Out Of The Blue : Thoughts on spontaneity and routine

Every evening I say good night to my children. I kiss them, I pray with them, I tell them I love them.

It’s a meaningful ritual. But it’s also a routine and I sometimes worry that it’s a tired old habit which has gradually been drained of any real meaning. My prayers aren’t relevant and fresh every night. I’m often exhausted. And then it’s all I can do to mumble something coherent. I know I’ve repeated the same prayer way to many times. I also know ‘I love you’ is not always said with a sparkle in my eye and a smile on my face because I’m preoccupied with something else.

But I pray the prayers and say the words because however they might sound to my own ears or anyone else’s, I do mean them, mean them desperately. For me, they aren’t just assembly line sentences, manufactured to fit a certain moment each evening. They’re more like my heart speaking with a really limited vocabulary.

The fact that I do this every night doesn’t make it less special than if I only did it sporadically. What makes these few mumblings so important is that they’re reliable. No matter what else happens during the day, when my kids go to bed at night, they know I love them. Those are the last words they hear from me every day.

It’s not often enough that they hear other words, alive words, words of spontaneity, life-giving, soul- affirming words.

It happened yesterday when I told my daughter that I loved her, in a serious sort of way, looking her in the eyes.

There was no ritual, it wasn’t bedtime, just out of the blue in the kitchen while she stood with the fridge door half open.

I put my arm around her and said it. I didn’t say it reassuringly or playfully. There was no one else around to make it collective, less intense. Just her and me and the weight of my words hanging in the silence between us.

And she took them.

I know she did because she smiled and looked very pleased and hugged me back.

I didn‘t plan this encounter. But I chose it, chose it in a split second, chose to let my heart speak. It was spontaneous and different than routine because it was surprising.

But no less important.

We need both. We need routine because it’s predictable, secure and reassuring. Whatever order exists on the surface of our lives is usually there because of routine. Routine reminds us of important things we need to remember every day. The voice of spontaneity is wild and unpredictable. It reminds us of what is yet undiscovered, in ourselves and in other people. It reminds us of what may still be possible. In spite of all the smooth immovable walls of pseudo-security surrounding our hearts, there are unguarded moments when something beautiful squeezes through a wayward crack and escapes. It goes against all of our training, but whenever this happens, we should look the other way and let the prisoner fly.