Human Kindness
Imagine this:
The day is hot and the line at the gas station is long.
After all, it’s the least expensive gas in town.
I pull in behind a tan Toyota, tired and dusty – ready to fill up my
gas tank and make my way home.
Only the Toyota isn’t moving.
The Toyota and its occupants seemed to have settled in for the afternoon.
Parked and content to sit next to the gas pump without actually
exiting the car to pump the gas.
I was cranky and
growing increasingly annoyed as the seconds – and I do mean seconds – ticked by.
All the other pumps
were occupied and I was stuck waiting with
mounting impatience behind this car that
was going no-where, doing nothing…it was just sitting there.
Finally – after about 30 seconds wait time – the driver of the Toyota emerged
apologetic and mildly frazzled:
“My car” she says “It won’t start. I’ve never had car troubles before.
I just had the battery changed yesterday.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to her.
I only drive my car, I don’t actually know a single thing about cars.
Just then, in a flash, they seemed to arrive out of thin air –
unlikely superheroes – two men were pushing the Toyota.
One, a lanky white guy with a buzz cut, covered from neck to wrists
in tattoos. He was guiding the rescue. Steering the car through the window
as he pushed.
The other, young clean cut Latino gave his all to the task.
I finished pumping my gas and to justify all the hours I put in at the gym,
I joined in pushing the car and driver to safety.
Once safely parked, the three of us fanned out in search of jumper cables.
It became an “operation” and just like that, I forgot that I was hungry, tired, and dusty.
At one point, I paused to look at us. An unlikely tangle of individuals
coming together in community to help a neighbor in need.
Sure, we didn’t live next door to each other, but in that moment
in that gas station, we were neighbors:
A Caribbean woman, an Asian American woman, Latino youth, tattooed white male – we were all working together for a single purpose
Human kindness / overflowing
in a small – yet for the driver of that Toyota – significant way.
Moments such as these unfold for us everyday.
We can choose to step into them or step around them.
It’s always a choice. It’s always a choice to slow down and give our full attention.
To see another into being.
To stop and engage giving of our very best in that moment
whether to ourselves or to others.
No one else has the right to define for you
what your best may be at any given moment.
Only you know what that is
what it looks like
feels like – and truthfully, what you have the reserves for
because, let’s face it: there is a lot of need in the world
There are needs everywhere…and we determine when and how much we give.
Sometimes we are asked to stretch way beyond our places of comfort
To truly see another…to attend…to listen…to be present…to give…
When that happens, when we are able to do that, when we reach back out into the world
Sometimes a little bit of magic happens.
A little bit of salvific hospitality leaps into our reality…into someone else’s reality
and for a moment, we are less lonely.
We are less afraid.
Making Room for Silence
In his poem “Keeping Quiet” Pablo Neruda begins with this:
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
As I read it, I am thinking: The well is dry.
Have you had those times in your own life?
Those times when try as you might to find restoration within
there is nothing there
only parched, dry, places, yearning for a drop of something to
make it to the next moment.
It feels crusty doesn’t it?
The incessant rush of activity that pushes from behind
or pulls at us, tugging without ceasing.
“Without ceasing.”
Often, during our morning check-in, my spiritual companion
will set her intention for the day to “pray without ceasing”
borrowing from Annie Dillard.
I have often thought of that prayer as one with words,
whether they are spoken out loud or remain caught in my throat,
swirling in my mind, dancing in my heart…they were always words.
But. Dillard isn’t talking about words.
In fact, she says: “the silence is all there is”
she says “pray to the silence.”
And I think: move right into the silence. Parched and wanting respite from
a life of constant motion.
Recently, I read something that caught my attention:
“Cornelia is ninety-four years old. She is a beloved founding member
of the board of Bread for the Journey.
Every afternoon she rests – if she can, so busy is her daily
schedule of appointments – because when she rests things fall away,
she says, and come clearer.”
Every afternoon, in the midst of her busy daily schedule, she rests.
