Dancing Birds

I am listening to the hum of the washing machine, as well as the occasional chattering of birds outside the patio window. The sun is peaking through the giant pines as morning clocks into its shift. A small finch (at least I think it’s a finch) dances in the air before darting into the grass. Maybe she’s getting breakfast? Or maybe she just likes to dance. I taste the bitter taste of coffee on my tongue, followed by the blanket of soothing cream to balance out the bite.

Naming what I see, taste, smell, feel centers me to reality. This is a practice I need when I am overwhelmed, spinning out of control, or at my limits. These are emotions I am feeling now. My soul is full to the brim, I am over capacity, and I need a moment of pause. This morning I am trying (emphasis on trying) to pay attention during the early, quiet calm.

What you need to know about me is that I do not ascribe to “traditional” spiritual disciplines. I also veer away from the word “discipline”. I celebrate all of you who connect to your Source through journaling, devotion, meditation, or other familiar avenues; they do not work for me. I’ve bought the journals, I’ve set alarms and reminders on my phone, I’ve sat in stillness. And yet, what my soul needs to connect to the Divine is being by water, going for a drive, walking around a bookstore, or playing music. It’s taken lots of time and lots of work with my own spiritual director to claim these as perfectly good spiritual practices for me. I am curious what practices work for you?

But today, when I have reached my limits, I am needing the practice of being present, of noticing the world around me without being responsible for it. What pulls me back from the edge is recognizing that there is an entire universe around me — even in my backyard — that keeps on living regardless of how many emails are in my inbox or if I have checked off my to-do list. I don’t have to save anything; I’m not that important, if I’m being quite frank. And I desperately need that reminder when my ego fuels me to do more and more and more to prove otherwise. To show that, in some way, I am important, invaluable, indispensable. When I reach that headspace, I start to take on more than I can handle out of a need to be needed. And that is a sure-fire recipe for burnout.

So this day, I will carve out the time I have and I will call it holy to pay attention to the world around me. And I pray that through this very simple, non-extravagant way of connecting to Spirit, I will know (and believe) in the deepest parts of my soul that I have value, worth, and purpose purely because I am here. That there is nothing to prove. And if God loves dancing birds without any extra pressure for them to do more than dance, then God could love me regardless of my compulsion to overextend. I can just be me, and that is enough: A human being who watches what may be a finch dance in the morning light.

Perhaps by paying attention in a moment that could slip by as overtly mundane, we might miss the Spirit inviting us to dance with her. Where do you dance with the Spirit? How do you find connection and rest when you’ve reached your limits? I hope you will share in the comments below so that we can see how we are being made new together, and that we are not alone. I hope you will pause and pay attention and dance, however you can.

A Blessing for When You’ve Reached Your Limits

You who are overextended, at capacity, and full to the brim,

Who feel out of control and exhausted from trying to keep it all together,

You are loved no more and no less by what you can check off your to-do list or by what you can accomplish.

There is such little, precious time in this world to do the things that restore our souls

Like tasting delicious food, holding someone you love tight, and spending quality time with the tree and birds outside your window.

I pray you don't have to keep it together, that you get a moment to drop it all

To release the pressure to be good, perfect, capable, important, needed, or anything that bases love on conditions.

You are enough, not because you do or don't do, but purely because you are.

And there is nothing you can do to change that.

You are enough, period.

May the pull of the rubber band around your life relax, may your limits decrease.

Breathe out all of the pressure that's been building up in you.

And now that you're a bit looser and a bit lighter, may you experience the Spirit who dances with you.

A wild, fiery dance of unconditional love.

I pray you don't miss the invitation to dance because you were too busy on the hamster wheel of productivity and pride.

I pray I don't either.

Life is better when we're dancing, a beautiful act of resistance to a world that would grind us to the bone.

Say no to the grind. Say yes to freedom. Say yes to liberation. Say yes to dancing. It's what we were made for.