Welcome

It was foggy when I woke this morning.

I am still not used to this. The way it can be beautifully sunny one day - with views all the way out to the horizon - and then completely fogged in only a few hours later. They tell me that the one is a predictor of the other, the warm sun a sign that the valley is hot and drawing in moisture from the sea, but I still wake surprised.

Inside, my inner busy bee was suggesting projects before I even got out of bed. I tried to pray. But there she was trying to direct things. She speaks in a high pitched voice, this me. She's nice in that "work, work, work" kind of way. She likes to get things done.

I don't particularly like her.

David finds her amusing. I remember one day a while back when I was at his house. We'd had a wonderfully slow couple of days. On the last morning, I got up and started buzzing around.

He sat on the couch sipping his coffee and watched. Finally, he interrupted my inner work party with a joke. "Are we in a rush?"

In my journaling this morning, I did my best to welcome her. But her buzz was loud. "OK enough prayer. Let's get to work." I pushed her away and tried again to be "spiritual" but holding the barrier between her and me was hard work.

I put my pencil down and started moving around my house. I wasn't enjoying my inner dialogue and figured that if I wasn't going to be in a place of quiet today I might as well get some things done.

Another voice showed up. "Maybe welcoming this you is the work."

Imagine that.

For five or six years now I have followed the path of "welcome", greeting whoever I am on any given day without judgment. I try to, that is.

Welcoming me as I am is a trustworthy prayer discipline for me. It is what has gotten me through the train wreck/opening that has been my life these past few years. It is how I am learning to move beyond my default settings into the bigger silence and love.