My leaning side...

Our away room is not a serene oasis in the midst of our house. It is home to the computer, the piano, a hide a bed sofa, two chairs, cats and dogs sleeping, bookshelves filled with books and pictures. It overflows with stacks that await the inspiration to clean and declutter. Yesterday was such a day.
I began on one side of the room and worked my way around to the computer desk. I filled a trash bag with paper to recycle. Unwatched junk mail breeds in the dark and multiplies. Rufus and Barney watched me from the relative safety of the sofa as I hustled and bustled around. One scrap of paper caught my eye. As is my custom, I often write down a phrase or passage that hooks my imagination. There, on a lavender scrap of paper that had been folded and refolded, were the words, “Lord, prop me up on my leaning side.” I stuck that scrap up on my monitor screen so I wouldn’t lose it again and there it sits this morning. No author, no name is attached to this quote so I have no idea where it came from but those words speak to me this morning.
The darkness and silence of Advent help me find my leaning side. Sometimes, even though I know it is impossible, I feel like I have more than one leaning side. Spiritual teachers of many different traditions warn us about this, our tendency to court humility with a false sense of our own unworthiness. A Zen Master, Shunryu Suzuki, after a session of sitting in meditation with his disciples said, “You are all perfect as you are.” After a short pause he finished by saying, “But you could all use a little improvement.” The art of balance, recognizing our leaning side while giving thanks for our gifts, is the hall mark of a grown up person of faith.
As a person who has an ADD brain, my tendency is to blame myself because my brain works differently from others. I forget, I muddle through. I can’t get organized and when I get organized, I can’t maintain the organization. But I can feed fifty or one hundred people and not be bothered. I can create works of beauty. I can listen and hear the pain behind words. The trick for my soul’s growth is to remember... remember that my way of thinking and being has its own strength, remember that I can still change and grow into a more organized style of living, remember to be grateful for all that I have been given in this package of personhood. I am propped up even if I still lean a little.
Riding on a donkey’s back towards Bethlehem during Advent gives me time to step back, see my leaning side, see my propped up place. I have many people who have propped me up when I have needed it. I have had the presence of God in my life from my earliest memory of time passing. That assurance of God’s presence as a prop sustains me even when all else fails. Denominations and churches change and sometimes I cannot go where they lead. God leads me to pastures green and flowing water that feed my soul even though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow. Once propped up by God, I am secure, steady even in times of doubt and worry, able to rejoice in all life brings me, darkness and light. So, Lord, please keep me propped up on my leaning side. Let me know, feel, see, hear, taste your presence in my life. Be my support when I cannot hold myself up or keep myself together. Let me rest in the assurance that You will always be the staff on which I can lean. Amen.