“It’s hard to know when to respond to the seductiveness of the world and when to respond to its challenge... I arise in the morning torn between the desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
2024 is a Leap Year. I write this on Feb. 29th, the “extra” day we get this year. An extra 24 hours.
The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh famously offered this morning mantra: “Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.” That’s not always how our days go, but it’s not a bad morning intention. It’s certainly a better way to start the day than looking at the news.
The writer E.B. White famously observed, “I arise in the morning torn between the desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” Again, improving or enjoying the world is not always how our days go, but it’s not a bad morning dilemma.
At North Parish, many of us commit to spend at least one morning a week contemplating such things. Can we try to live fully? To have eyes of compassion? To improve the world? To enjoy the world?
Life events can make us extra aware of how precious and impermanent each day is. When we know people who have suddenly died or become disabled, we realize that every day we wake up is “an extra day”. That sense is often fleeting, but it can also be our friend. So can the person sitting next to us in the pew, contemplating their own questions, silently saying their own mantras, wrestling with their own dilemmas.
The Soul Matters theme this month is “the gift of transformation.” In my experience, transformation doesn’t often happen suddenly, like Paul on the road to Damascus. More often, it takes some contemplation, some preparation, some practice, some company. It’s good to have each other, to be part of a congregation.
Yours, leaping away,
Rev. Lee
P.S. The photo above was from a meeting I attended in Lawrence about urban congregations accessing settlement money from the 2018 Gas Disaster, now 6 years ago. This is still on hold. For anyone who is looking for company in addressing structural poverty, the Poor Peoples Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival will be walking on State Houses across the nation tomorrow, including in Boston from 11am to 1pm. Interested? More info here.