Healing America’s Soul

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After my March 24 and 26th posts, I was feeling frustrated by my inability to find a cool head in the middle of this turbulent and sometimes scary time in our country as we to try to discern what National Health Care will REALLY mean for each of us individually and collectively as a nation.  Then I  happened on this wonderfully timed article in Margaret Benefiel’s Executive Soul monthly newsletter entitled, “Healing America’s Soul“.  Dr. Benefiel was a favorite professor of mine at Andover Newton and is currently CEO and Founder of Executive Soul.  Part of Margaret’s mission includes leading workshops and lecturing around the country to companies, organizations, and conferences who are looking to nurture spiritual values and leadership in the workplace.  In addition, she has published two books, Soul at Work and The Soul of a Leader.  It is my great pleasure that she has allowed me to share her thoughtful voice of sanity amidst the cacophony of  fear and frenzy.  

“HEALING AMERICA’S SOUL”  by Margaret Benefiel  (published in its entirety):

The American healthcare struggle culminating in Sunday’s vote brought out the best and the worst of legislators’ and citizens’ behavior.  The worst of the behavior inflicted wounds that not only hurt individuals, but also damages the nation’s soul.

In some ways, the heat and polarization generated by the healthcare debate can be viewed as an opportunity, an opportunity to expose old wounds that have been festering and need to be healed. When Rep. James Clyburn received a fax of a noose along with racial slurs, when Rep. Emanuel Cleaver was spat upon by a protestor and called “ni–er”, when Rep. John Lewis was called a “ni–er”, it became clear, in ways that perhaps it hadn’t been to all Americans, that racism is alive and well in America and needs to be addressed.  When a U.S. Representative shouted “baby-killer” during Rep. Bart Stupak’s speech on the floor of Congress, it became clear that slanderous speech is alive and well, even in the sacred halls of Congress.  When pro-choice advocates, characterized pro-life advocates as anti-women, it became clear that intolerance and inability to hear the good will in others’ positions is alive and well.

Racism, slander, and lack of respect for differing views damage the soul of the nation.  America was built on the foundation of mutual respect and rigorous debate.  When all positions are heard and seriously considered, the nation is richer for it.  When some positions are shut out, the nation is impoverished.  When people are demeaned because of their race or political position, the nation’s soul is damaged.  As Fannie Lou Hamer reminded us, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

The healthcare struggle revealed gaps between America’s espoused values and her lived values.  America is not a “post-racial” society.  America is not a tolerant society.  America is not a society of mutual respect for differing points of view. 

This is an opportunity for healing the old wounds that have been exposed, for closing the gap between espoused values and lived values.  Will Republican leaders step forward and challenge their followers (and colleagues) on their racist and slanderous speech?  Will Democratic leaders step forward and challenge their followers (and colleagues) on their intolerance and blind spots?

It’s time to heal the nation.  America faces problems of huge proportions.  If Americans can step up to the challenge to address and heal the wounds, the health and energy that will be liberated to engage the problems will be immense.  If we can’t, we’re destined to limp along when we need to run.

Amen, Margaret.

DAWN AND RESURRECTION ARE SYNONYMOUS

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This morning, I woke up before my dog, to attend one of our local church’s annual Sunrise Easter service. I am not a member of this church, but have lived in this little hamlet of 4500 souls for 18 years. It’s an everyone knows everyone kind of place.  And yet, for one reason or another, I’d never attended before.  It’s held at the shore of our Town Pond, which is lovely and secluded and has an ancient history (if one could call New England history ancient.) As I walked the path to the pond, there were luminarias lighting the way (white paper bags weighted with sand and little tea candles in them).  The hot pink and grey-blue sunrise rose up over the water, blessing our sleepy-eyed band of celebrants.  And while I understand that many past services had a frost and a chill in the air, today’s early moments began balmy.  The crackling bonfire was more symbolic perhaps than necessary.  Although, I don’t think we can ever get enough of the symbols, the concepts, or the people that bring light to the world.   The mood was meditatively quiet. The prayers were simple, direct, and ready for immediate application.   

