THE FIERCE SWORD OF COMPASSION

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Today’s post is about compassion, what it is and what it isn’t. The title for the post comes from Jack Kornfield, world renown Buddhist teacher and guide, from a book I can not recommend highly enough entitled The Wise Heart. Citing from Kornfield’s introduction of what Buddhism is and isn’t provides a helpful backdrop to the universal application of compassion. It is a principle that is a cornerstone of every life well lived, whether one adheres to a particular faith or not:

“In approaching this dialogue, I’d like to underscore a point the Dalai Lama has made repeatedly: “Buddhist teachings are not a religion, they are a science of mind.”  This does not deny the fact that for many people around the world Buddhism has also come to function as a religion.  Like most religions, it offers its followers a rich tradition of devotional practices, communal rituals, and sacred stories. But this is not the origin of Buddhism or its core.  The Buddha was a human being, not a god, and what he offered his followers were experiential teachings and practices, a revolutionary way to understand and release suffering.” 

In fact, an Italian scientist named Giacomo Rizzolatti and his colleagues discovered a class of brain cells called “mirror neurons.”  Their research showed that through our mirror neurons we actually feel the emotions, movements, and intentions of others. It is part of our social brain, “a neural circuitry that connects us.” 

Linguistically, the word compassion has its roots in Latin and Old French.  From the Latin compassionem, com (with), pati (to suffer), ion (state of, act of), it means “the act of suffering together.”  When we feel another’s sorrow:  at a friend’s husband’s funeral, with a mother whose child is undergoing chemotherapy, we often weep with them and for them. On another level, we feel the anguish also for ourselves.  We too are not immune, we all have experienced or will experience pain and death, of one kind or another.  There is much healthy connection in feeling sympathy for another’s pain.  If we have experienced similar tragedies, we may have something insightful to contribute to alleviate the suffering.  Yet, even if we have never had that experience, as humans we contain the urge and strong desire to end their suffering. Our willingness and openness to become a vehicle for healing can, in and of itself, bring comfort. 

That healthy connection means that I will stand with you in your pain and you will stand with me in mine; and we will bear it together.  We CAN bear it.  It is the opposite of fearful aversion that does not want to look, that feels like it can’t look.  This keeps us tucked away in our separateness, holding on for dear life with the delusion that such and such could never happen to me. This paradigm contains the seeds of suffering for everyone.

So what is meant then by the fierce sword of compassion? It is the “no” of compassion.  We can know and serve others, but we are not going to save the world.

 Again, Kornfield:  “Compassion is not foolish.  It doesn’t just go along with what others want so they don’t feel bad.  There is a yes in compassion, and there is also a no, said with the same courage of heart.  No to abuse, no to violence, both personal and worldwide.  The no is said not out of hate but out of unwavering care.  It is the powerful no of leaving a destructive family, the agonizing no of allowing an addict to experience the consequences of his acts.”

It is the learning to finding the harmony between holding on and letting go…in love.  May you find courage in the yes and no of your compassion.

WHAT YOU THINK OF ME IS NONE OF MY BUSINESS

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I have often times thought about how others might be perceiving my actions.  What do they think of me?  Do I look foolish or unworthy or are my thoughts ridiculous?  Even when I know that to take things personally is an unproductive action of the ego, I still do.  Yet, truly, intellectually, I know that what you think of me is none of my business. My father spoke of this often.  He lived free, allowing his own judgments of his actions to be sufficient.  For me, it is a daily act of affirmation and recognition that not only do I try not to take things personally, but that I strive not to judge anything or anyone that crosses my path today.  

People judge us by the surface of our lives; we compare other people’s outsides to our insides and we inevitably lose.  They look at how we raise our children, and judge us too strict or too lenient.  If our children succeed in academics or athletics or rise to any number of great heights, we are such good parents. If they wind up slacking off, drinking beer, smoking pot, or any number of shenanigans that teenagers get into, we are responsible and should hang our heads and be ashamed.

What silliness and small mindedness is involved in this black and white way of thinking.  It is easier to take part in when we are younger and more naive.  Judging is a fearful act of separating and protecting oneself.  If you are not feeling particularly secure in your own skin, pronouncing that you “know the answers” and that others fall short of the mark, feels subconsciously at least, safe.