She pauses
She restores
She, in the silence, makes room for stresses to fall away.
For life to grow clearer.
That…working and resting every day is a recipe for
nourishing the soul…
Is a kind of praying without ceasing.
Using the hands and heart;
welcoming the stillness,
the silence.
Neruda, says it this way as he closes his poem:
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
Safe Harbor
Press power on the remote control, television on
and every moment of viewing we are confronted with images that shame us into wanting to reject parts of our being
turn our bodies and ourselves into slimmer, younger, lighter, leaner
smarter, whiter, wealthier, straighter versions of our selves.
Magazines tell us what not to wear
along with 7 surprising things that turn guys off
And what men want during the NFL halftime.
Messages crafted to ensure we remember that
who we are – at our core – is not good enough.
//
Would you harbor me?
Would I harbor you?
Asks the Sweet Honey in the Rock song and:
Would you harbor you?
Would I harbor me?
How much time do we spend attempting to do the impossible?
How much energy…how many of our resources do we expend running away
From our bodies
From our identities
Our histories
Our stories…from our very own selves?
How much time, energy, and resources do we spend
not loving our bodies
fearing ourselves because who we are, is not
who we see reflected back at us in “normative” socio-cultural stories and images?
Because we’re actively being conditioned to cling to a mythical norm?
A while back on National Coming Out Day
I decided to feed my facebook obsession
by checking out the page
Wiping Out Homophobia on Facebook
There, in the photo album, I found photo after photo of
same-sex couples laughing, smiling, holding each other
women, men – people – marrying, playing, loving and…
I also found this note from Paul…growing up in a world
in which his identity is continuously questioned and made wrong.
A world in which some who proclaim to speak on behalf of God
advocate death or caging LGBT individuals until we die off
Paul writes:
“I have to tell you that for the past few weeks, I have been pretty low and had pretty dark thoughts about my life and what to do. I had been bullied at school and things got so bad that I thought about doing something really bad.
Well, I talked to you and you told me to join local groups and online groups to get support from people in my age group who know what I was going through.
Well, I joined an LGBT group in the next town and about 8 online. I now have some great new friends in real life and some online who I’ll never met but who I talk to a lot.
I know this is what everyone says, but I don’t feel so alone now, I am not like the only one. …I just thought I’d keep you up to date as you were all so kind to me. Thanks to K. and L. for talking me round and to everyone who said positive things, they really did help.”
This broke my heart…and in some small way, it offered some hope.
In a culture that is slow to extend
safe harbor for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender
children, youth, adults – elders…
In a culture that supports heterosexism & homophobia
In a culture that promotes messages of same-sex deviance often enough,
many – especially youth – begin to
internalize that message.
Believe that message.
Begin to question their, my, your, our inherent worth and dignity
It is easy to feel other-ed. To understand others and sometimes oneself as strange, deviant…
It would be effortless to create a list of all the ways we – who are
queer – have contributed to society…have enhanced the world.
It would be easy to catalogue the gifts of all the LGBT “strangers” among us.
And. Here’s the power of affirming the inherent worth and dignity:
It’s inherent. It matters what we do, sure. And, it matters more that
we simply are.
We…any one of us…shouldn’t need to be any more special to be accepted. To be loved.
To be equal.
We only need to be here. To show up. To love…
That’s the nugget of wisdom in the first principle: inherent worth simply “is.”
To love ourselves is the equivalent of a tiny revolution
To love all those unchangeable innate beautiful truths that
make us who we are
and the imperfect pieces and parts that we argue with
That we shove away
That we suppress
That we pretend we feel okay about…
when we embrace all of those parts
and come to see them as holy
it is the equivalent of a tiny revolution.
In her book: All About Love: New Visions,
bell hooks writes:
“When we are taught that safety lies always with sameness,
then difference, of any kind, will appear as a threat.
When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear –
against alienation and separation.
The choice to love is a choice to connect – to find ourselves in the other.”