I saw some of my dear friends around that fire, those who know the kind of challenging year I’ve had.  I felt their good will towards me through their eyes, their smiles, and hugs.  I hope they sensed the same from me. Resurrection is the happy part, but its significance is diminished if we don’t remember what comes before it.   For most of the world’s Christians, today is Resurrection day. It means that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and returned to life everlasting… AFTER suffering a torturous, laborious, and unjust death.  Even outside of Christianity, many faiths believe in a future state after death, where there will be a resurrection, a rising again, to new life in some shape or form.  Yet resurrection’s power, its gift of joy which passeth all understanding (no matter your faith) comes from the awe, the incredulity of being brought back from our darkest places, when we are crippled or broken or blind and death seems certain.  

Ena Zizi was there. (From an excerpt from Paul Jeffrey’s article, “Out of the Rubble”, March 23rd,  The Christian Century:

After having been buried for a week in the rubble of Haiti’s January 12th earthquake, Ena Zizi was rescued by the Mexican team called the  Gophers (rescue workers, some of them survivors themselves of a horrific earthquake in Mexico city in 1985).  As they pulled her dirty and injured body out on a broken piece of plywood salvaged from the rubble and carefully passed her down over three stories of debris to the ground, the 70-year-old woman was singing.  Her singing was inarticulate, as she hadn’t had any water to drink for seven days.  Yet her joy was infectious.  The members of the Mexican rescue team who were carrying her began crying. 

Zizi, who was severely dehydrated and had suffered a broken leg and dislocated hip, yelled for help for hours, then for two days, conversed with a priest, and when he grew silent, she “talked only to God.”   Her singing was gratitude, the indominability of the human spirit, and a way for her rescuers to find her.  To the South African and Mexican rescue teams surrounding her, she was very real proof of resurrection.

Resurrection is never just personal.  It is always in relationship.  Yesterday, while I was out on my daily run, I ran into a neighbor out for a walk with her two school age children.  Her 11-year-old daughter has been struggling with leukemia since May.  I noticed her hair was growing back in a full, spiky, long crew cut fashion.  And she had dyed it in  colors of the rainbow.  I wept later to witness her resurrection, the “resumption of vigor” (one definition).  And her courage to wait on it, expectantly, faithfully.       

Song of the Day: Amazing Grace by John Newton (1725-1807) (Ex-slave trader)

Stanza from the Song of the Day: “Through many dangers, toils, and snares/I have already come/’Twas Grace that brought me safe thus far/and Grace will lead me home.”

Quote of the Day: “Dawn and resurrection are synonymous.  The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul.” -Victor Hugo

The Anatomy of a Grudge

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Sometimes it feels like we need a crowbar to pry out and break apart some of our deepest held resentments. The anatomy of a grudge begins as anger and hurt that sometimes weeps silently, and other times oozes wrecklessly like steamy black pitched tar, obstructing our clean air, suffocating the surfaces of our heart. And when that tar hardens, our soul freezes in a way, locked in stone. We go out about daily routines, we may even experience happy moments, but we are not truly spiritually whole.  It’s different than times of sadness or even when our tempers temporarily flare…we are stuck.       

Yet there always is a choice.  We can stay huddled under our covers (literally or metaphorically speaking), holding tight to our misery, our self-righteousness, we can wear it as our heavy armour.  And indeed, it is.  Our protective gear of fear.  I’m reminded of a song by Simon & Garfunkel, “I am a rock, I am an island…and a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries.”

But neither do they grow.  The anatomy of a grudge is that it is built to shrink those that it inhabits. It’s only method of expanding is to poison future generations with the worn out feelings of bitterness, of being done wrong. The only way that crowbar is going to give way is by loosening your iron will, by the sweat of your earnest prayers.  Asking to forgive, asking for forgiveness.  Expanding your notions of compassion, to include those who have injured you most completely, even yourself.

OK, but how do we do that?  After all, this blog is Spirituality for the Practical.  Some helpful suggestions include journaling your feelings.  Writing a letter to the person(s) that you hold the resentments towards, but only for yourself.  You can throw it away or burn it, releasing what had been stuck.  Using prayer (asking for God’s help) and guided meditation are time honored methods for engaging the process of putting the past behind you.  You can share your burden with a family member, friend, professional counselor, or spiritual advisor.   

The benefits of this process are related in a Mayo Clinic article, dated Dec. 8, 2007, entitled “Forgiveness: Letting Go of Grudges and Bitterness”.  The list is significant: healthier relationships, greater spiritual and psychological well-being, less stress and hostility, lower blood pressure, fewer symptoms of depression, anxiety, and chronic pain, and less risk of alcohol and substance abuse.