Later, of course, when we mature and life hands us our own inevitable “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”, we learn that life is too complex to judge, that why people do what they do is made up of a unique mixture of nature and nurture.  We have not walked even close to a mile in their particular skin.  Tragedy throws itself on the most unlikely and undeserving victims.  Addictions and disease befall the greatest of characters.

With luck, with God’s grace, with help of friends, family, and the kindness of strangers, we are sometimes blessed with peace which passeth all understanding, with endurance that lasts beyond all signs of exhaustion, and most of all, hope that all will eventually be well.  Somehow, someway.  Regardless and in spite of, what anyone else has to say about it. 

So, just for today, let other’s opinions go.  Let the harsh judgments of the crowd silence in the quiet of your heart.  You are doing the best you can with what you’ve got…and it’s enough.

THE TWO MOST BEAUTIFUL WORDS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

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Henry James once wrote that “the two most beautiful words in the English Language were Summer Afternoon.” I, for one, couldn’t agree more.  So, instead of any sort of diatribe, here, instead, is my little ode to summer memories:

Summer Snapshots

Take a sip of Clarity

Roll it around with your tongue

Like a fine red wine

Like a warm cup of chocolate.

Savor

Moments Divine are just that.

Moments

Nourishment for the spiritual journey.  Allow yourself these thimbles of quiet joy, let them go.

Skipping down the jetty/Skimming flat smooth rocks/Slate blue Brick red Stone gray granite

Counting tiny waves

Then

Watch gnarled driftwood float on by.

Summer breeze flaps the skirt’s fabric/Tightly around spindly legs/Catching a band-aid on the right knee.

Vivacity

In a coral gingham pinafore

Swinging on her new metal swing set in the backyard.

Watermelon dripping down a chin

While

Wispy clouds waft perfume

Old-fashioned roses

Thorns and All.

Climbing up the Lattice/White wooden trellis

Just a little linger/Just a little longer.

A verdigris weathered vane remains as muse. 

Russet equinox autumnal

Churns maple walnut ice cream

Marks the end of scallop season.

Dense breads and muffins

Soul food for dark days to come.

Shortbread is my name/Wrapped in a linen handkerchief/Tied with a spool of sage green satin.

Apples steeped in caramel

Candy wrappers strewn/”No shenanigans here please!”/Nighttime escapades suspended

I just want to lay on the sofa awhile

Remembering the last yellow leaves of the Aspen, the last tasty clam fritter.

Each season with its own paraphernalia

Containing moments the size of an atom

Simpatico with the whole of the universe, where all is now.

Amen

HERE’S YOUR HAT-WHAT’S YOUR HURRY?

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There was a hit country and western song some years back with this refrain:

I’m in a hurry to get things done/Well, I rush and rush until life’s no fun/All I really gotta do is live and die/But I’m in a hurry and don’t know why

It seems the popularity of that song could have been the fact that so many people in Western culture (Americans, in particular) can relate to its message.  The “rat race”, the “to do” list, and the attending “road rage” are shared and common images in our culture.  Knowing that others are as out of sorts as we are makes us feel that we are not alone, right? 

In addition, if that’s the way it is, maybe we should just learn to grin and bear it  After all, removing ourselves from the status quo, changing, is scary and a discipline and hard work.  The truth is the “quick, get me a band-aid” balm that we all want so badly in order to continue on our own well-worn path, with its arteries of impulses and ingrained habits, creates such lasting infections of mind, body, and soul that the journey back to any semblance of wholeness becomes treacherous indeed.

We do not need a specialist to tell us that this manner of living is not healthy.  But the questions remains:  what do we do?  There remains a chasm between knowing something is out of whack and doing something about it.  For me, God bridges that ravine.  Developing a relationship with the God of my understanding has given me the wide perspective of eternity and a comfort that I am being cradled in God’s ever and ever presence.  God is the breath that I take and closer than that.  With this knowledge, I can challenge that clamor of my days with the breadth of my life.

Like all relationships, this takes commitment, time, and attention.  The fruit of blending the rushed routine of our everyday self with the person who we are, way down deep, is a kind of spiritual maturity that does not jump at every tugging.  Of course, in order to find a slower cadence in the flurry of daily activities requires us to stop at intervals throughout the day.  In my experience, without time for prayer and meditation, true inner peace cannot be sustained in any meaningful way. 

