learning to love the questions (part 1)

“… have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…”  – Rainer Maria Rilke

Once again, I’m having trouble slowing down and capturing my thoughts on recent struggles, which I’m learning is actually part of the struggle. It’s as if there are little fireflies darting through my brain. I catch a glimpse of one truth and try to grab on to it, but before I can wrap my brain around its meaning and beauty there are three others that light up in the background, and before I even realize it I’ve lost sight of the one that possibly had something to show me. Deep breath, because even this metaphor is stressing me out. So, because I’m working on taking hold of my thoughts and questioning their meaning, and more importantly their truth, let’s take hold of this metaphor:

It seems I’m grasping at things that are not meant to be held and understood fully. Sitting outside at dusk on a warm muggy summer night with these lights flickering all around is magical and the epitome of peacefulness to me. Magical by definition is something that cannot be fully understood, and as soon as it can be the magic is lost. Peacefulness also elicits an idea of restfulness and calm, in the midst of the unknown. So, part of being able to sit and enjoy the beauty of a magical summer evening is accepting and appreciating that each individual light flickering in the night is not meant to be captured, held, and dissected.

Easier said than done, especially when we’re actually talking about my thoughts and trying to move toward truth and healing instead of just enjoying an evening of lightning bugs in the backyard. However, I’m thinking there might be great magic and peace in accepting who I’m created to be, and acknowledging I cannot fully understand and control my thoughts. I can work on acknowledging their presence, seeing them for what they are- truth or not, and let them flicker out, one by one or several at a time. I can try to love the questions themselves and have great peace in believing the creator of the universe didn’t make a mistake when he created me, me….

continued in part 2.

“I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

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through the view finder

Well, it’s been a while. It’s been over three years actually. It’s true I have a very sensitive 3.5-year-old and a feisty 2-year-old, which means I was pregnant and/or nursing for over three consecutive blurry years. This seems the likely excuse for my blogging hiatus. However, the real reason is that in July of 2012, I held an iPhone for the first time. Life changing.

My last post on my old blog was July 12, 2012. It’s no coincidence. I stopped picking up my SLR camera to capture life and beauty around me and instead just used my phone. It was always so convenient. The thing about using my phone to capture moments of beauty is I didn’t have to slow down to look through a view finder. I rarely would even change my position to get a better shot. It just all became so quick and easy. Then I ended up with thousands of sub par photos. I’m slowly working on editing these, but really, it’s too many.

After the addition of an iPhone in 2012, I also rarely opened my computer. Again, it was so quick and easy to do what I needed to on my phone, so convenient. So, I stopped reading blogs. I stopped blogging. I stopped slowing down to think and read and write.

I miss looking through the view finder. I miss getting my camera out and taking photos with intention. I miss blogging, discovering and processing what I think. I miss my flip phone. But, there’s no going back, and of course I recognize the benefits of this sleek phone that has a built-in camera, and map. I’m hoping to practice using it for what it is though. It’s like instant coffee. I’d never drink the stuff but it is an amazing and necessary addition to my Mocha Rocky Road Oatmeal Cookies and Ina’s Decadent Chocolate Cake. Amazing. Life changing. But I’m not about to give up my real freshly roasted dark aromatic coffee for an instant variety, even if it is more convenient.

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So, here’s to becoming reacquainted with my view finder and my keyboard. Here’s to looking and thinking, to slowing down and creating for more than just an instant. Here’s to removing a lens cap, squatting, squinting, focusing, and seeing life through the view finder again. It’s called the view finder. Here’s to taking the time to think out my thoughts. Here’s to finding and seeing moments of beauty around me and to using my creative brain in whatever outlets I’m given during this blurry stage of life. Here’s to wrapping my hands around these moments and slowly drinking in every sip.