Finding delight in the dreary
A manifesto of letting go of control and embracing ordinary beauty
I don’t want to be naive. I know that life is hard. Many of us look at our life and find it not fully satisfying. We may have ended up with not just one “short end of the stick” but a whole pile of them. We have a more difficult marriage than we expected, maybe a career that leaves us drained. We may be single, childless, have difficult children, or we’re divorced. Perhaps we are overweight with ongoing health issues or our mental health remains a mystery. I haven’t even mentioned those who’ve experienced trauma and abuse. Life can be downright cruel. Sorry if I’m bumming you out. Hang with me, I have a point.
When I met my husband, he was fresh out of rehab and with an undiagnosed mental illness (that came later). But I loved him. When we were friends, I remember sitting on his porch while he smoked a cigarette, and for a split moment, God enabled me to see right into his soul and I saw the man I am now married to almost 16 years later. It felt like a miracle wrapped inside a completely ordinary moment. I knew it was risky to marry him, I did anyway. Armed with our marriage counselor, Brene Brown, and Al-Anon, I said yes to a possible life of hardship. And it was hard, believe me. Those first few years were the pits. Then they got better, so we decided to start a family without knowing we would enter into a ten-year struggle with infertility only to end up childless at the end. Life can be cruel.
Both my husband and I are quite familiar with the Serenity Prayer going through our own recoveries. As my husband recovered from substance abuse, I was recovering from co-dependency. Boy, were we a match or what?! Yet, as we both learned to relinquish control of circumstances and the desire to control one another, something beautiful happened: life became life. Not something cruel or withholding or dangerous but real and mysterious and continually unfolding. It became serene even in the midst of life’s storms.
Many of us know the Serenity Prayer.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference…
But not many of us know the full prayer.
living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; taking this world as it is and not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.
− Reinhold Niebuhr
Taking this world as it is and not as I would have it. This is the essence of surrender and what the Welcoming Prayer embodies.
Many of us will stumble over the part of this prayer that mentions “God’s will”, so let’s unpack that a bit. Reinhold Niebuhr was a reformed pastor and political activist who deeply believed in the ideals of socialism but could not reconcile the inability of the human race to care for one another. Niebuhr believed the greatest evil was human pride at every level of society. Over his life, he continued to see the ideals of capitalism form the soul, creating an insatiable appetite to achieve. He deeply wanted to see the good in humanity and yet, society continue to build systems that corrupted the Imago Dei. This was reality for him. Pride had its way with humanity and our inability to surrender our prideful will to a loving and supreme God was our biggest obstacle to living a fulfilled life here on earth. But as you see, Niebuhr did not sit back and let society destroy itself, he was after all a political activist. Yet, he understood early on in his career he only had so much control, the rest was left to be surrendered.
So for this week’s newsletter, here is my still-in-process, imperfect, and rudimentary manifesto to letting go of control and embracing ordinary beauty.
There is beauty to be found, to be cherished, and to be shared in every single moment. In empty glasses of wine on a cluttered table and the shimmer of dew on morning grass. In the buzzing of bees and the laughter of friends. In the dancing of shadows and the tallest of trees.
Each moment offers us connection and wonder, even in ordinary moments of smoking on a poarch. Yet I will miss the beauty if I’m armored, unhealed, and carry my grief like a badge of honor. I will miss the wild flowers waiting to bloom if I don’t till the soil of my own soul.
I refuse to be hardened ground, even if a million people walk upon me. Life is too precious to remain inside my wounds, guarded by own fears and resentments. I can be free to be me. Life can be free to be life. I can let go of my desire for control because I know it’s for my healing. I can let go of my resentments because I know they will keep me from seeing this world in color. There is too much at stake to only see in black and white!
God is close; Closer than I know, feel, and even believe at times. I have this faith, as imperfect and piece-mealed together it might be. It feeds my soul and gives me the eyes to see Mystery unfolding in all things.
Let me take this life as it is, not as I would have it. Yes, it can be dreay but it is also full of delight. I maybe fully broken but I am also fully divine. I may carry grief each day as I carry lungs to breathe but I also have a God who shares the load.
This is life. Beautiful. Painful. Always unfolding.
This is life. It’s all we have.
Now let’s start looking for beauty.
May we have the eyes to see beauty, the heart to find delight in the dreary, and the surrender to let life unfold in the Mother’s hands.
Much love,
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Embracing life as it is, and not as we would have it be. I think that sounds a lot like the definition of contentment. Learning to be content and accepting in the hand we’ve chosen and been dealt. Life can be impossibly cruel, it can break us in a million pieces. But to choose not to be bitter and cruel as a response is the definition of being present and accepting of both the beauty and the pain. What a glorious thing to behold in ourselves and others!
It takes so much courage to continue to have faith, hope and love in this world. I love your manifesto, it is full of courage, reality and hopefulness.