Watching
I live on the Shoreline of Connecticut. We love living here, a short 3 minute walk to the Sound. It’s a place of beauty and peace, and it does my heart good to live here, to pray here, to be here.
This past weekend, Henri threatened to make an unwelcome visit, crashing upon our shores unwanted, threatening to bring monsoon-like rains and destructive winds to our well-ordered lives. It was a difficult time for me, but in the preparation for the storm - and in riding it out - I learned a little bit more about myself, who I am, and just how far I need to go, still, in becoming the person I want to be.
Storms make me anxious: very anxious. Not your typical thunderstorm - I love those wild displays of sound and light. During a good thunderstorm, you can find me on my back porch, enjoying the spectacle, feeling the power and energy behind the lightning and the thunder. There is a wonder in watching this power-play of weather roll across the sky, and I enjoy the show.
But a thunderstorm is child’s play when compared to a hurricane. Hurricanes go beyond the typical, beyond the polite display of storm-power. Hurricanes are the unleashed forces that churn up winds and tides, lash down rain, whipping up all manner of destruction, mowing down anything that dares get in its path. Hurricanes, in my book, belong in the middle of the ocean. Only. Period.
Henri aside, we’ve weathered (pun intended) 2 hurricanes and a tropical storm in the past 12 years. With each one, we lost trees, lost power, and lost hundreds of dollars worth of food, not to mention sleep and peace of mind. These are powerful and dangerous storms, and there is nothing one can do to stop them from sweeping in and destroying whatever is in their path. I’ve developed a healthy respect for hurricanes, and tropical storms aren’t far behind; Tropical Storm Isaias spawned microbursts in our area last year, and several of our trees evidenced the twisted destruction of that storm’s wrath.
So this past weekend, with Henri promising to barrel in as a direct hit to our quiet little town, I was anxious, worried, unsettled - much like a cat on a hot tin roof. I couldn’t settle, couldn’t read, struggled to concentrate. Saturday night, I didn’t sleep much, waiting in anticipation of what might come, what disaster could befall us in the next whoosh of wind. Sunday morning saw me loading my washer at 5:30 am, doing laundry in anticipation that we’d lose power (and when we do in these storms, we are talking several days, a couple of weeks). I filled up the bathtub with water; assembled foods that can be eaten without cooking, kept my devices plugged-in in case we’d need them after the power went down. I paced, I putzed, I worried.
One thing one can do in the midst of worrying is quilting, that kind of slow, methodical hand-quilting that is repetitive, slow, meditative, rhythmic. I inherited my grandmother’s quilt top (the fabric giving bright evidence that it was pieced in the 60’s)- one of three she never finished (my sisters got the other two). So I spent the morning watching out the window, while sandwiching my quilt top to backing and batting, pinning it carefully, methodically into place. It is not a task that requires much thought - only persistence and precision - and perhaps a little prayer. Oh - ok; a lot of prayer - for I was not praying just about the quilt, but about the storm, and my sense of helplessness, my total lack of ability to control this storm, control what might happen as the hurricane barreled onto shore.
And I realized, as I sewed and measured and waited; sometime during that long, Sunday-watch, that all my “watching” was akin to trying to control what was happening. I thought I’d ceded control of my life to God years ago, but Sunday? I realized that when I am anxious, worried, upset; when I am threatened with forces greater than I can grasp - I revert back to old ways of doing, old ways of thinking. All my “watching” during Henri’s onslaught was, in effect, my way of trying to control something that was - in the end - entirely out of my control.
Ultimately, I think I was watching because, somewhere deep inside, I didn’t really think God could do this on His own; I needed to “watch” to be sure everything was ok. I needed to keep “watch” overnight; keep “watch” on the trees, keep “watch” on the rain — all because I was convinced that God needed my help to keep those trees from falling. (Didn’t He?) In my anxiety, I’d convinced myself that He needed me to be attentive, to be alert, to stay focused… that somehow, my efforts would prevent the disaster I was sure would happen if I let my guard down for just a few moments.
How naive! And truly a sobering wake-up call when I realized just how controlling I can still be; how controlling I still am.
A few things I’ve learned in all this:
Old ways of thinking are deeply engrained. We may think we’ve conquered ancient thought-patterns, archaic ways of being, anxious knee-jerk reactions, but this weekend I realized that these primal ways of reacting are buried deep, and will surface when we are at our most vulnerable selves; when our defenses are down and out. It takes conscious (and sometimes painful) effort to respond in different ways, new ways, better ways.
On Sunday, I was intentionally not “plugged in”. I was alone with my thoughts, with the wind and rain, with my quilt. I was present to the Spirit Who, in spite of my anxiety, never left me, never let me slip too far into that abyss of anxious thought. And because I was actively present to Spirit and grace, I could see myself in a realistic and honest way, without judgment, without rancor. Without the distraction of TV or music or reading or audiobooks, I was able to give my heart the freedom to roam unfettered; my head the grace to reach into myself and come to some new revelations of who and what I am, in this time, in this place. It’s not always easy, or fun - but it is always worthwhile.
I remembered why it is good to sometimes simply sit and watch, to watch to simply observe, to only be. When I sit and watch with no agenda, no need to change the course of the wind, my heart and mind reach far greater heights, plumb deeper depths, than I could possibly imagine. It’s not the watching itself that is problematic, but in the end—what I expect from the watching .
We are never too old or to set in our ways to change our minds, and transform our hearts. If we are open to transformation, God is more than willing to meet us more than half-way.
There is no guarantee that the next time a hurricane threatens to descend upon these quiet shores that I’ll do much better. But I do have hope that between now and then (if and when that happens), I’ll remember this past weekend, and hang on to the “aha” moments I had during my Sunday-watch. I’ll remember that ultimately, I have little control over so many things. And that, alone, is worth the “watching.”