Stop!
“In a monastery we ought to follow the advice of the psalm which says: I have resolved to keep watch over my ways so that I may not sin with my tongue. I am guarded about the way I speak and have accepted silence in humility, refraining even from words that are good.”
I wrote the essay for this week and finished it before it was even due. I sent it off to my teacher knowing it would come back with comments and suggestions of areas that need attention. I would have plenty of time to add or subtract or elucidate. It was an OK essay. My teacher even said it was “a fine teaching”. All right, I thought. I can follow up on suggestions made. Then I reread her response. I had missed the first sentence. It read, I “would like you to rewrite it.” I didn’t say what came to my mind for, as the Psalm says, “I have resolved to keep watch over my ways so that I may not sin with my tongue.” Then I laughed. Then I felt frustrated and mad. “Get real,” she wrote. I thought I WAS real. What’s real? I thought. Am I that out of touch with myself?
Writing these essays is tough, I tell myself. One a week! I go through my litany of protestations. Anxiety arises. I talk some more. What if nothing will come? What if I won’t be able to express myself well? Where is my focus? Why is getting my thoughts together like herding cats? Why am I not able to understand what my teacher is asking? I’m just don’t seem to be able to get it right! I wish I had more of a well ordered left brain, a 1, 2, 3 brain! Why can’t I get it right!
Then I said,
STOP!
At that moment I received a phone call. Jo, one of our residents died. Her Procession of Honor would be at 8:30 this morning. I came to my senses. Really! What does anything matter? What does getting something RIGHT matter? What does having an excellent essay matter? What Jo has just done matters. That’s what’s real. Everything else is a blip.
We sang Jo out in company with her husband, nine kids and a crowd of residents. Sang her out the door on “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”.
And the sweet chariot carrying what wasn’t Jo, slowly drove away.
….who never stops talking cannot avoid falling into a pit”.
That line is further down on the page of today’s quote. It reads ‘sin’ but I changed ‘sin’ to ‘pit’ for ‘pit’ feels more like what I get into with my self talk. The image works better. It’s a dark place inside, a place of doubt and fear. It’s full of the self that I look to for answers and find none. Self talk throws me into my pit because I believe it.
Except when someone like Jo comes along and says look up.
My teacher once said, “Stop a word with a word.” I think the word is STOP.
Author: Ho Getsu Sen Gen
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