Centering Up

Becoming the Self God Made Me to Be

I have a tight relationship with the divine flow of energy that I call God, and because of this, I occasionally use the word “mystic” to describe how I am oriented. I don’t, though, feel comfortable using the term “contemplative” for myself. I think of contemplatives as people who are deliberate, methodical, slow, and inward; none of which I am. Early in my time among Quakers, I had the impression that most Friends’ minds were like old Irish setters; they would come into the meetingroom, circle a couple of times before the fire, and then settle into stillness. My mind, however, was like an undisciplined chihuahua with the mail carrier on the front porch. My very first clue that I have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was after the rise of worship a couple of decades ago: a Friend shared how she hadn’t been able to center down and described what was happening in her mind and how disruptive it was that day. She talked about it as if it were highly unusual for her, but what she described was how my brain is—all of the time. 

Have you ever seen a drop of water resting on a body of water, and then, suddenly, the surface tension of the individual drop breaks, and it dissolves into the body? Sometimes that happens for me in meeting for worship. 

I have been a Quaker since my middle child, Zan (who recently turned 30), was learning to walk. Over the decades, I have participated in what surely must be thousands of hours of waiting worship. And yet, I still struggle with outward stillness and inward silence. My brain simply cannot settle the way most other Friends seem to do. My body is rarely able to quiet enough to cease movement. I joke that my primary spiritual practice is fidgeting. Sometimes, meeting for worship is excruciatingly hard for me. There have been times when I could not stay in the worship room because the hyperactivity of ADHD came to the fore, and I didn’t want to disturb others. 

I used to think this made me a failure as a Quaker. I could not do the one practice that seems intrinsic to the communities of Friends that I worship with. Several years ago, I tried to explain this to an anchoring committee supporting me as I participated in the School of the Spirit’s Spiritual Nurturer program. One Friend asked why I stay if it is so hard: why not worship in ways that are easier? I wrestled with the question for a long while afterwards. God even sent me on a spiritual sojourn for a few years, in part to help me explore the question. I loved learning to whirl and chant with Sufis, the sensory engagement of worship with Hindus, and the responsive readings calling us to actions of love and social justice with the LGBTQIA+ affirming Alliance of Baptists church. But I was not led to put down roots in any of these wonderful communities. As I held my relationship with each in the Light, my understanding that I am my truest self among Friends was reaffirmed for me. In spite of my challenges, waiting worship and our precious and remarkable way of seeking unity with one another gathered in the Holy Spirit during our business meetings is the right path for me.

This was good to know but didn’t make my sense of inadequacy and failure as a Quaker any less painful. 

I don’t mean to suggest that worship was never deep, rich, and profound for me. Sometimes I would know that we were gathered in the unifying embrace of the Holy Spirit. I would occasionally lose myself, falling inward not toward myself but into the essence of being. The best way I’ve found to describe it is this: Have you ever seen a drop of water resting on a body of water, and then, suddenly, the surface tension of the individual drop breaks, and it dissolves into the body? Sometimes that happens for me in meeting for worship. I’m there and then “I” am in unity with all that is in God—which is to say everything. 

I can’t cause this to happen. I do, however, have to show up. And not only just attend but bring my fullest self into the meetinghouse, the meetingroom, and into worship: fidgeting and chihuahua brain and all. I find that not fighting who I am, not getting stuck in what is lacking but bringing all of the parts of me into worship and giving them over is part of my practice. 

My body is rarely able to quiet enough to cease movement. I joke that my primary spiritual practice is fidgeting. Sometimes, meeting for worship is excruciatingly hard for me. There have been times when I could not stay in the worship room because the hyperactivity of ADHD. . . .

I believe that everything is in God, and God is in everything. Everything I am—my body, my mind, and even my ego—all come from God. I believe that God is present in every cell of my being, every jot and tittle of me. And because of that, because everything I am comes from God, I feel that my spiritual work is to make everything I am available for God to use. This is not easy. Parts of me, like my sense of humor, creativity, and quirky way of being, I’m really attached to and take pleasure in. They define me for myself. I own these parts and don’t really want to relinquish them. I fear that God would ask me to change, to become less attached to them, which might open me to new possibilities, new ways of being available for God to work through, and it disturbs me to think of myself as less connected with them. 

