This Is What’s Happening
This is what’s happening, now.
It is the last day of our week-and-a-half West Coast trip. We are in Portland, Oregon, the city where I was born and grew up, where I know a thousand places I would love to go–this and that bookstore, that cafe, and oh, the breakfast places I would love to savor, and the parks and walks and hikes. I’d like to get my hair cut (the last time I got it cut was in December) and take Robin to that all-children’s-book store on Alberta. Instead, we are staying close to the house today. We will be running some laundry while the few friends who are free on a weekday come by and say hi. It is so much easier this way–to not make plans or have big aspirations for the day.
This is what’s happening.
One of the highlights of this trip for me was on the very first day, just after our plane landed in San Francisco, after we waited for everyone else to get off first so that we could take our time looking around under every seat and in every overhead compartment for our whole assortment of bags and belongings. We walked up the ramp and past the boarding gate, and Robin started kicking-kicking-kicking and shrieking with delight. She looked around at the bright shops, kiosks, and quickly rushing stream of people moving in all directions in that busy airport terminal and laughed and giggled, smiled and cooed and laughed some more. And I realized–startled–I realized that she may well have thought that we had permanently moved in to that Boeing 737 with 160 other people and less than 2 vertical square feet per person.
This is what’s happening.
As a Unitarian Universalist minister, an occasional meditator, and a regularly-irregular practitioner of yoga, I have a great appreciation for all the variations of “be here now” that circulate around and through our religious and spiritual traditions and practices. But I also have always loved to plan, to anticipate the next thing, to schedule and “calendar” and try my best to organize the future. A baby is a sure-fire way to cure a person of the enjoyment of planning. It is the planned things that inevitably stress me out, now. That planned gathering will fall right during her new nap time, or come with expectations of getting Her Wiggliness into some outfit that is not her usual comfy footed sleeper. Planned things will often involve driving, or bus schedules, neither of which dovetail with easy nursing. Planned things often involve other people, and most other people are so much busier than we are, these days. I have cut back, and cut back, and cut back, until, most days now, I spend most of the day barely aware of what time it is. I keep a running list going in my head of what Robin might need; that is my ongoing daily meditation now: diaper, food, nap, play, and repeat.
This is what’s happening.
Robin has just this afternoon discovered the clanging joy of banging on overturned pots with wooden spoons, wooden spoons which also make fine teethers. We leave tomorrow morning, and there are so many people and places I would have liked to have seen. But it is a privilege and a practice to set aside for now all the other things we might like to do, and just enjoy this sweet day together, with both Mamas around continuously this whole delightful week, playing in the sunlight and savoring the luscious green that is spring in Portland. An acquaintance told me she looks back on her children’s first years and thinks of them as the “I didn’t” years, a reference to all the things that go undone–dishes, projects, housecleaning, travel. I like that phrase, the “I didn’t” years; it resonates. And at the same time, I want to look back on these years and think of them as the “I did” years. We did, we are. We are choosing to focus on being with our Little Bean. We are lucky and privileged to be able to make this choice, and it is financially stressful some days, energetically challenging other days. For now, for us, this is what’s happening, right here, on the floor: overturned pots, wooden spoons, clanging and laughing and kicking, going nowhere today except around the block to look at the newly bursting flowers, letting our own focused lives be full enough, letting this be bountiful, this ordinaryness be beautiful. This is what’s happening. May it be so.
Doubt, the Scurry
Thinking of it
is your first
mistake. A
scurry caught
in the corner
of a cat’s eye–
did it dart
down that hole,
that, or that?
One thing for
certain–it
won’t come
back to sure,
after you catch
a scurry out
of the corner . . .
Then you’re a
cat peering
down that
crack, that,
and that. No
it won’t come
back, that relax
in old after the
cat’s seen
the scurry of . . .
doubt. There’s
a hole, a fissure,
a crack there.
Bat at it!
There. There.
Good Guys and Bad Guys
Depending on who you talk to, the recent death of Hugo Chavez was either the tragic loss of a heroic defender of the poor or the timely end of a socialist thug. Now, I’m not interested in taking sides on this one. I make no pretense at being any kind of expert on the modern history of Venezuela. No, what fascinates me is the need to cast him as misunderstood hero or brutal villain, when it seems pretty obvious that he was neither, or both.
We have this human determination to decide who the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are, and we expect to be able to identify them by their hats. The good guys are noble and honorable and agree with us on all particulars. The bad guys are greedy, unethical and cruel. They espouse ridiculous notions that run counter to all we know to be true. It’s a way of looking at the world that allows us the comfortable privilege of identifying “us” and “them,” so that we can know who is on “our side.”
