Twice in the past two days I’ve been reminded of the importance of small actions:
Sunrise Sister wrote about Small Things – Everyday Life, and today at Jamie Ridler Studios (Jamie’s fabulous brand new website – go check it out), I spotted her question What road are your daily actions taking you down? Is it where you want to go?
This is making me think about the question of choice, and how our lives are built up day-by-day and year-by-year simply by a multiplicity of small and large choices.
Like bricks in a wall, our momentary choices make a home for the essence of who we are. Every moment lasts forever, AND every wall can be rebuilt.
I really believe that even at times we believe we have no choice, we do. Even if it’s a fleeting fraction of a second, even if it’s only how to respond, we have a choice. Those in prisons and concentration camps – in circumstances most of us can barely imagine – have sometimes spoken of the possibility of choice, even there.
My choices haven’t been going so well over the past few weeks. In my current job-free life I’ve allowed the days to stretch into each other, without enough structure. I’m allowing this time for me to be about being, not doing, but I’m frittering time instead of experiencing it fully as something precious. So this pondering been a great wake-up for me, a reminder to choose the bricks of my life consciously and joyously.
And if you think walls are boring and utilitarian, you only have to check out the sculptural images in this post of a tree overgrowing a church wall in Virginia, visit Barcelona to see Gaudi’s Parc Guell or Casa Battlo, or touch one of Britain’s intricate dry stone walls to know that while they have a purpose – shelter, demarcation – walls can be beautiful in shape and form.
What shape is your wall?
Images by ktylerconk
Elsewhere:
For you if you’re interested in modern monasticism – Carl McColman posts a link to a long but very interesting article about the current state of monasticism, which references the role of the institutional church, while Pat Loughery links to the latest article about the current Vatican investigations into North American nuns.
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Sue 07.08.09 at 1:39 pm
I love your blog Tess. Yes I do. Love the space and the questions and the feel and the colour.
What shape is my wall? It’s a wind-ey wall that curves in and out, with moss growing inbetween the cracks
I also need a hammer nearby to occasionally smash portions of it down 
The other wall I think of is an egg shape. I have a meditation I do when I’m feeling statically electric and my energy is flinging all over the place and sending me into high anxiety. In that meditation I imagine my spine extending down out past my body and into the ground, like a tree root. I imagine the same with my two feet. Then I imagine a space, my own space, a time to shut everyone else out when it’s all got too overwhelming. It is almost always lately an egg shape, and the outside surface of it is mirrored. This is my space, my wall for when I need it
I love what you say here about small choices. Isn’t it a delicious sort of feeling when you are living in the knowing of that, and walking about with satisfaction doing the most mundane things? I felt it before when I was cooking. I felt it yesterday when I realised that I am going to take this Friday off, just because it seems like the right thing to do
I realised it before when I emailed off a query about the clay course starting next week 
lucy 07.08.09 at 2:02 pm
i may be in bermuda, but we’re definitely on the same wavelength. just posted my own about those small ordinary things…and i don’t know “being instead of doing” sounds like a pretty important endeavor. you may be frittering, but i am benefiting!!
i adore your bricks photo. well chosen!!! o.k. i am now off in search of the sun
kigen 07.08.09 at 6:25 pm
Tess, wonderful wall question !!!
I took a taxi down to the tip of Manhattan this morning, where a park faces the Statue of Liberty, and I stood there for a while looking out at that great Lady across the Bay. And then I spent the next three hours walking home from there, mindlessly, just following the walled esplanade that follows the Hudson River, and which played the part of guide, route, and confessor, all in one. —
claire 07.09.09 at 8:24 pm
Really neat photo, Tess, heading your blog.
Yes, lives are built day-by-day with our decisions and choices. But what if they could also be ‘un-built’? What if I took my wall down stone by stone, brick by brick? What if I could turn into air or drop in the ocean?
