Nutrients for the Soul ~ Remembering, Knowing & Believing

A sermon informed by the teachings of Pema Chodron, the hymn “Come, Come Whoever You Are” and the reading “The Call” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Last week, informed by the work of Pema Chodron, you were invited to accept yourself as you are, fully.  To leave behind ‘if only’s’ “if only I were smarter, thinner, had more money, thicker hair, longer eyelashes, a better job, more patience, more talent, whatever….’  Leave these behind and accept the simple fact that each of us is exactly who we are in this moment.  We have been shaped by our lives.  If we have lived through difficult and unfair times, those have shaped us in some manner.  If we have lived through glorious and fulfilling times, those have shaped us as well.  Each act of kindness has left a mark.  Each act of cruelty too.  We arrived with our own unique hard wiring and followed unique pathways.  We are a work in progress.  How long?  For exactly the number of years, days and minutes we existed as a piece of creation.  

Last week’s invitation was to accept our bodies and minds exactly as they are today, including getting rid of all the other voices and influences that stand so vocally in judgment.  Out with the advertisements calling us to be thinner, taller, blonder, shinier, more petite, more muscular, better dressed, better mated, better equipped, better accessorized, better anything!  Out with those voices!  Out too with those voices around us, letting us know in sometimes not too subtle ways exactly what we can do to fix ourselves.  ---- OUT with those voices too.  And then the hardest task – banishing our own judgmental voice.  Whether we harbor a self-loathing voice or a gentler yet critical voice that causes shame or simply wishing ‘if only …..’ friends, OUT with that voice too.

What remains is this one simple truth.  This is who we are.  The pieces people love about us. They’re here.  The pieces people don’t love about us, they’re here too.   The same piece of me that allows me to respond quickly to crisis is somehow tied to the piece that doesn’t like filing systems at all.  The piece of me that allows me to feel compassion and help a family journey through pain, it’s likely tied to the piece of me that at times is too tender.  And the piece of me that allows me to leap out of an airplane and will likely take me scuba-diving with sharks, I bet that is somehow wired to the piece of me that makes me a little dangerous with power tools and not unfamiliar with emergency rooms.  It is not our work today to fix a single piece of it or to wish it away.

 Pema Chodron called us to accept ourselves, as fully ourselves and instead of trying to fix any piece, to step into better relationship, loving relationship with those pieces we feel least fond of or perhaps even fear.  To step in with curiosity.  For me, that practice has turned into one of asking “Who am I in this moment? “  By asking honestly and with real curiosity, pieces of ourselves are revealed to ourselves, free of any other voice saying who we should be.  If I’m frustrated with being left on hold yet again trying to get an answer from my phone service, but ask myself “Who am I in this moment?”  my answer may well be “I’m the person who already spent 20 minutes getting shuffled around and getting more frustrated by the minute.”  Or what I’ve noticed having followed this practice for some time now, calmness arrives in the asking of the question alone and I reply “Ahhh.  I’m the person who values taking care of an error on her bill and who really understands that the people trying to help me didn’t create the error.”  This doesn’t always happen, but I’ve noticed it is more and more the case. 

This practice can result in change.   It’s through watching with curiosity ‘Who’ we are in our lives that we can best discern how we might wish to grow.  It doesn’t require a single outside voice or self help book------ which is different than saying you need not consult with your mate or family or employer before you act on important things or seek professional assistance when needed or ever read a self-help book.  This is different.  It’s about getting to that quiet place – even if you don’t meditate.  That place that is quiet because no other voice remains but your own.  That place where you can learn all you want about humanness because you are the expert on this one human being – this one wonderful human being – you!  Don’t go there with trash bags to clean up, go there with a chair, a cup of tea and a loving heart.  Go sit, sip and learn – about you.

A small piece from last week’s Pema Chodron reading  "Our brilliance, our juiciness, our spiciness, is all mixed up with our craziness and our confusion, and therefore, it doesn’t do any good to try to get rid of our so-called negative aspects, because in that process we also get rid of our basic wonderfulness. We can lead our life so as to become more awake to who we are and what we are doing rather than trying to improve or change or get rid of who we are or what we are doing." 

Now that we’ve been reconnected with the start of our soul cleanse from last week and introduced to newcomers to the cleanse, it’s time to add some nutrients.   Here we are with the noise cleared out --- out harsh toxins, out!  But the world of noise waits just beyond those doors.  It’s always there.  Like  ….. well pick any piece of commercialism you disdain – a jingle, an advertisement series, perhaps it’s sports, or politics, or whatever it is and just picture it waiting at the door.  Waiting to leap upon you and take over once more.  Like a large monster. We live in a world of beauty, true,  --- but also THAT.  THAT which shall consume us, if we let it.  THAT which waits eager to suck our souls dry.  To inhabit them, take up all the space and drive our lives.

