The wooden earrings they made me bounce heavily in my hurry
and I know my sister would be proud of them for their gentle face-slap
“Sister, you’re hurrying again. Is this really how you want to live?”
She is buying overalls to wear while feeding her chickens. “Why would I not be all in?” she laughs as she embraces the life right in front of her. I admire the beads in her hair and the way her whole life is directed at “subverting systems that make us sick, busy and angry.” There is holiness in her defiance that I envy. I try to imitate her, but as I sit and think about how to embrace all-in living, whimsy, and presence, my plans somehow turn into a spreadsheet.
I can hear her laughing at me, like she always did when I took myself too seriously.
Like that time I was pontificating on the rules of a card game, prosecuting her false move with all my energy, and she threw a cup of water in my face.
My urgency feels similarly ridiculed on Sundays, when my spinning mind is exposed; the way the arms of my heart keep reaching like an octopus in every direction with worry about this one and that one and that thing and the other thing... It is hard to focus on the gifts of God as He gives them. I sit beneath the flood of gifts coming from Christ’s altar, immersed in all God has already done and is still doing for me and all people, and I feel the gentle rebuke: You are trying to be bigger than you are. It is not necessary, daughter. Slow down, receive, and see what God has done and is doing.
The pastor, whose gray hair frames a face full of wisdom and kindness, seems to be in on the joke of the earrings and the cup of water. He dismisses me from the communion table with delight and tenderness in his voice, “Go in peace, you are free.”
My heart holds those words, my arms relax, and I cradle the word “free.”
What could it be like to take this word seriously?
“Slow down and breathe and see; it’s not all that urgent.
It is rarely so urgent that you MUST rush past the dew wet sunflowers
that you must put your dress on backwards and spill your coffee in your bag…”
So says my Lord with His invitation to settle in under His gracious reign
So says my sister through the slap of those earrings against my face.
I slow my steps and look around, down at the soft grass.
It is not a walk of shame, but it is a walk of repentance
of consent to human speed,
and human-sized living
under a gracious Lord.
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