By FATHER PAUL KEENAN ‘
“Hesitate in August. Be shy. Let your toes tremble in their sandals.” The words of Anne Sexton set us a healthy agenda for this month that marks the end of the summer and the sometimes-reluctant beginning of the fall.
Personally, I have always found times of vacation to be great opportunities to rest and to stake stock of what has been going on in my life. This, in turn, enables me to formulate the hopes and dreams I have to the time ahead. Even if vacation is a thing of the past or is nonexistent for us this year, we can take time to hesitate. In fact, we must, because without taking time to pray, to reflect, to evaluate our lives, we will soon lose touch with them, if we have not done so already. Surely each of us is entitled to a day, or a day a week, or an hour in the morning to open our spiritual eyes to the wondrous presence of God, especially his presence within our hearts, where he says, as he did 2,000 years ago, “Make your home in me as I make mine in you.” Hesitation is often given a bad name. After all, “He who hesitates is lost,” right? I say just the opposite: he or she who does not hesitate is lost. When we hesitate before speaking or before performing an action, we pause and ponder as to whether these are words or actions we wish to say or do. We stop to be sure that the immediate future will be the right expression of who we are and who we want to be.
The larger hesitation that Anne Sexton recommends is similar to that. As we learned to do in grammar school, we stop, we look, we listen to be sure that what lies ahead is the best that it can be. We must hesitate in August. It is good for us.
Be shy. An expert on networking once told me that studies show that 95 percent of us consider ourselves shy and feel inadequate in some way or other. Most of the time we try to hide our shyness. We consider it shameful. But the poetess urges us, “Be shy.” It is good for us to realize that there are some things that we do badly or even wrongly and to allow ourselves the opportunity to ask the Lord and others for help. We cannot go it alone. Being shy allows us to recognize that fact and to allow others to be of help to us.
Let your toes tremble in your sandals. Tremble, not with fear, but with wonder. When we take time to hesitate and to be shy, we develop the capacity to be filled with wonder and amazement at life. Life is good sometimes, difficult sometimes, and strange sometimes.
Through it all we can experience the lovely mystery that is God and the covenant that is his relationship with us and ours with him. He tells us, “Be not afraid,” and exhorts us, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Wherever we are, we walk on holy ground, and there is no escaping the palm of his hand, even if we try. When our toes tremble in our sandals, we acknowledge the holy ground that is the stuff of our daily lives, and we take time to wonder.
“Hesitate in August. Be shy. Let your toes tremble in your sandals.” As we prepare to end the summer, we can engage in this mystical exercise and find ourselves enriched.
