maybe we can remember that God is at work and if we take our time, if we are gentle with each other, wisdom and beauty, a way forward, will appear and ask us to respond.
- When you or I feel uncomfortable, like we don’t fit in, that we are too different, maybe we can hold on to the certain knowledge that the Spirit is in us and the Spirit is in those around us. Maybe we can be secure in the idea that we don’t have to fix these differences but that we are asked to find the courage and take the time to be ourselves and wait, looking and listening for how God might be at work in our differences bringing forth something new.
- When we find ourselves thinking about the next thing we have to do maybe we can wait a minute and be with the person that is in front of us. Maybe we will notice an invitation to get to know the other, human to human. Maybe we will discover more of who they are and who we are. Maybe we will see God.
- When I feel overwhelmed, when you feel that things are piling up, maybe we can just take a seat or take a walk or find a friend and wait….and notice…..and respond.
You are sensational. The Spirit is at work in what we sense in ourselves and in the other. If we wait and pay attention wisdom and beauty, a way forward, a way towards wholeness will show up and ask us to respond and it will be a thing of God.