Wiederkehr: Pressing the Space Bar in Our Lives

Wiederkehr: Pressing the Space Bar in Our Lives

“Long ago, when I was learning to type, I used to delight in typing letters to my friends without pressing the space bar. Now, when you don’t press the space bar, you’ve got a real mess, and there is much decoding to be done. It is the spaces in between that enable us to understand the message.”—Macrina Wiederkehr in The Song of the Seed: A Monastic Way of Tending the Soul (HarperOne, 1997).

I remember reading this message from Sister Wiederkehr more than twenty years ago, and it still jumps off the page for me. She reminds us that many forget to press the space bar in our lives. She calls it hurry sickness. We will rest after finishing this email, project, phone call, or meeting. But we always have something else to do, and the rest never happens. Macrina calls us to regular spaces of contemplation, meditation, or silence at intervals in our lives.

One of my favorite definitions of such a “space” is to stop what we are doing and attend a Quaker meeting in our heads. Macrina reminds us of a Native American admonition to listen, or our tongue will keep us deaf! I often experience this when I wake up in the morning, and suddenly, an answer or idea about my writing comes after that long rest during the night. Likewise, when I stop to say prayers at daily intervals, life is more peaceful. But I can so easily become the driver of a Mack truck coming down a steep hill without brakes, and hurriedly rushing during the day from task to task without stopping.

Today, my best help in “spacing” is looking up intermittently from my floor-to-ceiling window on the other side of my desk and watching the birds at my feeder. Sometimes, they actually speak and call me to prayer.

Our computers and iPhones are also speaking to us. Have you ever noticed how much bigger the space bar is than the letter keys?

Give thanks today for Macrina and the many lives she touched in Arkansas and worldwide.

Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/

 

 

a mother's life in poems

A mother’s life in poems

“Communion

Eyes look down.

 Souls look up.”—Dodie Horne, Root &Plant &Bloom, Poems by Dodie Walton Horne, edited by Jennifer and Mary Horne, 2020, p. 104.

Dodie wrote poems from childhood. She died prematurely in 1994, at age fifty-nine, from a brain tumor. How ironic that a woman who dearly loved words died of cancer in the center of her body where words form. Dodie’s daughters, Mary and Jennifer, surveyed around 370 of their mother’s poems and beautifully packaged and published them as a gift to us. 

The book is divided into sections by subject, headed with lines from her poems. For example, “They Brought Me Spring” is about motherhood. “Life in Little Rock” is about younger adulthood and self-acceptance. The “Calendars and Clocks” section is about time passing and aging. “The Questing Why” concerns religion and the spirit.

Dodie was a girlfriend, soul friend, and masseur who cared for my wounded body through many physical trials. I loved visiting her in her last home deep in the woods in Ferndale, except I was never certain each time if my car would make it through the winding, rough dirt road!

I visited Dodie during her illness. I remember leaving magnolia branches in her room on our last visit in July. She never spoke. She died soon after the visit. I treasured the thought that the magnolia fragrance filled her room and helped midwife her into God’s arms. I could not hold back tears from the synchronicity of Dodie’s last writing, “REAL LIFE,” that Jennifer and Mary left in the book.

 

“— ‘REAL LIFE’ events are not necessarily events; this evening in July shows me that the magnolia candles have finished spreading their light and dropped to the ground, replaced by glowing lightning bugs random cool breezes. I look out on this scene and feel it with all my senses.

—And there would be, there is: writing—in itself an act of gratitude. ‘REAL LIFE’ goes on.” 1

As our large magnolia tree blossoms by our house, I always remember Dodie and what she taught me.

Dodie couldn’t hold back the words of love and gratitude she gave to so many people in her lifetime and now beyond.

1 p. 188.

Love

Love

“Hatred stirs up strife,

   but love covers all offenses.”—Proverbs 10:12.

We are all banking on this being true. I think of all my offenses, the evil I have done, the harm I have done consciously or unconsciously, and the friends and family members I have hurt. I make amends for the damage I have done, but mostly, I try to make living amends.

I hope to learn to love how my granddaughter, Langley, is doing to this young child on her mission trip. I want to hold the Christ in others closely and tell them what a treasure they are. I want to see the Christ in them. This is what spiritual friends do for each other. They affirm and stand by each other.

More often now, I am paying it forward. If I could not make amends to the person I harmed, especially if they have died, I now show the love I wish I could have given them to someone else. Paying forward is showing love to someone else who has done nothing for us, especially someone we do not know who feels loveless. Still, making amends to the exact person we harmed will always, always be the most freeing.

I try, I judge, I make mistakes, I mess up, I hurt others, I make amends; I try to show the love that has been so often unconditionally given to me, and the cycle invariably starts all over again. It is a circular path. It is the human condition. Nevertheless, I try to stay connected to this circular pathway of others who know more than I know about love, and I hope to learn from them. I can so easily see Christ in them; occasionally, they can see the Christ in me, guiding me back onto the path of love.

Today, I learn most about how to love from my grandchildren. This is one more circular path, for I first learned about love from my own grandparents many years ago.

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/