Good morning friends!
This week, I was in my car and I was hurrying somewhere trying not to be late (sound familiar?). Someone called. It was one of those friends that really do love and hadn't talked to in a long time. The friend tried to FaceTime me but I said "No, I'm driving." I listened for the time we had and it was nice to chat up. But I didn't engage in our word for the week: savor.
Savor: to enjoy or appreciate something pleasant to the full, especially by lingering over it.
Reflecting later on this moment, I thought about what I love about this friend. It has everything to do with savoring.
She is a friend who orders dessert or coffee at a restaurant just to make the meal last longer.
She is a friend that looks me in the eyes when we are together as if I'm the most important person to her (though I know I'm not).
She is a friend that loves a good ritual. She's known to say things like, "Now this marks a new beginning or ending . . . " and then offers a small gift so the moment can be remembered.
Savoring, she has taught me, is such a beautiful spiritual practice for it lands our feet completely in the moment we're in, not the one we're not.
Because you know what emerges from your life when you take time to savor it? Beauty! Beauty you didn't have eyes to see (but was already there!) until you slowed down.
I love what E.B. White, the famous author of the children's book, Charlotte's Webb has to say on the matter of savoring:
"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."
Truly, savoring can be an inconvenience to your meetings on the books and your plans in your head, but the call to stop and see something new is always there.
Always.
And I might add your well-intentioned desire to save the world that you imagine as something "big" might just be something very small. Such as be-ing with a sunset, or a flower, the laugh of a child, or the beautiful words of a song. Or your loved one who needs help.
The next time my savoring loving friend calls, I hope I can follow her lead. I hope there's enough room in my life to stop what I am doing. Not be on the way somewhere else. And listen fully. Because I know there will be beauty there.
How are you going to savor your life this week?
XO
Elizabeth
