Choose meaning over momentum

Were you ever robbed? It is a terrible feeling. Fortunately, I have never experienced theft from my person. I was robbed at my house.

Twenty-five years ago, I traveled down the New Jersey Turnpike from the parsonage where I lived in northern New Jersey for a special Advent concert at my seminary. I thought the concert would be uplifting before the holiday craziness took hold. If you have traveled that busy road, you know I was making an effort to get to the concert.

I left the concert feeling renewed. However, I immediately knew something was wrong when I opened the kitchen door back home. There were muddy footprints on the floor. The window over the sink was open. I was alone. I called the police and a trustee from the church. No one was still in the house, but my jewelry was stolen. I was sad to lose pieces my father had given me from our store. A jewelry theft ring cased my neighborhood through an informant working for a window washing service. They robbed four houses that night within two blocks. The thieves dumped what they didn’t want down the sewer and hopped on buses to New York. The police apprehended the group and they were prosecuted. I never recovered anything, even after checking all the surrounding pawn shops. Feelings from that night welled up in me as I described it for you. If something similar happened to you, you know what I mean.

That was not the only time I have been robbed. I am robbed every day and I let it happen.

My daily theft is of time, energy, and focus. A weekly report on my iPad shows how much time I spend on it. Granted, some of that time is for research, writing, and other important conversations and business-related posts. I am using it right now to write to you.

Other times, I let ads take me shopping for things I don’t need. I follow threads to see what other people say about a particular subject. I read news and “news.” I feel outraged about things I can do nothing about. In times of stress, I watch reels about kittens.

The second kind of theft doesn’t generate the same feelings that the first kind did. Why not? I think it should. It is also a violation. I am irritated with myself when I realize how much time goes by. I simply sigh and go on with my day. What I have lost cannot be replaced, just like my jewelry.

Which police force do you call for this theft? I could see a purpose for one. They could knock on your door, blow a whistle in your face and tell you to go outside and play or go visit a friend. No weapons would be involved. They would hand out lemonade or hot chocolate. Their acronym would be ICE: Inviting Care Enablers.

Being present to the moment is a radical act of rebellion. It takes courage to buck the cultural tide of behavior. I am not suggesting you become like Henry David Thoreau and take off to a cabin in the woods, unless you really want to. Besides, even while he lived out there, his mother did his laundry.

The wise Dr. Kate Bowler, a writer, podcaster and professor at Duke has shortened the overused and inaccurate statement “everything happens for a reason” into the much more manageable and truthful “everything happens.” This is the title of her podcast. Her latest book is entitled “Joy Anyway.” A mission of hers is to encourage people to be human, to embrace it and welcome it and to challenge the myth that productivity makes us valuable. She recently said we often equate … “momentum with meaning.” I like that. Plus, alliteration makes it easy to remember.

One of the reasons I am drawn to the poetry of Mary Oliver is her embrace of her own humanity and her boundless capacity to pay attention to nature and learn from it.

Here is an excerpt from the conclusion to her poem, “Summer Day”:

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Don’t make me come knock on your door and blow my whistle. Choose meaning over momentum.