A Point of Stillness

Chicago's summer has been mild this year, and most evenings I sit on the backyard swing for a while and do nothing except perhaps have a glass of red wine and pet Mr. Bones the cat, who has decided that the swing is for our together time. I make a point of not "working" when we're on the swing in the evening--no strategizing for the next day, no reading or writing or problem solving. These days I am too weary to work anyway. My doctor is testing me for thyroid problems, anemia, or heart trouble because the weariness will not go away. My body feels the way it has felt in the past when I have been seriously depressed; yet, I don't think I'm depressed.

I am, though, by some power outside myself, held at a point of stillness. Some part of me cannot move and demands its rest, or retreat. And the summer sky at twilight helps in this regard. Its pale light and quiet watchfulness over my world make it seem that the universe, like me, sits in a swing somewhere, waiting. But for what?

Grim events keep erupting in the world. Their violence resounds from Syria or Iraq or the Sudan or Ferguson, Missouri, or the street a couple of blocks from here where the emergency sirens whined to a stop moments ago. The severe hurt occurring at seemingly countless locations sets itself against the atmosphere of this evening. The breath of cool breeze that comforts Mr. Bones and me exists while all these other things exist. Some evenings, I think I know what it feels like to go mad, or to give up entirely. My life is comfortable, blessed, full of love and food and good work. But some part of me is held motionless on this evening, as a hostage is detained in some dark, blank space, hoping for a good word from somewhere, anywhere.

The world has always been like this, suspended in great tension and confusion and horror and beauty. Perhaps this is why, for thousands of years, people have set themselves upon courses of prayer, meditation, and work that have a schedule and a scheme. They learned that we are prone not only to stillness that refreshes but also to a form of stillness that causes our souls to stagnate. My quiet moments on the backyard swing are, for the most part, good for me, providing some rest and contemplation and a bit of bliss at the end of the day. But nearly always now, I sense my soul being pulled down to a still place that is not helpful. It is a place to which I might remain, staked down to a tepid anxiety, a loss of thought, a lack of desire. At such times stillness is not alive and pulsing and rejuvenating; it is simple lack of motion either inward or outward. It is a type of death before death. And I think it's quite possible to be dead this way for many years and hardly recognize it because the seat is so comfortable and the air so calm.

So I think it's time to be somewhat stern with myself and map out the days, at least loosely, with times for prayer, times for specific work or creativity, and times to spend with others. St. Ignatius advised those seeking to grow spiritually to be aggressive rather than passive when the enemy of their souls made life difficult. Essentially, he said, "Now's not the time to retreat and sleep more; it's time to act and to pray more than ever." I'm beginning to understand his wisdom on this.