Dear Friends ~ The year after my first child was born could have been called A Crash Course in the Contemplative Life. Overnight my daily landscape shifted from the external and the social, to the internal and the domestic. My driving need for productivity and efficiency made no sense in a newborn's routine. I faced rhythmic but unscheduled days with swaths of quiet time. A part of me panicked without the markers of purpose and meaning I had always used to define myself, but the new pulse of our home and the simple yet powerful needs of my baby created a steady familiarity with silence.
Home, at its very best, is a space of welcome and acceptance. Maya Angelou once wrote, "The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned". For some of us, this is an actual place: a house or a landscape. Other times home can be the people and communities that provide the sort of reflection — knowing and being known — that draws us further into ourselves in order that the whole world around us can become a place where we truly live. ~ Joy
Without doing anything, things can sometimes go more smoothly just because of our peaceful presence. In a small boat when a storm comes, if one person remains solid and calm, others will not panic and the boat is more likely to stay afloat.