In the past few months, as
winter has continued to bear down on Bonnyville, Alberta I have become a
little house hermit seeking warmth and comfort - and have succumbed to the
experience of assorted Star Trek reruns with my new husband. Gah! I’m admitting
publicly for the first time; I am actually enjoying them.
While the opening narrative
of this franchise of shows has been edited over the years, the heart of the
matter has remained. “Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the
starship Enterprise. Its five year mission; to explore strange new worlds, to
seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone
before.”
When Brian and I first met,
it didn’t take us long to realize something remarkable was happening and this
‘something remarkable’ quickly opened into love and then marriage and yes…as is
now public knowledge…a soon-to-be baby carriage. We were and are boldly
going where neither one of us has before.
At some point on this journey,
we discovered the language of ‘living with an open hand.’ We believe it started
from my experiences with my contemplative prayer class, ‘Living from the
Heart.’ It has since carried over into our daily life and has even been used by
a pastor-friend in our post-marriage spiritual direction.
What does ‘living with an
open hand’ mean to me? Not unlike the mission and mandate of the assorted Star
Trek crews, there is an element of mystery, unknown, discovery, expectation,
hope and…trust.
I may not be in a fancy,
warp-speed space travel vehicle exploring new star systems but I am
experiencing some cultural transitions involving new life forms, styles of
communication and associated risks.
Living with an open hand is
a very physical, tactile form of prayer for me. It’s a posture of trust and
surrender. It’s risky and unfamiliar because I am more used to a clenched fist
surrounding my values and wants. Control has been the more familiar path in my
life, or perhaps better understood as the illusion of control – including
control of circumstances and others.
Living with an open hand is
an act of release, an act of freedom. It is living with arms wide open,
experiencing without a shadow of a doubt the goodness and perseverance of Love
- of God. In the midst of uncertainty, pain, sorrow, confusion, delight, amazement,
ordinariness, fear and wonderment.
A quote from author Jeff
Imbach, in a little photo frame in our bathroom, reads “choice becomes a real
possibility when longing is accepted and fulfillment is celebrated but not
demanded. This is the place of freedom.”
Living with an open hand
means less demanding and more accepting. It means I sit with the honest truths
of my wants and desires, I acknowledge the goodness of their
arrival/completion/fulfillment and I open my hands in celebration of the unknown future. This is a paradigm shift. I
don’t run and hide from the
unknown, I dance party it up with
the unknown! This experience is revealing to me all the ‘what ifs’ that often crowd
my mind, my words and my behavior instead of the ‘what is.’
To be a starship Captain,
the ‘what is’ of the mission is the motivating factor, not all the unknown
‘what ifs.’ The choice to explore and discover; to risk and to leap; to hope
yet again is ever present and ever opportune. So, just for today, I sit back in
my chair, I breathe deep and I say, ‘Engage!’
*photo credit to Robb Penner, hands of little Lucy Ireland, his daughter.