Once an ongoing sense of the Presence of God has been established in the subtleties that encompass and extend well beyond the epiphany moments of our lives, the roominess of eternity can get good and cozy in our souls.  The erratic pace kept up in averting the eyes from death, is like the proverbial ghost in the closet.  He frightens us less and less, as we come to know him more and more. 

From the lazy river of a timeless spirit, our cup overflows.  We can promote peace, bring mercy, and be comforted.  We can then wholeheartedly ask that “Thy will be done.”  As Howard Thurman states, “the will of God is native to my spirit.  It is the fundamental character of me.  It is the foundation of my mental, physical, and spiritual structure.  It is what I find when I am most myself.  It is what I find when I get down to the deepest things in me.  It is what is revealed when all the superficial things are sloughed off and I am essentially laid bare.”  Then, and only then, can Thy will be done.

“LIFE-WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU WHILE YOU’RE BUSY OUT MAKING OTHER PLANS”

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John Lennon wrote these lines for his song “Beautiful Boy”.  A bit of wit and concise wisdom, these words have been a refrain of mine for some years. They remind me that my BIG plans for the day, week, month, or year are just that…plans.  As an example, many of us have had similar experiences like this one: you’re about to go for a hike and as you walk out the door, you hear a loud banging sound coming from the washing machine. Water is seeping onto the floor.  You are not going for a hike, you are going to have either fix it yourself or call a plumber, or least get the water to stop running and then go for the hike. 

This is life. We need to be easy in our saddle for when life interrupts our agenda. The little annoyances, which are more numerous,  can be viewed as daily practice drills for developing spiritual and emotional resilience, gaining a modicum of patience, and as a way to avoid the soul’s arch-enemy, complacency.

I, for one, need to be continually reminded of this.  Generally speaking, I consider myself a good-natured, happy sort of person.  When life goes really smoothly for any length of time, my human tendency is, I want it to continue! I don’t want (notice how many times I am using I) to have to deal with unexpected unpleasantness.  Yet it is the perennial curve balls that are a part of life that polish us our edges and hopefully keep us humble and grateful.  There is always grace in  “embracing the whole catastrophe”. 

That includes the REAL (i.e. IMPORTANT) stuff too.  Not just the washing machine, the flat tire; but the sick kid, the dying parent, the divorce… the losses that take our life’s journey as we  had known it and catapult it onto another plane entirely. We are temporarily disillusioned, disoriented, and at times, disheartened.  It is these big things that can and do stop us in our tracks, seize us (for a time) from the endless being busy making other plans.  We are present in a way that only suffering and great change provides.

Now I’m not a believer that everything happens for a reason or that God saves some people in a car crash while letting others die.  I don’t want a Puritanical God who like Jonathan Edwards envisioned, “holds us like tiny spiders over an open pit.”  If there is a tally maker up in the sky counting transgressions, He/She/It has too much time on their hands.  I know that sometimes things make no sense, and that bad things happen randomly and without warning.  I believe God is our co-conspirator in grieving, in healing, and in finding creative ways to make some larger meanings in our life from ALL of our experiences.  I do.  I have witnessed it too many times to doubt it. 

It’s necessary to make plans. It’s good to be busy (as long as we also take some time to just be).  Yet it is those surprising events (in turns gleeful and terrifying), chance meetings, or tiny disasters that change us.  Take courage. If we let them, our life will grow in miraculous ways.

Some food for thought from a great little book entitled “The Right Questions” by Debbie Ford:  “Will I use this situation as a catalyst to grow and evolve or will I use it to beat myself up?”   

When someone whines, “life is just one thing after another”, I always think, yeah, right, life IS just one thing after another.  The difference in whining about it or in simple acceptance is Your REALITY.

CAN YOU DIG A HOLE TO CHINA?

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As a kid, I can recall long summer days on the beach when my brother, sister, cousins, and sometimes just random kids would spend a better part of an afternoon helping to dig a hole to China. It was largely a group effort, the attempt being short lived if you were solo.  Invariably, however, we would be shoveling madly, with our plastic jelly bean colored diggers when we would hit water.  I suppose that’s what would happen in real life, if you tried to dig to China with big fancy high-tech equipment, your hole would eventually fill up with water.

