Podcast: Download (5.4MB)
Subscribe: More
I’ve spent a lot of time in waiting rooms in my life. Waiting for doctors, waiting for dentists, waiting for my tires to be rotated. Waiting for my airplane to board, waiting for my table at the restaurant, waiting for my number to come up at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Waiting.
Sometimes only for a few seconds, sometimes for an interminably long time, to hear: “The doctor will see you now.”
Podcast: Download (4.4MB)
Subscribe: More
You’re standing there in the cold, waiting for the bus to come, and every minute feels like an hour. You’re waiting for the phone call that will give you the results of a medical test, and the more you try not to think about it, the more your pulse races in fear. You’re waiting for your birthday to come, or for the start of vacation, and the anticipation is half pleasure and half agony.
Podcast: Download (1.4MB)
Subscribe: More
The wet air curls against me as I sit in the boat without seeing through the fog. I’m without my bearings, lost between the elements of air and water. It happens this way, that sometimes, when a person sits on a boat surrounded by water and fog so thick, so deep, there is a dizziness.
December 2012
“The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“We are the people of abundance, people who have known suffering and will know suffering. We are the people of abundance, people who have known love and offer our love as a blessing to our world.” ~ Naomi King
We are a people of abundance. We know struggle in abundance and strength in abundance. For every story we know about “not enough,” we know an answering story of “lots.” Not enough time? Lots of meaningful work to do. Not enough money? Lots of sustaining relationships.
Since the Flood of 2005 in New Orleans, I have an abundance of friendships that grew out of people coming here to stand in solidarity with and bear witness to our struggle. Now these beloveds are woven into the fabric of my life and I walk with them through the joys and struggles of their lives – adoptions, divorces, cancer, new vocations, the death of parents, the building of treehouses – they are now a part of my life and my life is more abundant.
Abundance is not inherently good or bad – it simply is. We celebrate when joy is abundant, we mourn when grief is abundant. When it is time to sit down and write, I sometimes have an abundance of reasons to keep getting up and doing something else. When it is time to sit down and write, I sometimes have an abundance of words pouring from my fingertips.
To our dominant culture framed by a scarcity narrative, I offer this truth of abundance. When we see that our days are replete with abundance, we are less afraid. When we are less afraid, we connect more. The more connections we see in our lives, the more abundance we notice. Sometime the abundance will wear us out. Sometimes it will fill us up.
Live lived from the narrative of abundance is not easy. It is, however, a more loving way to move through the world than a life lived from scarcity. Come – choose to err on the side of love and generosity. We are a people of abundance.
We have, at last, come off of a whole string of days officially or unofficially designated to tell us what to do with our money. There was Black Friday, when we were supposed to go shopping; and Buy Local Saturday when we were supposed to spend more money, but this time with local merchants and independent retailers. Then came Cyber Monday, when we were supposed to buy stuff online. Followed by Giving Tuesday, when we were supposed to redeem ourselves for all that socially-irresponsible spending by giving money to good causes.
Honestly, I have no idea who determines these things. Who designated Cyber Monday or Giving Tuesday or any of the rest, and how did these things somehow become folded into the Holiday Season? What exactly defines the Holiday Season, anyway? Does it run from Thanksgiving to Christmas? New Year’s? If you celebrate Chanukah and not Christmas, does the Holiday Season end with the completion of Chanukah (the evening of the 16th this year) or do you have to say in a festive mood until the last of the eggnog is consumed at New Year’s?
I have no idea. On the theory that whoever designates these things has no special authority (and really, aside from the Supreme Court, who does?), I would like to designate today, the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, as Do What You Would Usually Do Wednesday. If you need something, go out and buy it. Otherwise don’t. Unless, you know, it’s really calling to you and you can afford it and it’s genuinely going to make your life better, in which case, what the heck, go for it. If you can get what you need from a local merchant, that would be great. But if you just don’t have the time or energy to go out into the world and you can find what you need online, believe me, I understand. And hey, today would be a great day to contribute to the welfare of others, or to the arts or to any organization that you think is doing wonderful work in the world.
