Open to Grace

Sunday morning and I am tired, allowing myself to feel it. Last night we said goodbye to Merv again for another month. Leaving is so hard. He burst into tears while hugging the kids goodbye, and Julia was so overcome by her Dad's weeping that she started crying until she'd left a big wet puddle on his ski jacket. Merv has been coughing with this crazy flu he caught on the way home, and went back sick. This morning he called from O'Hare to say he'd volunteered for a flight bump in exchange for two hotel rooms and a voucher. This will enable him to sleep a bit more, which will probably be good for him. After I hung up the phone with him the Amish woman who helps me clean the house each week called to tell me she was in the hospital with pneumonia and wouldn't be working for several weeks. I hope Merv doesn't have pneumonia. And somehow, amidst the clutter, the kids and I are going to have to figure out how to do the laundry and cleaning without help.

During the last week family life and work life swelled to fill any time I'd saved for solitary spiritual practices. I didn't do any running on the treadmill. I didn't write in my journal. I wrote exactly one entry for this blog. I ate food in take-out containers three times, although I stuck to the letter of the law on the no take-out coffee cups promise.

Some days--some weeks--in a life lived in a network of responsibilities are just like this. Then, listening to the breath is helpful. It reminds me that the constant waves of air on which we survive ebb and flow without our effort. I can rest on the crest of each breath, opening to the grace that flows through us and connects us to each other, if I slow down enough. That's just what I did this morning. I lounged in the bathtub and read from Sharon Salzburg's A Heart as Wide as the World, which reminded me to connect with the treasure under my house by paying attention to the breath.