Creativity thrives on doing nothing. In the moments that might seem empty, what has been there all along in some embryonic form is given space and comes to life.
One of the greatest necessities in America, is to discover creative solitude.
—Carl Sandburg
Today, bring the gift of doing nothing to your challenges that need creative solutions.
What We Often Miss
As you might guess, I love epigraphs, those pithy sayings that capture an important idea in a few, happy words. Each of these reflections begins with an epigraph. There are many that I like, but if I had to choose my favorite, on many days I would choose the one above.
Consider the magnificence of the moments when we remember the Ojibwa saying. Any of the moments of your life can become a wonder, any situation you're in can be affected by transcendent joy.
The two of us are in the grocery store, doing the shopping for the week. We are a bit annoyed with each other. You pick out some things, I others. There are a few questions—“Do we have enough milk? How many bagels should we get?”—but mostly we are both focused on what we are doing; our care for each other is not expressed in clear ways. Actually, I am feeling sorry for myself, having to put up with your moods. (But remember, a great wind is bearing us right now dramatically, miraculously across the sky!)
Some friends have stopped by at a very inconvenient time. I have planned a couple of projects that I've wanted to do for a long time. I am trying to be nice, trying to be patient. I wish they would go. I wish they never came. (But remember, a magnificent wind is enfolding us all in its arms and bearing us—imagine!—across the sky!)
Especially when you're feeling sorry for yourself, let your pity be a trigger for a Stillpoint that will transport you across the sky.
Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while a great wind is bearing me across the sky.
—Ojibwa saying
Today, be awake to the Great Wind in the midst of stress or routine.
Doing and Being
A middle-aged married couple find themselves trying to deal with a less than perfect marriage. In their discussion the wife asks her husband, a physician, why he spends so much time at work. “What is it you get at work that you don't get at home?”
Her husband answers, “When I'm at work it's the only time I feel like I know who I really am.”
Being a doctor has become who he is, not just what he does. When he is at home there is no need for a doctor, but much need for a husband, father, homemaker, family man, caregiver, short-order cook, Mr. Fix-it, neighbor, playmate, friend, and so on. But he is a doctor and thus cannot respond with any enthusiasm or authenticity to all his other roles.
If he could learn to see that doctoring is something he does, that it is his work, as well as possibly a source of much of joy and fulfillment, then he could be free to do lots of other things as well, and just be himself. As it is, when he returns home he is still a doctor. Most of the time nobody there needs a doctor. So he floats around unengaged, bored, and causing trouble.
Doing nothing can help you if you find yourself in the doctor's situation. Be still and be with yourself. By doing nothing the doing part of you drops away and the being part of you gradually comes alive. It has to, because the doing is gone.
The irony is that the more you separate what you are from what you do, the more you can do!
If you are what you do, when you don't you aren't.
—Quoted by
William Byron, S.J.
Consider: If you were no longer to do what you do, who would you be?
Getting to the True Self
My client was worried. Her mother, a widow of about sixty, had become ill quite suddenly. My client was the only available relative and thus responsible for her mother's care.
When she came in for her weekly session, my client's main concern was about the surgeon who was to operate on her mother. When she tried to make an appointment with this doctor to learn about the procedure, this is what she experienced: It was difficult to get to the doctor; he had gatekeepers with endless excuses. But he also had a reputation of being a good surgeon.
When she did finally get a moment of his time, she experienced him as impatient, stressed, self-impressed, and not at all relaxed. His smile was forced, too quick, and seemed insincere. He didn't look her in the eye while speaking to her, and he had to check his notes for her mother's name and condition.
My client went home and spent about an hour in quiet reflection. Then she called the surgeon and declined his service.
“I can't believe I did that!” was her comment, “but he just didn't seem present to the moment at all. I felt he was always putting his attention somewhere else, not on me, nor on my mother. I just didn't sense he cared.”
The doctor's too-stressed life—and whatever else—did not allow him a tranquil and wholly relaxed mind and thus he did not access what Indira Gandhi calls his own “true image.” My client wanted someone who was wholly present to himself to operate on her mother. So would I.
The-mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed.
—Indira Gandhi
No matter how busy you are, spend relaxing time today to give life to your true self.
Just Sit
People who are at ease with themselves are a wonderful gift to the world. They model for us with a power that words can never match.
When I was a boy, I had Satchel Paige's picture on my wall, along with about fifteen other Cleveland Indian baseball players. Satchel had a special attraction. He not only became the first African American pitcher in the American League (at the age of forty-two), he was also full of joy, wisdom, and showmanship. He just loved life, even though, especially at its beginning, it didn't offer him much.
He could pitch words as well as he could pitch a baseball. The above words are an example. Satchel always had his eye on the crowd and knew how to give them what they wanted, and sometimes what they needed as well.
In my memory of him, I realize that he always had quietness, serenity, and even a sense of slowness about him—even though he was famous for his fastball—almost as if he were always remembering something important, something he didn't want to forget. His smile took a while to complete itself, and he had an easy grace in his movements.
Is there someone in your life who is a model of serenity for you? What gives them such a calm in the storm of life? How can you cultivate that in yourself?
Sometimes I sits and thinks, and Sometimes I just sits.
—Satchel Paige
Today, find yourself a model of serenity and make yourself an apprentice.
Oops!
It seems to be characteristic of the young to rush so fast through life that they miss the best parts. But I seem to have been fairly adept at dragging that youthful characteristic along with me well into my adult years. I still have to remind myself not to hurry past my pleasure. (I often need to give this advice to myself when I am eating: My tendency is to eat too fast and not savor the food, and thus miss the pleasure.)
Businesspeople seem particularly prone to this tendency from my observation. It must be the nature of doing business, competitive and fast, and the fact that the winner—the best in the business—gets the prize of financial success.
Many