Right Ways
A poem on gospel and right ways.
I wanted to learn the right way to breathe.
The way of breathing that would solve all of my problems, because you see, I had (have) a lot of them. Most of them are due to the fact that I love diner breakfast more than I love breathing sometimes.
But that’s always been it.
The right way.
I started yoga over a decade ago to learn the right way to care for my body.
To be able to breathe the right way so maybe I’d stop snoring like a freight train at night.
I’ve worked in coffee shops learning the right ways to brew coffee in hopes that maybe one day I’ll experience the perfect cup and be able to make it the right way every time after that.
I left the church I grew up at, leaving the right way for them to find the right way for me.
I have left jobs, because they just didn’t do things the right way1.
Each new adventure there is hope that maybe, along the way, I’ll meet someone who just does things the right way.
I beg my therapist to tell me the right way to cure my anxiety, or suddenly heal who I am and replace her with who I think I should be.
I take an overwhelming amount of notes at work to make sure I’m going to do things the right way all the time on a Sunday morning.
I yearn and search and read for the right way to stop feeling so spiritually dry all of the time like I’m not in school and working and commuting and not sleeping, praying that I’ll stumble upon just the right way to rest and dream, and exist.
That’s a lot of right ways.
Except there’s a lot of left ways too. Middle ways, and one lane ways, and one lane but two directions ways, even a roundabout or two thrown in.
Sometimes I lament that I’m not doing things the right way. That maybe I’m not ready, or haven’t prepared enough or sought enough wise counsel or done things in just the right order — oh wait.
I’m still breathing.
Maybe not perfectly and with a little heartburn from too much bacon at breakfast, but I am breathing.
Perhaps the good news all along has been that there isn’t one single, right, perfect, infallible Way.
Maybe it was never about THE RIGHT WAY but just a right way. Maybe a left one, a middle one, one lane with two directions or a roundabout.. way.
I am still looking for the right way to breathe, if you know one.
Excluding the genuinely abusive food service and hospitality environments.
Amen