Winter is working its wonder within me. Major emotional blockage showing up today. The arrival of a tired pattern reveals itself again and I find myself asked once more to contend with it.
This morning the pull of staying in bed was so great I didn’t go to my Quaker meeting, a rarity for me. Yet my brain rationalized it so well I hadn’t yet noticed it was the beginning of the old procrastination and shame spiral that grabs me from time to time.
By 4 or 5 this afternoon I sat in wonder of having not left my room, having not gone to meeting, having not done my laundry, having not gone on a walk, and yet still having no motivation to do those things. It was then that I realized I was once again stuck in that ancient vortex of powerlessness; that wild force which robs me of joy, motivation, and clear thought.
And then, some texts from a friend. Which I knew at once to be grace. A welcomed rupture in the pattern; a call to write new lines into the play and work out a new ending. And then a short phone call wherein my friend gifted me her prayer. And getting off the phone, an immediate, major cry, with snot and tears and wailing. A great obstruction of grief, nearly as old as me, loosened itself from my body and left.
I grabbed my hapé, an Indigenous medicine, and settled onto my bedroom carpet for a quick ritual. Administering the medicine, I said the new prayer in my mind: God, please show me your will for me. Allow me to accept your path for my life. I surrender my will to you now.
A few years ago, these words would have stirred distress, and now they’re a release, an ease, a freedom.
I sit with my eyes closed as the medicine does its work. A long ago and tired memory comes to mind, and like lucid dreaming, I use the opportunity to rewrite it. My young self—who in this memory also sits on his bedroom carpet, but frozen—now hops up, flies from his room, bursts out the back door of the house and runs into the summer field. He reforms the whole story with the kind of righteousness and vigor Jesus used to flip the Temple tables.
Yes, winter works its wonder in us, yet spring is on the horizon and calls us to new life.
Warm Summer Nights 