Jesus too points to the practical benefits of forgiveness.  In Matthew 5: 25-26, He says: “Settle with your opponent quickly while on your way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown in prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”  If you don’t deal with disagreements and arguments close to when they occur, they tend to fester. While revenge may then seem like a logical next move, in the end, you are the one who pays.

Ask and you will receive.  Keep knocking on that door, trusting that sooner or later, you will be answered, either out of love or the peskiness of persistence.  No matter…clinging resentment can be unglued.  Molten madness can be unearthed.  We don’t notice that our inner life is changing at first.  And then the tiniest opening, some of the suffocating blackness chips away.  There is light down below!  The crowbar falls, we are tired with the toil of love.

Book of the Day: The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie               

Quote from the Book of the Day: “It’s okay to be angry, but it isn’t healthy to be resentful.  Regardless of what we learned as children, no matter what we saw role-modeled, we can learn to deal with our anger in ways that are healthy for us and for those around us.  We can have our angry feelings.  We can connect with them, own them, feel them, express them, release them, and be done with them.  We can learn to listen to what anger is telling us about what we want and need in order to take care of ourselves.”

Wherever You Go There You Are

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Continuing on our theme of mindfulness, our title today is taken from a book of the same name by ground breaking author and founder of the University of Massachusetts Stress Reduction Center Clinic (1992), Jon Kabat-Zinn.  The book (long since dog-eared and worn by its continual use by me as an invaluable personal instruction manual), reflects “his major research interests which include mind/body interactions for healing, clinical application of mindfulness meditation for people with chronic pain and stress-related disorders, and the societal applications of mindfulness.”

We all at times change our circumstances, changing jobs, spouses, home locales, and some of it necessary. Likewise, it is the rare individual that doesn’t love to take a vacation.  Vacating your life for a while, whether for a week, a month, or even a long weekend, has a way of pushing the refresh button on our spirits.  We all log in so much information and activity every day and the amount we delete never seems to really clear our head of it all. 

Planning a trip is half the fun, cruising the internet for the best deals and unexpected finds, purchasing travel books and magazines on places you are getting ready to visit or are dreaming of going to some day hold future promises of enjoyment, instilling  joy in us  just in the thinking.  Shopping for the right attire and gear also occupy us happily. Even when are lives are currently rife with crisis or a season of grief, a holiday can bring a welcomed respite and the chance for perspective that can arise from being pulled from our everyday surroundings.

Concurrently, whatever problems you have, whatever inner turmoil, doesn’t necessarily or even likely cease just because you have gone somewhere other than your daily haunts or made significant life changes.  If you have been struggling with sadness, anger, anxiety, or resentments before you left or altered your lifestyle, chances are there will be moments while you are away that these emotions still arise.  You can keep changing a whole lot of outside circumstances and still feel like something is missing, like it will be better around the bend. But wherever you go, there you are.  As I have mentioned before, there are a million ways to escape our lives for a time, but they all have a way of catching up with us.      

So, what to do if we can’t take a vacation, or if the vacation didn’t take, or most vitally,  if we want to live our days in a way where we can experience moments like those we do on some of the more memorable, exceptional times away?

We need to learn the art of non-doing. As Jon Kabat-Zinn points out, “The flavor and joy of non-doing are difficult for Americans to grasp because our culture places so much value on doing and on progress.  Even our leisure tends to be busy and mindless.  The joy of non-doing is that nothing else needs to happen for this moment to be complete.   The wisdom in it, and the equanimity that comes out of it, lies in knowing that something else surely will.”

We are not just doing nothing, but consciously noticing what’s going on right now. In Thoreau’s Walden, he explained it like this:

I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise to noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller’s wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time…I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works.”

It is the opposite of busyness.  While practically speaking, we need to get stuff done, can we carve out five minutes, or better yet, twenty minutes to just be?  Our efforts during our times of doing will be enhanced.   This is what Zinn calls the paradox of non-doing.  You do things of value when you don’t care about whether they will be worthy or not, but whether they act in concet with your efforts at non-doing and letting go of outcomes.  Then the ego and its tendency towards self aggrandizement are pushed aside, creativity and insight become natural byproducts. Your work gains a purity and satisfaction that has no puffed up identity attached to it.  It fulfills. 

