QUESTION A WEEK 43

WHAT ARE YOU PRACTICING?

Photo by Liz Wuerffel

Guest Writer: Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew*

Slowly everything else is becoming practice, too. Learning to use the pronoun “them” for my nonbinary niece, taking a breath before I respond in a conversation, shutting down my computer by 7 p.m., setting aside distractions so I can listen when my daughter is talking, observing my reactivity to a disagreeable political view, remembering to see the human behind it. Exercising hope when I feel despair. Noticing racism, in systems and in me.

Once I turned ten, I walked from school every Wednesday afternoon down the hill, through Tarrytown, NY, to the United Methodist Church for my piano lesson. I let myself into the high-ceilinged sanctuary, empty of everything except music. My teacher, Clarence Jones, practiced organ for two or three hours prior to my lesson; I’d dump my backpack in the front pew, sit down, and wait, awash in the blast and trumpet of pipes.

I learned how to practice during those moments. Mr. Jones would hit a knotty sequence in a Bach fugue, suddenly interrupting the magic he’d created to untangle it, slowly at first, isolated from other parts, working out the fingering, then gradually faster, in combination, repeating the phrase until it was drilled into my bones. Despite being tucked away in the corner, behind the organ console, Mr. Jones knew I was there. I could sense him teaching even though my lesson hadn’t begun: His fearless plunge into a complex piece, his willingness to fill the entire sanctuary with a glaring stumble, his immense patience with repetition. On Sunday mornings his performance swept me away. On Wednesday afternoons I listened to hard work.

When I consider what of my schooling has had enduring value, learning how to practice rises to the top. On the surface practice meant doing scales, memorizing, repeating, all the drudgery necessary to learn a piece. Underneath, though, practice taught me that you always begin by playing poorly. You make ugly sounds before you’ll ever make beautiful ones. Skills are learned, even when you’re as talented as Mr. Jones was. Gaining those skills takes patience, humility, determination. You can’t think your way through music; you need your body to know it. There’s never an end point at which you no longer have to practice. Practice is joyful. It’s both a means to an end as well as an end in itself.

For most of my life, the only practice I named as such were the hours I spent at the piano. Gradually writing in my journal and, later, the work of composing poems, essays, and books, emerged in my consciousness as a practice. Then, about eight years ago, the floundering meditation I’d attempted for decades coalesced into a form of Christian contemplative prayer, with its rich tradition of practice. I slipped into those teachings the same way Mr. Jones slipped into his soft, worn organ shoes. Every morning it’s the same: Thirty minutes on the cushion, consenting to divine presence and movement within. I’m terrible at it, I hate it, I love it, I give myself to it regardless.

Slowly everything else is becoming practice, too. Learning to use the pronoun “them” for my nonbinary niece, taking a breath before I respond in a conversation, shutting down my computer by 7 p.m., setting aside distractions so I can listen when my daughter is talking, observing my reactivity to a disagreeable political view, remembering to see the human behind it. Exercising hope when I feel despair. Noticing racism, in systems and in me. Mr. Jones was a Black man. Should I have mentioned that up front, or not? Ought I mention it at all? I’m plunging in, regardless, making mistakes just like he did. I trust the value of practice.

These days I only practice piano; I never perform. The music hides in the piano housing, or in my being, or in Mr. Jones’ spirit, resident in his scrawled advice on my yellowing piano books and in my memory; it seeps out haltingly, in snatches of stumble and grace. I practice practicing, because doing so is generous, joyful, worthy, perhaps life's whole purpose, and a testimony to a man I loved.

*​I met Elizabeth 20 years ago when she and her partner came to my farm to help ​​get hundreds of flower transplants into ​the garden for my first-ever flower share season. Since then our paths have crossed, not often, but always at times and in places that are quite significant to me. We share friends, passions, and a deep respect for each other's work in the world. More about Elizabeth at: https://www.elizabethjarrettandrew.com/

QUESTION A WEEK 42

WHERE DO WE SEE BEAUTY?

Photo by Liz Wuerffel

​Guest Writer: Kelly Smith*

Why in nature do we find the old, broken, twisted ones so full of beauty and character- the ones stunted by rocky soil and bent by storm, yet for ourselves, we tend to value the unflawed, untried smoothness of youth?

*After a recent walk in the woods with Kelly, he posed this question to me. It felt like a perfect addition to these “weekly” posts and he graciously agreed to let me use it.

