still

“I Was In Great Need of a Pilgrimage,
So I Sat Still for Three Days.
And the Creator Came To Me.”
Kabir of India

( a zoomed up shot of a ruby throated hummingbird in need of a little rest / Julie Cook / 2016

About two or so weeks ago, I did something to my back.
I don’t remember exactly where or when or even what…
yet I do know it was about two weeks ago when it started bothering me.

At first I figured, it would go away.
Pop a few Motrin, rub some of that Australian Dream cream on it, a little Tiger balm…
I’d smell to high heaven, but I’d be good to go.

Well none of that helped.

Time for the heating pad….

I was uncomfortable sleeping, sitting, riding, driving, moving…
however standing helped a little.
That was then…standing is now in the negative column.

It’s only been in the lower left flank area.
So I ruled out muscular while considering things a bit more ominous.

As I’ve had issues with osteo-arthritis and issues with a bad disk in my neck.
I quickly chalked it up to that…
More motrin…

It’s ebbed and flowed.
It’d ease off and I’d think, “yay, today is the day it doesn’t hurt,”
then I’d get up, stand or move…
back to tiger balm and a heating pad….

I began to ponder kidney stones, although I’ve never suffered with such.
But it didn’t seem to be my back really, more left flank at the hip area.
Maybe it’s scar tissue from an almost 25 year old hysterectomy….
More motrin.

In the middle of the night last night, when I got up to head to the bathroom…
of which seems to plague both babies and us older people…
I discovered that my husband had left that proverbial lid up—
after 34 years of marriage, you’d think he’d have had that whole up and down business figured out….
while I was trying to lower the lid, making certain I did not go for an in the dark dunking, something torqued… and not in a good way.

After lying in pain for the next 4 hours,
I finally decided to call the doctor’s office when they opened at 9AM

“She’s had a cancelation, can you be here by 10:45?” the receptionist asks.

I was there at 10:30.

I got called back at noon.

This is why I don’t call the doctor for appointments.

While I was sitting in the exam room, grimacing and waiting…
I spied a calendar pinned to the wall.
It was a normal calendar, not some sterile medical job…
The picture was a colorful painting of some comical chickens with the quote:

“I Was In Great Need of a Pilgrimage,
So I Sat Still for Three Days.
And the Creator Came To Me.”
Kabir of India

Hummmm….

How novel…
that the idea of needing a pilgrimage would / could in turn necessitate the thought of merely sitting.

Who knew?!

I managed an automatic smile, even in my state of pain filled delirium, at the marvelous simplicity.

Who among us, in this western hurry up and go culture of ours, thinks that
a retreat, a pilgrimage or a spiritual journey is all about simply sitting??

We’d all be busy immediately looking into travel plans…
Looking, googling, researching and booking on trivago, travelocity, kayak…
we’d scour social media in search of that most magical and marvelous place…
only the best and most spiritual of places to go…
Cause isn’t that what a pilgrimage is all about, going someplace?
As in seeking out peace, enlightenment and /or nirvana….???

Yet there in plain site, in that little cold waiting room, was the answer
to our culture’s constant questing for all things greater than ourselves…

A marvelous revelation sitting on that comical little chicken calendar…

“Be still and know that I am God”