I spent part of yesterday afternoon sitting with a mess of tangled Christmas tree lights. My job was to take off all the clips so we could use them on new outdoor lights. I couldn’t help but think of my Grandpa while untangling those strands and removing the little, fussy clips, one by one. You see, it was totally a “Grandpa project.” My Grandpa loved projects that involved problem solving, inventing solutions, detail work, or were simply (in my mind) tedious. This fell into the tedious category, and was the kind of thing he would have graciously volunteered to do for me. He knew me well. He knew that I had little tolerance for tedious projects, repetition, or untangling anything. If I needed four dozen individually wrapped Hershey Kisses unwrapped for Christmas cookies? Grandpa. If I had (I had) carelessly thrown my necklaces into a drawer in a pile and now all the delicate chains were knotted up? Grandpa. Cleaning and storing paint brushes I was too lazy to tend to after painting a room? Grandpa. Removing little, fussy clips from tangled lights? Right up his alley. He passed away in 2005 but resurfaces in my heart with every project that requires me call up patience or attention to detail.

I recently heard a speaker ask, “who taught you about God?” and he came to mind. He never explicitly talked about God or faith, but embodied the saying, “God is in the details.” That phrase has been atributed to many different people: an architect, a novelist, artists, historians, all my Grandpa’s kind of people. He was an engineer himself and an inventor of all kinds of clever solutions that appeared in our home. My Grandpa embodied his faith by paying attention to the details because God lives in those places; God lives in the seemingly little things. The ways we untangle, unknot, put back together, problem solve, and navigate our days are all holy places. God lives in those little details of everyday life whether we think they are tedious projects or tangled messes—God is in all of it. 

That mess of tangled Christmas tree lights and all those little, fussy clips? My Grandpa’s spirit reminded me that God was there. God was in the details of that little project—and with patience to unclip them one by one, God’s presence would soon be seen in the new, colored Christmas lights coming on at dusk. 

I have always been afraid of water. It took me years to pass beginner one swimming lessons, much to the frustration and bewilderment of my family. When I was little, every swim lesson was a battle that involved high stakes negotiation sessions trying to convince me that it was ok, bribes of ice cream afterwards, prying my little fingers from the edge of pool, and dealing with the resulting panic that ensued if my face went under the surface for more than a second. God forbid a swim instructor promised to catch me and then didn’t because then I would refuse to go near the pool for the rest of the season and nothing would change my stubborn little mind.  

Besides having a few scary water experiences as a kid, I think my biggest problem was my mindset. You see, that pool was so big and that water so deep and I was so small and I knew that I couldn’t possibly win a fight with water. I didn’t see the pool as a fun, exciting place to play. I approached the pool as if it was a battleground—me against the water. In my mind my survival was at stake and what was wrong with these people trying to get me to jump right in? The pool was a place where you could possibly sink and how would one recover from that?

Finally when I was way too old to be with the little ones in the beginner lessons, but I hadn’t advanced to be with people my own height, I had one on one lessons with a fantastic teacher who, with patience and grace, helped me feel secure enough to know that the water would hold me in a backfloat. She tried valiantly to teach me actual strokes but the only lesson that stuck was that whenever I got panicky in the water I learned how to flip over and just float, face to the sky, trusting that the water would carry me along, no battle necessary. I could breathe. I could soften into the water. I could relax. I could let that panicky feeling sink and trust that it wouldn’t bring me with it. The pool was no longer a battlefield I approached with armor. It was a place where I could just be. I wasn’t comfortable, but I was no longer so fearful of sinking beyond recovery.

“You cannot stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
Jon Kabat-Zinn”

Like my mindset as a little girl believing that I was at war with the water, my first experience with grief felt like a battle I needed to win, as if I could ward off grief, keep it at bay, be victorious in some way over the feelings I was afraid would sink me.  I mean really, how does one recover from grief that pulls you down into the depths of great unknown? And just like gripping the edge of the pool, when it came to grief I would’ve done anything to avoid facing the so big, so scary, so deep feelings of grief. 

But you and I both know that grief doesn’t work that way. 

Grief and illness and heartbreak come, whether you think you can battle it away or not. Grief comes in all kinds of waves. It hits hard or laps at your heels, it surprises and overwhelms or becomes like background noise that won’t go away, sometimes all in the same day. 

Grief isn’t efficient, it isn’t tidy or compact or logical. Grief has no linear timeline - you will feel better, you will feel worse, but you won’t always feel the same way because grief is like a wave that is always in flux. 

Jon Kabat-Zinn, who has studied the transformative power of mindfulness, writes, “you cannot stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”  Surfing, or riding the waves, is a fancier way of thinking about doing the backfloat. The backfloat, it turns out, is about trusting something bigger than oneself. It’s about trusting in the power of being held - by water, by God, by community, by the earth. Something miraculous happens when we put down our battle armor enough to trust. The waves still come and go, they still hit hard and lap at our heels, but when it comes we can spread our arms out and turn our face to the sky and trust that in being held you will not sink. Grief is not a battle to be won. Grief is not something we can will away, or beat back, or conquer. Grief is a wave, in all its shapes and forms. I know that you know all about these waves. Maybe you are experiencing them right now. May you remember that in the midst of your grief, God is there reminding you to flip over and just float, arms wide open and face toward God, trusting that the God will carry you - no battle necessary. 

photo by Marc Prokosch

I’ve been re-reading Anne Lamott’s book “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.” I was probably introduced to it when I was in college, and still find myself returning to it every couple of years. The title “Bird by Bird” is a reference to a story about Anne’s father and her 10-year-old brother. Her brother was sitting at the table surrounded by all that he needed to write a report on birds….a report he had had three months to write but was just starting the day before the due date. Anne writes he was “immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead,” as any of us would be. We have all been in his shoes, overwhelmed by the work that needs to be done mixed with the shame of knowing that this is a disaster of our own creating.  Anne goes on, “Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’” 

Bird by bird. It makes so much sense, and yet, in the moments of being overwhelmed we aren’t always in a sensical frame of mind. Our brains are feverishly trying to do it all, get ahead, magically bypass the natural order of how tasks are accomplished. And yet, bird by bird is really the only possible way to go. Bird by bird can become a mantra, a reminder that slows down our frenetic thinking. 

In the Gospel of Matthew chapter 6 we hear good news when Jesus says,  “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” 

One of the things I love about this gospel passage is the knowledge that Jesus acknowledges our worries. Worry is real, but can become dangerous when we let it create our reality. These words of Jesus sound a lot like he is urging us to take it bird by bird. Our true reality (versus our worry reality) is shaped by a God who creates for us, forgives for our sake, and is ridiculously abundant when it comes to loving us.  By turning our attention to the birds of the air who do not fuss and worry and fall into shame spirals when life doesn’t go perfectly, Jesus is helping us reframe our worry. Jesus is helping us see the kingdom of God right in front of us in the midst of our daily needs and worries. Jesus is helping us to hold our worries a little more lightly. Maybe “bird by bird” can become a reminder for you when you are in the midst of being overwhelmed, when you are surrounded by what is yet to do, and when the worries start to cloud your reality. Maybe the reminder can help you be a  little more bird-like, living into the reality of being in God’s care.

Peace, Ruth