Do You Need to Recharge?

Perhaps these suggestions will help.

Do you find yourself feeling burned out and depressed, tired, battered by all the bad news — war in Ukraine, the pandemic, mass shootings? If so, let me suggest some things that have worked for me.

Annual Retreat

This morning I read a devotion from my favorite retreat destination — the Spirit in the Desert Retreat Center in Arizona.

Before the pandemic, we went there every year to thaw out from the cold Minnesota winters and to rejuvenate our spirits while walking the labyrinth, the Prayer Pathway, and the Islands of Silence. We love the quiet peacefulness. For a week or two, we unplug and enjoy the quiet. The rooms have no TVs or radios. No newspaper deliveries, either. We absorb the ambiance and the laid-back feeling of the town and surrounding area. If you want a different vibe, you’ll find it just a short mile down the road in Cave Creek.

Now, due to the pandemic, we’ve missed that time of spiritual rejuvenation for the past three years. The devotions are nice, and while they keep us connected, they don’t compare to being there. Thinking back and reviewing the many photos we’ve taken over the years gives a sense of the peace and happiness we experienced as we hiked the trails or just enjoyed relaxing by the pool.

In this time of global unrest, as we come out of the covid pandemic and witness the destruction of lives and property in Ukraine, the daily mass shootings, we need more than ever places where we can go to escape the horrors of this world for a time and recharge our spirits.

Daily Practice

But how do we recharge if we can’t get away? My approach these past 3 years is the same as it has been for many years. I start each day with a time of quiet devotion. I call it my Q.T., my quiet time. I read a couple of short essays that help center me, I pray, I do some journaling, then I turn to see what’s going on here online. I read a lot and write a little.

Today’s lesson was on being thankful for our bodies and believing without seeing. A couple of days ago my wife and I got our 2nd covid booster shots. We also opted to get pneumonia and shingles shots, too. Yesterday I had what amounted to a mild case of the flu. So, today, now that I feel better, it is quite easy to be grateful for my healthy body. The sick one? Not so much.

“Believing without seeing” refers to the “Doubting Thomas” story in the Bible where Thomas said he couldn’t believe in Jesus’s resurrection without seeing Jesus and putting his hand on his side and his fingers in the nail holes. Like us modern skeptics, Thomas wanted proof. And he got it.

We believe in lots of things without seeing them. We believe in the Covid-19 virus even though few of us have ever peered through a microscope and seen it. We believe those who have. We believe it because we have seen its effects of it.

That’s where my faith comes from: I’ve seen the effects. I’ve never seen a miracle cure unless you include my addiction to nicotine and alcohol, but I’ve talked to reliable people who have seen one.

Besides that, I’ve experienced the peace and serenity that come with faith. As I move one step closer to the grave each day, I appreciate the assurance that the best is yet to come. I trust that what comes next after this life will be unimaginably better. Why? Because others have gotten a glimpse of it and have said so.

Weekly Practice

Just before the pandemic struck I went to a presentation on Centering Prayer led by a former pastor of our church. Centering Prayer is essentially Christian meditation. It involves sitting quietly and not thinking about anything. Though the process seems simple enough, doing it for 20 minutes is not easy. Meditation has been around for many centuries, and so has Centering Prayer, but both seem to have gotten more attention during covid. Though practitioners suggest doing this daily, I’m still working on doing it once per week. Father Thomas Keating, in his book Open Mind, Open Heart, describes the practice in great detail.

Daily Outing

Some years ago when my wife and I both worked from home. We developed the practice of getting out of the house for an hour or so each day. Mostly we would go to the mall and walk a few laps. We’d see many familiar faces. My wife says, “we have to see a few monkeys each day.” She’s not being derisive. Her idea came from a study done that showed how monkeys deteriorated if they didn’t see other monkeys during the day. They could be in separate cages, but they had to be visible to each other.

Seeing and interacting with other humans helps maintain our mental health, too.

Even if our only interaction is only for a few minutes with a clerk in the department store, we’ve had some human contact. I’m an introvert. I don’t need a lot of human contact, but without it, I suffer. Just seeing others outside walking gives me a good feeling. Others do exist; life goes on.

I know, during covid, interactions have become fewer. We are told to keep a safe, “social distance” from each other. We’ve done this and still managed to take care of daily necessities like shopping for groceries, going to the pharmacy, working from home, and taking the dog for a walk.

Some people can go for long periods without interacting with others. I recently read the book Stranger in the Woods. It narrates the story of a man who spent 27 years living alone in the woods of Maine. He claims his only contact with another human during that time was a brief one when he said “Hi” as he passed another hiker on a trail. I can’t imagine living like that, but he loved it and had great difficulty adapting to society once he was forced out of seclusion.

Another person who loved living alone in the wilderness was Dick Proenneke. He documented his stay of some 30 years using an 8mm movie camera. The reels were later made into a video about him. At the age of 51, in 1969, he had a bush pilot fly him to Twin Lakes in Alaska. With only his skills and a few hand tools, he constructed a cabin and fashioned all that he needed from the wilderness. He lived there alone for most of the next 30 years.

Most of us need far more social interaction than these two men. Many of us crave it. Very few can live long or prosper without it.

Writing

As with many of you, when the pandemic struck, I turned to write. Specifically, I learned about Medium and started posting my missives here. During the pandemic, I wrote and various Medium pubs were kind enough to publish them. By the start of this year, I had over 200 articles, poems, and stories to my credit. For someone who had never written or published much of anything, that was an enormous accomplishment.

If you are not a writer, and I doubt anyone reading this is not, find a hobby or passion to engage your interests and indulge in that form a part of the day. I prefer to do this first thing in the morning so I give it my best each day. Since hopefully many eyes will see my work, I want it to be the best I can make it. Usually, once I get started, I find it hard to pull myself away. I hope you have or find such a passion, too.

Summary

So, my prescription for maintaining good mental health includes

• If you can, plan and take an annual retreat to a place that provides peace and quiet.
• Start each day with some “quiet time.”
• Get out of the house or apartment once per day.
• Interact with someone outside of your household at least once per day.
• Incorporate Centering Prayer or Meditation into your daily life.
• Write (or paint or do whatever you love) a little (or a lot) each day.

If you do these things, you will find yourself feeling much better about life, even life in a war-torn world in the midst of a pandemic with insane people shooting and killing others on the streets every day.

Happy Reading, Writing, Connecting, and Recharging, my friends!