Grace-Notes #47, 12/17/06

Natalie Costanza-Chavez

Grace Notes

grace-notes@coloradoan.com

Just Come Undone

     God feels us touch Him. He waits for our palm prints to grace his face in a patter, like rain. He doesn’t toe-tap, impatient. He doesn’t raise his eye-brows, orbs rolling. He doesn’t do ugly-insistent-face. He is just graceful and just waits.

     In the best of our December moments, we recognize something we do not understand: the overwhelming shadow of God on our lives as he turns, shifts, exhales, waits. He’s big. We’re small and not alone. We feel it.

     In the least happy of our December moments, at night, open-eyed before sleep, we rattle the noise of chores undone, duties, jobs, projects. We think “I need to shop. I need to give. I need to get, to wrap, to decorate, to cook, to mail boxes.”

     We try to leap above our own expectations, to get it just-so, just-right, just-perfectly-done.

     We become bottomless in preparation until we become only the wild beat of preparation. We unsettle ourselves like too-fast metronomes – fling, flung, fling, flung. We whip back and forth. We do and we do. Then we overdo. And, lo and behold, we are still undone. 

     In the least happy of our December moments, at night, open-eyed too long before sleep, some of us are alone and ache for January. We are spent, displaced, yearning for something we think has gone-by, moved on, set sail.

     Or, someone has died. Or, someone has left us. Or, someone is in terrible danger, not home, and won’t be soon. We are afraid.

     This month can magnify our darknesses, our hard stillnesses, causing them to cut deeper, or cut again, or cut sharply and keenly for the very first time. The power of the bleed shakes us.

     Each of us needs so much. And more.

     During this month much celebration reigns: Bodhi Day, Hanukkah, Christmas, Eid al Adha, New Year’s Eve, this year’s end. The days drain away fast. We wind up like small marching toys, raising our knees, falling in line.

     Some of us shop. And some of us take it too far. We run too fast from store to store and our list becomes long, fluttering, a wind-sock. We buy too much and then just a little bit more. We become the impulse and are still undone.

     Some of us eat. We try to fill and center ourselves with only food. Cooking nurtures us, unifies us. Then some of us take it too far and worry ourselves sick over food – too little of it, too much of it. We start with the oh-I-shouldn’t-have’s and then we do it again. We sit alone on couches over-full but still not fed. And so we eat more, wake up and go to sleep hungry still and still undone.

     December is a time of expectations. If we slow for moment, we feel the need to find something to do – quickly, preferably several things at once.

     So, stop.

     Just once. Just to see what it feels like. Just to rest. Just.

Then ask this question:  What’s possible in your life?

     Where are you headed? What are you seeking? What gifts to you bring? What do you need? What must you give?

     We need so much help to come into any new light. The help is the un-doing, the settle-down, the momentary hush, and into that space the spirit of God moves.

     You can touch Him. Stop. Reach.

     He just waits and waits and waits, face upraised, patient in a way not a single one of us recognizes. Patient in a way not a single one of us could ever manage. We itch to move and get-on-with-it-all. 

     He waits, then counts any slight turn in His direction as a reach of faith. He searches everyday and all nights for the tips of our fingers, or any small voice sounding, or someone falling to catch a hold of Him. His arms are always flung out. He doesn’t get tired or drag.

     December rushes in and away. The hours can suck, pull, drain us down to all-but-gone.   

     Ask yourself what you really need. Ask yourself what you must have, what you must do. Feed on it. Pray in any sounds you have. Undo yourself and rise into the hush of  aspirit always present, always strong, always more holy and hopeful and full than we think possible.