Linda Hoye's Blog, page 52

Grounding

For a time I watched the moon. Rising, as is my practice, in the wee hours, I stood at the window on a succession of days when the night sky was clear, and grounded myself in its movement and crescent shape that was thinner every day. The cacophony of the world at large, silent. The

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Be Loved

I entered the new year wrung out. Empty. With little desire to tend to start-of-the-year things that ordered my days in the past.

So I didn’t.

in the morning I got dressed in my “daytime pajamas” and leaned in to the meditation of holding my pup in my arms and piecing a jigsaw puzzle. Hour after hour I focused on little more than shapes and subtle and not-so-subtle changes in colour and pattern. I eschewed the news and avoided social media. I pondered kingdom things. In the evening I changed into my “nighttime pajamas” and climbed into bed with a book.

Day after day of not much more than this. Some of you sent messages: texts, emails, even a phone call or two, just to check in. Others, knowing of my struggle, prayed.

In time, from the the depth of darkness with which I entered this new year, I sensed a softening of sharp corners. I began to tend to other things.

Gerry encouraged me to get outside so we took the dogs for walks and went for drives.

I pulled out recipes and planned meals.

I organized paperwork and tended to Story Circle Network business.

I played with the dogs.

Gerry and I played chess.

I played with watercolour and created art just for the sake of creating art.

And I began to hear a whisper.

Be loved.

One day, we sat in the hot tub looking out over the ridge and there, clear as anything, in the branches of a leafless tree was the shape of two people sitting side by side—one figure leaning in to the embrace of the other. I was mesmerized by the image and wondered how it was that I had never noticed it before. I knew there was a message there for me.

There is this independent thing in me that wants to be in control and tries to convince me that I can do it—whatever it is—by myself. Sometimes takes a season like that which I have just come through to recognize the folly of this kind of thinking.

The indisputable truth is that I am loved by family, friends, and most of all with a Divine love the immensity of which I cannot fully fathom. (You too, by the way.)

That whisper—be loved—reminds me that I was never meant to carry the burden all by myself and when I try to do so, I’m apt to break. I did break. The first gift of 2021 to me was that brokenness.

I am not abandoned or ineligible; rather I am, and always have been, loved. Maybe, like me, you’re prone, in times of stress, to deflect that love but that doesn’t change it. It’s still there, waiting for us to put down the shield and lean in to Love’s embrace like the image in the trees remonded me. It’s not conditional on anything we do or don’t do, it just is.

Being loved is our better work. It’s only from that place that we are able to love.

For years I’ve chosen a word for the year to help maintain focus. I have tossed around a couple options for 2021 but haven’t settled on anything yet. Maybe this year I need two words. Be loved. Or even just one. We’ll see.

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Thanks to those of you who reached out these past weeks to check on me while I was absent from this space. Your thoughtfulness is much appreciated. xo

Buh bye, 2020.

It’s my habit, during the last week of the year, to reflect and set intentions. To make a list of my top ten reads. To choose a word for the coming year. To tidy up files and create new ones. I’ve done some of these things. But mostly I’ve wandered and wondered and tried to put

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Boxing Day

I’ve always enjoyed Boxing Day. It’s quiet and low key—a day of books, jigsaw puzzles, and leftovers. This year Boxing and Christmas Days look much the same, but still there is a sense of exhaling this morning. A hint of reflection and intention with a measure of rumination. There are things to do, but not yet.

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Merry Christmas.

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I

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Need a little Christmas?

It’s no secret: I’ve struggled this year, and in recent months the battle has almost overwhelmed. I wrote on my blog yesterday how I felt like I have failed Advent and someone who played a pivotal role in my messed up life decades ago, and who remains a dear friend of my heart, sent me

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Unchanging

Today is Tuesday, December 22. We are days away from Christmas and a piece of me feels like I failed Advent. Hope. Peace. Joy. Love. Can I honestly say I’ve leaned in to these things as I intended? Have I lingered in the longing? Or has it been more of a stumbling tumbling season of grasping

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Joy?

A question is posed in a Zoom room: what’s bringing you joy right now? I rack my brain to come up with something—anything—and, when called upon, manage a barely coherent (and, frankly, insincere) reply. The truth is that nothing is bringing me joy right now. I’ve said here before that I’m wrestling with depression. I’m

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Joy

Once upon a time, around this time of year, we sat in the SeaTac airport sipping coffee and listening to Christmas carols played on a grand piano while we waited for our flight to take us to the happiest place on earth—grand baby land. Then we retired and returned to Canada and, around this time

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A Refresher

We are often most in the dark when we are the most certain, and the most enlightened when we are the most confused. M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth Scott Peck was not a man without fault, nor a stranger to trials. But nothing

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