But, you know, tomorrow would be just as good. Setting up an automatic withdrawal from your checking account would be even better. Face it, how you spend your money just isn’t a holiday. It isn’t something that deserves a special moment set aside from ordinary time. Which is not to say that how you spend your money isn’t a religious practice. It certainly is. Jesus, for instance, had far more to say about how people should spend their money than he did about far more contentious topics like homosexuality and divorce. Judaism and Islam have plenty to say about money, particularly about giving it to people in need. Money is one of the major ways that we express our values, which is to say, how we express what we think is right and good, which is to say, our religion.
How we spend our money matters. But it doesn’t need a holiday, a special, set-apart time. Far better that we make our financial choices daily, mindfully, choosing over and over again to invest in those things that matter most to us: the health and safety of our families, the pleasures that leaven our lives, opportunities for learning and growth, care for those who are in need. Today, Do What You Would Usually Do Wednesday, please spend your money exactly the way you ordinarily would. Unless you aren’t satisfied that your financial habits reflect your deepest values. In which case you should look forward to Do a Little Better Thursday, which is coming right up tomorrow.
Though she took the book learning part of Drivers Ed this summer, my 16 year old did not get her temporary license until last Monday. That’s because on Tuesday, we were leaving for a 1500 mile roadtrip for a family Thanksgiving, and it seemed like an ideal time to teach her to drive.
When I say “ideal time,” let me qualify that. To me, the “ideal” time to drive with her would have been after she had also taken the behind the wheel drivers’ ed class where the person in the passenger seat, a trained instructor, also has a brake pedal. But, oddly, that’s not how they do it anymore. They want the parents to teach the kids to drive, before the professional teacher ever gets into a car with them. While I find that bizarre and wrong, that massive group of people without 16 year olds seems to find it logical for some reason.
So, we headed off into the sunset, driving from Minnesota to northern Ohio. And then back. Safe and sound. With the sixteen year old driving at least 600 of the 1500 miles! And here’s what I learned, which I share thinking maybe it has application beyond this particular situation!
1. There is no time when beginning will feel safe, but make it as safe as you can. If you wait for safety, your kids will grow old and retire before you ever step aside and allow them to drive. But think through what will feel the safest to you. For me, it was a three lane highway in rural Wisconsin.
2. Start by imitating someone else. We drove around on a few country roads to experience starting and stopping, and then I said, “Just get in the right lane. No passing. Just follow whatever car is in front of you and go the speed limit.” That business of following someone else at first, even if they are the slowest, clunkiest, trailer on the road, is still a good way to begin.
3. Plan in advance how you’ll stop if you need to. Besides staying in the right lane, I knew that we would only switch drivers in wayside rests. No intown driving, no cloverleaves or complicated off-ramps. Just pulling over to a big parking lot on the side of the road.
4. Only do the one thing. In this case, it was driving. At first, we had no radio, no conversation about anything but driving, no eating. In the passenger’s seat, I did not answer phone calls or even look at maps. It was all driving, all the time, for both of us, until that was very comfortable and easy.
5. Consider challenging situations that might arise before they do, when life is calm. Talk about what to watch for in other drivers, to know when they might do something unpredictable. What to do if bad weather hits. What if a flat tire occurs.
6. Verbalizing things that you do intuitively will impress you with the complexity of what you know. In driving, as in other parts of life, there are hundreds of automatic decisions made. As we drive for years on end, we aren’t even conscious of many of them. I found it interesting and fun to speak out loud about things such as whether or not I trust another driver or when to pull back or when to push forward on the road.
7. Despite good planning, life will surprise you. We had planned for me to be back at the wheel long before Chicago, when we assumed the driving would get rough. But suddenly, on a country road that looked as if it would be clear and easy, bad fog came up simultaneously with road construction. There was nothing to do but live through it until there was a safe place to pull off.
8. Handling the unexpected situations well will give you confidence. After fog and road construction, I was more willing to say perhaps it would be OK to think about passing other cars, since that was much easier than what we had already lived through!
