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Writer's picturePastor Margot Wright

The Center Holds

Utilizing the phrase “just for today” as a way to stay centered, grounded and present is one of my spiritual practices. I first heard it used as a slogan in the rooms of recovery. It was a lifeline for the unmanageability of the effects of addiction and my powerlessness over it. Today I have been focused on how I will show up today. Just for today.


Today, this day, is all that any of us actually have; this moment, this breath. A few weeks ago these words were working in me and around me +tomorrow never comes + it is always now. Grounded in this present moment fear is quieted and calm is invited. Practicing pauses to check in to see if I am breathing deeply help. Here now. Now here. Nowhere but here. The space of a deep breath that is my prayer for you, for me, for this world God has created. 


To allow for silence, space and stillness as ways to be in the here and now. Today to pet the dog. Make lunch for my niece and sit together watching a show she enjoys. To shovel snow and make a snow elf. To allow for the tears that come with deep waves of sorrow. To send a text, make a phone call, drink a cup of tea. Just for today to practice deep belly breathing when it feels like I can barely catch my breath. 


In my morning meditation to remember how in the days after my first husbands death the deep disorientation felt like vertigo. I often felt so out of sorts I had to really practice just taking one breath and one step at a time. Slow and steady. A friend came to walk with me. As we walked and I cried and talked and sometimes it was silent an epiphany occurred. As I shared that everything had changed with Steve’s death and I couldn’t find my way. Then an interruption- it came from my own mouth but it woke me up and stopped me in my tracks. 


True North never changes. 


No matter how discombobulated, disoriented, fear-filled, heartbroken, forlorn, overwhelmed, the center holds. I stood up a little straighter in that pause on that walk; my heart is north in my body. God is our True North. That hadn’t changed. God’s love that created me, sustains me and promises to never leave me, no matter what is True North. 


This morning the teaching of centering and grounding my body by imagining a plumb line from the center of the earth up through my spine extending all the way through me- to steady me in the storms of life came as a gift. The photo above was taken this past summer on Orcas Island. It is a USGS geodetic survey marker we came across on a hike. I share this photo and these words with you this day- today- may this be an invitation to you~ to pause, take a deep breath, trust the Center holds and True North does not change. 



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