Solstice

by Lyndsey Graves

Things I have left unfinished this week:
 
Two blog posts about the law
A poem about my body
A blog post about moving away from Syracuse
Several rambling journal entries about nothing at all

I can’t focus, is my point. I have opinions, thoughts, and feelings, to be sure, but they don’t seem very urgent these days.

Today is the summer solstice. I live next door to my enormous church, and the light reflected in the windows shines a rose-gold color. Why bother to cultivate a “life of the mind” with such beauty demanding my attention? This is a sincere question. I tell myself there is time. It is the solstice.
 
The windows are open and my hands are chopping vegetables. I am watching them. I always see my hands with my peripheral vision, but in the last few days I have started looking at them, like really looking at them. My hands pick up an onion and place it on the cutting board - marvelous. This is how two-year-olds have to do everything, I realize. Their hands still require concentration. Their hands still command awe.
 
I will always be a thinker, a reader, a writer, a liver of a life very much in my mind. But for now, I am more a vegetable-chopper, a walk-in-the-parker, a pray through movement and hugger. My faith is twining its tendrils into this world and it feels good and right again - for a while there, it hurt like hell. 

Maybe this is the only antidote for all the pain of opening your life to other people - to stop dwelling inside in darkness, to start cooking vegetables, crocheting wedding gifts, reading books held in your hands; listen to your body longing for exercise and lift your face to the sun. Thank God.
 
Today is the solstice, and I am feeling rather pagan. Those who worship the sun have missed the point, but far less so than those who worship the feeble light of constantly flickering screens.
 
I will be back to our screen-meeting-place my friends. But not until I have existed, fully present, in this place for a while. In Syracuse, New York. Near a cedar and several oaks. Next to one Nate Medford. Among a lot of borrowed furniture, on the solstice. This, for now, is where I have met God.

Lyndsey lives and works in Syracuse, NY. She majored in theology at Lee University, which is like eating cake or listening to thunderstorms - too enjoyable to be called work. Also, no one will pay you to do it. You can follow her on Twitter @lyndseygraves and you can find more of her writing at her blog To Be Honest.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.
 
You might also like:  

• A Place in Sedona
• Prayers to a Dark God
• Waiting on Emmanuel