My craving for quiet

I am appalled at the state of the American presidency.  I am more appalled by the work of Senators and Congresspeople to hurt their fellow Americans.  There is a pall on this country.  It has been here forever.  It is the pall of racism.  The pall of capitalism.

It takes so much emotional work to engage this sad state of our country.  It is heart breaking and mind numbing.  I am terrified for my neighbors (of color, of other citizenship, of dissenting perspective).  I am working hard to engage.

Amid the pall of the world around my own spirit is awake.  There is not a cloud of comfort over me.  But what I find myself craving above all is quiet and contemplation and meaning.  I am not much of a pray-er, at least not with words or pleading.  I have longed to be a meditator or a contemplative but you can't just wake up and decide to be contemplative if you don't need it.

So maybe for the first time in a long time my body, spirit, soul...I need meditaiton. I need quiet. I need prayer.

I took Junia to piano lessons the other night and was thrilled to have 30 minutes to sit in the car and do nothing.  I took my journal, I wrote and the rest of the time I just sat there.  Some of it was intentionally "off" and some of it was just embracing quiet.

Yesterday I took Miriam to a dance class and while she was dancing I put in the some earbuds and listened to "On Being" 

Sean is (right now) at the park with the kids and the only media device I am using right now is this laptop.  All else is quiet.

I am paying attention to the natural world right now, because i need it.  I need the tiny brown winter birds and flit from branch to branch nearly invisible.  I need my chickens who refuse to use their chicken coop anymore and are perched outside each night: wreckless and ignorant that someone is going to find them and eat them.  I need the hum of the dryer. I need to pay attention to my aliveness.

Somehow, for me, this is letting me garner energy for the suffering of others.  Letting myself pay attention has given me an attention span.