When I first moved to my farm in 2000, Kelly, a forester for the Carlton County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), walked the land and shared his expertise in creating a Forest Stewardship Plan. Since then I have had the privilege of crossing paths with him in various ways including at many a community event where he can be found playing his fiddle.

QUESTION A WEEK 41

WHAT ROLE ARE YOU WILLING TO PLAY IN “WE THE PEOPLE?”

Photo by Liz Wuerffel

These days, there's a lot of focus on those in power in our country. We have a lot of opinions about what they’re doing and not doing. Yet, at the heart of democracy, those in positions of power are only a piece of the equation. "We the People” is just that, "We the People." It is not written "We the Politicians" nor "We the Rich" nor "We the Famous." Of course, the authors of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States had a VERY narrow definition of “people," and it has only been through challenge and struggle for hundreds of years that we the people have expanded it.

In case, like me, you don't remember what comes after the familiar "We the People," I share it here:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I read this as a call for us to get involved in creating "a more perfect Union." There is a role for everyone. What compels you right now: liberty, justice, tranquility, the common defense, the general welfare or the blessings of liberty? I cannot think of a time in my life when picking up a tool and doing my part has been more urgent.

QUESTION A WEEK 40

CAN WE MAKE OURSELVES AVAILABLE TO MORE POSSIBILITIES?

Photo by Rick Lewis

I’m a girl who loves outcomes. When I pay attention to my thoughts I find them more often focused on where I am going than where I am at. I like to have an agenda. I like to know what the “purpose” of something is, and be sure I’m working toward that in an intentional way.

None of this is inherently bad or wrong, but I have noticed over the years that in tending so strictly to these habits of the mind I often miss out on the possibilities of the unplanned, the unexpected, and the accidental. Slowly, slowly I’ve been learning to relax, settle in, and get curious about the unknown of an experience. It reminds me of the Buddhist concept of Beginner's Mind. The Zen Buddhist Shunryu Suzuki says, "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few."

QUESTION A WEEK 39

HOW ARE YOU MANAGING YOUR ENERGY?

Photo by Sarah Hannigan

At the most fundamental level human beings are a dynamic interplay of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy. If we are dissatisfied with the quality of our life experience, it can be very instructive to take an inventory of the ways in which we expend and renew our energy in each of these areas. The “use it or lose it” adage is generally accepted in regards to our body, as well as the belief that rest is needed to refill our body's energy reservoir. The same principles apply to our heart, mind, and spirit as well. Both underuse and overuse, without adequate time for recovery, in any one aspect of our being can impact our experience in another and overall.

QUESTION A WEEK 38

HELPING OR HURTING?

Photo by Liz Wuerffel

I stumbled on this question as a mom in the midst of a classic parenting task that I had been through hundreds of times already. Technically speaking, I should have been an expert at it, but getting my preschooler outside to have some fun in the middle of a Minnesota deep freeze while standing in the tiny entryway of our old farmhouse, sweating in my own gear as I tried to help Reuben get on his, our two beloved dogs expressing their eagerness to join us by racing around our feet barking and howling, and Reuben egging them on with his own barks and howls, turned into what Pema Chodron calls “the squeeze.” 

It started out as a rhetorical question directly solely at Reuben. “Helping or hurting?” I shouted. Then I asked it again, just as loud the second time. Only this time I heard myself shouting. So the next time I asked, it was a bit quieter, with some genuine curiosity behind the question. I really wanted to know what he thought. And because I had calmed down, so had the dogs, and so had Reuben. The truth was we both needed a check on our behavior.

No matter how right we feel about how wrong someone else’s behavior is, the most important question is what happens next. Are you, with your behavior, going to help or hurt? 

QUESTION A WEEK 37

HOW ARE YOU RELATING TO YOUR HUSK?

Photo by Liz Wuerffel

Guest Writer: Allison Schuette*

This summer, I enrolled in the Heart of Higher Education’s online Circle of Trust retreat series. Our first meeting took place in late September, and not surprisingly, our leaders drew heavily on the season of fall. Thus it may seem counterintuitive that seeds appeared over and over again in the material for that first session. I, for one, associate seeds with the spring, when I think of them breaking open and sending shoots out into a new and warming world. But as Parker Palmer reminds us,

“what does nature do in autumn? She scatters the seeds that will bring new growth in the spring — and she scatters them with amazing abandon.”

