The Freedom of Stuckness

(The Book of Exodus: The Nile)

“Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile...”

...“When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

Perhaps those places of punishment can provide a pathway to freedom. For me, as I read this ancient story of Exodus, I am drawn to the waters that were meant to drown the baby Moses, but ultimately carried him to liberation, purpose, and his name. Yes, The Nile is whispering me thoughts about the liberating lifeforce of our limitations. And of course, there are many powerful examples of this principle being played-out in the lives of great saints, social reformers, and freedom fighters. But for me, this morning, I am meditating on those mundane muds of everyday living, that so often stage our sense of stuckness. And yet, perhaps, like the banks of The Nile, these sticky silts and sludges of domestic life, can provide some rich, fertile soil, for our own sacred exodus.

In my experience, we can’t wait for some fantasy future, place, or time, to start living a creative life, which helps transcend those feelings of stuckness. Most of my writing, music-making, and mediation, happens in stolen pockets of time in all sorts of low-lying liminal spaces of ordinary life.

I have just dropped my daughter off at her dance class, and I am, at this very moment, sitting in The Reginald Centre in Chapeltown, Leeds. It is a Community Centre providing support with jobs, money, housing, education, wellbeing, and Ukrainian translators. There is a large TV on one wall showing an old Country and Western film on a channel called Great Movies, where I think the word ‘Great’ refers to the age and length of the movie being shown. It’s loud - which is actually quite helpful - because I tend to mutter to myself when I write – and the sounds of the cowboys’ pistols, and the noises from the computer games being played on PCs near me, provide a sufficient sort of shield.

At other times, I will be sitting in my Skoda Fabia in the car park, or sitting in The Reception area of the dance class, or on a train, or a park bench. Most of my prayer and meditation takes place on my lunch breaks in a classroom called B1-11, by the messy desk my day job.

My juggling responsibilities are the clays from I which I try to shape my calling.

My domestic duties are the mundane muds from which I seek to grow.

My limiting walls have become my way to freedom.

Funnily enough, I have just remembered a time when I was a Catholic choirboy in a Belgium monastery, when the priests and choirmasters locked us up in our cells for a three-hour siesta in the middle of the day, with nothing to do but try and get some rest and sleep. Which, of course, is incredibly difficult if you are an eleven-year-old boy who has already had an early curfew and a full night's sleep (no phones back then).

But the siesta was fundamentally necessary for the priests and choirmasters, who had been drinking strong Belgium beers and spirits throughout the night (we could see them, and hear them, across The Quad – they even had a special booze fridge – but the booze was brewed and distilled by monks, so it was all holy work, I guess).

Anyway, what could an eleven-year-old do about it, other than take up smoking out of the barred windows and occasionally knock on the walls of my neighbours in an improvised version of Morse Code! The walls were our way – quite literally! They became our way of finding some connection, fun, and freedom, in the intense boredom and isolation of our choir tour siestas. Well, that, and my discovery of Marlborough Reds. Thank God for liberal Belgium newsagents and clever marketing campaigns about deserts and cowboys.

My walls look a little different now. Much more high security. But I am still banging out various rhythms, beats, and signals. I’m still scratching out lyrics, whistling tunes, and visiting those vast kingdoms within - usually on a breath, a hum, or a heartbeat. And thank God for that! No need to apply for that MA in Creative Writing, or that meditation retreat, or that ten-week spiritual course at that very special conference centre. No need to wait for retirement, or that new software, or that studio space. No need for anything new.

We can start from the muds of our real life

We can start from the places we feel stuck

We can start from the waters of our abandonment

We can start from the wounds of our name

Amen