There is something negative associated with staying put

That I unwittingly agreed with

Early.

I saw each place as a diving board

To the next,

The new,

The best yet to come.

Maybe it runs in your blood when you’re young,

So you can’t quite help it,

And the globalized world doesn’t help it,

Our newsfeeds continually reeling out

Opportunities ripe

To compare my life with theirs,

And the longing to go

Grows.

How far can you go?

How impactful can you be?

How happy, how alive, how fulfilled

They all look,

Beyond.

 

Then there was me

Here, now,

“watching the children and the garden grow”

as Dixie Chicks said would happen.

Just a few more jumps

And the way would clear,

Full steam ahead,

Into the more,

The adventurous more,

The unknown more,

Where that silver lining glinted,

All allure

Beyond.

 

But then, calmly over tea,

she told me.

She said that this up and go,

This thirst for more,

This aversion to staying put,

This quicksilver in my veins,

That fueled my dreams

Awake and asleep

That kept me bouncing along

hopeful

Was not Biblical.

 

I felt like I slipped on my diving board

And fell,

very unbecomingly,

And jarred myself

Inside myself

And I resisted her words

Hard.

 

She continued.

She said what was Biblical was

This word, “content.”

Content.

It was a tight-fisted, squirming in your chair, type word to me.

It wasn’t a long, drawn out, exciting, full and alive, alluring word.

It was short, hopefully very short.

It was an almost there,

Soon, but not yet,

“Are we there yet!?” word.

 

 

Content.

I looked it up.

Content: happy with one’s lot, satisfied.

That was not a squirm until it’s over,

count down the days,

peek out the window repeatedly definition.

 

 

True content.

 

When you settle,

Wholly,

Mind, body, soul,

Into a moment,

This moment,

Or any string of moments

And you enter it,

Stay in it,

Happy, present,

With the windows down,

And the first warm enough spring sun,

Latticing across your feet,

And everyone in the car,

Singing loud

And the countryside rolling by

Calm.

 

True content

happens when

You stay.

 

You stay long enough

That your neighbours feel like your family,

And Sunday mornings

Like a family reunion,

Every week.

Content happens when you stay

Long enough to see a garden grow,

Or four,

And see the gap toothed grins of multiple siblings

growing up here, now, happy.

 

 

Content happens

When we try it.

Try being happy with our lot

Our here, now.

 

“In most of my church tradition, no one ever mentioned the holy work of staying.

No one talked about how the places where we live life matter to our spiritual formation,

how we are shaped by our communities,

by our rootedness,

our geography,

by our families,

and by the complex web of connections and history

that emerge only by staying,” Sarah Bessey

 

It’s taken years to agree.

It’s taken a lot of staying put to agree.

So I don’t resist anymore.

It doesn’t jar me inside anymore.

This idea of staying put.

I agree.

Contentment is Biblical.

It’s really all about trust.

Trusting He chose this here, now

For you to live, for me to live,

Here, now, happy.

 

Content: happy with one’s lot, satisfied.

 

“Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and forget not all His benefits.

Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things;

so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles.”

Psalm 103:2, 5

 

 

Sometimes we scrub away the shimmer

On our silver lining,

And discover that

Beyond wasn’t what we anticipated it would be.

And home welcomes you.

This place where you practice the art of staying put,

And you sink your feet in

And your roots hold you

here, now, happy.