By Tyler Beane
As the days grow warmer and longer and we find ourselves antsy to get outside, part of me strongly desires to escape.
Yes: to escape the grind of work life to go play outside somewhere in the gorge while it’s still light out. How about you?
It’s the busiest part of the year for me. Weekly Wednesday night services in addition to Sunday. Lots of one-on-ones on the calendar. Lots of meetings. Lots of dreams for a better community getting fleshed out, ironed out. Lots of irons in the fire. Sometimes tension grows hot when irons are in the fire.
When irons are in the fire, my brain goes a million directions at once. ‘Did I say the right thing there? Could I have done more to show that person I care about them? What more could I be doing? Do people like me?’ That’s the internal dialogue.
Then there’s a physical reaction to that dialogue: I sweat. Not the nice, pleasant, work-out sweat. I mean the busy, uncomfortable, interpersonal, stressy sweat. When I stress sweat, I stink. Like literally. Gross, right?
“Tyler Beane Kelly? Are you in there?” I wonder to myself.
My wife won’t even come near me!
“Again? Didn’t you already shower today?”
Our solution: ‘Deep breaths. Centering sigh.’ Clothes in the wash. Tyler in the shower.
The slow fog horn calling me home to the centered place within myself. God calling me home: “Peace, be still.”
Now for her kiss.
It’s the busiest part of the year for a lot of us. Teachers are longing for Spring Break already and summer is far, far away. Parents are stressed with kids who are stressed and around and around we go. We’re not getting enough Vitamin D yet, because once most of us get off work, the sun is down.
‘Oh mister sun, sun, mister golden sun, please shine down on me!’
That’s our ironic refrain as we sit inside all day, screens in our hands and on our desks, legs yearning for use, faces as untanned as can be. If you’re retired or at home, us working folk count on you to have red, ruddy faces. Get outside so at least someone can enjoy this warmer weather!
This is our daily living.
Sometimes you get tagged. My garage got tagged in red graffiti the other day. Mairead and I were away. I found out because a nice, local, police officer left his card in my front door and on the back let me know that we’d been tagged in the back of the house.
My first thought was: “Was anyone else tagged near us? No. No one else was.” My second thought was: “Who has it out for us? For me? Who doesn’t like me?” Then my thoughts got lost in one emotion: fear. More than anything else, I just felt fear.
Now I’ve already told you that I’ve been feeling a touch over-busy and stressed this week so I certainly did not need another thing on my plate--that I felt for a moment unsafe in that house. But I didn’t then go to anger, the place where most of us will go to hide our fear.
I felt sad.
I felt sad that some lonely kid was crying out for attention. Notice me! Here I am! I felt sad that I wasn’t going to be able, likely, to connect with that kid and hear his story; his hopes and dreams and struggles. I felt sad that the kid might end up in juvie.
Though that lonely kid doesn’t know how scary it can be to have one’s home violated in jagged, red, violent colors. Although on the other hand, maybe he does.
Life is a mixture of sweet and sour. Life is a mixture of ups and downs. Life is not roses. Sorry Valentine’s Day fans. Life is the expanding and contracting of your heart with every beat.
The way I fight my way through the wilderness is by saying, “Peace, be still. Peace, be still! The storm’s breaking. Peace, be still.”
If we can find that quiet place in our hearts, maybe we’ll be able to laugh that big belly laugh that doesn’t come often enough. Maybe we’ll be gentler with ourselves and others, even the taggers, even the police who will need to enforce the consequences of breaking the law with said taggers.
Maybe then we can realize that there is no division between sacred and secular. No division between work and play. No division between your heart and mine. That God is here, now, in The Dalles, yearning for healing in and through us.
Here is my heart poetry today:
“Here we stand on Holy Ground
Here is where we are found
As we are
Child of God
Broken and
Beloved
Time to go outside for a walk. .”
Tyler Beane is pastor at Zion Lutheran Church, ELCA, in The Dalles. His passions are movies, conversations about faith, hiking the gorge, a good imperial stout or syrah, singing, and trying (and sometimes failing) to follow Jesus. He'd love to hear from you: tyler.beane@gmail.com.
Commented