Interruptions

I have been paying particular attention to interruptions lately. I maintain a fairly rigorous lex orandi. A part of that ‘rule’ is the way I’ve come to do my lectio divina. I usually start by repeating my passage while doing some yoga. It’s not any sort of formal yoga. It might not even be yoga at all, but it stretching and breathing while saying a mantra, so I call it my yoga. After that, I try to sit for at least 15 minutes.

Panda is our cat of these many years, and she loves to rub up against my hands during downward dog. She loves to crawl under me during calf and cow. She escapes and comes back around to begin the process again when I move to upward dog. Then, when I’m really getting spiritual and trying to sit in stillness, she loves to purr loudly and lick my toes.

I used to get very frustrated with her constantly interrupting me from being spiritual. Not long ago, I received a special grace that allowed me to receive her cat-ness as just another encounter with the infinite love that is constantly being poured out on us. Panda was no longer an interruption. She was an expansion. God was waiting open to me in revelation, but I had an agenda to be spiritual that was blocking it out.

I started paying attention to other “interruptions” in my life. How many places are there where I had an agenda that got sidetracked by: a phone call that I didn’t want to take? a conversation that I wished would end sooner? the tedium of mundane chores? the perceived slight to my ego?

I’ve been working on living into this space, and I’ve found that to some degree it has allowed me to approach some of those conversations and tasks with a renewed sense of wonder and love.