The Blessings of Movement

Today, the day after Christmas, I am enjoying a quiet day at home, not being and doing and moving around out in the world. This is extraordinarily rare for me. CNN anchor, Anderson Cooper, wrote in his autobiography, "Dispatches from the Edge," that he had heard that a new species of shark had been discovered.  It was a landmark find because this shark did not have to keep moving to live, it could be still and rest on the bottom of the sea for long periods of time.  Cooper said, "I find that hard to believe."  He had always associated himself with sharks, who could never be still or they would die.  I experienced this statement as bizarre at first read.  But only in the way that you discover a trait in someone else that resonates but is immediately rejected because you dare not believe it could be a reflection of your own life. After sitting with it for awhile (a couple of years) I have concluded that this might be one of the few things Cooper and I have in common. 

In my pastoral work I regularly visit with a sweet older woman who lives in a nursing home. Many years ago she suffered a massive stroke (or at least that is my best guess) and was left without the use of her legs and one arm as well as the inability to speak.  She is very bright and alert however and over the years I have been able to communicate with her fairly effectively by the inflections of the one word she retained, "bean."  For instance,"Beeaaan!" is hello, and "Beeeeaaaannn," is thank you, given the accompanying facial expressions.  Her condition is my worst fear, to live without consistent movement, to not come and go as I wish, to be constantly on the move.  The perfectionist in me partially drives this because I am always so far behind in meeting my own expectations.  It takes a lot of energy to live up to doing and being the person I either want to be or believe I can be; there's so much to do to fulfill this self-obligation.  

I have often wondered why I, and so many like me, feel better when we are out experiencing the world and are simple not content to just be still. It is easy to be critical, but what if I stopped being hyper-self-critical, and consider that having been made by God and in the image of God, that being in movement is one of the traits of God that resides in the very fabric of my being. Since there are clearly a whole lot of us who don't sit around and contemplate the world, but rather would experience it firsthand, it is possible we are meant to. 

In truth, there is an unrealized but very real and worthy benefit to having ants in one's pants (as my mother used to say) that deserves mention.  A simple trip to a high-end grocery creates a boundless feast for the senses; so many different foods from so many hands and places, so many combinations yet to be experienced or revisited.  I took a cheese-making class this year and discovered both the simplicity and the complexity of this process.  It boggles the mind to think that each product in a single store at a single moment has a history of how it came to be and a story about where it was produced.  And each of the hands that contributed to its being has a life of experiences and stories. A couple of hours in a bookseller can be wonderfully exhausting. I think of all the thousands of people who wrote, published and read the limitless titles, stacks upon stacks of them.  Consider the faces and hands of those who took the thousands of pictures that fill their pages, each capturing a particular context of this fascinating world we live in, together. To be out in the world, being among other people, most of them strangers, can be a complete meal for the hungry soul.  Consider the neighborhood coffee shop where I write occasionally. Usually there are at least three other people working there as well; privately, quietly and thoughtfully we play or work on our respective keyboards all the while sponging up each other's energy; silently acknowledging our shared humanity. By being in places beyond the boundaries of my own life, those familiar places where I spend most of my time, home, office, or car, I see a God in constant motion. A God who is not still but active, proactive not passive, eternally interactive and participating in the lives of the created who are in turn moved to keep creating.  

Acknowledging that there are mixed and muddied motives at work I turn from fight to flight as I embrace this gentle push to move beyond all that is safe and known, to be in the wider world, fully enmeshed in its boundless expressions of both the human and the divine. Each day I willingly venture into the deep mysteries of the commonplace and the possibilities of the unexpected and unknown that await encounter.