Tag Archives: New England

The Waiting is the Hardest Part- and Perhaps, the Most Important

Posted on by
Reply

Spring

I live in the Northeast and it will come as no surprise to anyone who has heard about our record breaking winter that I am pretty tired of the snow. It feels unbelievable now that I actually welcomed the first blizzard of our season. Now as I look out on the towering snow banks and the menacing icicles hanging from my neighbors’ roofs, it easy to forget that a month ago I thought snow was beautiful. These days I dream of spring and wonder if I will ever see my lawn again. Given the sheer quantity of snow, it appears I am going to have to wait.

And waiting is hard. In our fast paced society we almost never have to wait and when we do, we measure the time in seconds or minutes. An hour wait is unacceptable to most of us. We have places to go and things to do. We have no time for waiting. We certainly have no time for winter.

We are uncomfortable with the rhythms of our ancestors who had to submit to the cycle of seasons. Indeed, merely several hundred years ago, people had to submit to the will of dark nights whose completeness was only punctured by the light of moon and stars and the flickering glow of candles and lanterns. We are now masters of the clock even as we become servants to our technology.

What we have lost is the value of rest and even hibernation. Perhaps you have experienced periods in your life where you have “gone underground” for a bit- when the demands of life seemed a little too much and too overwhelming and you responded by doing and communicating less. We are often made to feel bad about those times- as if our dropping out was cowardice or perhaps a sign of depression (and for some it may be). But for many it is actually a sign of self-care. Sometimes what is happening is that our bodies and our psyches are telling us that it is time to slow down. It may even be time for a nap…or two.

Quiet “unproductive” time is actually really important. Underneath the snow, plants and seeds are getting ready. They are gearing up for an explosion of color and life. They are gaining energy to grow and blossom. They are not dead (although perhaps just a little buried).

They are waiting.

The rest that nature takes culminates in growth and life. Similarly, the rest we take facilitates creativity and health. Sometimes we need to hibernate. We need to shut ourselves off from the rest of the world and quietly grow things within ourselves. When we are ready to shovel out and step into the sun, we will be capable of more than we knew was possible.

So as I look out the window and see the sun gently warming the snow, I must content myself with waiting and the knowledge that beautiful things are happening beneath the surface.

Sinners, Saints and Mental Shortcuts

Posted on by
Reply

Heaven and Hell
Every day I drive past the Methodist church in my town. Of the six churches in town, (yes, six- I live in New England) it is not the most beautiful, but I look forward to passing it nonetheless. Why? Because this church has in its congregation (and/or employ) a playful individual who is always putting up inspiring little sayings on the Church sign.

Several weeks ago the sign read “every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.” The quote is from Oscar Wilde, but its literary origins are less important than the message and the location.

When I drove past the sign the first time, I was not familiar with the quote but its simplicity and kindness struck me. In our lives we are quick to judge others and, at times, ourselves.   We place labels, easily categorizing individuals and situations. Part of this is the result of using what psychologists call heuristics- mental shortcuts that allow us to make decisions and problem solve when we are faced with incomplete data. We rely on these shortcuts, basing decisions off of past experience and impressions.   Although efficient, these heuristics do not guarantee the best or even accurate decisions and assessments.

Using heuristics, we make assumptions about people we see. We categorize them as hard-working or lazy, virtuous or morally compromised and a million other shortcuts we have in our minds. We encounter them in a moment and having made a quick judgment, we see that judgment superimposed over the individual’s past and future. In this way we see an individual as born a particular way and living in the same manner until their death.

Of course, we know this is not true when we stop to think about it. But part of the point of heuristics is that their use means we are not really stopping to consider at all. In this way, our perceptions of others are incomplete, and if we are not careful, risk ossifying. We risk freezing someone in a single moment in time, or defining them perhaps, by their worst moment.

We do this to ourselves as well. We often believe that the way we have done things in the past is the only way we can do things. We let past behaviors, misdeeds and achievements define us. We justify unethical behavior in the present by coasting on earlier honesty. We discount current success, acutely feeling inadequacies from failures in our past. We begin to feel that we cannot change- that “we are who we are” however incomplete or biased those assessments may be.

Oscar Wilde’s quote points to the possibility of redemption- the most radical type of transformation. It asks us to see beyond a momentary mental shortcut and see the long arc of a life and the many choices that allow us to redefine ourselves over and over again.

I liked seeing the quote on the church’s sign. In a time when religions are often strident in their denunciations of the “sinner” but uninterested in helping those in need, the placement of the quote at a Church is welcoming. It is a recognition of the ways in which everyone we meet is merely at one moment in their journey and that the trajectory of that journey is not always discernable.

So wherever you are on your journey, know that the choices you make can continue or alter your path. You and the people around you are not frozen. We all have pasts and we all have the opportunity to change our futures.

The Duality of Spring

Posted on by
2

IMG_7739
I live in New England and this year, in particular, I feel the hope of the season. There is something life affirming about the arrival of spring- of those first buds on the trees and the shoots of crocuses pushing through the earth- stretching their leaves with the assurance of color and sunny days.

As the dirty snow banks melt away, people’s moods lift. Inherent in spring is the contradiction of dependability and change. Even in the depths of our collective seasonal affect disorder, in the dark days of February (and this year the stormy days of March,) we know that spring will come. We know, just as we know that the sun sets and rises, that spring will arrive. We know that if we can hold on long enough, new life will sprout and color will again populate our landscape. That’s the dependable part.

The second thing that spring offers is the promise of change. As the sun warms the earth with its gentle rays, we begin our spring cleaning. We open the windows to air out our homes and clear away the clutter we have somehow managed to collect since last April. With new life, comes the possibility of new routines and behaviors. With the joy of spring comes the belief that anything is possible. Although many people make new years’ resolutions for change, it is perhaps in April and May that one has the greatest chance of following through on those resolutions (although as I have argued here, we should be making commitments instead).

The season puts a spring in our steps and a smile on our faces. This positivity leads to a spiral of positivity wherein our happier outlook creates the potential for happier outcomes.

So this year as you clean out your cupboards and your closets, do a personal inventory as well. Decide which habits and patterns of thinking no longer fit you. Look at your life and identify the things that are clutter. Open the windows of your soul and let fresh air and new life enter.

Let spring be the season in which you welcome change. Every year we can count on its arrival. Every year we can seize on its promise of change. What will you change this year?