So, if today finds you sitting with your daughter, don’t put in another load of laundry, don’t answer the phone (I know it’s calling and the impulse is to move), but  just be with your daughter, whether talking or in silence, be consciously present to this moment which will never come again in the exact same way. Choose to be here, right now, you are anyway.

Mindfulness…Just Do It

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Last fall, I took a refresher course, attending an eight week mindfulness workshop at the First Parish Church in Concord, MA.  About 20 years ago, I had completed a similar course and for several years after that was somewhat of a devotee.  To say that practicing mindfulness is life changing would be true, to the degree that I actually practice its tenets, that I show up each day with myself/for myself for a half hour or so.  While daily prayer and meditation are the unequivocal spiritual powerhouses, necessities to deepen our soul and to share the best of who we are with others, I still like to take a day or two or three off sometimes.  Hence the need for a tune up and a reminder to begin again…and again…and again.

Why do we struggle so with those things we know are better than good for us? We humans just seem to have a penchant for desiring the shinier, easier, faster approach in any given moment instead.  Prayer is simply not glitzy and meditation does not usually provide immediate results.  The same holds true for exercise or a healthy diet or raising a child.  So can you hear the voice?  You know the one, “I think I’ll have a cup of tea and cookies instead this afternoon.  After all, that’s relaxing too.” Or, “Suzy just called and I hadn’t talked to Suzy in so long, and you know, by the time I got around to meditating, it was time to make dinner.”

Every perennial dieter knows the slippery slope when a day or two of indulgence leads into weeks or even months of a return to bad habits. The same goes for prayer. Do you ever save praying for bedtime and fall asleep in the middle of it or before you get started? I present it like this, because I am a gal with varied interests. I am not a plodder. I do not like the same breakfast food every morning. But like every one of us, I am also a dichotomy.  While I adore novelty, I need routine.

I work out 5-6 times a week (mostly running and some light weight training) and have since I was a freshman in college.  I must admit that I feel more than a bit off kilter without it.  Also, I am fiercely loyal, loving the enduring quality of old friends, and looking  forward to our long standing weekly lunches. In fact, a major part of my spiritual journey has been learning to let go, having had the tendency (very much a mixed blessing) to hold on and hope in relationships until hit with an anvil of mammoth proportions.    

So mindfulness brings balance to these occasionally oppositional impulses, knowing when to let go, when to persevere, harmonizing my desire for variety and my need for certainty.  

When I was pregnant with my first daughter, I would dutifully find a chair or mat each day and allow my thoughts to drift on by, like words on a series of passing clouds.  I wrestled with monkey mind, the term which simply refers to the mind’s tendency to jump from one thought to the next…the on-going to-do list, last night’s argument with your significant other, where to go on winter vacation, can we afford to go on winter vacation, yada yada yada. The attending emotions to these thoughts gradually loosened their hold on me over time.

Clarity would be granted (not for long stretches of time, mind you, and not the imagined perfect bliss), but a quiet soul sigh. I used to tell my kids when they were little that you don’t get clean, strong teeth if you only brush your teeth 3 or 4 times a week, you need to do it every day.  Spiritual health holds to the same principle of consistency just as physical health does. Half hearted attempts avail us either nothing or only partial benefits.  A reasonable consistency, mind you, is the hallmark of all positive life shifts.  Notice I say reasonable.  Those of us prone to impulsivity or compulsion (me) also tend to be pendulum swingers.  Just do it, routinely but flexibly. And don’t worry, no matter how you’re doing, you’re doing it right.

Book Pick of the Day: The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh

Quote from the Book of the Day: “Mindfulness is the miracle by which we master and restore ourselves.  Consider, for example: a magician who cuts his body into many parts and places each part in a different region-hands in the south, arms in the east, legs in the north, and then by some miraculous power lets forth a cry which reassembles whole every part of his body.  Mindfulness is like that-it is the miracle which can call back in a flash our dispersed mind and restore it to wholeness so that we can live each minute of life.”

