Mama Monday #66

 

This was from a few weeks ago but I keep coming back to this and wonder if you might appreciate reading it again today too....  Erin: Danger at the Edge What have a hurricane and a meditation teacher have in common? Diana Butler Bass Aug 21   READ IN APP   I’m at the beach in North Carolina. You may have heard that there’s a hurricane — named Erin — “grazing” the coast here today. The video below was shot about an hour after this morning’s high tide. You might think, “oh, that’s not too bad.” But the sand you see is part of a dune, and it is a hill about eight feet or so above the beach. My phone doesn’t capture depth perception very well. You can sense the fury by looking at the sea oats — the howling wind nearly flattens them. And this is just the very edge of a strong Category 2 hurricane; as the local around here say, “it’s nothing.” The center of this storm is hundreds of miles offshore. But that’s one angry ocean and brutal wind. No sane human is anywhere near the edge of the storm as it rakes the edge of the coast. Share The storm is the second Erin I’ve encountered this week. The first was a meditation teacher on Monday at a local yoga studio. Before we began the practice, she told us that it was the first time she’d shared her name with a hurricane. We all laughed. “Hurricanes are strange storms,” she said. “Wild, unpredictable, and destructive, but the center is completely silent and still. It’s the edges that are dangerous.” She had us breathe. In, out; in, out. Then, she continued: “That’s the whole point of meditation. To be centered amid the chaos at the edges.” In, out; in, out. A short prayer formed with each breath: “Center, edge; center, edge.” It was a good hour. Grounding. I felt grateful for Erin. As I awaited the arrival of the storm named Erin (don’t worry, I’m in a safe place!), I kept thinking about edges and centers. A dozen years ago, I was fortunate enough to have lunch with the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. We talked about change and innovation in faith communities. “You know,” he said to me, “change rarely happens in the center. The creative energy always comes from the edges.” Center; edge. Center; edge. At the time, I interpreted his comment as encouragement to me — to stay at the edge of the church, at the edges of faith, and do my work from there. Focus on the edge because that’s where the action is. Edges are, as the good Archbishop said, creative spaces. But, as I’ve learned, they are also chaotic. Like the storm now smashing into the dunes. Later today or tomorrow, the fury will end. The winds will die down, the ocean will recede. But the beach won’t be the same. The edge of the storm is recreating the edge of the continent. The same is true for our own journeys of faith. Periods of chaos and deconstruction are followed by a calm. But, during the storm, the ground beneath our feet changed. When the turmoil ends, the edge will be in a new place; the shoreline of our understanding and experience will have shifted. The landscape will have been transformed. During our conversation, Rowan Williams pointed out to me that it was the same for religious communities and great traditions of faith. A storm batters; the energy at the edges is the most dangerous and yet most creative. Yet, the whirlwind will stop. And something new will have been shaped from the clash of the forces at the edge. Yes, edges. I understand edges. I haven’t always paid much attention to the center, though. The eye of a hurricane is, indeed, calm. But all the energy — all those outward bands of wind and rain — rotate around that clear center. You might say that the edges aren’t even possible without the still at the core. I love this sentence explanation of the process from Wikipedia: “Many aspects of this process remain a mystery. Scientists do not know why a ring of convection forms around the center of circulation instead of on top of it, or why the upper-level anticyclone ejects only a portion of the excess air above the storm.” Without a center, however, a storm is, well, just a storm. With a center, it builds and radiates, and it earns a name. Like Erin. Center, edges. The center and edges are, however, part of a single structure as an interdependent spiraling system of calm and chaos, of clarity and creativity. And what if the mystery of this extends beyond faith, beyond congregations and religious traditions, into all forms of human activity? Like democracy. Like our social and political life. Center, edge; center, edge? Is that what is happening right now? Perhaps we’re not witnessing the collapse of democracy, but its transformation? The edge of the storm has collided with the edge of what seemed to be the stable shore of democracy? What if the chaos is about releasing all the pent-up creative energy, the restlessness of genuine change? The edge of Erin is powerful. It is dangerous. Edges are always so. But hurricanes have bands of edges, concentric circles of danger. And the worst, most terrifying, edge is where the final band of the storm meets the eye wall. Even while Erin scrapes the coast, reshaping the beaches in North Carolina, hundreds of miles away where the last edge meets the silent center, it is hundreds of times worse. There, the ocean is roaring, churned in ways no human has lived who might have witnessed such a storm. Perhaps those hurricane hunters in airplanes understand the might of that edge — where the calm and fury touch. Where the still overcomes the chaos. Where are we in the storm? Is the tempest of democracy such that we are sitting at the very edge of the coast, but the most violent part of the storm is still far offshore? Are these only the grazing bands of harder edges ahead? Or, are we deep in the storm? Nearer to the center than we think? Perhaps these are the final edges right before the center. Center, edge; center, edge. Hurricanes and cyclones. Pebbles tossed in a pond. The universe itself: The Milky Way, galaxies across the skies. When Rowan Williams urged me to attend to the edges, I didn’t know that I’d also need to attend to the center as well. You can’t stay on the edge forever; it is necessary to move through the spiraling storms to the center. To breathe deep; to look up and see the clear blue skies above. The edges are always chaotic. But those are the places of greatest creativity. The center is always calm. And yet, the edges depend on its stability for their very existence. I understand this now — at least as a writer and a teacher. I’ve learned to attend to both edges and center. I’m not exactly sure how to extend the metaphor to community or nation. It is, after all, a bit of a mystery. But seeing the structure of the whole helps. Center, edges. Perhaps there’s a reason we call the center of a storm the “eye.” And Jesus said to his followers, “Do you have eyes, and fail to see?” Maybe Erin opened my eyes — just a bit more — to see what is swirling around us all.