Part 2 of 2: (Still) Off beat and seeking stillness...

Sunset in Sonora

Hi all,

If you did not yet have a chance to read last weeks blog posting (and part one of this) please feel free to do so before jumping in below. Or not. As you like. But if you dive right in I take no responsibility for your confusion, if you read the first part on the other hand, I take full responsibility for your confusion. Cheers!

Do you know yourself? May seem like a totally unrelated question to music, stillness, and being out of sync as I was speaking about last week, right? Well, it's not. Do you know yourself? God knows you. You should be the one on this planet who knows you best. Do you? Do you take time to know yourself in Him?

Maybe you're not so into the God thing, again, another topic, but really, when was the last time you were still? To be. To listen to the STILL small voice inside? Don't get me wrong, I know this is not easy. It is not easy to find the time or metaphorical space (or often even a physical place) to be still. On the occasion that I get myself to physical place in which I would like to be still, I then face the challenge of my active brain. At times I wish I could open my head, take out my brain and stop it running. We, or should I say "I", I am so wired, have so trained myself to go-go-go---GO faster! Than when I try to say stop - at best I need a cool down lap (or two) before I can be still. Really still.

Sunset in Sonora, CA

This afternoon God was playing with clouds and sun outside and kept on inviting me to come join. It took me a couple of hours to answer the call and take a seat on the deck glider swing. To watch the sunset, with the long low light across the hills in front of me and the sun popping out of the high clouds to turn the hills and trees gold before setting behind the next layer of clouds that were blowing by. As I sat and was trying to read (wanting to make my stillness productive of course) each time I looked up my gaze lingered longer and longer before looking back down at my book.

It was spectacular.

I sat and listened to robins flittering around (no, 'flittering is not a real word, in case you were wondering), geese over head, a very distant plane motor, a train many miles away honking, the cows, horses, and dogs at least a mile below me in the valley enjoying the last bit of sun on them. A flock of robins swished down from the roof over my head, making the sound of dozens of falling arrows.(Because I am very familiar with the sound of dozens of falling arrows - haven't you seen Lord of the Rings?) If I were the reactionary type I might have feared something was falling from the sky as I heard the loud swishing sound before seeing what it was.

Sunset in Sonora, CA, USA

Stillness is remarkable. To be, when so much around us is doing. To know our place and our value because we know ourselves (ching- back to the starting question, did you catch that!?) and our purpose from time spent alone, with God, in nature (or whatever refreshes you with something real in a world so full of superficiality). Doing 'nothing' as life is always turning and teaming around us. It is when others are dancing and I am sitting still that it is the most challenging to disconnect, and yet often the most essential. The challenge of putting down and walking away from the phone, stopping the language lesson, eating dinner later than normal, or skipping my movie night to make time and to escape it all. In times that seem the most difficult, it can be the most critical and life giving moment to sit in peace and stillness.

Aaaand, again. 

Because dancing a dance is not tracing or copying someone else's footsteps, nor is running a race, or building a edifice. To dance a dance one goes forward as the other goes back, running a race requires you to stay in your lane and do your utmost to complete that race to the best of your ability, conquering the mental battle of self before you can ever accomplish the physical race. And constructing a building requires different tools, skills, over a long time frame, with a variety of workers doing his or her part at a particular stage. It would not work if the framer, electrician, roof man, and plumber were trying to do their part at the same time. Each works in their own stride, own time, with their own constraints, to complete his or her individual best work, which in turn contributes to an even greater end result with benefits multiplied from the smaller contributions of each engaged person.


A very good articulation of this I read recently:

If we overextend ourselves beyond our personal calling and don't prune (quit) our activities that are fruitless, we use the capacity we do have on things that don't really matter. Thus, we undermine our divine responsibility and derail our destiny.(pg140)Poverty, Riches and Wealth

Lovely Yosemite Falls

In general I love my off beat life, not only what I do and how I do it, but the very fact that it is different from so many others. This is true for each of us (I hope). There is great value in many things in our lives, but what if we became better at BEING a human-being instead of trying to be a human-doing. The pit of self worth that will never be filled by hundreds of likes on Instagram, shares on Twitter, forwards on emails, can be filled in stillness, truth, knowing you are deeply valued and profoundly loved by a heavenly Father. Grounding ourselves in our incomparable and priceless worth to the King of Kings.