Still the concept behind digging to China (besides keeping gainfully busy on the beach) was the idea that we could create a portal to take us to another place, a foreign world.  What would they think of us when we showed up in our bathing suits and pail and shovels?  Where there children in China at that very moment digging to Cape Cod?  What would we eat?  How far do you think we have to go; how far do you think we’ve gotten? We would discuss all sorts of thoughts like these while digging.   

It’s summer. Summer is a time for the imagination to run wild.  Good ole’ Will Shakespeare knew this only too well.  He let loose a host of fairy fantasties and sultry shenanigans in A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

“The cowslips tall her pensioners be/In their gold coats spots you see/Those be rubies, fairy favours/In those freckles live their savours/I must go seek some dewdrops here/And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.”  The fairy’s description of cowslips as gentlemen who wait upon the fairy queen. 

 Whether you are revisiting the surreal world of Alice in Wonderland this summer or are, like The Beach Boys dreaming of an Endless Summer;  I, for one, second that notion.  The pulse of life, the green on the trees, the warmth of the sun, the joys of being plant or animal, all revels in the present moment during this time of long days.  We’re not waiting for summer to be over.  We’re just happy it’s here.  Anything is possible, anything can happen. 

We can plant a garden, build a castle made of sand, sit on a beach all day and read a novel, bike, swim, sail, and row….or we can simply be.  The whole of it is just like one giant prayer.  Mystic and theologican Meister Eckhart once said that if in your whole life you only said one prayer, “Thank You” that would be enough.  I’ve heard this many times.  Right now I mean it, Thank you.

“ARE YOU A RESERVOIR OR A CANAL OR A SWAMP?”

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This has been the longest time in between posts since I begin in March. I have sorely missed writing.  A high school graduation, seeing one “chick” off to China, getting a part time gig, yada yada, I am back…and inspired.

I don’t know if any of you know the wonderful African American theologian and writer, Howard Thurman, but I would encourage anyone reading this to Google him, delve into his biography, peruse a list of his works, and read one.

My favorite is Meditations of the Heart; today’s blog and blog title were inspired by it.

Thurman asserts, “The dominanat trend of a (person’s) life may take on the characteristics of a canal, reservoir or swamp.  The important accent is on the dominant trend.  There are some lives that seem ever to be channels, canals through which things flow.  They are connecting links between other people, movements, purposes.  They make the network by which all kinds of communication are possible.  They seem to be adept at relating needs to sources of help, friendlessness to friendliness. Of course, the peddler of gossip is also a canal.  If you are a canal, what kind of things do you connect?

Or are you a reservoir?  Are you a resource which may be drawn upon in times of others’ needs and your own as well?  Have you developed a method for keeping your inlet and your outlet in good working order so that the cup which you give is never empty?  As a reservoir, you are a trustee of all the gifts God has shared with you.  You know they are not your own.

Are you a swamp?  Are you always reaching for more and more, hoarding whatever comes your way as your special belongings?  If so, do you wonder why you are friendless, why the things you touch seem ever to decay?  A swamp is a place where living things often sicken and die. The water in a swamp has no outlet.  Canal, reservoir, or swamp-WHICH?”        

Great stuff: here is my reflection…at different times in my life and certainly on different days, I have been all three.  Yet clearly my life’s arc is that of a canal.  I have always had the desire to connect friends, ideas, and causes together.  It gives me great joy. As one who likes to weave a good yarn and talk to everybody, literally; I think I was born to be a canal.  Tides of gossip that have polluted the water flow from time to time have ebbed over the years.  I’ve discovered that low-esteem and fear fuel the impulse to gossip.  Feeling grateful and peaceful are protective antidotes, and my life has too much interesting and engaging pursuits to waste time and energy unneccessarily on unproductive and soul sucking pastimes (yet  I’m human….) 

The reservoirs in my life are several and are some of my greatest blessings.  Everyone absolutely needs a reservoir or two in their life that they can go to and “drink” or “wash” and be refreshed, while leaving the water still and clear and full. It’s equally important to recognize these special people as such; we often take reservoirs for granted.  They seem like they will always be there, however they too are in delicate balance with boundaries and limits.

