Sunday Musings - August 2, 2020
It has been approximately 168 hours since I sat in this very spot allowing the emotions, experiences and thoughts of the previous 168 hours to coalesce in my body or at least to begin the process of coming together to create a new depth of being. This morning there are another 168 hours of emotions, experiences, and thoughts to join the approximate 702, 912 hours I have stumbled through this life dance. I have often been excited or even overjoyed, awed, angry, confused, mystified, curious, delighted, and sad. I have experienced a myriad of other emotional responses to my thoughts and experiences. My aged, forgetful memory, not withstanding, I know those emotions, thoughts, and experiences have molded me into the person I am today.
In the past few months I have resumed my habit of making bread on Saturday morning. For the first few steps I use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Then I dump the mass of amorous, sticky dough onto my butcher block cutting board and begin to knead the week of emotions into the dough. Tears of joy and of sadness, laughter, confusion, delight and anger get kneaded into the mound of simple ingredients of flour, a bit of salt, a dab of sugar, a table spoon of crisco yeast, and scalded milk. Eventually I shape it and set it aside for the first rising. Once that has risen I punch it down, knead a bit more and shape it into two loaves. When it is again doubled in size i gently put it in a hot oven. Soon the aroma of fresh bread fills the kitchen. I seldom resist the joy of spreading butter on a slice of one of the loaves and allow the taste, smell and texture of the metamorphism of those emotions and the dough which holds them to reenter my body.
During the past 168 hours I shared in the joy of new birth as two couples I know welcomed new babies and a third prepares to do so. The past week also bore witness to the death of beloved pets of two of my friends and the death of a sweet man plagued by depression. Another friend is working hard to win the battle with Covid-19. I sat with a man who was convinced that he had won the contest to make him the most unlovable person who has ever lived. I also shared the journey of many who are healing from addiction, depression, grief, and often the trauma of racism, sexism, homophobia and a host of other wounds frequently borne out of the fear that to be enough means to be more than or better than.
Daily i am faced with the reminder to live the serenity prayer and focus on what limited control or choices I have. Daily I am reminded that the only meaningful prayer is gratitude for the richness of life which is symbolized by the bread dough which accepts and blends together those emotional, experiences and thoughts until it is fresh nourishment for the body and the soul.
My intention today is to celebrate all the emotions, experiences and thoughts of the past 168 hours, to trust as I embrace them they will magically allow more of the patient and kind me to emerge; to carry me on the first steps into the next hours until it is time to rest. i am reminded of the lines of Robert Frost’s poem “And miles to go before I sleep. And Miles to go before i sleep.” (Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening)
Written August 2, 2020
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
It has been approximately 168 hours since I sat in this very spot allowing the emotions, experiences and thoughts of the previous 168 hours to coalesce in my body or at least to begin the process of coming together to create a new depth of being. This morning there are another 168 hours of emotions, experiences, and thoughts to join the approximate 702, 912 hours I have stumbled through this life dance. I have often been excited or even overjoyed, awed, angry, confused, mystified, curious, delighted, and sad. I have experienced a myriad of other emotional responses to my thoughts and experiences. My aged, forgetful memory, not withstanding, I know those emotions, thoughts, and experiences have molded me into the person I am today.
In the past few months I have resumed my habit of making bread on Saturday morning. For the first few steps I use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Then I dump the mass of amorous, sticky dough onto my butcher block cutting board and begin to knead the week of emotions into the dough. Tears of joy and of sadness, laughter, confusion, delight and anger get kneaded into the mound of simple ingredients of flour, a bit of salt, a dab of sugar, a table spoon of crisco yeast, and scalded milk. Eventually I shape it and set it aside for the first rising. Once that has risen I punch it down, knead a bit more and shape it into two loaves. When it is again doubled in size i gently put it in a hot oven. Soon the aroma of fresh bread fills the kitchen. I seldom resist the joy of spreading butter on a slice of one of the loaves and allow the taste, smell and texture of the metamorphism of those emotions and the dough which holds them to reenter my body.
During the past 168 hours I shared in the joy of new birth as two couples I know welcomed new babies and a third prepares to do so. The past week also bore witness to the death of beloved pets of two of my friends and the death of a sweet man plagued by depression. Another friend is working hard to win the battle with Covid-19. I sat with a man who was convinced that he had won the contest to make him the most unlovable person who has ever lived. I also shared the journey of many who are healing from addiction, depression, grief, and often the trauma of racism, sexism, homophobia and a host of other wounds frequently borne out of the fear that to be enough means to be more than or better than.
Daily i am faced with the reminder to live the serenity prayer and focus on what limited control or choices I have. Daily I am reminded that the only meaningful prayer is gratitude for the richness of life which is symbolized by the bread dough which accepts and blends together those emotional, experiences and thoughts until it is fresh nourishment for the body and the soul.
My intention today is to celebrate all the emotions, experiences and thoughts of the past 168 hours, to trust as I embrace them they will magically allow more of the patient and kind me to emerge; to carry me on the first steps into the next hours until it is time to rest. i am reminded of the lines of Robert Frost’s poem “And miles to go before I sleep. And Miles to go before i sleep.” (Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening)
Written August 2, 2020
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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