In the Japanese tongue of the mind’s eye one two syllable word tells of the fine of rain clinging to the eaves of and of the grey-green fronds of wild parsley.”

– Denise Levertov

“Forward,” the final essay in Anne Lamott’s Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope, and Repair lets us know we are not alone as we move forward and stitch together a life. She starts the essay by exclaiming, “The search is the meaning, the search for beauty, love, kindness, and restoration in this difficult, wired and often alien modern world. The miracle is that we are here, that no matter how undone we have been the night before, we wake up every morning and are still here. It is phenomenal just to be.” Just being is phenomenal. I sit with that thought. If I am not yet – in a state of doing and becoming – just being is enough. My not yettedness leaves room for running out of gas and refueling, for walking to the edge and backing down, and for swinging for the cheap seats and striking out.

I cry a lot right now. Wars rage creating refugees in need of compassion. The pain of racial injustice tears at the fabric of our society. Forests burn and our oceans warm as our planet cries. It is hard to carry it all when I pay attention. Lamott explains, “Love is the question: How can it possibly be enough this time, in the face of such tragedy, loss or evil? And it is the answer: It will be. How can this family or town make a comeback? The next right action, the breath of time passing, love. Go figure.” Taking the next right action makes sense to me.

Lamott understands taking the next right action to be service within our world. She encourages, “When we agree to (or get tricked into) being part of something bigger than our own wired, fixated, hurried minds, we are saved. When we search for something larger than our own selves to hook into, we can come through whatever life throws at us. ‘Larger’ can mean a great cause, a project of restoration, or it can mean a heightened, expansive sense of the now.” Woven in the tapestry of “something larger” — of “now” — is interdependence, justice, grace, humility, courage, compassion, kindness, truth. All the things that make still being here worth the ride. Within that construct, salvation does not begin or end with death. It is freely given and relies on our capacity to love.

Lamott includes this advice late in the essay, “You start where you can. You see a great need, so you thread a needle, you tie a knot in your thread. You find one place in the cloth through which to take one stitch, one simple stitch, nothing fancy, just one that’s strong and true. The knot will anchor your thread.” Simply doing the work. Whatever the work is. Do the work. Stitch. Take the breath. See the gentle drop of rain clinging to the parsley leaf. Keep stitching. It does not matter if your stitch is perfect. Keep stitching. It does not matter if your stitch only impacts the one starfish you throw back into the ocean. Keep stitching. It does not matter if it is a small act done with great love, as Mother Teresa suggests. Keep stitching.