Paths crossing.
Living life and watching moments unfold.
The journey into all the proverbial Samarias are utterly changing my life.
Beauty.
Wisdom.
Life.
Breath.
I had run across her brochure. It had drawn my attention. I had put it in my purse. But in all honesty, I will actually have to go back and ask my friend how the whole thing really unfolded. I can't remember how we started the conversation regarding Reiki. I can't remember how the details of what led me to the door steps of this amazing woman's bed and breakfast unfolded.
Finding myself having arrived before my friend, who was checking out the bed and breakfast as a potential space, I just sat parked in the driveway. Listening to music. I sat back in the driver's chair, closed my eyes and rested.
Within these days at times the movements within the day help me to understand what it must feel like if one thousand years is liken unto a day. So much movement. So much shift. So much transition. Songs and words from my favorite playlist fill the air. It's call, "Aaaaahhhh," that's the name of my favorite playlist. These are my absolute go to, I can press shuffle and any song that would play will be that, "Aaaaahhh," feeling. They aren't the songs I once would have had on such a list, but then again not much is similar these days.
The terrains of the landscapes of the edges of what I once knew are very different and at times hard to transverse.
But I digress.
Soon enough my friend pulls up in her car, and a most lovely human being welcomes us into her home. Her voice carries upon it refreshment, her hospitality impeccable... her joy tangible. We are welcomed in.
It wasn't until she started to share her story that my heart lurched. I fought to maintain decorum. Old habits die hard. I am sure it would have been just fine for emotions to flow. The space declared as much. Her voice and her experience held my heart. Places so hungry and thirsty to hear her words were saturated by water and sustenance.
So what was she sharing?
She was sharing the words I don't know if I would ever hear from an American pastor. But they were true. They were noble. They were life. They were beauty. Her life had received and been altered by that which was happening within mine, to hear one so echo the cries of my heart captured both my attention and my affections.
Smaller, she shared. Less, she expressed.
Reiki isn't to be a business, it is the people. Honor the people. Her exact words I do not quote so much as I do the heart beat of what she said, her words became melodies, a symphony that erupted with light and color and joy and air. Both tangible light and a physical lightness surrounded her, it was as if the reality of the handing off of heavy yokes for lighter ones was being transacted upon my person, just by listening to her speak.
In less than a half hour she had shared about how her business had been flourishing; seeing numerous clients a day, teaching classes etc etc etc.... any church planters dream! Right? More people. More this. More that.
Except as she continued to share she expressed her heart for the people.
It wasn't to be a business per se, it was to be more!
Less people.
Instead of multiple clients a day, she brought it down to ONE.
Less.
Less finances, less people...
BUT ......
She understood the reality of to increase is to decrease. Sound familiar. It is more to have time. Time for oneself and one's own preparation; and spiritual, physical and emotional health. Not running self and family ragged. Time for another. Not one client on top of the other. Not having the ability to linger because the 11 o'clock has showed up and now it's time for the 10 o'clock human being to make their exit promptly.
She wanted time. She wanted more. Less was the path towards more.
In some very firm and real ways she taught me more in 20 minutes than I had learned in 23 years of full and part time ministry. No conference I had ever attended spoke these ways. No class, no seminar, no staff meeting, no leadership gathering had uttered the strength and words and truths that were just being casually shared by this unknown sage. She had learned a lesson. I was just learning. Her words only serving me. Her words granting strength. Her words empowering confidence.
It's hard to speak rest, silence, solitude to ears that don't want to hear.
It's hard to speak practices that don't equate to larger, more, bigger..which all supposedly equating to better.
It's hard to speak the cease striving words.
It's hard to speak be still and know.
There aren't the examples before me to follow in the places that I had been. It was to those proverbial Samarias I had to be brought so that my soul could be strengthened, so that my spirit could soar. In this place my eyes beheld wonder and beauty, my ears heard melodious truths, and my entire being took a breath.
In the western mindset the church has so intermarried with culture that less is not more; numbers and finances equate to success.. Numbers and finances are necessary to keep the doors open. We've gotten so big that we can't operate on small. We've bought into a pace that exhausts and depletes and extracts things we haven't even given ourselves the time to receive. We've received surface and milk instead of depths and solid meat.
Yes... A Reiki master taught me more in 20 minutes than the church has in 23 years, because she was willing to have ears to hear, eyes to see and a heart that would comprehend. Ever so grateful for this journey that brings me to unexpected places; allowing me to touch life and joy and simplicity and profundity all at the same time.
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