Sacrifice Doesn’t Have To Be Grandma or a Live Chicken

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Piggy backing on my last post, I was thinking about the word sacrifice, which always means a giving up in some way or the other, and how it has lost the better half of its meaning.  The word sacrifice-Latin sacrificium-means an offering to a deity or to something greater than one’s self, rendering the person(s), place or thing involved- sacred. The whole idea of sacrifice has become  antithetical to our current American culture of consumerism. It’s made even worse when fear mongering makes citizens actually frenzied with the idea that Grandma will be the first to be killed with the National Health Care bill.  OMG, the sacrifice will mean that our children and children’s children face certain bankruptcy. Whether it’s a government official or a family member asking us to make sacrifices, either  for a greater good that we won’t see until the future or for a temporary setback that’s here with us right now, we tend to squirm or bargain or unenthusiatically agree to it (knowing it’s the right form of action) and then shortly thereafter, kick and scream, taking to the streets with how unfair it is.  

And yet, a truly just society demands some sacrifices.  Our commitment to social justice, while deeply felt, can be very difficult to sustain.   This is particularly true in a society that has valued and prized individualism since its conception.  Unlike other cultures, where the community needs are primary (and this too can be problematic), our understanding of the self in relation to the community tends to focus on the community being there to help forward our own self realization and not the other way around.  I do believe, however, that we are currently in a phase of positive but disorienting transformation.

We can no longer avoid the growing sense of interdependence of the world’s population. Reality at its core, whether spiritual or physical, has a relational nature.  Nothing can be fully understood or experienced in isolation. When we ignore any kind of shared reference point, or the ability to see beyond the end of the nose on our face, we see the degeneration of public discourse.  Talk radio, FOX news, to name a few, have resorted to slander, inaccurate sound bites, and mean spiritedness to buoy up a world view that is not on the side of creation. In the wild current of cackling voices, we lose both content and the possibility of real understanding. While it may not be possible to agree on universal truths, this doesn’t mean there are no meaningful ideas or truths.

As Paul Raiser writes in Faith without Certainty, ” The truth is that we don’t first exist as individuals who then form social groups.  The group always comes first.  As individuals, our identities are always formed in relation to a particular social context. We are social beings through and through. Can we look at social justice work not simply as choice we make for ourselves or do not, but as a fundamental factor in the formation of our own identities?  We think we need to attend to our own well being to be able to help someone else, and this is only partially true. We can also be reminded that our own well being is deeply connected to the well being of others.”

For Christians, this is the season of Lent.  It is a time of consciously giving up those things that are superfluous to our lives.  It creates space for the sacred. One chooses to sacrifice, because the benefit to the mind and spirit is greater than if one did not.  It is not that the giving up of chocolate or alcohol is a chit to get to heaven.  Or that daily choosing to do a kind act without anyone knowing of it makes you a better person than your neighbor.  Rather it is by sacrifice, that we come closer to understanding and participating with the sacred.

Book of the Day: The Responsible Self by H. Richard Niebuhr  

Quote from the Book of the Day: “It has often been remarked that the great decisions which give a society its specific character are functions of emergency situations in which a community has had to meet a challenge.  Yet the decision on which the future depends and whence the new law issues is a decision made in response to action upon the society, and this action is guided by interpretation of what is going on.” (Ed. note: Our forebears had to determine what was happening during the Civil War (End of Slavery and the importance of union), how to address the ills of the Depression (The New Deal and the Welfare State), and what was the response to be to the First Two World Wars (a final move away from isolationism), all of these decisions made our country change in ways no one could foresee, and today’s decisions are no different.)

National Health Care and The Good Samaritan

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If we remove the millenia of fine print of the literature of the world’s great religions (much of it wonderful, some of it confusing, and lots of it needing to be put into its historic context and away from its literal interpretations), we can condense their message down to two simple but not easy imperatives, to love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, which includes being grateful for all of creation and appreciative of its wonders- and to treat your neighbor as yourself. Agnostics and atheists, while not inclined to use the word God, too share our awe of the natural world and its blessings and feel the same sense of moral and social calling to improve the plight of the less fortunate.

It’s one of the very best impulses of being human, to reach out to those in need of help. Certainly the other human tendency, which we have seen at work tirelessly over the last year of health care debates, is fear.  If we have to give money to cover those who cannot afford it, we’ll have less, perhaps we will have to sacrifice and perhaps the sacrifice will be too great for us.  Then comes the idea that most of “these people” are just wanting a hand out, “never worked a day in the life” and unfortunately, there are many out there (friends of mine) who believe this. 