I'm all about action. (Dang it, did I just completely undo the whole post with that comment?!) I mean, I am about muscle memory and visual and physical reminders of important things. :) Put a stake in the ground, a physical one, that you can return to, because it is from that place of certainty, of having taken the time to know oneself, knowing one's value and purpose, that one can change the world.

Because  music always sounds better when someone plays on the up beat and the down beat (together, yet distinctively different and individual) and it is those who are strong enough to set a new beat who change the direction of the song, which then shifts the mode of the room, and carries out to new melodies in the streets!

I hope to have another post for you next week, but don't have too high of expectations. I am already setting records with two weeks in a row!

Until then, May you fill your mind with stillness and the streets with new melodies,
Jessica

Off beat and seeking stillness...(Part 1 of 2)

Ok, a question for you, how often do you take your phone into the bathroom with you?

I suspect the answer is more often than we even realize any more.

Kabul, Afghanistan sunset

We are apparently so stretched for 'time' in our lives that either we are trying to be efficient by multi-tasking while in the bathroom doing whatever it is we might be doing in there OR perhaps we are so addicted and dependent on our phones and the often falsely inflated sense of self-worth they bring to us by giving the impression we are always needed and thus busy, or by being noticed via likes, that we simply cannot bare to part with them for even a few minutes.

When I was working in DRCongo last year, much of the time I was managing one or more phones that any staff member could call, in case of an emergency. And while there might be 'emergencies' similar to those in the western world, it was more likely to be a situation of insecurity that was threatening or endangering staff , which would be the reason I would get a call. For much of the time I managed 3 different phones. (Don't ask why 3, that is another post about humanitarian aid workers, and how many and why they carry all their phones.) I had the 3 phones on my person nearly 24 hrs a day. My staff (and my seamstress) knew I only wanted clothes with pockets in them to ensure I never set down and walked away from a phone. Yes, I took them into the bathroom with me. I slept with them charging, sitting by my pillow so I wouldn't miss any communication during the night (lets hope they never prove doing that causes brain cancer). The only time I didn't have them was while taking my bucket shower in the small shower room. This was only because there was no where to put them in the room where they would not get water damaged.
Do I think this was healthy to be so attached to the phones? No.
Do I think it was relevant and necessary, in that specific context? Absolutely.

Montreux, Switzerland sunset

Did it have a psychological impact on me? Yes, without question. Even a physical one, trying to carry them around all the time gets exhausting. Play any of those ring tones now and my pulse increases. Take my phone to far from me now and I'll occasionally get concerned I may have missed a text that causes a life threatening situation. Eeks, not a good feeling.

That is obviously an extreme and out of the norm situation. It may be that the reasons I behaved that way would not be commonly repeated, but arguably there are many people with similar behavior, facing similar effects on their life, without much awareness, or perhaps just without much concern of the impact on themselves. The assault on our senses and competition for our attention and time is very real for each of us, no matter where we are in the current global context.

Goma, DRCongo Sunset

If I consider my own life, and how many of my choices have led me down a very different path than my average peer, it could be easy to think that my off beat life brings up uncommon problems. Though I must say the comment is not entirely untrue, I think my effort to find peace and stillness and the challenges there in are on pare with so many of you, who also have challenges in finding these things.

Taking a snapshot of my life and surroundings at any particular moment, you would likely find that I indeed appear out of sync, an odd fit for my environment, or off beat with those around me or from others in my age bracket.

