Open The Windows
Every fall in North Texas, I wait for a moment. I’m not talking about leaves changing colors. Around here, that may happen sometime around Christmas. And I’m certainly not holding out for temperatures in the 50s. I’ve lived here long enough to keep my expectations reasonable.
I’m just waiting for that first morning when I walk outside and think, Oh, this feels different.
During the summer, I can walk out the door for a run and start sweating before my Garmin has even found a satellite. Then, usually much later than I'd like, a morning comes when I step outside and realize I actually need to start moving to warm up.
That first cool morning feels like a gift.
It means we can open the windows at home. I can sit outside with a cup of coffee and something to read. I can take my laptop outside and work on a sermon while listening to the birds, the traffic, and, because we live directly under a flight path into DFW, the steady reminder that a lot of people are apparently going somewhere.
The world hasn’t suddenly become quiet. But, I can sit outside long enough to enjoy being part of it again.
Maybe that is what I love most about those first cool days. They make it easier for me to take a deep breath and be where I am. Even if I’m still working on a sermon or another project, something feels different. I notice the breeze. I look around. I’m a little less focused on getting to the next thing and a little more aware of the moment I’m already in.
I experience something similar when I go on retreat or vacation. It usually takes me a little while, but eventually I notice that I’m not carrying quite as much tension. I begin seeing things I had been moving too quickly to notice, and sometimes I realize I didn’t know how much I needed to slow down until I finally did.
Maybe that is one of the gifts of changing seasons. They interrupt our rhythms just enough to remind us that we don’t always have to move at the same pace.
Life is full, and much of that fullness is good. There is work to do, people we love who need us, practices to get to, meetings to attend, meals to make, and all the ordinary responsibilities that make up a life. But it is easy to become so accustomed to moving from one thing to the next that we forget how good it feels simply to take a deep breath and be present.
I think that is part of what I notice in Jesus when I read the Gospels. For someone with crowds constantly looking for him and people continually needing something from him, Jesus still made room to step away. He noticed people. He paid attention to the world around him. He shared meals. He withdrew to quiet places. He never seemed to be in a hurry to get through his own life.
I need that reminder.
And maybe I don’t always need a week of vacation or a retreat somewhere beautiful to rediscover that rhythm. Sometimes grace arrives in something much more ordinary: a morning in the 60s, an open window, a cup of coffee outside, a breeze I haven’t felt in months, or the sound of another airplane heading toward DFW.
Maybe the invitation is to receive those moments when they come.
So whenever that first cool morning finally arrives, I plan to open the windows, take a deep breath, and enjoy being right where I am.
What about you? What helps you slow down long enough to enjoy the life happening around you?
With Gratitude,
Rev. Rodney Whitfield
Senior Pastor
Aldersgate UMC