Even while the statistics do not bear them out.  A  study done in 2000 by the Progressive Policy Institute stated that 2.1% of the population was on welfare at that time. Today, in 2009, that number is 11.3%.  This number is a clear indication of our recession and our economy.  Looking at the 2000 percentage, if there is work, people will do it.  This notion of being taken for a ride by “those on the dole” really comes down to a fear based outlook on life and not one of  faith.

It is certainly not tied to any of our spiritual values or a sense of community or service.  As an example, last year, the Christian Science Monitor ran an item on foreign correspondent Walter Rodgers.  He had spent several decades in countries that have national health insurance.  Once his family was involved in a car accident in Great Britain and his son spent six weeks in a hospital with a badly broken leg.  Although Rodgers wasn’t actually living in the country at the time, all the bills were paid by the British National Insurance System.  The hospital charged him only$35.- for a crutch his son needed to hobble aboard a plane. 

This is charity that extends beyond the border of you and your immediate circle of loved ones.  This is the altruism that makes for a kinder, gentler world.  The kind of Kingdom here on earth that many go to church to proclaim, but don’t see the irony between their proclamations and their deeds. In the gospel of Luke, there is a passage which states, “To those whom much is given, much is expected.” We here, in the United States, have been given so much.  In that, lies responsibility.  Responsibility to our neighbors and our fellow citizens. 

I often hear that expression “There but for the grace of God, go I” for a number of reasons and situations.  I myself have thought it, while walking by a homeless woman in the city, obviously in the throes of mental illness.  None of us are immune.  The story of the health care given to a guest of Great Britain, reminded me of the parable of the Good Samaritan.  If you saw a person struck by a car stuck in a ditch at the side of the road, would you ask: “Are you an American or just visiting, are you an illegal immigrant, do you have health coverage?”  Or would you just want to help?  We should let compassion and human values be our guide. To be truly proud to be a citizen of the United States of America, we need to know that The United States is actually acting on the words of liberty and justice for all.

Book of the Day: Any Bible, “Gospel of Luke”, Chapter 10, verses 25-37

Going over to a man left beaten on the side of the road by bandits, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, “Take care of this man.  If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.” Jesus said that this Samaritan was truly a neighbor to this man, for he was the one who showed him mercy.

Hot Season

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There are times when the sun is shining and there are grateful breezes, yet the soul is suffering a hot season.  A sticky, humid sadness rises relentlessly to the surface and the human instinct is to turn away.  Even for me, one who has been preaching about holding and accepting the whole catastrophe of life for a long time now, whether it be the cool peace of good fortune or the disorienting blows of inevitable loss and change, I too am often caught by surprise. 

How prepared are any of us when a loved one dies, a child gets sick, a relationship ends, or we face our own mortality? Would anyone ever want to enter willingly into these spiritual deserts?  At first, our psyche gives us the anesthetic of denial.  Running is usually involved in this, either literally or figuratively, and can include drinking, eating, shopping, sleeping, or any other number of means of escape. The sense of needing to flee is intense.  But all matter of not looking at reality, no matter how effective, are temporary salves,  just shock absorbers.  Sooner or later, we need to become ready, to the best of our ability, to sit with those feelings that seem too hot to hold. 

This is the well-worn course to weather difficult times. Some Buddhists call this “relaxing with what is”, allowing pain, grief, and sadness an open vessel (us) to have their way sort of speak.  We learn to inquire into those emotions, describing what they feel like in the body, in a detached a way as possible.  Feeling our feelings, but not judging them. Allowing space for all sorts of internal experiences to be here, now.  I mean they’re here anyhow. If tears come, let them. Panic arises, we stay with it… spiritual warriors present to the storm.  Not trying to do away with any of it, not forcing our pain to pass quickly. We can continue to attempt to skip the process, but areas of our lives which we avoid have an uncanny way of repeating themselves in different guises until we learn.  We are beginning to discover a way to walk barefoot on the burning sand paths of our life’s journey.

 I say beginning, because each new day, every present moment is a chance to practice.  We may still run to our chosen addictions, from time to time, but we are more aware of what we are doing.  We are more able to be comfortable in our discomfort, to allow for ambiguity without immediately seeking resolution.   

Book of the Day When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron 

Quote from The Book of the Day: “When we have reminders of death, we panic. It isn’t just that we cut our finger, blood begins to flow, and we put on a Band-Aid.  We add something extra-our style.  Some of us just sit there stoically and bleed all over our clothes. Some of us get hysterical; we don’t just get a Band-Aid, we call the ambulance and go to the hospital.  Some of us put on designer Band-Aids.  But whatever our style is, it’s not simple.  It’s not bare bones.”

