Tag: Avett Brothers

States of Heart: Equilibrium

“The heart is where the beauty of the human spirit comes alive… To be able to feel is a great gift. When you feel for someone, you become united with that person in an intimate way; your concern and compassion come alive, drawing some of the other person’s world and spirit into yours. Feeling is the secret bridge that penetrates solitude and isolation… All feeling is born in the heart. This makes the human heart the true jewel of the world.”
–John O’Donohue, “To Bless the Space Between Us”

It all comes back to the heart. This week in our ongoing Lenten discussion of John O’Donohue’s book, “To Bless the Space Between Us,” we’ve reached the “States of the Heart” section. How we find our heart is how we find the world.

O’Donohue continues the thoughts from above with:

“The state of one’s heart inevitably shapes one’s life; it is ultimately the place where everything is decided.

– A courageous heart will go forth and engage with life despite confusion and fear.
– A fearful heart will be hesitant and will tend to hold back.
– A heavy heart will make for a gloomy, unlived life.
– A compassionate heart need never carry the burden of judgment.
– A forgiving heart knows the art of liberation.
– A loving heart awakens the spirit of possibility and engagement with others.

Let’s shoot for courageous, compassionate, forgiving, and loving. States of heart are something we can feel, learn, cultivate, practice.

The blessing/poem of O’Donohue’s we focused on today was “For Equilibrium.” I struggle with balance. It feels like I have 50 things going on and then I collapse for a spell, catch my breath, gather up what’s around me, and then pick up speed again. It’s something I am working on. So moments like sitting in the Oxford Park at sunset on Monday to feel the breeze on my face; or walking uptown to grab lunch and stretching my legs on the walk back; or finding a few minutes to skateboard, sit on the shore and listen to birds–those moments are big and balance out some of the busier times.

After late evenings leading class and our Wednesday evening Lenten service, equilibrium this morning was parking at the Oxford Conservation Park and skateboarding over to the cemetery to sit under my thinking/praying tree. I started reading Maggie Smith’s “Dear Writer,” jotted down a few thoughts, then sat quietly and turned on the Merlin Bird App’s Sound ID.

There were some of the standards: Red-Winged Blackbird, Northern Cardinal, House Finch, Carolina Wren. There was the familiar Osprey cry that has just come home. And then there was the gift: Pine Warbler.


I have mentioned before that I am Warbler-obsessed. I dig any Warbler encounter and they generally tend to be spring or fall around here.

I can’t recall if I have come across a Pine Warbler. Either way, I love their presence; it sang/called multiple times so that I got to know and recognize it when I heard it. The Pine Warbler made a cool and special moment above and beyond the other times I have come to sit by the water and find my balance.

Here is O’Donohue’s “For Equilibrium”–

Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.

As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity be lightened by grace.

Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough
To hear in the depths the laughter of God.

I love that it is laughter and grace and reverence and freedom that he uses to give us back our sense of equilibrium. And to pull these things to our attention O’Donohue uses the joy of the sea, the wind, moonlight, silence, time, and listening. Things that we can encounter frequently, if not every day.

Equilibrium and balance can also be about perspective. Part of what can call us back into equilibrium when life feels out of balance is remembering the big stuff, what is important, zooming out to a more cosmic or Creation-based perspective. Listen to The Avett Brothers “No Hard Feelings” and see if your sense of balance isn’t shifted to a more thoughtful, introspective place in terms of where we want to put our time and energy.

Since I was a teenager, I have felt that when I am surfing back and forth on a skateboard, life’s worries drop off behind me, just for a minute.

Today, may you hold in your heart the people, places, memories, and dreams you hold dear and let them balance you.

Oneing Weekend: Let’s

I want to spend more time “oneing.” “Oneing” is a term the mystic Julian of Norwich used to describe the encounter between God and the soul. It’s a word and idea so meaningful to Franciscan Richard Rohr that he named the publication of his Center for Action and Contemplation “Oneing.”

It’s a feeling I get frequently when I sit quietly outside.

April 19

Skateboard, notebook, pen, binoculars, an issue of “Oneing,” reading an essay from Scott Avett of Avett Brothers fame about “Creating Faithfully.” On the shore of the river, purple flowers pull my attention until watching them and taking pictures and listening to the water, I just feel like an extension of the scene, part of it. A feeling of oneness.

Skating, gliding along pavement, has been a oneing experience for almost 30 years.

