Nat

My friend Flo writes about meditation practice "Beginner" by saying that she spent most of a recent retreat trying to focus just a little on her breath. I know the feeling. Some days the resolve to focus is strong; some days it’s weak.

It’s a struggle not to hate the weak days and to hate myself for being so out of the spirit. Practice for me has usually been a kind of drudgery. It was that way with the cello when I was growing up. I had wanted desperately to learn how to play it, and my parents bought me an instrument and got me lessons. I never became a good player, but I learned a seminal life lesson from Gretchen Belknap, my teacher: "Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you never get it wrong."

It’s a profound directive, and one I’ve mostly ignored. Generally my excuse is that practice is too tedious. If I were really meant to concentrate on something, it would be more fun. I don’t know if that’s just wishful thinking, but I see some evidence that there are people who love what they do. It must be said, though, that I also know many people, too many, who grit their teeth and soldier on.

What’s the point in that really? I guess you can argue that you keep at it for the sake of the family for whom you do these things. Do they want you to provide at the expense of being happy and fun with them? I suppose it depends on the circumstance.

More and more I’m longing to find some one activity that I can practice religiously. What have you found that’s worth practicing?

I attended a friend’s funeral today, and his family and friends spoke at length about his many great qualities: vitality, respect, sensitivity, strength, humor. His wife led the recollection and painted a moving portrait of an elegant, loving man.

Moments like these raise urgent questions about how we help others and ourselves fill the holes that grief hollows out. Part of my interest in the Cloud9000 blogging project is to find and promote credible answers for people who want to know how to move through pain and sorrow to happiness and joy.

I believe that God can and will help us by making us capable of hope. I want Him to put in our way the small things we count on–a dinner party with friends, a helpful store clerk, a brilliant, starry sky, a joke–to divert us for a moment so that we remember what it feels like to love the world and our lives.

I worry that searching for a happier path will seem superficial to people who are struggling with heavy burdens. We don’t mean to be glib or naive. Maybe it’s a matter of deciding what we mean by "happy." Part of that is the capacity to be grateful for where we are right now, whatever that may mean. Some days it may be just a blind faith that something could be better some time in the future.