“Can’t we just return to the bare bones?  Can’t we just come back?  That’s the beginning of the beginning… Come back to square one, just the minimum bare bones.  Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time- that is the basic message.”

Ten Religious Words That The Spin Doctors Doctored

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10. Gospel– This word almost always refers to writings about the life of Jesus, more specifically, the canonical writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Its original meaning however is much more broad.  It literally means “good news”.  Now for many of us these writings of the New Testament are indeed good news.  Yet, for others, it could be the Hebrew Bible, the Quran, the works of Maria Rainer Rilke or the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous.  In other words, what is good news to you, that you use to build your life around.  What is your gospel?  

9. Heretic– The Roman Catholic church has, over the centuries, given this word a new definition.  Its current definition means those who hold unorthodox or controversial beliefs or opinions which differ from that of the official dogma of the Roman Catholic Church.  However, in its original form, the word, from its Greek roots “hairetikos” to its Latin and early English and French derivations, simply means “able to choose”.  So, a heretic, is one who is able to choose what he or she believes.  A wonderfully democratic term turned slander.      

8. Agnostic– one who believes that truth claims about the existence or non-existence of God are in fact unknowable.  They don’t know.  They doubt. While I am not an agnostic, I believe in God, I think that agnostics have been given a bad rap.  People scoff when they speak of a friend or co-worker that is agnostic, like there is something weak or deficient in such a stance.  Yet, I have faith, but sometimes I have doubt.  When I have doubt, I guess one could say I was feeling agnostic.  Lacking certainty is not always such a bad thing.  And it is certainly not a stagnant thing.    

7. Sin– OK, I could write a tome about this one.  I know some of my more evangelical brothers and sisters will get their panties in a bit of a twist here, sin looming large (I’m thinking of Jonathan Edwards dangling a spider over a boiling cauldron, like God dangling our souls over the pit fires of hell).  But I can berate myself just fine, perhaps too fine in fact and I don’t think God wants to get in on the fun.  Sin simply means “missing the mark”.  In most cases, in our day to day living, it’s simply means we are human. We can dust ourselves off, and continue to strive to do and be better (without shame and guilt).  Just like I don’t want somebody “shoulding” on me, I don’t want someone sinning me to death either.   

6. Religion- I don’t want to beat a dead horse.  I mean, after all, hasn’t this word been bludgeoned enough. But, this word, which has come to represent differences and divisiveness was originally just a verb, religio, meaning “bringing together that which is separated”.  So, all I’m gonna say is, huh?

5. Salvation– OK, first we’ve got all that hell stuff to contend with.  Eternal damnation sounds really scary and I don’t want it to happen to me.  A lot of folk want to give you a formula, words to recite, and then you’re good to go.  You’re saved.  Salvation is then nothing more than a deliverance from sin.  But salvation is  more beautiful and subtle than that, the etymological meaning of the word is health.  In early New Testament readings, it meant to restore you to spiritual good health, to make you whole.   

4. Righteous– This word mostly gets a negative connotation, as we tend to immediately think self-righteous, which obviously no one likes. Being righteous is characterized by virtue and moral soundness and sense of social justice.  A true righteous person is a wonder to behold.

3. Tolerance-Many religious leaders nowadays talk of tolerating those of other faiths, as if that is enough.  I’ve never met a deeply spiritual person who didn’t openly inquire about another’s faith, who looked to appreciate some aspect of it, or its encourage its blessings.

2. Evangelical-Unless you are an evangelical, you are very likely leery just hearing the word.  Yet the word is from the Greek “euangelos”, meaning a messenger or angel bringing good news.  It’s too bad, because I’m not too confident that we can bring this one back to its original, more open and joyous meaning.   

1. Liberal– The religious right, the political right, the conservative whatevers have suceeded in the last several decades in making the word liberal a dirty word.  It permeates all aspects of our public discourse. If you are a political or religious liberal, you are somehow bereft of moral values, ethics, or for that matter, common sense.  This is a terrible injustice. Liberal, liberalis (Latin) means to be free or to be free and let others be free.  It was the founding paradigm of our nation, Thomas Jefferson wrote a declaration about it. We the people need to take this word back and give it the honor it so rightly deserves.