So we need to make sure we have things in place to block THAT.  We need to make sure our souls have life affirming energies that reside there, not just visit or fight to get in.  So THAT won’t be able to get in.  When I teach my swim students to go underwater without holding their noses, I tell them it’s simple, just blow air out.  If air is coming out your nose, water cannot get in.  We want it to be the same with our souls. 

And, just as in the case with my swimmers, it takes practice.  And some days you forget and it hurts!  Actually, it burns!  No theological meaning intended!

But, challenge as it turns out…. Good for the soul!

I suggest we need only three things to keep our soul nourished, healthy and full.   From the reading Hazel offered us, Oriah tells us to listen to that voice you’ve heard all of your life.  Not from others or THAT but from within and from creation.  She writes

“Remember what you are and let this knowing  

take you home to the Beloved with every breath”

And so, our first nutrient for the soul ----------- Remembering

Oriah’s words again

“Hold tenderly who you are and let a deeper knowing  

colour the shape of your humanness.”  

Our second nutrient --- Knowing.  Knowing you are enough, just as you are.  And you are beautiful.

One final nutrient -  “Believing.”

Believing you have something of yourself to offer the world.

Oriah writes

 “Be one word in this great love poem we are writing together.”

          Essential nutrients for the soul --- Remembering you are part of creation and you belong here.  Knowing you are enough just as you are and you are beautiful.  And Believing, the world needs your unique self. 

This work of the soul goes on and on.  Do not be dissuaded when you find yourself astray.  Look around.  You’ll see me there!  Hold dear the teachings of Pema Chodron.  Refrain from chastising yourself for digressions or even moments of being far from  your best self.  Instead pay attention to you in that moment.  Look with curiosity at who you are right then and there.  Ask “Who am I in this moment?”

Remember Rumi – “Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving…”  Even if you have strayed, says he, come back, “come yet, again come.”  The less frequently sung words of his prose “Though you’ve broken your vows a thousand times.”

Just as we must tend our bodies differently, and at times, diligently as we move through life.  So, too our souls.  We’ll never be done with either.  What we need for food, as a babe in our mothers arms is different than what we need for food as we first start to learn to read and write and different than when we race down a field in our teens or deal with growth spurts or changing hormones and different than what we need for food if we are pregnant or nursing mothers ourselves and different than what we need for food as our lives slow or we face illness of limb or organ.  And different still from the food we will choose as we enter our final days of living. 

Our bodies need nourishment.  It is the same for our souls.  When we are born our souls need to feel love & are fed by caring connections teaching us that we belong.  They need to be welcomed into the world with soft hands and warm chests. As we grow our souls need the freedom to feed curiosity and to experience the world.  To take in all creation has to offer and experience it as home.  The mountains, the oceans, wildflowers and deer.  Leaping, singing, laughing and sobbing.   And then our souls need more --- they need to learn empathy, by us caring for others close to us and then deep accountability through caring for others outside of who we can see and touch.  Until we learn them as family too.  And then as we move through life encountering grief and loss and pain, our souls need for us to open and reopen pathways to our core and for us to have the courage to risk trusting our souls to the touch of others – lovers, family, friends, strangers.  And as with the Rumi poem, return and return again, even when we’ve been wounded and blocked those pathways.  Our souls wait, hoping for us to return to the task and open them once more.  Hoping that all THAT waiting at the door won’t invade.  Hoping we will remember, we will know and we will believe.  And return again to live the next moment fully alive and present to all creation – the good, the less good, the furthest from good, the beautiful, the miraculous, the ordinary.

May it be so ~

NO MORE ‘If only …….’s

(Each January at UUCM we have a ritual 'Burning of the Chaff' in which we name a piece of ourselves we want to leave behind as we enter the coming year.  This year we took a different approach, guided by the following which includes the teachings of Pema Chodron.)
       As part of my sabbatical time I stepped more deeply into the teachings of  Pema Chodron.  She’s long been a guiding force in my own spiritual journey and companions me still.  Last year, at this time, I explored her writings about awakening loving kindness within our own hearts.[1]   Her words altered me in ways that are still unfolding.  In her gentle manner she tossed out all I thought I knew about the pathway toward better self.  She said ‘Don’t look at what you need to improve.  Look at who you are. Come to terms with who you are.  Study who you are.  Get to know yourself and once done, by the way, learn to treat yourself with loving kindness.’  In doing so, she pretty much ruled out any thinking of ‘if I could only do this or that better, life would be good.’  Her examples included

·       If I could only have a nicer house, I’d be a better person. 