Tess 07.09.09 at 8:51 pm
@Sue: I love your image of the egg shape. The meditation reminded me of a physical exercise we used to do in drama class at school, similar sort of thing – tree roots etc. I haven’t thought about that in decades!
@lucy: Bermuda is lucky to have you!
@kigen: What a beautiful description. I haven’t been to New York for about 16 years, but I think I know exactly the spot you mean. I gather the crown of Lady Liberty reopened a few days ago for the first time since the Twin Towers fell.
@claire: Oh yes, go with this one, what if you could turn into air or drop in the ocean, what would it take, what would it mean?
Barbara 07.11.09 at 1:51 am
O Tess, how I empathize with your structureless living! It has bothered me since I retired about a year ago. Robert Frost wrote “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” and I am inclined to believe him. Part of me rebels against the idea of a cloisonne-ed life. However, some translucent and flexible, but self-protective barrier would feel so useful and even comforting in organizing my days. One needs something against which to exert pressure or I fear we tend to puddle out. I think a gentle set of chosen responsibilities is that kind of something.
Barney 07.11.09 at 8:09 am
Beautiful photos, Tess. So much beauty in things we so often don’t look at or absorb mindfully.
You are so right about the small choices. I may profess great principles, values, ideals, but if my moment-by-moment interactions with my wife, children, grandchildren, the guy who sells tickets at the station, the homeless person on Brompton Road aren’t – how to put this? – right, infused with loving-kindness, if I don’t see that of God in each and every person, all the great principles and values come to naught.
crayons 07.14.09 at 11:56 pm
Hi Tess,
Thank you for writing this succinct post on a very important topic. I believe, like you, that there is always a choice, even when the choice is not obvious. I like your question about the wall — and also the parable of the fish in the bathtub. My wall is neat and tight. It goes around every single aspect of my life: clothing, money, apartment, friends, future, divorced husband. It is some sort of comforting blanket that I pull up around myself. Thanks for challenging that practice.
Tess 07.15.09 at 9:56 am
@Barbara, I like the way you put it: “a gentle set of chosen responsibilities”.
@Barney, you’re right, and I often have to remind myself of this. It’s like the old (but still true) feminist principle “the personal is political”.
@crayons, glad to encourage you to maybe try a different coloured brick in a couple of places!
kigen 07.22.09 at 8:08 pm
Tess, I’ve thought about your mention of New York City and your trip to the Battery, and view of Statue of Liberty and especially your mention of 9/11. Your kindness in mentioning the connection to New York – Thank you. I once crossed the Hungerford Bridge on foot in your beautiful London! Since this post is still open for comments, just to say also, I was working downtown in New York on 9/11 and unfortunately witnessed the event live. Thousands upon thousands of us were in the streets watching the towers. There was a collective sigh of agony which you could hear ripple through the crowds, when the second building went down. I then grabbed my belongings from my office (I would not be allowed to return for weeks) and began half walking, half running uptown until I reached an Episcopal church which I had never been inside before, but where hundreds of people, exiting the area, had gathered to pray. There were so many people who wanted to pray, many of us left after not too long a time, so others could have our seats.
Cindy L 07.24.09 at 12:26 pm
Tess,
This post really hit home with me this morning. You mentioned taking time for “just being” but find that you need some structure for your days.
Me too. As a former (semi-retired) newspaper columnist, I feel a tad useless with so much free time and little direction. I still teach workshops and do some online writing … but with paying journalism opportunities dwindling in Detroit (and elsewhere), I decided to take a summer sabbatical to figure out what’s next for my writing career. I have begun notes for a book, I am surprised to find how MUCH I miss having weekly deadlines. I need more “purpose” to motivate me. With that in mind, I am looking for volunteer opportunities to supplement my free time.
Tess 07.27.09 at 3:11 pm
@kigen: thank you for sharing your story of that terrible day. There’s something very moving about the detail of giving up your places in the church so that others could pray.
@Cindy: yes, I struggle with this structure -v- freedom issue. Good luck with your book. I wonder what it is about deadlines that is so motivating for us.