And We're Back

Los Angeles, California

It rolls around every year and I get a rush of excitement. It is the start of MLB baseball season, a blessedly l-o-n-g season that keeps baseball fans like me from wondering what is on TV most nights of the week for over six months. Baseball is one of the things that add balance and ballast to my life.

Is balance/ballast important? Well, where are we now? Post-Covid? For the time being anyway, I am in that place where I can go anywhere and everywhere without a mask. I am fully vaccinated and carrying immunity from my recent bout. But the pandemic and my own experience with Covid gave me a lot of food for thought, especially on top of current events which has given many of us the sense that life as we have known it is circling the drain. So we turn to the tools we need for hope, stability, and distraction. And one of my tools is meditation.

I started meditating during the lockdown, encouraged by Cathy, my friend and Chinese medicine guru. It was weeks before I noticed a barely perceptible shift in consciousness. When you start a program of fitness, you feel some effects immediately, even if that is only in the form of sore muscles. But meditation is so subtle that I am certain that is why people give up on it. The process of meditation is not about keeping your mind in a neutral space. But the bringing back of your mind from the thoughts that have entered that space. While not feeding those thoughts, you are still marking them as you leave them to return to the breath. And that is the practice. Like workouts, dance nights, and, for me, attending Mass, there will be times when you think you have nailed it. As can happen in workouts, it has been easy; or stellar like those special salsa nights when everything comes together with the music and the movement; or especially impactful as when the pastor's homily has provided an epiphany. Or, if you're really lucky, all three. But, as with all of the things listed above, it isn't about nailing it. It's about practicing it.

If I threw myself only into the practice of meditation, I would miss the balance. My belief is that you need to approach life through some assortment of conduits. I was fortunate to have gone through the process of therapy with a skilled therapist. What I internalized through that time provided me with a mental manual which helps me understand my fellow humans and their actions, as well as my own. In addition to that, I find a journaling practice is valuable. Prayer is invaluable. I find the quote by William Temple: When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don't, they don't inspirational. Temple was the Archbishop of Canterbury during WWII, but of course the practice of prayer crosses all faiths and I am a strong believer in ecumenicalism. But, for me, when I attend Mass, the homily's digestion of a scripture passage to present contemporary significance, can provide a lightbulb-over-my-head experience. And I find the practice of repetition and recitation in Mass very meditative. It supports my connection to God as well as a softening of my attitudes towards humanity. It doesn't always work as after all, scripture is a collection of texts representing the varying values and viewpoints of different communities over centuries. But that makes it all the more valuable when it does. When I see the small, independent films I love, or read a novel which is on-point, I am given further insight into human life and its universal issues. Spending time with my friends and hearing their stories enriches that understanding. These are tools in my toolbox. In my life all of these things are of more or less equal importance, and when I begin to tip too much towards one of them, (Danger, Will Robinson!) I right myself back into the center, lest I see the world too much through one scrim only. Or, I attempt to right myself. Balance is also a practice.

So what does this all have to do with baseball? Well, when you watch sports you often hear the phrase And we're back, after commercial breaks. For me, that phrase resonates in all of the ways I try to keep myself straight. My mind strays then returns during meditation. And we're back. I return to working out after my bout of Covid. And we're back. I attend Mass after the long hit-and-miss during the pandemic. And we're back. Back to journaling, back to salsa dancing, back to the importance of balance in my life. That's the practice. Always.