·       If it weren’t for the fact that my boss and I can’t get on, my job would be just great. 

·       If I could meditate, I would be a better person.

Instead of ‘if only’s’ she said “this is the body you have, the mind you have, this is you – right now, right here.  You have everything you need to be “fully human, fully awake, and fully alive” 

Interesting concept, isn’t it?  So, this body that needs five pillows and sometimes drugs to sleep partially through the night is what I have. Let go of the ‘if only’s and make friends with it.’  And this ‘me,’ that talks too much most days, let’s her heart get too grabbed by the world at times to the detriment of family and friends and let’s some traffic patterns and drivers choices rile her unnecessarily, well that me is what I have right now and I should let go of ‘if only’s and make friends with it.’ Hmmmm --- interesting!  Could it be that my New Year’s resolutions of, lose weight to make my knees happier, do my shoulder exercises and be more careful in the pool, do the Dr. Oz body 3-day spinach and kale body cleanse once each month, keep a tape of Thich Nhat Hanh’s breathing meditation in my car for those traffic moments, talk less and listen more and tend, tend, tend family and friends at least as much as I tend the world ……………….. could it be that I could just toss out that list and make friends with my body and mind?????  My winter is looking up!  EXCEPT, except, I read all of Pema Chodron’s writings. 

And so, Alas ~ and with appreciation ~ I share these words from Pema Chodron:  

“ One of the major obstacles to what is traditionally called enlightenment is resentment, feeling cheated, holding a grudge about who you are, where you are, what you are.  This is why we talk so much about making friends with  ourselves, because, for some reason or another, we don’t feel that kind of satisfaction in a full and complete way.   Meditation is a process of lightening up, of trusting the basic goodness of what we have and who we are, and realizing that any wisdom that exists, exists in what we already have.  Our wisdom is all mixed up with what we call our neurosis.  Our brilliance, our juiciness, our spiciness, is all mixed up with our craziness and our confusion, and therefore, it doesn’t do any good to try to get rid of our so-called negative aspects, because in that process we also get rid of our basic wonderfulness.  We can lead our life so as to become more awake to who we are and what we are doing rather than trying to improve or change or get rid of who we are or what we are doing.  The key is to wake-up, to become more alert, more inquisitive and curious about ourselves.”

NOW – a disclaimer.  THIS IS NOT to say ‘it’s okay to be nasty to people if you feel like it or kick small animals or gesture at people on the road, even if they don’t seem to understand what a yield sign means!  And I certainly am not saying I condone ‘worst self behavior’  in myself or anyone else.  Chodron’s words are actually a lot like UU theology.  Just as each of us is responsible for discerning what we believe is true about the divine and the mysteries of creation, so too, with our own soul work.  If we are to take these words to heart, we won’t be starting the year by getting rid of pieces of us we see as ‘bad.’  Rather, guided by the words of Chodrun and a religious tradition that calls us to accountability, we’ll get rid of all the noises in our world that tell us how life should be, how our bodies should be, how our minds should be, how our hearts should be, and we’ll commit to stepping into closer relationship with the areas we are least fond of, perhaps even those that frighten us most. We’ll choose one or more and name them.  Not to expel them from our perfectly imperfect selves, rather to say ‘It’s just you and me now, in the conversation.  I’ll let go of all other outside influences.   All other voices, gone.   I’ll commit to knowing you, this part of me, because you are me.  I’ll step in closer with curiosity, gentleness and love, because you are me.  Rather than hate you, I’ll seek to know you, with faith that in doing so, I will become a better person.  And because I will become a better person, I will help create a better world.

And so, readers, an invitation to reflection.  “What piece(s) of you might you have yearned to leave behind as you enter the new year, in hopes that ‘if only……… I would be a better person or life would be better.’  Might you instead commit to tossing out all other influences and voices and expectations and step into that piece of yourself,  with curiosity & loving kindness for your good and the good of all?

---

[1] Awakening Loving Kindness by Pema Chodron

Why Be Good?

Why Be Good, She Asked

The Rev. Wendy von Zirpolo

a sermon preached at the 

Unitarian Universalist Church of Marblehead

The sermon this morning was birthed on a cold day in November in the midst of a common UU misadventure ~ that of heading for the Arlington Street church in Boston instead of the UU Church in Arlington, Massachusetts. I was attempting to get to an Annual Mass Bay District Meeting and I was not alone. I was accompanied by my daughter, a college freshman, and her roommate. While I would like to think the girls were along for the spiritual enlightenment or my own stimulating company - I have no illusions - it was the promise of a free lunch!

