Small Devotions

I apologize for the long silence. I thought I was doing alright, or at least well enough, but I’ve found that actually, I am experiencing profound grief after my grandmother’s death. It’s been many years since someone so close to me has died, and I had forgotten how deeply it affects me. In this instance, I think the effect is even more pronounced, because she was the family matriarch, and there’s no one to fill that role now. That shift also carries an irrevocable farewell to childhood; no matter how old you are, if you have a grandparent, some part of you is still their grandchild, and that provides a certain comfort and sense of safety that is suddenly gone when your grandparent dies.

So, that’s what I’ve been wrestling with, and it has affected most areas of my life: day job, my writing, home care, family responsibilities, and my spiritual practice. The others I (mostly) have work-arounds to manage while I sort myself out, but there’s no work-around to spiritual practice. One is doing one’s devotions, or one is not.

On an ideal day, I have an hour to spend in contemplation. (Not all of my days are ideal. Yet.) Most days this year have been significantly less than ideal so far, and so my time for devotion has varied from nearly zero on too many days, to an actual hour on a few days.

I know I’m not the only one who experiences this challenge. The best laid plans of mice and meditators, and all that.

I realized that, even though I’m not regularly sitting down at my altars, I do have a practice of small actions throughout the day that has been helping to keep me anchored, even though I haven’t considered it much before this weekend. These are small moments and small actions that are touchpoints throughout my day, which arose gradually and without a lot of planning or intent on my part, and which serve as reminders to stop and take a minute to get out of my head and restore some perspective to the day.

Since I’m not the only one who faces the issue of work/life/devotions balance, I will be sharing these small devotions ideas on my blog.They’ll be posted with the category tag “Devotions”, so they’ll be easy to find. I hope they are helpful, and inspire you to find ways to create thoughtful and focusing moments in your day as well.