Sitting by the Window

What We Learn When We Sit Still

Recently I wrote about the strange and holy work of doing “no thing.”

Not laziness, or giving up and collapsing in front of the television because we are too tired to care.

I meant the kind of “no thing” that allows us to digest our lives. The pause between one activity and the next. The space where the soul can catch up with all we have been feeding it.

This week I want to stay near that same doorway, but look at it from another side.

I want to talk about sitting.

Not as in ‘a cup of tea and a good book,’ although I am in favor of both. I mean sitting because your body has begun to insist on it. Sitting because the errand can wait, the garden needs to be done in stages, or the walk that once cleared your head now requires a little negotiation.

I remember, almost twenty years ago, when I returned from a rehab hospital, and the only thing I did with any real expertise was “sit.” I even made a recording of that experience, which you can listen to here.

At the time, sitting was not a spiritual practice I had chosen. It was not a wise little discipline I had added to my day. It was what my body could do.

And I was not always gracious about it.

I also remember being young and going with my mother to visit her elderly Auntie Maude. She lived in what we called, in those days, a “rest home,” which is a phrase worth pondering because rest, like activity comes in all sort of disguises.

The primary activity of the residents seemed to be sitting. Sitting in chairs, by windows, in hallways. Sitting as the day moved from sunrise to sunset, the only apparant movement in their lives.

I do not remember what I thought then, exactly, but I suspect there was some pity in it. Maybe fear too. I was young enough to believe that movement and life were nearly the same thing.

Now I am not so sure.

As I get older and less active, I have decided to revisit my beliefs about sitting.

I am not sure when sitting begins to feel like a warning sign. For many of us, it happens with little fanfare.

We begin to choose the closer parking space, the shorter path, the chair with arms.

We pause before stairs. We look for benches. We plan our energy the way we once planned our time.

And somewhere inside, a small voice may whisper, “Is this how it begins?”

I understand that voice.

We live in a culture that praises motion, productivity, and visible usefulness. We are admired for staying busy, keeping up, and being “active for our age,” whatever that means.

The Chair We Once Feared

Many of us have seen someone sitting by a window and felt a little pity. Or fear. We may have thought, “I hope that never happens to me.”

Aging has a way of softening those judgments.

The chair may hold a tired body, aching joints, weak legs, loneliness, boredom, or frustration. Let’s not make this prettier than it is.

Loss is loss. But loss is seldom the whole story.

Sometimes the chair by the window is not only where life gets narrow. Sometimes it is where attention deepens.

When the World Comes Closer

A funny thing happens when we stop rushing past the world.

We begin to see it.

From a chair by the window, the same tree is not the same tree all day.

Morning light touches one side of it. Wind turns the leaves over, and rain darkens the trunk. In winter, snow outlines the branches making art against grey skies.

From where I sit, I watch the mail truck which has become part of the day’s rhythm. A neighbor walking his dog becomes a small story. Clouds gather, scatter, and gather again.

None of this is dramatic and that may be the point.

So much of life is not dramatic, but we miss it because we are looking for the next big thing – the next appointment, problem, or project.

The window does not make the world smaller, but it does make my attention less scattered.

The Holy Work of Noticing

I have come to believe there is a holy work in noticing what others rush past.

Noticing is not doing no thing.[link to last weeks posts]

It is a kind of receiving. It asks us to be present without fixing, explaining, improving, or turning the moment into another task.

That is harder than it sounds.

The chair by the window does not ask for a five-year plan. It does not care about my list of intentions. It does not applaud me for being efficient.

It simply asks me to look – at the light on the floor, at the crows scavenging crumbs, at the evidence that life continues in ways both tender and stubborn.

There is humility in that. And relief!

The world does not depend entirely on my effort. The sun rises whether I am productive or not. The crows do not wait for me to become impressive. They simply exist.

And for a few quiet moments, maybe I can simply “BE” too.

Sitting Is Not Waiting to Die

One fear we may have about sitting more is that it looks too much like an ending.

We imagine the chair by the window as a waiting room. Waiting for visitors or for supper. Waiting for the next pill. Waiting for death.

Sometimes, perhaps, it is.

But sitting still is not the same as waiting to die.

Sometimes it is how the soul catches up with the body.

We spend so much of our lives pushing forward. Raising children. Earning money. Solving problems. Carrying responsibilities. Showing up because people need us.

Then life changes. The body says, “Not so fast.”

At first, this can feel like being put on a shelf. We wonder who we are without all that motion.

But perhaps the chair by the window gives us time to ask some important questions:

Who am I when I am not producing?
Who am I when I am not needed in the same way?
Who am I when I can no longer reach the top shelves in life, but can still bless what is within reach? (Or under foot!)

These are not small questions.

The Window as Prayer

For me, the chair by the window can become a kind of wordless prayer.

Not always, of course. Some days it is just a chair, and I am just tired.

But other days, if I am willing to be still long enough, the window becomes an opening. Not only to the yard or street or sky, but to Mystery. To the Sacred.

Some people use candles, prayer books, sermons, and hymns to find connection with the Holy.

But I find the morning light oozing between the trees, and the silent movement of the clouds overhead feed my soul in ways that words can’t describe.

Some days my prayer is no more complicated than looking out and saying, “Yes. I see.”

Yes, I see the beauty.

Yes, I see the loss.

Yes, I see that I am still here.

Perhaps that is enough.

An Invitation to Sit

I do not know what your chair by the window is right now.

Maybe it is an actual chair. Maybe it is a slower season, a diagnosis, a grief, a caregiving role, or a change in your body that has asked you to stop running quite so fast.

Maybe you are resisting it with everything in you.

I understand.

But perhaps this week you might sit there for a few minutes anyway.

Choose one window. Choose one chair. Give yourself a few quiet minutes. Do not read. Do not scroll. Do not make a list.

Just look.

Notice what is moving and what is still. Notice what you miss and what is present. Notice whether the world outside your window has been waiting for your attention.

And if you share your home with a dog (or cat), you may want to watch how naturally they do this.

They sit. They look. They sniff the air. They wait without apology.

They do not seem to believe stillness makes them useless.

Perhaps I will let Dekker say more about that. After all, he has been studying the view for years.