            So, there we were, having discovered our error, now headed off in the proper direction and finding ourselves with some extra time to chat. It started out innocently enough - my daughter’s roommate, raised in the Baptist faith, had a few questions. She started small ----------------------- “So, Mrs. von Zirpolo, I understand that you can believe anything you want in Unitarian Universalism - how does that work?” We spoke of creeds vs. principles, purposes and sources. We spoke of freedom and reason. We spoke of holding up the right of each person in Unitarian Universalism to seek their own truths while honoring others. She then ventured a little deeper, asking “Do you believe in God?”…..I told her that I considered myself a religious humanist, someone who did not believe in a single entity or a being-like presence to whom I could pray and expect intervention in my life or the life of others. I said that instead I believed in a greater power of goodness, inherent in each and every human being - one that oriented us toward betterment for all. She then asked about Heaven - and I said I didn’t believe in a life after death but instead of a heaven here on Earth - beloved community. A place where all are truly and deeply welcome, each of us as our human, perfectly imperfect selves. All honored for our gifts, all equal participants, all willing to stay at the table working out differences in the overriding context of deep love, forgiveness and respect.

“Where does Jesus fit?” she asked next and I told her that for me, Jesus was and is a great teacher and leader, someone who glimpsed true beloved community and said “Wow ---- follow me, I’ll show you the way.” I also told her that while those were my beliefs that I worshipped alongside others who were theists, believing in a prayable to, intervenable, personal God, those who might worship many Gods or Goddesses, those who believed in Jesus as The Christ, the divine son of God and those for whom the language of God and Jesus held little or no value or perhaps pain.

And then, she paused……………..THAT should have been my warning that the big one was coming! Because as we approached the Arlington church, she did pause in thought ………… and then asked…..”But, if you don’t believe in life after death, and you don’t believe in salvation through Jesus Christ …………………….. Why be good?”

Why be good, she asked and words about inherent worth and dignity rolled out of my mouth, followed by those of peace, social justice, witness and world community. Why be good, she asked and my words reflected a deep commitment to the betterment of humankind. Why be good, she asked, and like a parent facing the question “Where do babies come from,” I found myself grateful that our destination has been reached, the question tabled and distractions were in sight.  Why be good she asked and although the words flowed out quite easily and I am not compelled to retract them, the question resided for months, hovering here and here and here……. understanding my answers on a personal level took on a level of importance equaled by the need to be able to offer the answer as a public theology -- one I would be able to articulate as a religious leader in our movement. Why be good, she asked, and here I stand today, inviting you to join me in looking hard at that question and also claiming it as one we should be able to answer.

We’ll start our journey in the Hebrew Scriptures - the Old Testament - where we find a God who makes promises to his chosen people. A people called to honor him and in return be delivered from horrific conditions. Honor and obey me, he says …… and the land of milk and honey awaits …just rewards indeed. As the ancient prophet, Micah, reports, this God requires three things “to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with their God.” Here in the Hebrew tomes, and in the words of the prophets, we find clarity for these people, not only in terms of what rewards are offered but also the price of noncompliance. For theirs is a God not unaccustomed to incurring wrath.

Moving on into the Christian Scriptures, the New Testament, we see the commitment to goodness articulated in following Jesus Christ as entrance into heaven and the price of heavenly rewards. Prominent also is the eschatological view that the judgment day is upon us - the end is coming and each will be judged.

Moving away from the God of the Hebrew and Christian communities ---- although we lose a common understanding of God, we do find the ethic of reciprocity ---- otherwise known as the Golden Rule……….in Baha’i “ascribe not to any soul that which thou wouldst not have ascribed to thee” and in Buddhism’s Udana-Varga the admonition “hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful” and in Islam “None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” And yet, these exist as rules and codes of behavior - not answers to my young friend’s question.

So let’s add another voice into this exploration. In his book “Letter to a Young Lawyer” famed lawyer, Alan Dershowitz lays out the issue of ‘being good’ with the express intent of convincing his young lawyers to choose strong moral character as a constant in a profession in which he tells them it will be challenged daily. In his argument, calling for such personal responsibility to goodness, he wishes to disconnect that obligation from any sense of outside authority. He calls them to an inner authority. Always ready for argument, Dershowitz pits himself against Pascal’s Wager. You know the wager ….over 300 years ago Pascal offered an orientation toward good as a bottom-line safe bet. “Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.” Dershowitz disagrees and takes his audience through a legalistic argument tying goodness, based on religious belief to either a rote response to authority and/or a calculated choice. Neither of which speak of the valiant character of the individual wishing to do good for the sake of good.