During that first session, one of our leaders shared a very basic diagram of a seed, pointing out the germ (where life packs the DNA that guides the seed into what it will become), the endosperm (which provides nourishment for the germ until it can obtain these from soil, water, and sun), and the husk (which protects the germ until conditions are right for its growth). In our journals, we were given time to reflect on how the metaphor of the seed might apply to our own lives.

I didn’t spend too much time trying to figure out the DNA of my germ because we had also read
David Whyte’s poem, “What to Remember When Waking,” for our session.

After all,
what you can plan
is too small
for you to live.

No reason, therefore, to close down the emergent properties of the seed. On the other hand, I very much enjoyed imagining all the sources of nourishment in my endosperm — all the loved ones, practitioners, practices, teachings, places, experiences that fill me up. Our leader had invited us to let the nourishment be as big as it could possibly be, and the support was palpable.

But reflecting on the husk produced the greatest discovery. As I thought of all the ways I’ve tried to protect myself — the discipline and structure, often taken to extremes in an attempt to control outcomes — I suddenly felt gratitude. Instead of beating myself up for this rigidity, I could see for the first time how I had been trying to care for myself in the best way I knew how. It also felt good to realize my husk has been cracking open. As conditions have ripened these last few years, I have softened these protective mechanisms as my seed, drawing upon the nourishment in the endosperm, begins to root and reach toward new elements: soil, water, and sun. Interestingly, this moment of changing how I relate to my husk — from shame to gratitude — becomes the very means by which the husk is able to crack open even more.

*I first met Allison 25+ years ago when we lived and worked together as members of intentional community in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state and then in New York City. Since then, our lives have taken us in different directions geographically, but in our hearts, we have always felt like home to one another.

Aside from her role as Associate Professor of English at Valparaiso University, Allison and her partner Liz Wuerffel (a frequent photo contributor on these blog posts) created the Welcome Project, a collection of initiatives grounded in gathering first-person narratives “we hoped would provide entrance into each others’ lives and illuminate the complexity of living together amidst increasing diversity and difference.” Started in 2010 as a campus project, it has since expanded to Gary and other nearby communities in Northwest Indiana, illuminating the changing racial and economic demographics of the region since the 1960’s.

QUESTION A WEEK 36

CAN YOU SEE YOURSELF IN THE OTHER?

Photo by Sarah Hannigan

Whenever I find myself getting overly self-righteous I pull out one of my all-time most helpful practices that I call "Just Like Me." I learned it from Pema Chodron who expresses so simply the premise behind the practice:

It is a simple human truth that everyone, just like you, wants to be happy and to avoid suffering. Just like you, everyone else wants to have friends, to be accepted and loved, to be respected and valued for their unique qualities, to be healthy and to feel comfortable with themselves. Just like you, no one else wants to be friendless and alone, to be looked down upon by others, to be sick, to feel inadequate and depressed.

To make this truth into a lived practice in my everyday life, I use the phrase "Just Like Me..." when I come across someone who irritates me, someone I disagree with, someone I might even describe as my enemy. For example, I might say “Just like me this person wants to be respected,” or “Just like me, this person doesn’t want to feel inadequate.”

According to Pema, this practice

...humbles us, because it shines a spotlight on our habit of thinking that we are the center of the world. When we acknowledge our shared humanity with another person, we connect with them in a surprisingly intimate way. They become like family to us, and this helps dissolve our isolation and aloneness.

Question A Week 35

CAN WE STAY PRESENT FOR THE LONG HAUL?

Photo by Liz Wuerffel

In response to one of my questions a while back, a reader said: "I try to think about running a marathon instead of a sprint." It's such solid advice for the most significant realms of human life such as intimate relationship, parenting, and work. It's also instructive when reflecting on our wins and our losses in life. Our energy is limited and we choose, consciously or unconsciously, where, when, and how we use it. Pacing ourselves is necessary if we want to be in something for the long haul.

I hope all of you took the opportunity to participate in our nation's ongoing experiment in democracy by voting in this election. No matter the result, we would all do well by ourselves and each other to remember the marathon metaphor by committing to show up and be present with our heartbreak and our hope next week, next year, 20 years from now.

I’m encouraged to do this by the story of John Woolman and the Quaker Community in Parker Palmer's Healing the Heart of Democracy. John Woolman "spoke with his fellow Quakers about the heartbreaking contradiction between their faith and their practice (of slavery),” for twenty long years before they became the first religious community in America to free their slaves.

