Settling in to this new Time and Space

Loving on Life’s Terms today means being apart. It means being in close quarters. It means showing up and taking care. It means staying home.

For some of us: Staying home. Personal quarantine. Virtual meetings. Go Fund Me donations to help those who make their living where people gather.

For some of us: Going to work. Tending others. Treating risking, hoping, doing, waiting.

We are unsettled as we begin to settle in to this new way of being with each other. 

I often participate in discernment weekends in which I am one of a small community who have dedicated time and attention discerning with an individual what their current and future paths might be. We do this by the individual’s request. We actively choose to step away from our lives to be in community with each other, holding the well being of the discerner in our focus. As the group settles in to the weekend, we sit in a circle and introduce ourselves with the simple declaration of what we left behind to participate in the weekend. People report that they leave behind a messy home, pets, family members, meetings, book clubs, children, spouses, worry, serenity…you get the picture.

I offer these queries to write, capture, mull, meditate on:

What did you leave behind to engage in this great act of love: staying home for the good of yourself and others? 

What can you see to lean in to? What is present to you right now?

Follow these questions where they lead you. Allow yourself to attend to your losses. Know that fear is quieted when we can acknowledge the losses. As we attend to those things we leave behind and those we are separated from we find that our feeling of being unsettled calms.