But for better or for worse, people are rarely that two-dimensional, and we do everyone a disservice when we try to cram people into folders marked “good” and “bad.” The other day a friend posted a graphic that showed a picture of Bill Gates and a cornfield, with the label “evil” over Gates’s head because he owns a vast number of shares in Monsanto. I’m no big fan of Monsanto, but really? The man has done more than anybody since Jonas Salk to eradicate communicable disease in the world, and you’re willing to slap the word “evil” over his head? Pressuring public figures to divest from companies you think are hurting the public is one thing, declaring anyone who is invested in these companies to be evil is quite another.
It takes a little mental flexibility, but if you want to deal in the real world then you could acknowledge simultaneously that Chavez was autocratic and that he improved conditions for the poor, that Gates has done a tremendous job working to save children from disease at the same time that he is culpable for investing in Monsanto—not to mention Windows Vista. A recent French article points out that Mother Teresa allowed a great deal of suffering in her “homes for the dying” that she could have perfectly well prevented. Martin Luther King, Jr. plagiarized portions of his doctoral dissertation. There is no one who is totally pure, no one utterly evil. The congregation I serve, the Church of the Larger Fellowship, has a ministry to prisoners which includes a pen pal program, correspondence courses and more. We regularly receive staggeringly beautiful letters from inmates who are finding their way to spiritual insight and compassion in the brutally harsh conditions of prison. These men and women have done some dreadful things. They are not (mostly) innocent. They are also not evil.
But when we reduce the world to good guys and bad guys then we conclude that the bad guys belong in jail, and don’t deserve to be treated as humans with hopes and desires. When we imagine that there are good guys and bad guys then we assume that we need to take guns away from the bad guys and put them in the hands of the good guys, disregarding the fact that good guys shoot their wives or girlfriends or themselves on a disturbingly regular basis. When we divide the world into good guys and bad guys we go to war against the “axis of evil” without regard for the human or financial cost, because we know that good will triumph over evil, and we know that we are good.
Of course there are people who commit terrible acts, and who must be stopped. Of course there are people who accomplish heroic feats, and who deserve our praise. But if we think that we can divide the world into a superhero cartoon of good and bad then we have badly mistaken what it means to be human, and our choices will be lead dangerously astray.
We would be better off to let ourselves by guided by the words of Annie Dillard from her book Holy the Firm:
Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead–as if innocence had ever been–and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready, having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved. But there is no one but us. There never has been.
Waiting for Snow in Carlisle
Today, I carpooled to a daylong meeting with several colleagues. As we rode back toward home, we heard weather forecasts calling for several inches of snow tonight and into the morning. Now, you should know that unlike much of the rest of the country, we have had little to no snow in Central and Eastern Pennsylvania this year. My colleagues and I were all wishing for a blizzard or at least enough snow to have a snow day. Yearning for a snow day . . . a quiet day . . . a chance to slow down. . . and spend a little more time with my husband. I am just like a kid wanting a day off from school.
As she got out of the car, my friend said she would pray for snow and we wished each other a happy blizzard. I appreciate the beauty of snow when I am safe and warm inside, and I love the quiet hush that seems to fall with the snow. I even imagine playing in the snow. Yet I wonder why my colleagues and I want a snow day in order to slow down, to care for ourselves, or to take time with family. Our highly connected world has many of us working wherever we are and at all hours of the day and night. Many of us spend too many hours living like this quote from Marie Curie, “One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.” Our souls and spirits need time. We need to slow down and spend time not thinking about to do lists. We need to take time to celebrate what we have done, to notice where we are and reflect on where we have been. We need to time to play. Some folks wait until they get sick to slow down and take time for themselves.
So snow or no snow, apparently my colleagues and I need to slow down. I wouldn’t be surprised if you, too, need some slow time, some play time or reflection time. Do we need excuses or external events to care for ourselves – body, soul and spirit? If there is no snow, maybe we need to name some days “no snow” days.
May you give yourself the blessing of the time and space that you need to flourish.
Being and Doing, Work and Spiritual Practice
Last week I attended an interesting conference called Wisdom 2.0, about the convergence of technology and spirituality. To say it was interesting is an understatement: For this Midwesterner, listening to folks from the tech industry was fascinating, and the collection of spiritual teachers and industry leaders was artful. (You can watch what happened at Wisdom2summit.com.)
We heard from the folks who started up or lead massively successful technological companies—Google, Twitter, some new ones I hadn’t heard of—talk about how spirituality, and particularly mindfulness meditation, yoga, and service projects are part of their corporate environments. I was inspired.