While Dershowitz calls on this orientation to goodness from an altruistic view of what is best as a human being---------- that is, what would truly be deserving of accolades, another thinker, Dennis Prager from the University of Judaism calls goodness a necessary behavioral goal, articulating the wish that our educational system held goodness and depth as its two pillars rather than brilliance and success. He offers seven reasons to be good:

If everyone acted this way we’d live in a beautiful world

You’ll like yourself more

You’ll be treated better

It makes you feel good

You know how much you want others to be good

Because God said so

A part of you wants to be good

This behavioral approach offers many doors in, allowing for the theist to be good for the sake of religious beliefs but also holding up rational arguments based on outcomes.  An interesting footnote to Prager’s contribution, and an affirmation of Dershowitz’s commentary on the relation of authority to goodness is a 1960 behavioral study held at Yale in which subjects were to apply a shock to a learner under the guise of a scientific experiment exploring punishment as a correction to incorrect behavior. The study received quite a bit of renewed attention when the abuses of Abu Graib came to light. In the study, unbeknownst to the subjects, the person receiving the shock was an actor and no electricity was involved. The subjects were required to increase the voltage in steps up to the end of a 450-volt scale. No subject stopped before reaching 300. 60 percent went the distance and many who stopped along the way to question the disturbing effects upon the subject, continued once absolved of responsibility.

So here we have two somewhat polar views --- belief in a God authority who demands goodness at one end and at the other a consumerist approach of being good so you get good stuff whether it be heavenly rewards or people simply treating you better.  As UUs we tend to seek compromises or a homogenization toward an approach that welcomes all and offends none….but I’m not looking for a compromise. And I found aspects of each of these views compelling in their arguments, what still remained lurking about was that there was something more - something somehow namable that calls me to goodness and perhaps others. I don’t relate to seeing it as simply a behavioral response to having people like me or getting something that I want. But I also so not relate at all to the idea of salvation and heavenly rewards. I do not believe in a punitive God of any shape. I don’t even believe in the more secular -- things happen for a reason or what comes around goes around.  I found each of these contributions to comment more on interpretations of people behaving well then as answers to the question “Why be good.”

To me, this orientation toward goodness is clearly something bigger than human thought, something preexistent in our hardwiring. It gets back to what a congregant once told me when I asked her “Why Be Good?” She answered “Because I would know” and I would be changed……..

That resonated but I needed more…..I landed with Albert Schweitzer and what he called the ‘reverence of life” He thought ethics was nothing more or less than that --- reverence of life. He came upon that thought while on an errand of mercy in Africa. He was on a boat, creeping slowly upstream following channels between sandbanks. His mind deep in thought as he scribbled disconnected sentences on sheet after sheet of paper. On the third day, quite late in the afternoon, as they wended through a herd of hippopotamuses, the phrase ‘reverence for life’ flashed, unbidden upon his mind. He wrote “the iron door had yielded: the path in the thicket had become visible.” Schweitzer also told of the discovery of a more intuitive form of this ethic when he was only seven or eight years old. One spring, a friend invited him to go to a place where they could shoot birds with a ling-shot. Though the idea was repugnant to the young Schweitzer, he went along, fearing that his friend might laugh at him if he didn’t. They found a bird singing in a tree. His companion put a stone in the leather catapult and Schweitzer, determined to be brave and manly, did the same. At that very moment the bells of the church began to ring. Schweitzer felt it was a voice from heaven, reminding him of the wrongness of senseless killing. He shooed the bird away and ran home.

Add to this imagery one of my favorite stories - that of famous UU leader Theodore Parker who tells of being 4 years old, raising a stick to strike a basking tortoise and hearing the words “it is wrong” - he runs to his mother who through tears tell shim that it is the voice that c\some people call God and others call conscience - but regardless of name, she is certain that to listen to the voice will allow it to grow stronger and stronger and it will always be present as a guide\de - and to ignore it is to lose it.

Here, finally I felt at home …could it be that simple? Why be good, she asked -- because it is wrong to behave otherwise --- is it right to be good? Well on a personal level, surely - I hear that inner voice - it speaks to n=me viscerally often. Through tears as I watch the news, through the need to face the homeless man directly in the eye as I roll down the window and offer change - or not - though the knot in my stomach when I hear of fundamentalist bashing of a peer seeking same sex marriage.

But on a public theological level we have work to do. Because the answer is not fully formed and articulated. I am pretty sure wearing t-shirts sporting Theodore parker at age four with a stick, a tortoise and a big NO sign won’t do the trick - but maybe, maybe it’s a start. We as UUS are often seen lacking a common voice or the ability to join together in theological mission…. But this spells opportunity to me.

