life is a verb, indeed

Yesterday, I wrote about being the next stop on the blog tour bus for Patti Digh's glorious book, Life Is A Verb, 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally. I have in mind something like the beloved tour bus from Almost Famous, a good groovy place where everyone sings Elton John at the top of their lungs. This is a book that deserves celebrating, a foot-stompin' kind of party, with plenty of good snacks and even better drinks.

Life is A Verb sprang from her blog, 37 days, inspired by Patti's stepfather's death, just 37 days after he was diagnosed with cancer. Patti writes, "I tried to reconcile the fact that this fearful death was happening with the understanding that I needed to make something good out of it. What emerged was a commitment to ask myself this question every morning: What would I be doing today if I only had thirty-seven days to live?"

I think we all dance around this topic nervously. We know that our days and nights are often filled with pure busy-ness, under the guise of business, or we are caught up in the grind of expectation, our beloved communities, unpacking the kids' backpacks so we don't find moldering apple slices in December, after we've cleaned the house from top to bottom, trying to rid the house of that funky smell. It's easy to feel too busy to pay attention to what we forget to treasure: our "one wild, precious life". I'm here, we say to ourselves, I'm busy with my good life, and I have so much to do, so please hush, you pesky little voice. And yet. Yet. These thoughts pull at us, like my toddler at my skirt, and I find myself saying, dude, I have so much to do. Please go away.

I am actually saying that RIGHT NOW as I type this. Mother of the Year!

Life Is A Verb is an invitation, an invitation to slow down already, reassess, figure out what really matters to you. Not to your neighbor, or your mama, or even your partner, but YOU. It's a book that I know I'll pick up again and again, and I really plan to work through some of the actions and movements at the end of each chapter, small insidious changes you can make, one day at a time. A book with funny stories that make you stop, and read pieces out loud to whoever you're with. A beautiful book, filled with personal, unique artwork and poems by Patti's readers, including two powerful poems by my dear Marilyn, my wise woman friend who endures me and my really long emails. Such a lovely book is a rarity these days, methinks, and is such a treat for the eyes, filled with just-right quotes in the margins, bits of prettiness and visual impact.

Some of my favorite chapters are ones that speak to me with the sort of heart impact that is almost uncomfortable. Things that need to be dealt with - the times I need to let go of being right, even though I AM SO RIGHT! This is a hard thing for me. I am still right, but how do you let go of the need to be right, triumphant on your little mountain of appropriateness? I think that particular chapter (on Integrity) might have been stuck in this tome, just for me. Okay, God, I get the message, thank you.

Patti writes with such grace and humor and just plain goodness. I am delighted by many writers, and there are many that I wish lived next door to me, or at least I was on their speed dial. Patti is now in that category, a person that you wish you could have coffee with, that you could sit on the porch with, talking and laughing and knowing that the world is a good place, simply because this one person is in it. As I read through Life Is A Verb, a question kept emerging, and I tried to poke it back down. Sometimes, it seems, that asking about someone's faith is deeply uncool, maybe even too personal. Faith is now even used as a political weapon - who's got the right faith, whose is too scary, whose makes me or you uncomfortable? But yet - finally, when it came down to it, I emailed Patti the only thing I could think of asking, after sitting with her wisdom and particular grace - I said, what is your faith story? Knowing that she is Southern, and with several mentions of her hometown Baptist church peppered throughout, I knew she had a juicy, interesting journey. Here's what she replied:

I was raised a Southern Baptist, and attended Calvary Baptist Church from a very young age, going through Sunday School and Vacation Bible School like all good Southern Baptists and without a great deal of discussion. It just was. Church provided community and structure and, I guess in some ways, a future.

I was an exchange student at age 16 to Sri Lanka where I lived with a Buddhist family. They exposed me to both Hindu and Buddhist religious life, and that really opened my eyes and made me understand that spirituality was more important to me than organized religion, that there was a way to connect to a bigger universe and feel cared for in a bigger way than just in Calvary Baptist Church. What I also learned was that these people who looked and believed and ate and lived so differently from me were, at the deepest levels, just like me. That was big learning for me at that young age, and has forever since shaped my life.

I then found myself along this journey attending a Quaker college, again looking more deeply at spirituality in community and in human relatedness than at rhetoric or rules in religion. I think it's fair to say that I'm not religious in a traditional church-based sense, but deeply spiritual.

I honor Patti's journey with everything I am, and find a friend of my heart in her words and life. What a treasure is this book. I'm also intrigued that the same Zen teaching quoted below appeared in two books I've read in a row, so I think that I should sit up and take notice. Lectio divinia, I think. I have no idea what it means, but I'm sure that is mostly the point.

When you start out on a long journey, trees are trees, water is water, and mountains are mountains. After you have gone some distance, trees are no longer trees, water no longer water, mountains are no longer mountains. But after you have traveled a great distance, trees are once again trees, water is once again water, mountains once again mountains.

Comments

[Marilyn]

I knew you would write about LIAV from your special Sam perspective...that worldview of yours that I love so much, even when it doesn't match my own. I find your faith to be infused with such grace...with such an allowing and acceptance and a willingness to find common ground. And I see that trait in Patti and in her words. I hear in her essays a desire to get to that place where we can rejoice in our mutual human-ness, despite our differences. This is a lovely post.

[Elizabeth MacCrellish]

you so sm-AHT and good and all around lovely, I'm gonna come hang on your skirt, too . .

[christina]

Oh Sam, I'm so happy I came here after my crummy day and read your post. You are so right and brilliant, and I will have to get Patti's book. I need more reminders like this.

Smooches to you!

[Julie]

Sounds like an interesting read...or at least you make it seem so! I'm still trying to figure out that quote...

[keith]

If you're not careful, you're going to encounter enlightenment way before you are scheduled to receive it!

Love you Large............

[atorrents]

Reserve my seat on the bus and let's have blueberry lemonade and ginger snaps for snack time. I'll bring the permission slips Great review!