9. Take time to enjoy and appreciate progress. I probably told my 16 year old thirty or forty times what a great job I thought she was doing. And I meant it. But I could see that hearing my appreciation built her confidence and she was not annoyed by my repetition.
10. Plan to build on what you’ve learned. Now that we’re home from a highway trip, we’ll begin learning how to drive in town, which involves a whole different set of lessons. But the confidence from the road trip will spill into the local driving and make it easier.
Somehow the Thanksgiving plans turned out different than we expected. Like most folks in the US, my images of Thanksgiving include big tables groaning with food surrounded by family and friends. That’s not just a Norman Rockwell fantasy for me. My family both gets along well and cooks well, and Thanksgiving dinner is always a pleasure.
So when my parents announced, months ago, that they would be heading to the opposite coast to spend the holiday with my East Coast siblings, we knew that the holiday would look different, and we talked about friends that we might invite to celebrate the holiday. We would have different faces, but the same effect of feasting and conviviality. And then we kind of never quite figured out who to ask. And then my wife went in for an emergency appendectomy. And so, there we were, a few days out from Thanksgiving, with no real plans.
But hey, we could manage. We’d have a special celebration with just our little family—my slowly-recuperating wife, my daughter and I. Go see a movie. Have some easy-going family time. Choose a couple of favorite Thanksgiving dishes to make and just hang out.
Perhaps this would be a good moment to mention that my daughter is 14. My images of family time and hanging out together don’t usually come out the way I have in mind. Eventually the image of the family gathered around the groaning board devolved into a plan for my daughter to watch the final Twilight movie at the same time and in the same theater that my wife and I watch The Life of Pi. Not quite what I had in mind.
But, you know, it’s OK. Really, gratitude means a lot more in the real world of plans that fall apart than in that all-too-rare perfect world in which everything comes out the way it’s supposed to. I am grateful for my family, even if it’s next to impossible to get the eye-rolling teen to occupy the same space as her less-than-cool mothers for any period of time. I am grateful for my comfortable home, which will not get the thorough cleaning it so desperately needs, since no one is coming over. I am grateful to have enough to eat, even if we end up with In n’ Out Burgers rather than turkey and stuffing for Thanksgiving this year.
I am grateful to be here, in this particular place, at this particular time, which is as full as devastation and war and suffering as any other time, and as full of heroes and incredible blessings. However our Thanksgiving Day turns out, I will take a few moments for gratitude. May I remember to do that all of the subsequent days, whether they turn out the way I imagined or not.
The universe, she is laughing at me.
This is my third attempt to write a blog about gratitude.
The first two times got eaten my by computer. I saved them wrong. I know, you think, what are the odds? That’s why I think the universe is having a good laugh.
The first time, I sat in a meditative space and wrote the blog with deep joy. Writing it took me someplace I hadn’t intended to go, and by the time I was through, I had my plan in place for this week of Thanksgiving, as overloaded with tasks as it is: Just focus on being grateful. Don’t worry about anything else. Stuff will get done or it won’t, but my only job is to be grateful.
The second time, writing the blog was a little less inspiring to me, but it was better written. You would have like it. I talked about all of the things I have learned about moving from a place of joy, from a place of gratitude. I said that I don’t believe that stress, or just doing things to do them, is truly necessary for getting things done.
And now here I am grinding this third attempt out, because it is due today and if I don’t write it I will have blown my deadline. Doing just what draft 2 said I didn’t need to do! Draft 2 did acknowledge that yes, there are times, when deadlines or urgency compel us to move from a place of necessity. But even then, said my draft 2 calmer and wiser self, we can be grateful.
So here’s the challenge of the third draft: Can I be grateful even when I am frustrated by my own ineptitude, frustrated by needless and stupid mistakes? And here’s what I see: Yep, even then. I’m still grateful for the chance to speak here, for the opportunity to express myself, for the knowledge that people will take a moment to read what I have written, despite my obvious imperfection. But I also see that gratitude is not always a slow, ponderous, let’s take a moment and breathe deep and be grateful, kind of process. This time other deadlines—places to be, people to feed, other tasks to get done, nip at my heels and call me to move quickly. This time I am grateful on the fly!
