The five-year-old ignored the advertised exhibits and, nose pressed to the glass, patiently waited, until she saw a crack, a tiny beak. Finally, a wet, vulnerable chick emerged from its protective shell.
The child learned: if you wait long enough, you get what you hoped for.
But certainty crumbled when she didn’t get the prize, a loved one died, another shut the door, and a third moved on without her.
Then, she learned you can wait and wait and wait. . . you can die before receiving what you hoped for.
She was certain now of her helplessness.
Yet, year after year, she tended a plant that might never flower.
One day, when she forgot she was waiting, a bud appeared. It opened and revealed the tender seeds it guarded, tight-fisted. Then, heart pressed against her chest, she leaned in and listened as her beloved flower let its petals fall one by one into her grateful, trembling hands.
I have learned not to worry about love; but to honour its coming with all my heart. –Alice Walker
Credits and References: “Baby Chick Hatching” by Joan. Used with permission. “Certain” by Esther Hizsa, 2024 “Geum Cosmopolitan” by Sylvia Sassen. Used with permission.
I really wish I could wake up grounded, walk through the day with ease, and be content with what comes.
It’s not how my life goes most days.
But I can return and find rest for my soul, for You are beside me, always within me.
Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you. –Pslam 116:7 (NIV)
Credits and References: “Bark Cabin Natural Area” by Nicholas A. Tonelli. Used with permission. Return to Your Rest by Esther Hizsa, 2024. “Loneliness” by Alice Popkorn. Used with permission.
Cream-covered cupcakes and no-fault insurance, No big surprises and endless assurance, Wild geese that fly with my cares on their wings, These are a few of my favourite things.
I’ve been putting together a playlist of my favourite attachments. Oh, the delight I feel when I hear the opening bars of each song.
Top of the list is All By Myself, May that Never Be followed by Money, Come My Way. Then those old favourites Everybody Loves Somebody and that Somebody Is Me Let It Be My Way, I Must Get Some Satisfaction and It’s a Wonderful World, the extended version that includes this verse “I see days without fears sleep-filled nights people forgive my oversights, and I say to myself, “I’m a wonderful girl.”
When those songs play, my anxieties are appeased. I can hold onto the belief that I will finally arrive and be what I always wanted to be: Practically Perfect in Every Way.
Credits and References: Dreamy Young Woman Listening to Music by Gustavo Fring on Pexels, Creative Commons. My Favourite Things by Esther Hizsa, 2024. Mary Poppins by DarthxErik at Deviant Art. Creative Commons.
“You’re brave,” the woman at the desk said. “You ride your bike in traffic so confidently. I stick to the sidewalks.”
“You’re a good listener,” someone else said the next day.
Then another person and another told me something that helped me believe I’m valuable, needed, and wanted.
“Do you hear that?” You say, heart smiling.
I talk about it in spiritual direction and come away elated. I ride into my life with confidence, picturing the freedom to swoop past the loud voices that say I’m expendable.
But I can’t.
I’m knocked down again. “Get off the street,” an experience yells out the window.
I think about returning to the sidewalk where it’s safe.
But bikes don’t belong on sidewalks and neither do I.
Someone once asked Saint Benedict, who lived in the fifth century, “What do you monks do in the monastery all day?” And he said, “Fall down and get up. Fall down and get up. Fall down and get up.” –James Finley, in “Breathing God”, an interview with Tami Simon
Credits and References: “Woman on bike” by pikpik,com. Royalty free. Leaving the Sidewalk by Esther Hizsa, 2024 “Adorable girl on a bike” by Skylar Ewing at Pexels.com
For so long I focussed on doing important things, prioritizing one activity over another and resenting ordinary, necessary tasks– cooking, cleaning, check-ups, and paying bills.
Then, I kept company with folks even older than me. They helped me slow down and be present to where I was and who I was with. The wisdom of the mystics took root. Every task can be done with the awareness that I am doing it in God, with God and that makes each moment a wonderful one.
Once I stopped resenting one moment for not being as valuable as the next, stopped accusing it of wasting my time, peace settled in, even awe, sometimes.
Now, when I feel anxious about how I’m spending my time, I’m more apt to notice that I’m worrying about what to do next. When I notice that, I sense You reminding me: all I have to do is what I’m doing right now and then do the next wonderful thing.
Breathing in. There is only the present moment. Breathing out. It is a wonderful moment. —Thich Nhat Hanh
Credits and References: “Laatste blauwtjes..” by Sylvia Sassen. Used with permission. Present Moment, Wonderful Moment by Esther Hizsa, 2024 “Autumn is coming” by Sylvia Sassen. Used with permission.
On a beautiful day when nothing was going wrong anxiety showed up, just in case I needed it, I suppose.
I scanned my life to see what I was concerned about. Nothing. Then disappointment showed up– disappointment that I couldn’t enjoy the day without this annoying “friend” making an appearance.
