Finding flow

...in unlikely community, amidst rocky waters and stormy seas.

Back in December, I posted about a contemplative practice I’ve used in recent years, choosing a word of the year. And I promised to share mine with you.

And then my life kind of blew up in January, and I felt like the least qualified person to talk about these things, and it kind of felt like rather than winking at me, God was taking a crack at me.

You see, I chose divine flow as my word of the year.

It’s a phrase my spiritual director uses to reflect on the experience of being in the flow of the Spirit, the ease of trusting and working with God, rather than swimming up stream, or muscling things through, as I am so wont to do.

Choosing divine flow felt not just like an intention for me, but a triumph of sorts. Over the past few years, I’ve come to this radical place of trust in God with my career. I hold a teaching position with Princeton University, but it’s not full time, so I rely on research grants and contracts to fill the rest of my salary. This is the way I like it because it allows me to spend some of my time teaching about disability but the rest of my time following new research ventures, creating new projects, writing, and learning. When I recently told a friend of mine that I wasn’t really sure what I’d be doing after this Spring, he looked at me in disbelief, “I really don’t know how you do it,” he stammered.

And then January hit.

On a Monday morning I was packing my bags to get on a plane to fly to Arizona to see my parents, when Lucia’s pulse oxygen meter started wailing from downstairs. Her pulse was dangerously low and so was her temperature. We called the neurologist, who is often quite nonchalant, and she told us we needed to take her to the emergency room immediately. I called my parents and told them that I needed to cancel my trip.

“We knew it was always just a maybe,” my mom assured me over the phone.

Snow was coming down when Evan and I hustled Lucia into the car to drive down to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). I jumped in the back with her because she looked pale, and she had closed her eyes. Touching her face, I felt it cold to the touch. I put my hand in front her mouth and could hardly feel her breath coming forward. I began to pinch her to try to get her to open her eyes and she wouldn’t. Through tears, I called the neurology nurse. They told us to take her to the nearest hospital, so instead of driving to Philly, we made the decision to divert to the local hospital down the road.

They spent the rest of the day trying to warm Lucia up in this gigantic bear hugger device and stabilize her pulse. Then, they eventually transported her to CHOP. We found out that two viruses had sent her system all out of whack. It was both reassuring that she only had a few viruses and scary to see that she’d nearly gone septic just trying to cope with them.

Lucia warming up in the bear hugger. My photo.

The next morning Lucia’s day nurse failed to come in because she’d assumed we’d stayed the night at CHOP. I was exhausted after the constant vigilance of having to make decisions all day with so little information, heartbroken to have failed to make it to see my parents, and worried about Lucia. That morning the neurologist called out of the blue to check on us and told me, “You made all the right decisions yesterday. You did all the right things.” And when my sister texted to see if she could come help out, I was delighted to accept. She kept me company while we watched over Lucia.

But the whole week was still really hard.

I had expected to be in Arizona, so I didn’t really want to jump back into work, but trying to rest also felt futile and flat and difficult with such a close call for Lucia. It all felt like the opposite of flow: halting, yet relentless, confounding yet ruthless.

Yet, after a week of fear and disappointment, something finally occurred to me:

God had been faithful with my career, so why couldn’t I trust God to be faithful with my family? And whereas life felt choppy and disappointing, wasn’t the presence and provision of the people God had put in my life showing me that there was more to the story?

Looking back on that week and talking with my mom helped me to appreciate her disabled wisdom. Living with multiple sclerosis, she has weathered lots of disappointment, and she made it clear to me that she understood how I felt. But she also urged me not to give up. I realized that what she understood as a maybe I had been counting on and trying to control. I resolved that 2025 will be the year I try to make it to Arizona. January was my first attempt. I’ll try again in March, and I have all year to keep on trying.

I realized that the neurologist, brusk as she could often be, called me with just the words I needed to hear the morning after that scary hospital trip. She helped reassure me that through all the scrambling, I could trust myself and trust God. Even in distress, somehow I did something right.

Finally, my sister showing up in my text window on the very morning I needed her felt like positively divine timing. Who else could I have trusted to be with me on a day where I was sad and scared? And she came anyway, not giving a care what the day would be like.

My sister holding Lucia. My photo.

I realized I had been thinking about divine flow through such a narrow window—me and God—going it alone. But now that I looked at the full picture, I could see God was always with me, precisely through the counseling and cushioning of others. Other people literally carrying me along.

I learned a lesson I will need this year, I’m sure, and God must have known I’d need it in January: we don't find flow, God does. And sometimes, maybe oftentimes, we need other people to show us the way.

So what are other people teaching you? Where have you found community? And what does flow look like in your life?

I’m honestly kind of terrified to see what February will teach me, but I truly am grateful to be reminded of the Spirit’s work through communion and community. I might have realized the what it means to trust God is to trust others, too.

But better late than never. Better late than never to realize I didn’t even want a flow with just me and God anyway. It’s much better with all these people carrying me through.