I was also a little disoriented, and a little uneasy. With all of the talk of spiritual path, of wisdom, there was no talk at all about spiritual community. While we understood that some of the spiritual speakers came out of, and indeed dedicated their lives to, sustaining spiritual community, the talks seemed to suggest that wisdom was something attained by individuals who were devoted to meditation. The only spiritual community lifted up, in fact, was the workplace. Apparently on the job meditation and yoga cuts down on absenteeism and lifts productivity, while also providing health benefits for practitioners.
Pardon me if I don’t think workplaces really qualify as spiritual community. I say this as someone whose own workplace is a church, where I am a minister. Even this church does not qualify as spiritual community for me or the rest of the staff, though our work is spiritual in nature, and involves creating spiritual community for others. Every minister and religious professional knows that we must, ultimately, find somewhere else to ground ourselves and be able to embody the full mess we are, rather than believing our church is there to fulfill our needs. I’m not saying that being with the people in my church is not joyful, rewarding, deeply nurturing. But it’s not where I show up with all of my own stuff to work out. To believe otherwise is a recipe for misery for all of us.
And it’s not that spiritual communities don’t also need to raise money, either. We may be non-profits but we do need to be sustainable. So it’s not as if the concept of bringing in money is dirty or evil or wrong. I’m just a zealot for clear missions, and I think that the mission of for-profit companies is to succeed financially and the mission of congregations is to minister to a broken world. When congregations become centrally focused on raising money, they are not true to mission. And when corporations become centrally focused on the spiritual practice of their employees—well, I don’t think they ever really will.
When I realized that the workplace was being touted as the place to meditate and do spiritual practice, and when I kept hearing business leaders exclaim how this time was good for profits and the bottom line, part of me was afraid. As I write this blog, I’m waiting for some help from an airline which has let me down yet again with bad service. This airline used to be a different company—one dedicated to amazing customer service and care. After a hostile takeover, those same employees who used to do contortions to please the customers must look us in the eye and say there’s nothing they can do to help us. With or without hostile takeovers, I fear this could happen to any company as management discovers anew what actually helps the bottom line, and decides that it’s not spiritual practice after all. Far better to be part of a community which doesn’t care if you are a vice president or a mailroom clerk; they know you only as someone with a compelling spiritual practice. Far better, I believe, to belong to a spiritual community with the sole mission of being a spiritual community.
I loved the conference and learned a great deal. And I suspect I’ll go back next year. Next year, though, I’ll be more intentional and proactive about sorting through the folks present to find others who, like me, are interested in developing spiritual community with the bottom line of spiritual awakening, service, and joy.
High Resolve
“Keep fresh before me the moments of my High Resolve, that in fair weather or in foul, in good times or in tempests, in the days when the darkness and the foe are nameless or familiar, I may not forget that to which my life is committed.” ~ Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman
Carnival has passed. Mardi Gras is over for another year. We are now well into Lent. In the coastal south, even faith communities that do not celebrate Lent, the time of reflection and repentance before the celebration of sacrifice and resurrection, become attuned to the lenten rituals their Christian neighbors.
In her article Lenten Disciplines, Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger wrote:
While Lent does not have the same meaning in a Unitarian Universalist setting that it does in an orthodox Christian context, it is not meaningless. Each and everyone of us is called (by God, the Spirit, our Higher Power, our Better Nature) to be our very best self, a self we often fall short of, sometimes even intentionally. “Giving up something for Lent” does not have to mean that we sacrifice something we love and enjoy (like chocolate, for example) but can be a healthy spiritual discipline leading to our betterment, to our reaching closer to that wholeness we all seek.
Whether or not you religiously observe the season of Lent, as Unitarian Universalists we are always called to a healthy spiritual discipline that heals the brokenness of our lives and our world.
In this time of contemplation, we are invited to re-center ourselves and our spiritual communities. We are invited to ask:
What’s in our heart?
What’s our vision, our passion?
What brings us joy?
Where are our strongest relationships?
What promises do we keep?
How are we called to nurture and heal our world?
“In the days when the darkness and the foe are nameless or familiar,” may we be mindful of our moments of High Resolve that we may not forget that to which our lives are committed.
Blessed be, beloveds.
Subtile Body
“There is more reason in your body than in your best wisdom.”
Frederich Nietzsche
Hard to think, perhaps,
this old man lives
in “subtile body”–
looking at my lines,
looking at my heft,
beer belly & broken teeth,
but I am;
I do . . .
Subtle body where
the accidents fall
into place because
I have seen the sacred
pattern of a life
botched, yet
all the universe gathered
to catch me in
my drunken fall.
Hard to see, but it’s
here–subtle body in this
old man, sway backed
& bowed legs
born of a child too
timorous to eat;
not enough; too much;
all I could think of. Yes,
my subtle body is subtle,
difficult to see
through the curtain of
fat and age,
yet it’s there, ashes
of mistakes, life
in a pattern
I see now, subtle
pattern in the ashes.