I urge us to own this question together, to keep it here and here and here. Because to ask this question of ourselves and each other - to keep it active in our discussions, in our covenant groups, active in our parenting, in our loving, in our working, active in our voting, active in all aspects of our lives - puts us in the game - it declares us players in the larger game of serving the cause of the betterment of humanity and it does it in the name of liberal religion. If we do not gather here on Sunday mornings in agreement of this - then why are we here? What better cause do we tend?

Let me add an exclamation point to that message… by returning to the original question…… from the time she asked me, these things have hit the news:

·        A woman was trampled to death in Wal-Mart during an early bird sale of DVD players

·        A two-year old boy was killed in a case of road rage in Australia…crushed in his own driveway over an argument over a taillight

·        A professor in Claremont, CA spoke out in a forum about the need for tolerance and racial harmony and later found her tires slashed, windows broken and car looted.

·        Under the guise of girl power, a US clothing producer sold T-shirts that said “Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them”

·        A Muslim man was beaten to death in the UK by youth shouting anti-Islamic abuse at him.

·        And just last month, our own youth of color, while eating lunch outside of a conference on leadership development in Dallas, Texas had a car drive by, the occupants stick out their hands and pretend to shoot them….each one….

Why be good, she asked?  For ‘goodness sake’ ~ it’s our only hope.

Not the Time to Stop Crying ~

A Prayer offered at a Vigil for Healing & Common Sense Gun Control in Marblehead, MA (December 15, 2012)

O Spirit of Life, Divine Source known by so many names

We gather with broken hearts

Weeping souls

And we need to cry

We arrive from as many different stories as there are stars in your sky

We may be Christian, Jew, Muslim, Atheist, Pagan, Straight, Transgender, Gay, Black, White, Latino , Republican or Democrat  - but all children of creation, sharing this single thing:

                 We Love our children, our children of the world

And we need to cry

         For tonight a mother looks at an un-opened present carefully placed under a tree and no longer has a child to open it.

         Today someone is taking a sweatshirt out of a dryer and wishing they had never washed it because they yearn for the scent of their child.

Tomorrow a child will wake and automatically head into a sibling’s room, and then remember – that sibling is gone.

         And another child will stare out a window mourning the loss of a best friend

         And children all over will be hugged and hugged and hugged again by parents, grandparents, teachers, cousins, caregivers, the whole world so grateful that they are alive.

And we will cry and cry some more.

We do not come together in vigil tonight to help one another ‘get over’ this horrific tragedy. 

We do not come together to help one another ‘stop’ crying.

It is time to let the tears flow on and on

Time to let our tears flow down our faces and through our streets

Flow through our streets and out of our towns

Flow out of our towns and into the inner cities

Flow until they mingle with those of the many who each day fear for their children’s lives

Flow until they mingle with those of the many who still mourn children lost in other shootings

Flow to the 19 different places in our country where mass shootings have taken place in just these last five years.

         Minneapolis, Minnesota (September 2012, 7 dead, 2 injured)

         Oak Creek, Wisconsin (August 2012, 7 dead, 4 injured)

         Seattle, Washington (May 2012, 6 dead)

         Aurora, Colorado (July 2012, 12 dead, 59 injured)

         Norcross, Georgia (February, 2012, 5 dead)

         Seal Beach, California (October 2011, 8 dead, 1 injured)

         Tuscon, Arizona (January 2011, 6 dead, 14 injured)

         Manchester, Connecticutt (August 2010, 9 dead, 2 injured)

         Parkland, Washington (November 2009, 5 dead)

         Fort Hood, Texas (November 2009, 13 dead, 30 injured)

         Binghamton, New York (April 2009, 14 dead, 4 injured)

         Geneva County, Alabama (March 2009, 11 dead, 6 injured)

         Carthage, NC (March 2009, 8 dead, 3 injured)

         Henderson, Kentucky (June 2008, 6 dead, 1 injured)

         Blacksburg, Virginia (April 2007, 33 dead, 23 injured)

         Kirkwood, Missouri (February 2008, 7 dead, 1 injured)

         Omaha, Nebraska (December 2007, 9 dead)

         Crandon, Wisconsin (October 2007, 7 dead, 1 injured)

         DeKalb, Illinois (February 2008, 6 dead, 21 injured)

         and Newtown, CT (December 2012, 27 dead, 20 of them young children aged 6 and 7, more injured).  Young children who just last week may have sat on Santa’s lap and whispered what they wanted for Christmas or lit a candle on a menorah.

