I Have A ''Flipping Channels'' Issue

I was flipping the channels like it was my last day with my proverbial remote, when I heard the song of a bird outside. It was around 10:30am this morning and I was still pathetically dressed in my PJ's. Normally, I would have acknowledged that to be a pretty sound and gone back to flipping channels. Today was different. I wanted to experience the beauty for a bit longer. So I opened the heavy sliding glass door to my porch, hugged its frame and rested my head on it. My body became still as I listened. I felt my skin becoming cold from the early spring breeze, but I didn't mind. Within 3 or 4 seconds I realized that there were several beautiful spring songs being sung.

You see, a few days past I discovered that I have a "flipping channels" issue. It hit me when I listened to a conversation between Krista Tippett from "Speaking of Faith" on NPR and Jean Vanier, Canadian philosopher and founder of the L'Arche communities for mentally disabled people. He is now 89 and has spent his life devoted to the outcasts of society. I first heard about him through reading Henri Nowen's In the Name Of Jesus (a must read). The entire conversation they had is worth listening to, but the point that found a home in my heart was when he said, "the big thing for me is to love reality, and not live in the imagination [of] 'what could have been,' 'what should have been,' 'and what can be.' [But] to love reality and then discover that God is present...to be a friend of Jesus."

I often feel like I live in the imagination of "when my daughter will be sleeping better through the night," or "when I lose the pregnancy weight" or "when that project is done" etc, then I will feel fill-in-the-blank or do fill-in-the-blank or be better at fill-in-the-blank. What happens then, is when the wonderful is being lived I don't stop to notice it, it's like I never even experience it. It reminds me of watching TV with someone who just can't stop flipping the channels like they have a nervous twitch or something. It's scientifically impossible to discover if there is anything good or bad on.

The ''flipping'' issue began to dawn on me the other day. Christopher and I were driving home from somewhere at night and the full moon was out. It was hugely round, overwhelmingly so and still low in the sky. It made my chest fill with marvel. Yet, because we were driving I could only get second-long glances at it between the trees and the skyscrapers. Yet here was a gloriously beautiful reality right in front of me that I didn't have to pay to see, it was without pretense or demand, it was just there, naked for me to see. But it did require me to stop. Stop. We didn't, we just flipped right by it.

It's hard for me to stop sometimes, whether it's in midst of beautiful reality or ugly reality. It's rarely convenient. Often times, it's just plain painful. How can I love reality if reality happens to suck, quite frankly, today or over the past couple of years? Maybe, it's only when we stop flipping the channels that we can finally see that Jesus is there, even in the muck and pain. I don't know how to do this exactly. I wish I just knew how and didn't have to learn how. I don't always like to learn, because that implies that I'm going to make mistakes along the way. I don't like that.

Later on, after I heard the songs of the birds, my baby made the very opposite kind of sound: a tantrum. She didn't want to go down for her nap without being rocked. So she decided to throw an ugly fit that lasted about 10 minutes (which any mom out there knows that it's a solid hour's worth of emotional energy spent) until she laid down quietly and fell asleep instantaneously. Usually, I would quickly exit the room like I had some super power of disappearing at will. But today I decided to stay there at least for 10 minutes. I buried my lips into her milky soft cheek. I could smell a little spaghetti sauce that didn't get wiped up after lunch. I put my cheek against her nose to feel her warm breath on my skin. I laid my head on her chest. I felt it move up and down to the rhythm of her breathing. I could hear her heartbeat, steady and strong. That used to be the only sound I could hear her make when she was still in my womb and only at the midwife's office... It still sounded just as beautiful. I realized Jesus was there, too. The 10 minutes flew right by...