Adrift

sweeping fog

caresses landscapes

cast adrift

Sometimes, we become unanchored from our family, friends, or traditions. Often unanchored means adrift and that is often associated with fear and the unknown.

I remember, when I was in college the first time at the age of 18. It was a time between my first and second semester at college. I felt adrift. I was away from home, away from friends – in fact losing friends as they moved away and grew into new lives – my future was unhinging from my past in good and bad ways. Instinctively, I sought home. I went to my heart-home in upstate New York and spent time absorbing the grounding there. In many ways, that geography anchored me in ways that my drifting family, friends, faith, and future could not.

By discovering my grounding, I was able to rediscover the ground of all being.

misty fog

dancing with day-break

new growth dawns

Although I felt adrift and alone at the time, looking back, I believe that being adrift deepened who I am and what I would become. Detaching from the known and reattaching to both the known and to something new became a way of being for me. This leads all the was to seminary which I describe as a continuous pattern of deconstruction and reconstruction. Each reconstruction creates something deeper, but also something more vulnerable. And the vulnerability ultimately leads to strength.

Fog, as crazy making as it may be (and we do have our foggy days here in the PacNW), has a purpose. Turns out that the Redwood trees in California get 30%-40% of their moisture needs from fog. So this misty, chilling, low-lying-cloud ultimately offers a gift to the world. It can be irritating to be in the fog, but sometimes, just sitting still and spreading your senses out to the surrounding areas that you may not clearly see can be a gift. And this gift can be translated to the world by cultivating a habit of sitting with ambiguity.

You may ask what has my head all fogged in today? My thoughts were launched by a stunning video from Simon Christen, artist. This is a meditation on the fog that he loves in San Francisco. He calls it a “love letter to the fog of the San Francisco Bay area.” It is quite wonderful.

I would encourage you to use it to launch your own meditation on fog and being adrift. What do you need to detach from? What is the beauty you will see while cast adrift? Ultimately, where will you land?

(Shared with Permission)

Shalom and Amen.

~Terri

© 2013, video, Simon Christen. All rights reserved.

© 2013, post and poetry, Terri Stewart, All rights reserved

TERRI STEWART is Into the Bardo’s  Sunday chaplain, senior content editor, and site co-administrator. She comes from an eclectic background and considers herself to be grounded in contemplation and justice. She is the Director and Founder of the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition that serves youth affected by the justice system. As a graduate of Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry, she earned her Master’s of Divinity and a Post-Master’s Certificate in Spiritual Direction with honors and is a rare United Methodist student in the Jesuit Honor Society, Alpha Sigma Nu. She is a contributing author to the Abingdon Worship Annual.

Her online presence is “Cloaked Monk.” This speaks to her grounding in contemplative arts and the need to live it out in the world. The cloak is the disguise of normalcy as she advocates for justice and peace. You can find her at www.cloakedmonk.com, www.twitter.com/cloakedmonk, and www.facebook.com/cloakedmonk.  To reach her for conversation, send a note to cloakedmonk@outlook.com