When I go east, many peers get married, when I go west they are having kids. When I go to a gym class in the middle of the day it is only retired people there, when I get on a 2nd plane to get to a far away place there is a striking change in the composition of the cabin population, shifting from daily transiting, suit-wearing business men to - everyone else. When I am out of the country living in a war zone, people still ask the typical questions of someone else of a similar age, "have you met someone? Are you married?" Lately, it is less often that and more often the leading question of 'how many kids do you have?', the assumption being - at my age of course I would be married. One airport passport controller got so far in his own assumptions that he was telling me I had 10 kids and I wishing me a good visit with my husband during my visit to South Africa - neither of which I have of course. Back in the US it is no longer weddings I am going to in person, but rather the exposure of baby photos on social media, which seem to drown out the existence of any other concurrent reality. As each of us walk our path, the variety of lives crossing creates beauty, and as I look at my own life which seems so off beat with so many others, it is actually the off beat which enhances the actual beat. For the musicians out there, we need music both on the up beat and the down beat to make real music.

Keeping this mix of lives, and paths in mind and the remarkable cacophony of music that comes from the variety of beats, I want to bring us back to the challenge of finding 'space' to be still. To listen well for the next right step in life, or simply to find time to thank God for blessings, reflect back on joys and challenges in the everyday life, so we do not wake up at age 64 and wonder where life went and what happened to us.

Kandahar, Afghanistan Sunset

The modern world has merry-go-rounds on whole sale all over the place. Of course they are not sold directly, but rather piece by piece until you have your very own, never ending, never stopping merry-go-round for life that is very challenging to step off of without injuring oneself. There are mostly good pieces, but some bad mixed it, making it all the more difficult to extricate. The pole of late night binge TV show watching is some how holding up your energy of connecting with people outside your comfort zone- part of the roof. And the principle stay away from quick fixes for your health led to strong makings of a horse seat, but it has yet to be put together. Round and round we go with no planned break in between rounds, or even a walkway to step off and back on easily. Of course this is not the way everyone lives. But it is the dominant way of life withing our current cultural. So if we are not running our own merry-go-round, we may find it very hard to interact with those around us who are going round and round.


Humanitarians are presumed to be pouring into others every minute of every day. And while many of us would love to do that if any of us had the capacity, in the end, we are all human too and need self care. It is not just humanitarians who project this selfless image, or indeed attempt to live it out to the degree possible on this side of heaven - but also many parents, teachers, pastors, administrators.  This weariness of giving of oneself from one's own resources is real for so many people, so much of the time. How recently have you heard a friend, colleague, or neighbor share about having some 'strange' reaction, medical condition, allergy, or whatnot that you catch yourself thinking, 'ya, sure how much of that is made up in their mind?' Well, maybe it is in their mind, maybe there is a physical unusual manifestation of some kind of the stress they are working through. Either way, they need rest. They need peace. Their body needs stillness, at least for some period of time.

Diego, Madagascar Sunset

One advantage to my off beat rhythm of a life is often a sense of freedom to make unusual decisions. When most people around me either don't comprehend my decisions anyway, or just know me well enough to know that being on my own beat, with unpredictable choices, is to be expected. I usually receive far less societal resistance if I take 3 months off a formal work contract, than if the guy down the street came home to his family and said 'hey, I think I am going to take a couple of months off to sleep, think, pray, and be refreshed.' He might get a good laugh out of his family followed by confusion as he tried to convince them he was serious.

Yes, of course, I understand that money makes the modern world go round, and some people's decisions are indeed guided only by their financial obligations or entanglements, this is another conversation. I am discussing those of us who have reasonable flexibility in life circumstances, who still, in spite of freedom to choose differently, simply consciously or unconsciously go round and round on the merry-go-round to some degree. Those who never bother to get off, stop their head from spinning, and take a walk around the proverbial fair; to see other rides, people, or places. Or even enjoy our own merry-go-round we have spent so much time and effort to build, from a different, more grounded angle.

Beni, DRCongo sunset

Come back next week for the conclusion of this already very long blog posting...

I always love to hear from you too. 
Please give feedback, comments, even questions below, might even be able to incorporate into part 2 for next week!

Goma, DRCongo sunset