Feeling Deeply

"When we lose a beloved friend, wife, husband, child, parent, or maybe a possession or a job, we feel it is okay to feel deeply. But we must broaden that. We’ve got to find a passion that is also experienced when we have it, not just when we’re losing it. And we have it all the time." - Adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 282, day 293
(Available through Franciscan Media) Father Richard Rohr

Last year when I lost the ability to do just about anything: laundry, shopping, cooking, cleaning, kids' homework help, I realized how much work people do on a daily basis and how deeply I wanted to return to doing the work of caring for my family. I remember telling a friend, "all I want to do is take care of my kids."  Now, a year later, I am not totally "well" but I can take care of all the daily tasks required of a mom of three, and I don't embrace them with the same passion that I expressed a year ago. The strength and ability to accomplish the daily routine has already been taken for granted, and I feel that I am not doing enough, instead of being grateful and joy-filled because what I can do, and be.

Rohr's statement returns us to the idea that passion, or feeling deeply, is from God and should be a constant presence in our lives. This application feels gentler than my initial concept of passion - feeling deeply is less threatening that the idea of a tidal wave overmastering me. But the effort to recognize our gifts while we are in the midst of them, of feeling each moment as it comes without being overpowered by our feelings, still feels like a huge big deal, which maybe can only be accomplished through a lot of time and practice.