Not too much needs to be enumerated about swamps, we all know them (some are our neighbors, family, co-workers), we may have to wade lightly on the periphery of their presence.  We can enjoy the view while being careful not to step in too deeply, lest we get mired in the muck.

I think regarding the reservoir or canal or swamp that most important thing to remember is the idea of “WHICH”.  Ultimately, we choose.

OIL ILLS HAVE NOT BEEN FOR THE PELICAN BRIEF

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This past week I was listening to a woman being interviewed on NPR.  She has been volunteering for some weeks now cleaning the thick oil off the pelicans in Louisiana.   Her voice faltered several times as she described the heartache of watching several of them die or struggle with wings to laden to lift.  I hear the weary gratitude when her scrubbing efforts with simple dish soap and water restore a number of these birds towards health.

The photos of oil slicked birds display in Technicolor detail what havoc we humans can wreak on the rest of the animal kingdom in our insatiable need for more. Even if you are the unusual “bird” who doesn’t get too emotional about animals or feel a kinship with nature, amongst the gazillion other lessons we can glean from this disaster, one is the absolute necessity to put our environment before the profits and desires of big business.

We are discovering the hard way that this paradigm of short term gain is actually putting the “people on Main Street” out of their small businesses and livelihoods that have been a family’s source of pride for generations.  We all have become accustomed to being an active consumer in a consumer society (myself included).  So, to a degree, we are all complicit in the continuing crisis.       

One of the sources of healing, that can change our thinking and shift the collective perspective is the wisdom of Celtic spirituality.  Theirs is a language that can guide us to a new or remembered perspective about the creatures (on land and sea) and the landscape we inhabit. As John O’Donohue relates in his book Anam Cara- A Book of Celtic Wisdom, we are the newcomers here: 

“The animals are more ancient than us.  They were here for millenia before humans surfaced on the earth…Animals live outside in the wind, in the waters, in the mountains, and in the clay… (They) know nothing of Freud, Jesus, Buddha, Wall Street, the Pentagon, or the Vatican.  They live the politics of human intention…The Celtic mind recognized the ancient belonging and knowing of the animal world.  The dignity, beauty, and wisdom of the animal world by any false hierarchy or human arrogance.”

Instead, Celtic spirituality was a reservoir of stories that told of the union between animals and humans.  These tales fastened us to the wild landscape, grounding ourselves as a part of the circle of life, not as apart.  

My friend Kim has a saying she often uses for when her deepest intuition guides her to make a difficult decision or leads her to a clear perspective.  She says, “I know it in my knowings.”  That’s what Celtic spirituality calls us to.  Not to heed the heated and divisive mob mentality, but to listen in stillness to a saner, less selfish approach. 

Instead of “drill baby drill”, what we have gotten is “spill baby spill”.  This too shall pass (with a heavy toll for years to come), but LET’S LEARN THE LESSON IT IS TRYING TO TEACH US.

SAINTS ARE SINNERS WHO KEEP ON TRYING

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I admit it; I am enamored with saints.  I am fascinated with those who have reached the pinnacle of spiritual freedom, unity with God.  Regardless of their religious traditions, these are men and women who are deemed “scientists of holiness.”  We can learn from them. They are not only guides to the grail of enlightenment but they teach us how to live in a practical and substantive way that can enrich our everyday living. 

Saints never think of themselves as such.  Each has had their own personal demons to face down.  It is in choosing not to run away in the million ways we humans do, but utilizing their trials and struggles for personal growth and focusing on the inner life that they demonstrate another dimension of human potential.  Recovering a bit of the asceticism that has always been the foundational gristmill for spiritual advancement can help us tremendously.  What I mean by this is we don’t need the severe self-denial and austere lifestyle of a Gandhi or a Buddha or a St. Francis, but to give up the current wave of entitlement, to be able to say no to our temptations on occasion, is freeing.  We become able to resist our own compulsive consumption.   

People need to experience God, not be told about God.  Living examples, being very much in the world, do that by inspiring the lives of others.  These are not “feel good” pseudo-spiritualities or for the spiritual elite, but for everyone. Our experience of the Divine informs the self and yet continually needs to be balanced with community.   Reaching out to others is both a natural progression and a means for necessary connection. Indeed, those with spiritual depth often understand social service to be as important, if not more important, than the more traditional activities of preaching and teaching. 