           It is not time to stop weeping.  Our hearts may be broken, but our heads and our hands are not.  It is time to take our tears, join them with the many who have been weeping for years in our inner city neighborhoods and let our torrents of tears flow right into our state and federal houses where real change can occur.  It is time for our tears to help our minds find ways of helping those who equate common sense gun control with a loss of freedom, to see our dead children and see them as their own.  It is time for our tears to help our hands shape local and national policies that will help restore innocence in the lives of our children.  We will never stop weeping for the lost children but we have the power to help restore safety and build safety where for so many years there has been none. 

           Spirit of Life, Wonder of Creation ~ hold our tears but only for tonight.  But then, as the people of Newtown, CT mourn real-time loss and fractured futures,  be with us as our tears fuel our efforts to change the world for the sake of all of our children.  

                              May it be so.  May it be so.

What Do I Really Want for Christmas ~

“The best and the most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched .... but are felt in the heart.”

                                                            ~ Hellen Keller 

What Do I Really Want for Christmas??

One of the best gifts I ever got was an old, tired bracelet.  It wasn’t gold or silver or bejeweled.  Most wouldn’t have thought it precious at all.  But it was beyond precious to me.  It came from a woman I later learned many young people in Winchester called ‘Ma Winchester.’ She lived not far from Winchester Commons where many young folks hung out.  I wasn’t allowed to ‘hang out’ on the common, but often walked through it or rode my bike past or through it on the way home, to a store or church.  I knew Eleanor would often walk there and sit on a bench.  She may have fed the birds.  At some point I learned that she had quite a following of teenagers.  I imagine she was a good listener and perhaps offered some council.  She was elderly.  She walked with a cane.  She had a wooden leg. And at some point, someone on that common named her ‘Ma Winchester.’ I knew her because she was a dear friend of my grandmother.  I would see her when she came to visit at my grandmother’s house.  I can picture her in the backyard swimming pool, with her wooden leg just sitting on the patio next to where she slipped in.  I did not know anyone else with a wooden body part so she had my attention from day 1.  But it was her personality that kept me engaged.  To me she wasn’t Ma Winchester.  She was Eleanor and I adored talking with her. 

On this one occasion, I was visiting her at her apartment.  I am foggy about the timing but I think it must have been near a birthday or Christmas because for some reason she took her bracelet off of her wrist and gave it to me.  It was precious beyond measure.  I can still remember what it felt like on my wrist.  It fit loosely and for many years to follow, I would touch it and think about her kind heart and twinkling, yet learned – in life’s lessons – sort of way, eyes.  Eleanor is long gone and so too the bracelet.  I remember parting with it at some point, perhaps offering it to some church fair, because it had long since served its purpose.  You see I wear Eleanor inside now, as she forever altered my heart. 

Isn’t it interesting what gifts we never forget?  At times they aren’t things we were ever cognizant of ‘wanting.’ And truly, sometimes they were things we never did want!  I remember this ‘interesting’ purse my grandmother gave me.  It was from some very nice story I believe and I’m sure it was a treasure to someone.  I recall my mother and I sort of smiling at each other with that look of  ‘Well, she meant well – I bet she thought it was hip!’ I also recall the bike that I heard some years later took all expletive, expletive, expletive night to put together.  I remember the tenor recorder and how it felt the first time I touched it and how rich it sounded.  I remember the downhill skis with my name engraved on them and the cross country skis with the mohair strips on the bottom – matching those of my mother and father.

I’m sure I “wanted” most of those things, well everything but that purse!  I still enjoy the recorder.  The bracelet, as I mentioned, is long gone and the bicycle and skis have been replaced over the years.  But what I probably didn’t know I “wanted” was embedded in each of those gifts and it remains.  That ‘thing’ is the love in the relationships and the imagining that reflected that love.  The imagining of something valued, something enjoyed by another person.  It was the expletive-laden night of bicycle assembly.  It was the grandmother of 11 thinking ‘hmmmm – Wendy is artistic – perhaps she’d like this artsy bag.’  It was the parents who having discovered their love of cross country skiing and shared it with us, wanted to equip us so we could join them more often.  It was the parents who heard, saw and felt that my love of the recorder was real not some passing fancy.  The real gift, in each case, wasn’t the thing that was wrapped under the tree or leaning against the wall.  As corny as it sounds – it truly was the thought that counted and the ‘want’ that was fulfilled never appeared on any note to Santa.  It was a want written deep within the heart and soul.  Something that existed beyond the bounds of any holiday.  It was one of the most precious things.  The kind of thing that Helen Keller writes of when she says such things “cannot be seen or touched .... but are felt in the heart.”  This want we all have and often hide or disguise in order to protect ourselves.  It is the want of acceptance, of love, a want to be cherished.  It resides in that same place we keep that wish to love and cherish others.