Book of the Day: Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris 

Quote from the Book of the Day: “I find it sad to consider that belief has become a scary word, because at its Greek root, “to believe” simply means “to give one’s heart to”.  Thus, if we can determine what it is we give our hearts to, then we will know what it is we believe.”

Putting the Joy Back in Jihad

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What’s so joyful about a jihad? It’s one of those experiences that afterwards we call a blessing in disguise.

The concept of jihad or holy war is embedded in the Quran, but it has, from its earliest beginnings, been fraught with multiple meanings.  Muslims often speak of jihad as both a struggle to submit to God’s will (considered the greatest of  jihads) and a battle against unbelievers (the lesser of the jihads).  Our focus today will be on the greater, the individual’s journey toward purity of the soul.

However, it is important to note that the jihad that points to a battle against unbelievers has more to do with Muslims being commanded to do something that they believe to be contrary to the law of God (which includes the sin of polytheism), or to those that dishonor or defeat the community of the faithful, at which point jihad becomes a duty.

It has never been historically true that Muslims are somehow obligated to wage war against those who do not surrender to Allah.  In fact, during what many call the Golden Age of Islam (from about the 9th to 12th centuries), “Muslims were ruling peacefully over large populations of non-Muslims without expending the slightest bit of effort to convert them or to challenge their beliefs.” (From Peace Be Upon You by Zachary Karabell). 

In addition, there is no Islamic jurist (classical or modern) that offers approval or legitimacy to what we now call terrorism.  The armed struggles of jihads of the past were elaborately regulated by Shari’a law (which simply means holy law, covering everything from fasting and pilgrimage to constitutional and criminal law). For instance, no women, children, or the aged are allowed to be killed (in principle).  You have to give fair warning of the opening of hostilities.  These jihads are considered wars in the traditional sense or political reforms or changes in economic policies, but do not in any way resemble the terrorist acts of the last several decades.  

“The greater jihad is something all devout individuals must wage… against their own desires. The mystics of Islam often spoke of jihad as a “dark night of the soul”, where the striver is faced with his/her demons and must confront them in order to stay on the path toward God.” (Karabell, pg. 126). It is a sense of purging and purifying oneself.  It may involve works such as fasting or penance, but primarily it is cleansing the heart from obstructive thoughts, such as envy, greed, revenge, and selfishness, that move us further away from our truest nature.

Christians recognize this metaphor from the work, Dark Night of the Soul (Our Book of the Day) by St. John of the Cross, a 16th century Spanish poet, mystic, and Carmelite priest.  It is used to describe a phase in a person’s spiritual life, marked by a sense of loneliness and desolation.  There has been much scholarly discussion as to whether the Christian was influenced by the Sufi or vice versa, but there is no conclusive evidence in either direction.

Interestingly, the inner turmoil of the soul is referenced by most spiritual traditions throughout the world as a necessary step toward a union with God or for a sense of wholeness.  

The Buddhists have a parallel in their practices called “the Knowledges of Suffering.”  In fact, the Buddhist writer Daniel Ingram speculates that the Dark Night is a common mystical state which is independent of any specific belief system.  He uses the term “maps” for the sequence of mental states:

“The Christian maps, the Sufi maps, the Buddhist maps, and the maps of the Khabbalists and Hindus are all remarkably consistent in their fundamentals.  These maps are talking about something inherent in how our minds progress in fundamental wisdom that has little to do with any tradition and lots to do with the mysteries of the human mind and body. ”

Jihad is a spiritually powerful word that describes a part of the necessary and well worn path toward a union with the divine; it is the process by which personal roadblocks that threaten our spiritual growth are removed.  By continually and willingly entering into jihad, the gifts of the spirit are manifold, including joy, peace, faith, and clarity.  The soul awakens.

 ” The reason for this has been clearly expounded; for ordinarily the soul never strays save through its desires or its tastes or its reflections or its understanding or its affections; for as a rule it has too much or too little of these, or they vary or go astray, and hence the soul becomes inclined to that which behooves it not.  Wherefore, when all these operations and motions are hindered, it is clear that the soul is secure against being led astray by them; for it is free.  For when the affections and operations of the soul are quenched, nothing can make war upon it.”  (Quote from the Book of the Day)

Tomorrow’s post: Ten Religious Words That The Spin Doctors Doctored