Other parts I don’t want to relinquish for opposite reasons: because they feel shameful, flawed, or weak. These parts are my woundedness and hurts, the parts that I want to keep hidden away because they are filled with pain, anger, regret, or sorrow. I struggle with making them available to God because I can’t imagine them being useful. I’d love to be rid of them, to have them miraculously removed from my emotional memory, but that’s not the way it works. 

For me, humility is remembering over and over and over that every single thing about me—good and “bad,” loving and not-so-much—is already in God through me. When I cling to something or keep it stuffed in an emotional closet, I am blocking the flow of Divine Love that wants to move through me. Courage is being willing to risk change. Am I willing to submit my love of wordplay to God? Am I willing to bring what is hidden into the Light so that God can make what God will of it? Courage is trusting God with my fullest self. Humility is accepting that my fullest self is exactly what God needs from me. It helps also to realize that God created me with my goofy, sometimes irreverent, pun-loving sense of humor and loves me exactly as I am.

I think of the contemplative practice of centering down as turning inward, like pulling on a monk’s hood to remove distractions. But centering up is turning outward to allow distractions to become reminders of the Holy Spirit’s abiding presence. 

At a School of the Spirit retreat, one Friend once asked if there is a difference between “centering” and “centering down.” I thought about it for a moment before coming to see that I do center; I just don’t do it like everybody else. I’m calling what I do “centering up.” My most reliable connection to my Creator is through my senses. Everything around me is an opportunity to be reminded of the creative, generative flow of God’s love, and so my eyes, skin, ears, nose, and even my tongue invite me to remember that Spirit is within and among and all around. This is the practice of wonder and can be done even while fidgeting. I’m making up the “rules” about centering up as I write, so bear with me: centering up is spontaneous but also intentional. It can be done with enthusiasm and expression, or it can be done quietly, and it often causes joy. It can be done in any moment, whatever one is doing: sitting in meeting for worship, walking around the block, or brushing one’s teeth all might be opportunities to center up. One may center up when one is happy and playful, frustrated, sorrowful, or even angry. Centering up may help shift one’s mood from negativity to hope. Centering up rejects shame and self-criticism and instead relaxes into the understanding that all things were created by God to be their perfect selves, even when they are not able to live into it quite yet. Centering up is a practice of gentleness and is full of the grace of starting over as many times as needed. Julian of Norwich’s quote “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well” could be a suggested mantra for a centering up practice. 

When I center up, I can be reminded of and reconnect with God through whatever comes to my attention in the moment: A white, fluffy cloud passing over the starry night sky, a thought or idea, the neighbor’s annoying leaf blower, my spouse’s hand in mine, the pain in my shoulder, a breeze touching my bare arms, the umami of a mushroom, and the beautiful hoar frost ribbons that I sometimes see on the morning of the first really hard freeze of the season are all opportunities to remember the Sacred. Even attending to my dog’s waste on our daily walks can be an opportunity to center up and express gratitude, if I allow it to be. I’m less likely to notice the sacred when staring at the screen in front of me, but it is possible. It helps to lift my eyes to the trees beyond and track a leaf falling to the ground. When my attention returns to my laptop, I have more capacity to recognize God’s presence in what I encounter.  

I think of the contemplative practice of centering down as turning inward, like pulling on a monk’s hood to remove distractions. But centering up is turning outward to allow distractions to become reminders of the Holy Spirit’s abiding presence. For me, centering up is accepting that God created me as I am with my dyscalculia learning disability and my ADHD and that I am uniquely and wonderfully made in God’s image. Centering up is embracing my body and my mind as they are in this moment and allowing them to connect with God in the way that feels right, good, and natural for me. Ultimately, I think, centering up helps me to become the perfect self that God created me to be by allowing every part of me to be available to God.