Presence, Sabbath & Daffodils

March's Soul Session: On the inner turning towards this moment

Debbie Horrocks

Mar 07, 2023

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Oh hi there,

In these early Spring days the sun invites me to turn my face and soak in the yellow light, and the idea of presence seems possible. If only it always felt so easy.

I wonder how you are feeling as we begin? What makes it hard for you to take this moment and stay with these quiet thoughts? What gets in the way, right now, of you slowing and becoming present?

Recently I have been learning about Sabbath from Ruth Haley Barton1. I first heard her talk about this in The Next Right Thing podcast2 where she stated that Sabbath is a communal practice, rather than an individual one. Sabbath is a set apart time where you seek to “find more restful ways of being with each other, more delightful ways of being with each other as you cease your work and you’re fully present to the gifts of God in your life”.

As enticing as this sounds, I share my home with four small humans who insist on speaking to me simultaneously. How can I rest when so many needs depend on me, and there’s no day off? On Sundays3 the kids still need fed, entertained and shipped to swimming lessons. In a conversation with her grown daughter4 Ruth Haley Barton discussed the challenges of this family season to Sabbath rest, and they offered a helpful shift to the aim of ‘presence’ rather than ‘rest’. Ruth’s daughter shared that her mother’s presence was different when she set aside her work during her Sabbath, and that presence drew her children towards her.

I long to be present like that with my children, for them to notice the quality of attention I have with and for them, even if just for ten minutes. Yet there’s always another distraction: a notification, a question, or perhaps just someone’s insistent desire ‘to talk about Mario’. Plus there’s everything else that needs done in my day, my life, my house. You don’t need to have a crew of kids to know the many tugs pulling us away from our life as it is right now. Remaining present is a challenge.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines presence as…

“the fact that someone or something is in a place”

…which is deceptively simple. I love how Spiritual Director Jennifer Goodyer puts it:

‘When you are really present you are saying a deep yes to who you are meant to be: here, now, awake, letting yourself be touched by what and who you encounter.’5

This sounds rewarding, inviting, delightful and also impossible. There are dry leaves in the hallway again, there’s that form to send off, someone is shouting for me…

And so my mind whirs through all the ways I should be present:

I want to be present to myself. My body whispers her needs to me: shoulders aching, a dull dehydrated headache. There are feelings layered deep, waiting for me to attend to them.
I want to be present with and for my family. It seems these children are growing and changing right in front of my eyes.
I want to be present to the Divine Presence in all of this. I have come to understand prayer as a turning of my heart towards God, do I do this enough?
I want to be a good friend. There are always voice notes to send, and ambitious hopes of sending actual post.
I want to be present to the world - the beautiful and the impossibly hard. I wish I was better at keeping up with the news.

And I’m exhausted by this list of longings. Surely these desires compete and clamber on top of one another? Is it possible to be this present? Does presence only belong to the privileged who have the time and finances to allow it? I am only one person!

I step back and see how I’ve misunderstood the invitation of presence with my shoulds and my shame. This is not a checklist to be completed. Presence doesn’t demand everything all the time, instead presence asks us to attend to this moment.

Now. Here. This.6

This is why Sabbath appeals to me: what would it look like to redistribute my week in such a way to create sacred space to move from to-do to be-with? We’ve been experimenting with what a shared, communal Sabbath could look like for our family7. Presence isn't just for a Sabbath, but aiming to protect some time at the weekend seems to be having ripple effects through the week.

How can we respond to this invitation with curiosity and self-compassion instead of with shoulds and perfectionism? What if presence is something we can choose and practice? Presence is an inner turning towards this moment. It is giving myself permission to remain with this one point in time. It is leaning in to the gift of a moment when we’re only spinning one plate8. What is the hope in all of this? I wonder if instead of shaming ourselves for not meeting up with unattainable standards the hope is to experience a few moments as they are in all their everyday trouble and glory.

An invitation to ponder…

Instead of starting with what isn’t, let’s start with what is. Consider or journal with a couple of the prompts that call to you below.

Where have you found a pocket of presence recently?

Get in touch with the moment, how did it feel? Perhaps re-engage your senses and write about it (if that’s your thing!)

What helps and hinders you in your desire to be present? What provokes presence for and in you?

How does it feel when someone else is fully present to you?

What or who would you like to be more present to in your life? Choose one thing and consider (with self-compassion) how that would be.

Take off your shoes of distraction
Take off your shoes of ignorance and blindness
Take off your shoes of hurry and worry
Take off anything that prevents you
from being a child of wonder.

Take off your shoes;
The ground you stand on is holy.
The ground you are is holy.

From Holy Ground by Macrina Wiederkehr

If you’d like to think more about Presence, Jen Goodyer is hosting “Practising Presence: A 40 Day Adventure in Being Here Now” on her Instagram and email newsletter. She encourages us to pay attention to the moments that provoke presence and lean into them. I was inspired by Jen to get out my camera as tool of presence, leading to the photos I’ve shared here from a March Monday after school.

Thanks for joining me here. I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

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