What Matters
A version of this post appeared in my “Monday Manna” newsletter. If you’d like to receive this directly to your inbox, subscribe here.
Good morning, friends ~
What matters? What really matters?
I’ve been confronted with this question—and the challenge to answer it—in various forms and at numerous times in recent months. Perhaps one of the biggest sources posing this question is the sorting my brother and I are doing right now in my mom’s house. When my mom needed to make a swift and sudden move from her house (and our childhood home) a couple of months ago, we knew this was going to be an intense process, especially as my brother and I live hundreds of miles away and have kids in diapers.
The time we have to go through our family home of nearly thirty years is limited. The stress of it all found me standing in my mom’s kitchen, eating my children’s bunny grahams by the fistful in pajamas at 7:00 p.m.
Many of you know so deeply this experience. You’ve done it. You’re holding things in your hands and deciding what to keep. Is it sacrilegious to throw photos of the people you love more than anything in a dumpster?
Does the photo matter, or the memory and people the photo represents? Sometimes it’s a yes to both. These matters of the heart can be tedious as we’re asked to sift our values out from all this chaff.
I’m reminded of an Arthur Brooks’ article in The Atlantic a couple months ago (“The Satisfaction Trap”) which I keep returning to again and again and again. With a focus on how perpetually discontent many of us seem to be, Brooks humbly and wisely points us toward a complete reframing of what we want. Of what really matters to us.
He describes being with some close friends at the home of a dear friend diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. As dusk settled in, his friend gathered the group to stand by a plant with tiny flowers, still closed. They stood still in silence for ten minutes. Brooks writes how all of the sudden, the flowers popped open, and the group drew in their breath with amazement. This happens, he learned, every single evening.
It was such a moving experience of deep satisfaction that Brooks—a Harvard professor who has achieved more acclamation and awards than one could list—started making a daily item on his to-to list to, “be truly present for an ordinary occurrence.”
It’s the marvel and the miracle of being grateful and alive right where you are, letting it shape you. It’s prioritizing presence.
I’m beginning to wonder if this kind of living is the key to freedom. We suffer so much through our attachments and clinging, be it to people or things or plans. But what if what truly matters, what leads to the contentment and freedom God longs for in us, is planting our feet right here, opening our eyes, and receiving what’s before us as a gracious gift? What if all the the things we’ve been striving for and think we want are actually leading us further away from the vibrancy we long for?
These questions shift my whole spirit in my mom’s house. Maybe I can let go of the stress and instead say, “thank you,” a million times with every item I touch, whether it’s stored or passed on, for the memories and moments it represents.
I wrote a few weeks ago about a coaching summit I attended with some other Presbyterian pastors. At the close of each day, we gathered in a circle, joined hands, and chanted one of my favorite quotes from Dag Hammarskjöld.
“For all that has been,” said the leader,
“THANKS!” we responded, taking a big step together into the circle.
“For all that has been,” the leader continued,
“YES!” we exclaimed, raising our joined hands into the air.
For now, this is what matters to me. Gratitude and a “yes” to the seemingly small and simple right here and now.
This is a sacred time for many of us—Holy Week, Passover, Ramadan—all in these coming days. I personally am reflecting with amazement, confession, and hope over Jesus’ extraordinary love, and how his living out what matters changed everything.
And still does.
A PRAYER
Getting grounded in what matters to me right now.
From my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life.…
When I need to ground myself in today
Calming One,
I am stopping now.
I am resting now.
I am letting the stillness
of being with you
wash in like a wave,
while the chatter and
activity around me recede.
Thank goodness I don’t need
silence around me
in order to have quiet inside.
This moment, God –
it’s what I need and where I am.
I find myself so encumbered
by yesterdays and tomorrows
that sometimes, I leave today
in the corner.
But today is enough.
You’re giving me the daily bread I need for now –
a person who loves me,
a moment to breathe,
a meal on the table,
a word bringing hope,
a gleam of life outside my window.
Please help me open my hands
and receive today with gratitude,
letting past seasons fill me with appreciation,
and seasons yet to be give me hope.
But for now –
Today. Today. Today.
I love you best when I’m present,
seeing and hearing and holding
what asks for my heartfelt attention
here and now.
You promise to hold
space for everything else.
Thank you for bringing me back, God.
Thank you for the miracle of manna.
Amen.
1 Kings 17:8-16 * Matthew 6:11 * Matthew 6:34
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
– Matthew 6:11
SOMETHING THAT NOURISHED ME RECENTLY…
Giving thanks for seasons, the memories held there, and how God brings it all together. My husband gave me this week a framed art piece he created of three maps—the Twin Cities (where he’s from), Sioux Falls, SD (where I grew up), and Chicago (where we live now).
Trampoline joy at the neighbor’s house. Reminds me of a beloved poem by William Martin….”The Marvel of the Ordinary.”
“Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.”
A&S PLUS OTHER GOOD THINGS….
* Find Ash and Starlight here.
* I am a team writer and editor for Illustrated Ministry and I am very excited about these new flags being launched.
***
Grace and peace and presence and gratitude to each of you today….
Love and Light,
Arianne