While I was wishing I was done with anxiety, I noticed that I was wishing I was done with it. There was the gift. Stepping back helped me see that I was attached to becoming anxiety-free.
Then, I found the freedom to imagine. I could say hello to anxiety and let it pass through. (Although I was tempted to add, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”)
What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you. ― Anthony de Mello, Awareness
Credits and References: Image of clouds by Helen Haden. Used with permission The Gift of Awareness by Esther Hizsa, 2024. Man opening door by Picryl.com Creative Commons
The way we would begin in prayer is that we belong to God. And all the prayer starts and unfolds out of that knowing that we belong to God. We are trying to get past the topic of prayer to this deep experience that we belong to God. We are God’s beloved. Renewing our faith that we are sitting there in God’s presence, God is all about us and within us, closer to us than we are to ourselves. —Thomas Merton, from A Coaching Session on Lectio by James Finley
Every morning You invite me to begin my day the same way You invite me to begin anything: grounded in Your love, breathing in the reality that I belong to You.
I belong to You. I am Your beloved whom You will never leave nor forsake. All I need You have already given. This is the truth that sets me free to live and love and be who I am– fully alive, a gift to the world.
“Come into the quiet,” You say. “Let Me be the ground you walk on this day. Let Me be the breath you return to as I transform every moment, every circumstance into a holy one, opening your eyes to see what I see.
“Remember what Parker Palmer says, ‘When the going gets rough, turn to wonder.’ Remember what Jim Finley says, ‘Your experience does not define you. Only Love has the final say in who you are.’
“And when you are caught once again by the beauty of the hills and feel indescribable joy, peace and delight, know this: That is the feeling of belonging to Me. That is the feeling of being My Beloved.”
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. –Psalm 121:1,2 (ESV)
Credits and References: Morning Sun by Conal Gallagher. Used with permission. The Way to Begin Anything by Esther Hizsa, 2024. Parker Palmer quote from Circle of Trust James Finley quote from many of his podcasts in Turning to the Mystics. Vernon, B.C. by Ernest Hawkes. Used with permission.
You will say on that day: “I will give thanks to you, O Lord …” –Isaiah 12:1 (CEB)
On that day. Not today, but one day, you will give thanks for what you cannot give thanks for now.
Even though others are grateful and assume you are too, it’s okay. You don’t need to confess or explain. Who has words for it, anyway?
On this day, you will give thanks that there is nothing you need to be or become. Rest in Me where you are and let that day come in its time.
Lay down your burdens And rest for a while The shepherd who seeks you Is gentle and kind There’s nothing to pay for And nothing to earn And nothing you have to become. —Take It Easy by Matt Maher and Paul Zach
Credits and References: “Bud” by Jim Nelson. Used with permission. “On That Day” by Esther Hizsa, 2024. “Forget Me Nots” by Jim Nelson. Used with permission.
Ten kilometres from our destination, we came to a dead stop.
Over the next few hours, the line of stopped vehicles grew
from five kilometres to twelve. Emergency vehicles came.
A helicopter landed and left. When three tow trucks went by, we were hopeful. But no. Next update in six hours.
We were one of the lucky ones who didn’t have hotel reservations, a plane to catch, or a loved one who wouldn’t come home. We just had to turn back a short distance to a campground down the road. Soon, the campground filled with those who gave up waiting, too.
Twice this summer, Fred and I have been stopped for hours because of a traffic accident.
We were delayed, others taken right out of this life and into the next.
I have filled this life doing things that make me more solid, and now that life has stopped. God has placed me in a different campground and surrounded me with God’s self incarnate in the rock-solid peaks silent trees, squirrels, and a motley crew of travellers with only one job: to receive what only God can give.
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is, so to speak, His name written in us as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it, we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely. I have no program for this seeing. It is only given, but the gate of heaven is everywhere. –Thomas Merton, Conjectures of A Guilty Bystander (Image, 1968), p. 155.
Note: My apologies for the recent inconsistency in posting on my blog. I’ve had limited access to wifi and that too felt like a stop that was out of my control. Letting go. Being with what is.
Credits and References: Photo of the road closure on Hwy 1 near Field on Aug 7 2024 by Esther Hizsa. Used with permission. Accident on the Trans Canada near Field, B.C. by Esther Hizsa, 2024 Photo of Hoodoo Campground by Esther Hizsa. Used with permission.
We left the hospital to let my dad rest. Before we could return, the doctor called. with the news of his passing.
I should have been there.
The dull ache of regret lingers even though I have all the right words to release it.
Regret, blame, disappointment, guilt, and powerlessness, take up more space than I wish they would.
But they don’t take up all the space
Compassion invites me to breathe and let them be.
This, too, shall pass.
A joy, a depression, a meanness… Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture… –Rumi, The Guest House
Credits and References: Photo of our dad, Max by Ron Frehner. Used with permission. “On My Dad’s Passing” by E. Hizsa, 2024 “Geese” by Steve. Used with permission
An Everyday Pilgrim 