Saints would probably also scoff at the idea of them being mystics, though that is what they are.  Yet mystics are not so mysterious, rather I’ve heard them described as “ones who see into the depth of things through the fissures and fragments of our human experience”.  With single-minded purpose, these friends of God (or to the ALL that IS) are granted a special way of seeing, a heightened awareness of a presence or absence. 

Casting the mystical net wide as the awareness of some sort of ultimate reality that transcends all religions; religion can unify instead of divide.  We can recognize that different traditions can learn from one another, if one if grounded in one’s own tradition and open to another. Christian, Sufi, Buddhist, all can enrich each other’s practices.  For instance, Thomas Merton, a Trappist Monk, was influenced by the teachings of Zen Buddhism.

It is not the visions or miracles attributed to those regarded as saints, during their lives or posthumously, that should be the reasons for  reverence.  In fact, that kind of thinking leads to idolatry rather than the harder working of following by example.  It is the spiritual practices and articulated paths that are to be learned from.

That is not to say that we should disregard profound and unusual human experiences. It’s just that without a conscious effort to seek out these mystics, both past and present, their voices quickly become drown out by the difficulties of daily living, the heroes who win World Championships and are given parades, and the Hollywood stories of celebrities.  In an effort to reclaim the saint, human foibles and all, we are being re-called to something larger than ourselves.

QUANTUM PHYSICS AND GOD

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Science as a discipline often eluded me in school.  Basic botany and geology were OK; I was good at memorizing Latin names and identifying basic stone and strata.  However, my mind would begin to spin and whirl at the thought of light years and black holes, the calibration of physics, complex chemical compounds, and the formulas that made up the anatomy of well, everything.   

Yet while I couldn’t quite grasp these ideas, they intrigued and fascinated me.  Why do things do what they do?  How do they do them?  What is out there?  What is in here?  In the last hundred years, we have taken giant leaps in understanding and explaining a bit of the workings of this wide and wonderful universe of ours.  As a theologian, I guess you could say that I was born at a good time in the evolution of science.  These discoveries have also come to inform and inspire running streams and rivulets of conversation in religion. For that, I am truly grateful. 

As Rebecca Parker comments in her book A House for Hope, “Up until the birth of relativity theory and quantum physics, Western science conceived of the “stuff” of reality as tiny bits of hard matter that built up into structures from atoms to rocks….at it’s foundation, the “real world” was formed from an aggregation of atoms…in keeping with this scientific worldview, God’s reality was imagined to itself be like that of an ordinary rock: solid, unfeeling, unchanging, able to affect other things, but not itself affected.”

Today we live in a world of complexity that has taken us beyond many of the predictable concepts that Sir Issac Newton put forth.  Atoms, DNA, the building blocks of our universe are not static pieces of matter after all but rather ever-moving infinitesimal activities.  Parker says, “Science now reveals to us a world that is relational, interactive, codeterminate, chaotic, intermittent, and ever-changing.”         

Through the ongoing work of science, religion is enriched and provided with new and life affirming paradigms to re-imagine concepts about God.  Theologies do not necessarily need to be taken down to their bare studs.  Rather they can be renovated in a way that creates space to include more people of diverse backgrounds and ideologies. For instance, if God’s qualities reflect what quantum physics is telling us about the nature of the universe, then God is not just Creator, but the Creative Process itself.  Codeterminate, Relational, and Perennial Changing can be ways of thinking about God.  These kinds of attributes will expand our connections with others and with God without limiting God within a doctrine or dogma.

If we find that we have outgrown some of our older, more cumbersome theological “apparel”, we can cast off the worn out and oppressive garments that have sometimes served to divide us, weigh us down, or competitively identify our religious “team” without fear of recrimination.  Instead, like the constant and lively movement of all matter, we too will make room to move and be moved.  Theologies CAN be fluid enough to not mandate uniformity or require a litmus test of  identical creedal statements.  Instead, our faith can settle into uncertainty and be surprised by new discoveries. We contain DNA like both rock and tree, and we too can be steady and strong in the storm while adapting to locate shelter and shade in the seasons that blister and to steer towards clear open light when darkness pervades.

I affirm the slogan of the United Church of Christ, “God is still speaking.”  And we are still asking questions. In this manner, both science and religion will continue to grow and flourish.