Now I must confess that I’ve fallen victim and even perpetuated the kind of want that this is not!  I’m sure if you asked my mother, and please don’t!  But I’m sure I must have been less than my best self when it came to what I ‘wanted’ or just ‘had to have’ as a child. I can’t say that I was all into this ‘hey, just cherish me, that’s all I need’ mode.   Really – no presents necessary!  Just give me the love!    And I know I fed the ‘consumer-based want machine’ when my children discovered Abercrombie & Fitch.  There’s a store I could stand to never go in again!  And I know that in my early twenties, before I even had those children,  I got caught up in the commercialism that is always poised, ready to seduce us into buying more and wanting more and having more and wanting still more!  I stand before you guilty of having been swept away by the imagining that more was better and almost came to see gifting as the point of the holidays.  Almost ~

But then I did have those four children ~ and I remember gifts from those times too.  I remember the coupons  “This coupon good for  coffee (and that meant from fresh ground beans) “  “This coupon good for half a sandwich.” (that one made me laugh – I think it was half because they were going to eat the other half.”  And my all time favorite --- “this coupon is good for me not talking to you for 20 minutes --------- two different times!!!).  Each of these so deeply thoughtful and from the heart.  Each of these treasured still ~ I ‘wanted’ for nothing for I was bathed in the enjoyment of witnessing giving that comes from imagination, from knowing and from love.

And now, their childhoods far behind, that sort of gifting continues.   Two years ago, a water fountain to listen to at night when I’m alone –from my then 20 year old son who knows his mother is soothed by the sound of water flowing down over stones.   And this year, this large mug with a turtle on it from a daughter who knows my love of swimming with turtles and what a fan I am of a serious-size mug of coffee.  Two things I could not have know I ‘wanted’ but both reflections of something I will always want – connections rooted in knowing, imagination and love ~

Also feeding that want, five different types of blueberry bushes from my love because they each produce berries at a different time in the summer and she knows how much I love to pick fresh blueberries for my morning cereal. 

None of this is to say I haven’t appreciated or ‘wanted’ many other presents along the way.  I have been gifted so thoroughly and thoughtfully by so many. There is nothing wrong with wanting & gifting on that yankee-swap sort of level --- making sure you wrap up something and you try to be sure it’s something that will be appreciated and that nobody will feel like they got the bum prize.  But beyond that there is GIFTING --- finding the perfect something that you know will be appreciated and loved or at least very much needed.  But, beyond that -- there is gifting – when it doesn’t matter what the present is or even if it’s wrapped, it’s that moment between the two of you – like my moment with Eleanor – when all that matters is the connection with all that it encompasses.  Past hurts or struggles, achievements, joys, laughter and/or tears. Lifetimes.  It’s the connection with all that ever was, all that is and all that lies ahead between two people, perfectly imperfect souls that we are.  It’s authenticity.  It’s knowing and being known.  And isn’t that all we could ever truly “want?” 

Our deepest wants as a human being.  To be seen.  To be truly seen and known.  To be truly seen & fully known.  To be truly seen, fully known and really loved.   Our deepest wants cannot be fulfilled alone.  We only realize them in relationship with others and only when we gift one another with authenticity, trust one another with ourselves and commit over and over again to care.  It is in that sacred space we can be open with our hearts, in giving and receiving.  And we cannot simply wait for it to happen.  What do I want most for Christmas?   I want to live there.  Each day ~ In that place where the best and the most beautiful things in the world are felt.  In that place where we necessarily risk ourselves for the sake of ourselves and each other.  In that place where we share truthfully with one another in the moment and always in kindness.  In that place where a bad joke at the holiday table is called for what it is. That place where hurts can be named directly and completely. That place where feelings of pain aren’t hushed, feelings of achievement are celebrated, feelings of anger are acknowledged but restrained and where the most marginalized are protected.  Where fear can be companioned, tears shed and laughing with joy embraced.  In the only place where peace among all people can be realized because it is practiced in real time with real difference.

What do I want for Christmas?  That! Peace among all people.   And Christmas reminds me it is possible. If we each begin right here and now and carry it on from this place.

And so friends, Bring on the holidays with all of the bells and whistles and lights and candy canes.  But take hold first.  Take hold of what your heart and soul want most.  To be seen, valued and cherished ~and to cherish others.  Cling to the love and care you want and hold it as dearly to your bosom as Mary held Jesus and use that feeling to fuel all human connections.   Let Christmas Come but do not let our social construct of the holiday take from you that which makes you best, makes you true and makes you kind.  Let Christmas Come and affirm that which our hearts knows – now is the time to cherish one and cherish all, to give of ourselves and to join in making a better tomorrow – heck, even a better today!  Let Christmas Come indeed and may we each live its glory, by living our own, together ~

May it be so ~