So, in this Thanksgiving week that has taken me by surprise, arriving sooner than I expected, and without my readiness, this is indeed my intention: to stay in gratitude, even when I’m not in a state of deep cosmic focus. To let gratitude be there with my to do list that seems to grow instead of shrinking, with all of life’s distractions, with my frustrations, my mistakes, my obligations, my unmet deadlines, with people who annoy me, traffic jams, relatives with different ideas about the perfect Thanksgiving meal, a computer that eats documents when a not-too-bright person is at the helm.
I’ll let gratitude be the spice that makes the soup delicious, even if the main ingredients are beans and rice. I’ll let gratitude be the bow on the package, even if the package is wrapped in old newspaper. I’ll let gratitude be the cherry on top, even if it is on top of a plate of leftovers. I’ll trust that gratitude is there, holding together all that feels like it is falling apart.
And so, during this hectic week, I invite you to be there, in all of the chaos, however you do or don’t celebrate on Thursday, whether you are angry and lonely or mellow and blissful, to remember that gratitude is always there for us to rest in. We can breathe it, sleep in it, eat it with the turkey or tofurkey.
Whatever you do, or don’t do, this week, may gratitude whisper in your ear, arise from your heart, and flow out from all that you do and who you are. Even, or especially, when you screw up, when you feel you’ve got too little too late, when you want to throw a little tiny tantrum. Especially then.
(And please, Gods and Goddesses, may I save this document correctly!)
For months, we were barraged with a national narrative of a “razor tight” presidential race. (What kind of mixed metaphor is “razor tight” anyway?) But it turned out to be not so close after all. Indeed, some paid attention to voices that were saying all along it would be close, but not so very close, and that the outcome really wasn’t much in doubt. Now a budget deadline is being described as a “fiscal cliff.” Why is so much drama injected into these decisions?
The temptation to ratchet up the emotional intensity of any given situation is real. Perhaps we are motivated by boredom, by a desire to add a sense of passion to situations that would otherwise be marked by torpor and tedium. Perhaps drama makes us feel important, like what we are experiencing is special and powerful. These things speak to essential human needs. We need to feel engaged and interested in life. We need to feel like what we are experiencing and doing matters. These needs are not good or bad; what we do with them, though, can lead us toward nobility, beauty and decency, or down the road to aggression, confusion and chaos.
There are other motives for stirring up drama too. In the case of this most recent contest for the Oval Office, we were faced with a fairly humdrum set of choices. There was precious little talk and debate about climate change, poverty, or the fact that the United States has now been at war longer than at any other time in our history (even in Viet Nam, U.S. combat operations didn’t begin until 1965, ten years before the Paris peace accords), and hardly any discussion about the multiple deployments our armed forces have had to endure or the crisis in mental health that so many of our war veterans face. Talk of middle class tax cuts and natural gas reserves isn’t unimportant, but a deliberate avoidance of other pressing issues necessitates a collective emotional shutting-down. What to fill that void with? “The race is neck-and-neck!”
This is a spiritual issue. What we choose to give our attention to matters. What we choose to think about matters. Do we devote ourselves to ideas and feelings that lead to patience, rationality, open-mindedness, and generosity? Or do we focus on thoughts and emotions that point toward rage, self-righteousness, hysteria and parsimony? What kinds of choices are we demanding that our leaders make? And what choices do we ourselves make?
Follow Rev. Keely on Twitter @evanvwk.
Can you give $5 or more to sustain the ministries of the Church of the Larger Fellowship?
If preferred, you can text amount to give to 84-321
Quest for Meaning is a program of the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF).
As a Unitarian Universalist congregation with no geographical boundary, the CLF creates global spiritual community, rooted in profound love, which cultivates wonder, imagination, and the courage to act.