Question A Week 34

IS IT TIME TO GET TO KNOW THE STRANGER IN YOU?

Photo by Liz Wuerffel

“Be taught now, among the trees and rocks,

how the discarded is woven into shelter,

learn the way things hidden and unspoken

slowly proclaim their voice in the world.

Find that far inward symmetry

to all outward appearances,

apprentice yourself to yourself..."

Getting to know the stranger in yourself could feel like such a lonely prospect. You look around and it seems as if everyone else knows what they are doing and where they are going. Enter a global pandemic and we are all in a place of profound uncertainty together. Of course, this doesn’t mean we are all experiencing it in the same way. Life circumstances and ways of interpreting what is happening create a myriad of experiences.

Normally at this time of the year, if we take time to pause and listen, we hear fall calling us to reflect more deeply. Perhaps this year, with all the external uncertainty we are swimming in, it is time to go inward and get to know the stranger in ourselves; and as we do, to deepen trust in our true self to always be there to guide us.

"...begin to welcome back

all you sent away, be a new annunciation,

find the words you always wanted to say

and stand at the door of the day

and be hospitable, even to the stranger in you.” 

Excerpt from "Coleman’s Bed" by David Whyte

Question A Week 33

What happens to the energy inside you when what is hard becomes simply what is new?

Photo by Liz Wuerffel

Guest Writer: Dana Bergstrom

The pep-talk like mantra that I’ve been borrowing from author Glennon Doyle, “I can do hard things” has recently become “I can do new things.”

Do you feel the difference in energy between these phrases, or is it just me?

I totally feel it. This one, simple word swap takes the hard edge off and adds neutrality so I can flip my momentum towards ease. Language choices have a massive impact on my vibe.

“Not eating sugar is hard” suddenly became “not eating sugar is new.”

I mean, walking by the bakery in the grocery store without getting a sweet treat is totally new for me. And if I can remember to shop after I’ve eaten, then there’s absolutely no room in my body for a donut anyway.

The main idea behind this new food regime is that, after sticking to the Autoimmune Protocol Diet for several months, my gut lining will heal and I won’t suffer from inflammation when I eat certain foods. Sugar and processed foods are in my future again, I’m sure. And by the time I’m finished with this diet, I’ll no longer be addicted to them. I imagine myself still eating mostly fruits and veggies and then enjoying other types of foods in moderation, which will be entirely new.

New, new, new.

Hold up.

I wanna add a caveat here:

In my experience, a word replacement does not work at all if I’ve been denying how challenging something is and haven’t yet directly faced that particular obstacle on all levels of my being - mental, physical, and energetic/spiritual. Fake positivity is only spinning my wheels and gets me nowhere.

There’s great value in admitting the struggle. Ya know...be fully authentic, feel my vulnerability, and acknowledge the pain. Then I can have a good cry, or a scream, or a trampoline session. Or, for efficiency’s sake, a screaming, crying, trampoline session.

Therapy has been another great place to be 100% honest and to find emotional release. I do what I gotta do to get the stuckness out of my body, mind, and spirit. And after letting it go, I have enough space to alter my thoughts and behaviors and shift the direction of the situation.

There’s so much power in truth telling. It’s scary to do when you’ve been conditioned to keep up appearances, but, holy crap, is it worth it.

Once I have the courage to fully face an inner conflict, I’m primed for peppy word replacements and the free flowing energy that comes with ‘em.

So, here’s to another day full of interesting, new experiences for us all. Have a good one!

You can find more from Dana at: www.danabergstrom.com

Question A Week 32

What helps you to be more fully present?

Photo by Liz Wuerffel

You've all had those experiences when time disappears and you lose yourself in the moment. There is no past and no future and all self-consciousness is gone. You are simply and profoundly present with what is in the moment.

Rare events such as witnessing the birth of a child or getting a view of the world from a mountaintop can elicit that place in us that is beyond our ordinary perceptions. But we don’t have to wait for extraordinary circumstances to experience this spacious part of ourselves. We can cultivate this kind of profound presence in our day-to-day life in the same way any habit or way of being gets created in us, through the simple act of repetition.

What is it that helps you get to this place? Is it being in nature, creating art, or attending religious services? Is it meditating, dancing, or singing? Or is it not as specific as that? Perhaps it’s just slowing down and looking a bit closer or listening a bit deeper. As Rumi says, "there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." Whatever it is for you, do it, and do it often.