Standing on Principle
As the budget sequestration looms, it seems that the government is caught in a stalemate as both sides “stand on principle,” unwilling to compromise on core values. Which would seem to be a good thing. After all, isn’t that what we ask of ourselves and our friends—that we stand up for what we believe in, that we hold fast to what is most dear?
The problem is that most of the values that those in the budget non-conversation are clinging to aren’t actually values. Lower taxes is not a value, nor is smaller government. They are strategies. As are Medicaid, Social Security and Obamacare. Independence is a value. Compassion is a value. Liberty is a value. Equality is a value. These are things that one can stand for on principle. But the defense budget or health insurance for children, or any of the thousands of other things that are part of the government purview are simply means to an end.
So here is my modest proposal: maybe we should start with the values, the essentials, and work outward from there. But how do we know what the essentials are? Who gets to decide what the government is really here for? Well, as it turns out, we already have that statement. If you are of my generation, perhaps you memorized it (and the accompanying tune) from Schoolhouse Rock: “We the People, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution.”
Now, I’m not saying that it is in any way obvious how every given decision should come down when you hold on to these essentials. How much money goes to the common defense and how much to the general welfare? But here’s the thing. While we take these essentials as given, any of the strategies to achieve these ends can be tested and evaluated. Does investing $6000 per taxpayer in a fighter jet system that has yet to function properly most efficiently provide for the common defense, or might the money be better spent elsewhere? Does subsidizing corn or fossil fuels promote the general welfare, or might the general welfare be better off if we put our shared money into fresh vegetables and renewable energy? Does a tax structure that leans most heavily on the wealthiest help out domestic tranquility and the general welfare, or have we found more tranquility and general welfare when the tax burden shifted toward those on the lower end of the economic scale?
Information is never perfect, and past performance does not guarantee future results. Nonetheless, data exists. Strategies have been tried and if we know what results we are hoping for we can evaluate which strategies have proven most effective. It’s not that hard to agree that we don’t want people to starve, but we also want people to be self-supporting, relying wherever possible on their own efforts rather than government support. Rather than getting stuck in complaining about uncaring fat cats or parasitic welfare queens, wouldn’t it be more useful to try to tease out what programs work most efficiently for helping people out of poverty and into self-sufficiency? Rather than scaring ourselves with the specter of socialism or with resentment of wealthy insurance executives it might be more helpful to have a look around the world and see who gets the best health care for the most people for the least money, and try moving our system in that direction. Really, it would seem that those who are the most enthusiastic about a corporate model for government would be the most eager to promote the familiar model of having a vision and a mission, and creating goals and objectives to achieve that vision and mission.
Of course, it’s not that simple. Our government runs largely on sponsorship rather than logic. But isn’t it nice to imagine a government of the people, by the people, for the people, loyal to the guiding principles set out in our Constitution, and led by reason and science to serve the needs of ourselves and our posterity? It doesn’t hurt to dream.
Paying Attention Again
“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake. . . .Only that day dawns to which we are awake.” Henry David Thoreau
Last June, I posted about paying attention, and I am writing about it again today. Have you heard the sayings that psychotherapists and ministers share what they need to hear and to learn? I know that when I am awake and paying attention life is better. I am more alive. Often, I send my consciousness into the future. I worry about my to do list or think about what we might do next year. Sometimes I let my mind be so busy that I forget to eat. I might drop things or have small accidents. My husband and daughter like to tease me about the time that I spilled coffee on our kitchen ceiling! When I do pay attention to this very moment, I am more present and more alive. With awareness, I can make conscious choices and feel more peaceful.
In my congregation on Sunday, we each meditated with a small river stone. I asked folks to really observe the stone, to see its colors, and to feel its textures and its weight. I asked them to truly pay attention to the small and simple stone. Then I asked them to allow the stone to share its wisdom or to send them a message. I asked them to remember that the stone is part of the holiness of the universe, part of the interdependent web of existence just as we are.
Then I asked them to call a word or phrase from the stone into the room. Here is what they said:
Slow down
Hope
Worn by water
Balance
Peace
Rest
Energy
Friend
Faith
Lasting
Exquisite
Smooth and easy
Solid
Antiquity
Character
Warm
Refuge
Just right
From slowing down and paying attention to a simple object, people became aware of beauty and strength. Through that focus, some of them noticed what they needed in their own lives. There is nothing magical in this. It is simply slowing down and paying attention.
May you be awake and aware in your life.
Seeds
The cattails I brought you
have burst long ago
& sent their fluff
seeding wherever
it was you threw them.
If only I may let go
so flagrantly
as the cattails,
as you;
as wind;
the past;
the seeds.