Around the Oxford Conservation Park, there are Eastern Bluebirds and I sit on a bench and watch a bluebird house where one flew out of and I read.


In addition to being a world famous singer, songwriter and musician, Scott Avett is a talented painter and a moving writer. His essay is on his faith and the creative process. He talks about contemplating Jesus’s identity and how Jesus knew exactly who he was, something most of us struggle with. Avett writes, “I think this truth alone, separates him from us. I can see how this knowing of who one is can be the most loving truth one can offer.”

He talks about going into the studio in solitude to create.

“This time alone is fertile ground where I cultivate my purpose. My contribution is my engagement in it. The studio is my cloister. To pray is to be drawn nearer to my existence. The only control I have is to show up and respond. I build from that simple idea… I long to create faithfully rather than successfully, productively, intelligently, or even truthfully. Creating faithfully is not knowing how to do it. It is believing that it is worth doing… With this, I replace the anxiety-ridden aspirations of arrival with peace in a true being. This is who I am in Christ and who Christ is in me… What a precious revelation. Simply put, to create faithfully is to be me.”

Avett arrives at this oneing through creating art. I read and sit with his words waiting on bluebirds, greeting walkers, dog walkers, and folks riding bikes as they loop the park.

April 20

It’s the last day of classes for our three-year Iona Eastern Shore seminary program, a day retreat at Old Trinity Church in Church Creek, which is about a mile down the road if you don’t turn left to go to Blackwater Wildlife Refuge. Seminary day retreats are the only reason I have been to Old Trinity, which is a beautiful church and campus. I smile that their parish hall is named “Valliant Hall.” I’ve now preached from the pulpit there twice in front of classmates and instructors, working on our homiletics.


On days when the weather is nice, I get there early so I can sit out on the dock or on a bench by the shoreline to pray, breathe, drink coffee. It’s another experience of oneing, of an encounter between my soul and God.

It’s the last time our class will be gathered together for the purpose of learning, when we are one in that way. We will graduate together on June 15.

April 21

Oneing is an encounter between God and the soul. But it can and does also include other people. According to Richard Rohr:

Julian of Norwich says, “The love of God creates in us such a oneing that when it is truly seen, no person can separate themselves from another person,” and “In the sight of God all humans are oned, and one person is all people and all people are in one person.”

We are connected to each other and we are connected to God and we can experience God in each other. In my experience, some people make us more aware of that connection, or more quickly and intuitively aware than other people do, and there are people who show and remind us of our own connection to God. Those are people to treasure and spend time with.

The first time I met Holly was on a retreat in late October 2017. Despite both living on the Eastern Shore for our whole lives, and having a number of mutual friends, we had never met. The first real conversation we had was a few weeks later at the Waterfowl Festival. We met for coffee a few times at Rise Up Coffee to continue our conversations.

In December we went for a five-mile hike together at Tuckahoe State Park, which we consider our anniversary. We walked in as two people and by the end of the hike, we were different, together. That was almost six-and-a-half years ago. Tuckahoe has been a holy, sacred, thin space for me since 2005, when I went trail running there. It is a place I called “church” long before I was going to church. Oxford and Tuckahoe are two places where oneing and walking are almost the same for me. Holly and I have hiked there a number of times since.

On April 21, we decided to hike our anniversary route.


Time passes differently with Holly. We can get lost in the backyard together, listening to and watching birds, lying under the stars; we lose track of time making dinner together, or sharing something we are excited about.

If you’ve taken time and put in work to get to know yourself, in the way that Scott Avett talks about, knowing who we are and being ourselves as the most loving truth we can offer, my experience with Holly is that you can be even more free and encouraged to be yourself by the presence of someone else. In oneing, in being together, you can be more than you were. And you can do and be that for someone else. That’s love and freedom together.

Tom Robbins, a favorite writer of mine in his book “Still Life with a Woodpecker” said, “There are only two mantras, yum and yuck, mine is yum.”

There are people who increase your yum exponentially, and you theirs. That has been our experience together. From our earliest conversations, talking about life, and dreaming about adventures, “Let’s” has always been our response to each other.

On this day, we walked into the woods together. We talked, we dreamed out loud, we watched and listened, we encountered friends along our Sunday walk who we hadn’t seen in a while.

And we said, “Let’s” to our next adventure together. Further experiences in oneing.