Question A Week 31

IS THE ACTION YOU’RE TAKING COMING FROM A PLACE OF FEAR OR LOVE?

Photo by Rick Lewis

When things get messy, I often ask myself this simple question. There’s an energy to fear and love that is distinctly different in the body. Stripped to the most elemental level, fear is a constriction and love is an expansion. Some people are more readily in tune with these bodily sensations than others. For me, learning to recognize them takes a lot of slowing down and getting past my mind's entrenched stories of love and fear. Discovering the answer isn’t as simple as asking the question, but asking it always offers a bigger perspective from which to move forward.

Question A Week 30

CAN WE BE GLAD FOR WHAT DOES NOT HURT?

Photo by Rick Lewis

I used to ask myself how I could be glad about anything when there is so much pain and suffering in the world. In the early 90’s, I visited El Salvador, a country that had suffered more than a decade of brutal civil war, where those seeking justice were continually targeted and killed. Despite this, I was welcomed into a community of music and dancing and celebration. This was the moment I realized how immobilizing it was for me to stay stuck in the pain and suffering when what I needed more than anything was to keep my heart and body open to all the goodness around me. This goodness would be fuel for the road ahead.

It takes practice to notice what is good, especially when we are hurting, and it can save our lives. One client told me that acknowledging five things she was grateful for every day did indeed save her life during a particularly hard stint. It reminded her that life was more than the pain she was currently experiencing. It assured her that she wasn't alone, and that every day amazing things were happening without her having to do anything but pay attention to them.

In case it’s difficult for you to find something to be glad about right now, I'm sharing Marge Piercy's poem, The Art of Blessing The Day. 

This is the blessing for rain after drought:

Come down, wash the air so it shimmers,

a perfumed shawl of lavender chiffon.

Let the parched leaves suckle and swell.

Enter my skin, wash me for the little

chrysalis of sleep rocked in your plashing.

In the morning the world is peeled to shining.

This is the blessing for sun after long rain:

Now everything shakes itself free and rises.

The trees are bright as pushcart ices.

Every last lily opens its satin thighs.

The bees dance and roll in pollen

and the cardinal at the top of the pine

sings at full throttle, fountaining.

This is the blessing for a ripe peach:

This is luck made round. Frost can nip

the blossom, kill the bee. It can drop,

a hard green useless nut. Brown fungus,

the burrowing worm that coils in rot can

blemish it and wind crush it on the ground.

Yet this peach fills my mouth with juicy sun.

This is the blessing for the first garden tomato:

Those green boxes of tasteless acid the store

sells in January, those red things with the savor

of wet chalk, they mock your fragrant name.

How fat and sweet you are weighing down my palm,

warm as the flank of a cow in the sun.

You are the savor of summer in a thin red skin.

This is the blessing for a political victory:

Although I shall not forget that things

work in increments and epicycles and sometime

leaps that half the time fall back down,

let's not relinquish dancing while the music

fits into our hips and bounces our heels.

We must never forget, pleasure is real as pain.

The blessing for the return of a favorite cat,

the blessing for love returned, for friends'

return, for money received unexpected,

the blessing for the rising of the bread,

the sun, the oppressed. I am not sentimental

about old men mumbling the Hebrew by rote

with no more feeling than one says gesundheit.

But the discipline of blessings is to taste

each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet

and the salty, and be glad for what does not

hurt. The art is in compressing attention

to each little and big blossom of the tree

of life, to let the tongue sing each fruit,

its savor, its aroma and its use.

Attention is love, what we must give

children, mothers, fathers, pets,

our friends, the news, the woes of others.

What we want to change we curse and then

pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can

with eyes and hands and tongue. If you

can't bless it, get ready to make it new.

Question A Week 29

ARE YOU OPEN TO RECEIVE THE HELP THAT IS AVAILABLE TO YOU?

Photo by Rick Lewis

Help is everywhere, always, period. I don't always feel like this is true, but I know it now from a place in me that is unaffected by the fluctuations of my emotions. The key is to get into a receptive place, which (some of you aren't going to like this) is almost always a vulnerable place. Vulnerable not only to the pain of being human, but to the beauty of it as well. The very thing that may feel the hardest to do in the moment is precisely what is necessary. You need to get soft and remember that help, in all its varied and sometimes completely unexpected forms, will show up when you open up.