Stuff happens. A lot of stuff happens. Stuff flies into life from every direction; from left and right, from above and from below, stuff is always moving across the landscape of the moments of our lives. Sunday the stuff of life descended and rocked my morning in ways that I had not anticipated nor did I feel equipped to navigate in front of all who gathered to observe.
Travel back with me to Monday, the day before the 2020 election. My morning began in its predictable way with tea, meditation, then on to the tasks of the day. Mondays for me are reserved for writing the weekly enews message and beginning the preparation for the upcoming Sunday Celebration Service. This particular Monday was unexceptional. I viewed the prerecorded meditation and message from our scheduled guest speaker Lysa Allman-Baldwin and uploaded all the YouTube music for the service. As I enjoyed hearing each of the new thought musicians, every video worked perfectly. As the week progressed and Thursday arrived, one more run through of the service worked to perfection. Videos began and ended on que. I left for home feeling successful.
Sunday, I awoke well-rested and ready for the day ahead. While there was a part of me that wished I was presenting the lesson, I was also relieved knowing that Lysa’s message was filled with inspiring words for the day. As always, I arrived at Unity bright and early to proceed with the tasks of preparing the sanctuary for the morning.
Music videos- check, slides in order – check, Lysa’s meditation video – small glitch then check, Lysa’s lesson – check, camera set-check, sound set – check, centering prayer with everyone - check. All was now in order for the celebration service to begin.
Opening music began on que, and that my friends, was the final smooth moment for the next sixty minutes. The next video failed but finally started on the third attempt. The mediation video didn’t show up at all, and repeated delays in music continued to plague the live stream. With each delay, I moved quickly from the front of the sanctuary to the back, resolved the issue than back to the front to continue the service. With each glitch, my energy twisted into knots of what felt like embarrassment and failure. As Lysa’s lesson was on queue to begin, something happened with technology, I don’t quite know what, that left audio devoid of video for her lesson. I rushed to the computer and begged and pleaded with it to project Lysa’s video on the screen for all to enjoy her warm personality along with her words. That was not to be.
By now, my ego was fully engaged and I was feeling the stress of the inability to command the projector, laptop, and screen to cooperate with my wishes/demands. Disappointment grew stronger by the minute as I realized that I had failed miserably to bring a smooth, inspiring Sunday experience to Facebook viewers. I lamented that I had also disappointed our lovely guest speaker, Lysa. Ego twirled me into a spinning ball of frustration only to collapse into a pool of tears as the celebration service finally concluded.
Thinking of the words Lysa spoke, honestly brought little comfort at first. As I sat with her thought that “we don’t control everything”, I realized there was great truth in that. We can prepare to our best ability, we can show up as our best expression, then we must allow the universe to move in whatever way the universe moves.
Lysa also spoke about surrender. It seems that this remains a challenging concept. I was not surrendering to what was happening in the space of the sanctuary. Instead, I was struggling to make things happen the way I thought they should. After all, who wouldn’t want a Sunday service free of technology trip-ups and video restarts? Who wouldn’t want to see the face of the speaker they were being inspired by? It seems to me that my expectations were realistic. But that’s not what was showing up for me.
In retrospect, I am reminded of some of the lessons I have shared over the years. I am reminded of lessons about compassion, beginning with self and lessons about forgiveness, beginning with self. I also recalled the many, many lessons about not resisting, and embracing and even loving what is. How could I possibly have so quickly forgotten the lessons that were recently shared from Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Hanh, Jesus, and all of my other inspiring teachers?
Very importantly, I am reminded that aside from a bruised ego, no one was injured or harmed in this experience. The message of hope and the message of love shined through. The words of Louis Armstrong that closed our time together were strong, clear, and powerful “and I think to myself, what a wonderful world oh, yeah.”
I am humbled by the experience of chaos, by the inspirations that shown through in the end. Mostly I am reminded of Micah 6:8 “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”.
Love,
Rev. Karen