From theory to practice

In school, as a child up to my graduate program, I've always been best at being a student. Love to learn, love to challenge myself, love to write. Yes, inside the walls of school, I feel a pro. But set me loose outside in the world's yard, and I falter. Stand in the middle of the yard and gaze all around, overwhelmed. How do I take all this stuff in my head and make a go at it when I can be so afraid of failure? When I see my weakness, that I tend to be more intellectual than activist, though I desire both?

This stuff of gratitude that I've been writing, practicing, it's hard work. Transformation comes slowly, more slowly than I'd like. I wake up this morning and think of my journal, that I made it through one whole day without writing a single thing down, and after such an inspiring start in the morning with my post on tuning the senses. Reached the end of the dull and senses were dulled.

It's not so smooth a transition, from theory to practice. But all this writing, this theorizing, dies prematurely if not fed by action.

I return to an earlier chapter in Ann Voskamp's One thousand gifts, where she's struggling with practicing this life of seeing gratitude, and it is me she's describing: "Senses are impaired if they don't sense the Spirit and somebody, tell me, how do I tear open tear-swollen eyelids to see through this for what it really is?"

I saw those tear-swollen eyelids in the mirror this morning when I woke up, and I know them well. So how do I tear them open to see through?

Deep breath in, deep breath out. Open them wide and look up, not at these eyes. Grace is falling here, as it is every day. It's time to drink, to fill, to empty, and then to fill again. I can't do this without grace.