When we’re taught that safety lies in sameness
when we’re taught that the only safe community is
a community of people who look like, dress like, think like we do
When we’re taught that only certain body types belong in the public sphere
When we’re taught that only people of certain heights or gender identity
or educational background or sexual orientation are capable of leadership
then we begin to fear everything in ourselves
and subsequently in others – that fail to fit what we’ve been
carefully taught.
We begin to fear everything that differs from the constructed “norm.”
And. What we fear, we seek to destroy.
But, when we – as individuals, as social systems with power,
as a community –
choose to love…move against fear…and connect
with difference, with that which appears to be strange – then
we make room for the Holy to thrive in and amongst us.
The tiny revolution in Paul’s story was just that.
A community that willingly created room for him – holy and inherently worthy –
to show up
Willing to extended safe harbor.
I want it to be true that we can create such harbors for
ourselves and for others.
Holy Curiosity
In the story of the Little Prince,
there is a compelling scene in which he
arrives on a new planet and encounters a businessman.
We know it’s a businessman because he is counting
he is too busy counting to lift his head in response
to the Little Prince’s greeting.
He is behind his desk working on a huge ledger,
counting, much like this:
“Three and two make five. Five and seven make twelve. Twelve and three make fifteen. Fifteen and seven make twenty-two. Twenty-two and six make twenty-eight. Twenty-six and five make thirty-one. Phew! Then that makes five-hundred-and-one-million, six-hundred-twenty-two thousand, seven-hundred-thirty-one.”
When he takes a breath, the Little Prince asks:
“Five hundred million what?”
It is such a simple question isn’t it?
But, the man, the one counting only responds
to the Little Prince in this way:
“Eh? Are you still there? Five-hundred-and-one million
I can’t stop…I have so much to do! I am concerned with matters of consequence.
I don’t amuse myself with balderdash. Two and five make seven…”
Matters of consequence.
There is he was, behind his desk counting without pause
counting a thing of beauty whose name he could not remember
“The little glittering objects in the sky” he called them.
Stars!
He was counting and recounting stars, gathering them up
by the millions, owning them, banking them in hopes of one day
being rich from selling them.
He was tending to matters of consequence.
The businessman in this story is by no means unique!
When invited into a moment of human connection
When invited to ponder the little glittering…the stars,
to notice and grow playfully curious about them
He declined. He would lose track of counting.
He would have to stop, break away from his ledger, look up
…take in and behold the “little glittering objects in the sky.”
The stuff of dreams…
To take them in would mean opening himself up to
learning more…
He declined because the matters of consequence to which
he was attending were far too important and could not wait.
All questions were interruptions…
All moments of being invited to engage were “balderdash”
he had no use for the person before him seeking
to be in relationship
So it is with all of us sometimes.
We are drawn into important tasks and forget
the whole world around us ready for our curious gaze.
What if we attended to each other….
To those ordinary encounters and conversations with
intrigue?
What if instead of clinging to certainty
we paused and made room for holy curiosity?
The poet Rumi writes:
This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all, he says.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.
Every moment, every interruption, has something to offer
something to teach…
The beauty is in being able to greet each new or familiar arrival
with a learning mind rather than a knowing mind.
And, forgive ourselves when we are not able to…
What if you had one moment today in which you were
gently interrupted from “tending to matters of
consequence” or in which you encountered the unfamiliar
What if you paused and viewed that moment as a guest?
An unexpected visitor from whom you had much to learn.
What questions would you ask?
How would you listen?
How would you choose to be?
~ Rev Alicia R. Forde
The Engaged Soul
Mary Oliver’s instructions for a life in the poem Sometimes:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
It’s a complicated boarding system.
There are zones that seem to be assigned without
the actual layout of the airplane in mind
such that passengers in aisle & middle seats are often settled in,
snoozing and ready for take off
when the passengers with window seats arrive
There’s the shuffling of people in and out of the narrow spaces
and the constant reminder to step aside once we’ve located our
seats,
to allow others to do the same.
Boarding an airplane shouldn’t be this difficult
