The Chapel in the Woods – Meditations, Inspiration & Quiet Moments

A Season for Becoming - September 6

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”— Ecclesiastes 3:1

I am happy it is September.

There is something about the first days of this month that feels different from an ordinary turn of the calendar. The light has shifted. The mornings are beginning to feel different. Even before the leaves change, somehow we know they will.

And this year, perhaps more than most, I feel surrounded by transitions.

Some are welcome. Some are uncertain. Some I chose, and others seem to have arrived without asking me at all.

We spend so much of our lives trying to get things settled. We want to know where we stand, what happens next, who will remain beside us, whether the choices we have made were the right ones.

But perhaps a life well lived isn't actually very settled.

Perhaps we are supposed to have seasons.

The trees do not seem particularly troubled by this idea. They do not cling desperately to August or worry that September means winter is coming. They simply respond to the changing light.

Maybe there is some wisdom in that.

We don't have to understand every transition while we are inside it. We don't have to measure ourselves by how other people are changing, staying, leaving, succeeding, approving or understanding.

Sometimes our only responsibility is to pay attention to what is changing within us.

September feels like an invitation to do that.

To notice what still fits.

To notice what doesn't.

To be grateful for what was without insisting that it remain exactly as it has been.

And to trust that becoming someone slightly different does not mean we have lost who we were.

It may simply mean another season has begun.

Until we see each other again in the chapel...

This Is How I Walk Through the World Now..... August 30

“People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7

I have been thinking lately about how we walk through the world.

For much of our lives, I think we look around.

We look to our families, our friends, our work, our communities and the world at large for little reflections of ourselves.

Am I doing this right?

Do they understand me?

Do they approve?

Do I belong here?

And without even realizing it, we can begin to see ourselves through other people's eyes.

Their approval can make us feel a little taller. Their disapproval can make us question something we were perfectly sure of five minutes before.

But I have come to understand something.

Do not look for your reflection in someone else's eyes.

They were never meant to be your mirror.

Every person sees us through the lens of their own life—their experiences, expectations, fears, hopes and history. Even those who love us most cannot possibly see the entirety of who we are.

Perhaps part of growing older is realizing we don't need them to.

There is a quiet confidence that comes when we begin to look less around and more within.

Not the confidence of having all the answers.

Not the confidence of believing we are always right.

And certainly not the confidence of no longer caring about other people.

Something gentler than that.

The confidence to know what matters to us. What we love. What we believe. What feels true. What kind of person we want to be when no one is watching.

For me, faith is part of that confidence.

I believe there is a hand greater than mine at work in my life. I believe God knows the parts of me that no one else can see. And I believe that when I become quiet enough to listen...beneath all the opinions, expectations and noise...I can feel that hand leading me.

I don't always know where.

I certainly don't always understand why.

But perhaps I don't need to.

There is tremendous freedom in no longer asking the world to tell us who we are.

We can listen.

We can trust.

And then we can walk forward as ourselves...openly, kindly, imperfectly and without constantly turning around to see who approves.

I find myself thinking often these days:

This is how I walk through the world now.

Not because I finally know where I am going.

But because I have learned to trust what is guiding me.

Peace be with you until we meet again in the Chapel.

We All Stand Under the Same Sky - August 23

“Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”
— Romans 12:15

We all stand under the same sky.

The fortunate and the struggling. The certain and the questioning. Those celebrating today and those simply trying to make it through.

I remember some of the darkest days of my life, walking out into the world while inside I was quietly crumbling.

And yet, all around me, life carried on.

People pushed carts through the grocery store. They stood in line for coffee. They hurried to appointments, picked up children, complained about traffic and decided what to make for dinner.

No one looking at me could have known what I was carrying.

And I began to wonder about them.

How many of these people were having one of the happiest days of their lives?

How many were carrying a grief as crippling as my own?

How many were frightened, lonely, newly in love, waiting for an answer, celebrating wonderful news, or simply doing everything they could to make it through another ordinary Tuesday?

We rarely know.

Perhaps that is one of the most important things we can remember as we move through this world.

Every person we encounter is living a life every bit as complicated and precious as our own.

I have always believed that God gives us a blessing every day.

Sometimes it is obvious.

And sometimes we have to look very hard to find it.

It might be a stranger who smiles at exactly the moment we need one. Someone who holds the door when our hands are full. The driver who sees us waiting and lets us into traffic. A kind word offered without any idea of how desperately we needed to hear one.

Small things.

Except perhaps they aren't small at all.

Because on a day when someone is quietly crumbling inside, a simple kindness can become the blessing they were looking very hard to find.

So be that for someone today.

Hold the door.

Let them into traffic.

Offer the smile.

Choose patience when impatience would be easier.

You may never know what someone is carrying, and you may never know what your small kindness meant to them.

But God does.

We do not have to know one another to belong to one another.

We are here together.

Rejoice with those who rejoice.

Mourn with those who mourn.

And as you walk back out into the world today, look for the blessing God has left for you.

Then perhaps, before the day is over, be the blessing He leaves for someone else.

We all stand under the same sky.

Peace be with you until we meet again in the chapel

The Ordinary Days - August 16

We are very good at making time for occasions.

Birthdays.
Holidays.
Weddings.
The dinners planned weeks in advance.

We put them on calendars and make certain we are there.

But most of a life is not lived on occasions.

It is lived on Tuesdays.

At the kitchen counter while someone makes coffee.

In the car on the way to somewhere neither of you particularly wanted to go.

Sitting on the porch after supper.

Folding laundry while someone tells you a story you have probably heard before.

Walking out to check the horses.

Calling for no reason other than you thought of them.

These moments rarely feel important while they are happening.

There is no photograph required.

No reservation.

No announcement that this is one of the moments you will someday miss.

And perhaps that is why they are so easy to postpone.

We say we should get together.

We promise to call.

We think there will be a quieter week.

There is always something that needs doing.

But the people we love do not need only the grand occasions.

They need some of our ordinary days.

And we need some of theirs.

So today…

Sit a little longer.

Make the call.

Invite someone over without cleaning the house first.

Have the coffee.

Take the walk.

Stay at the table after the plates have been cleared.

Do not wait for an occasion to make time for someone you love.

The time together is the occasion.

—

“Let us love one another, for love comes from God.”
1 John 4:7

The Quiet Work of Noticing - August 9

There is a temptation to believe that meaningful things arrive with great fanfare.

That joy should announce itself.

That peace should be unmistakable.

That we will somehow know when we have arrived.

But life is rarely so obliging.

More often, it comes quietly.

A hummingbird that visits while the coffee cools.

The sound of rain beginning on the roof.

The horse that lowers its head beside you without asking for anything.

A book that finds you at exactly the right moment.

A friend who calls simply to hear your voice.

These are not interruptions.

They are the life we keep insisting has not yet begun.

We spend so much time waiting for the extraordinary that we risk overlooking the ordinary miracles already scattered through our days.

Perhaps gratitude is nothing more than learning to notice what has quietly been there all along.

So today...

Look up.

Listen a little longer.

Walk a little slower.

Thank someone.

Notice something beautiful that no one else may ever see.

Not because it changes the world.

But because it changes you.

—

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

Psalm 46:10

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