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A History of Violence Offers Hope For A Less-Violent Future

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A History of Violence is a very good movie. Yes, the violence is graphic and hard to take, but that’s a positive thing in a movie intent on provoking thought and dialogue on the subject of violence. So, for you many testosterites (both male and female) who depend for your jollies upon superhuman heroes gloriously avenging the depraved acts of craven evildoers—and if you also happen to be married to a Quaker spouse—this is the family movie for you. If you gotta have gore, at least this gore isn’t simplistic; it’s powerful, purposeful, effective gore.

 

I was gripped and thoroughly entertained by A History of Violence. The production displayed a beautiful Casablancan integrity–nothing superfluous, nothing left out.

 

The movie’s many surprising moments of really funny dark humor were a nice added kick. At its blackest, life is ridiculously insane, and laughter covers the sad eyes of clowns; it's never either/or. Shakespeare knew this. So, this sad, funny, violent movie makes perfect sense as it moves along inexorably, belly laughs preceding abject tragedy setting up comic tittering introducing disaster….

 

History is also authentically moving, a tricky thing to do considering the thin fine line between effective emoting and hokey schmaltz. It’s a rare treat to have my jaded heartstrings expertly twanged by a good script in the hands of an inspired director leading brilliant actors.

 

History’s clarion response to the long-standing ethical question: When is violence morally justified? Only when you or someone you personally love is directly, persistently and seriously threatened. History’s imperfect characters conscientiously persevere in minding their own business, and endure the injustice of repeated outrageous attempts to provoke them to retaliatory violence–without adding to it–demonstrating the multitude of non-violent options available to unwilling participants.

 

I also appreciated the movie’s generous advocacy for second chances, and third ones, and however many it takes. In this movie, people who make big mistakes (no matter how big) receive support, not punishment–at least so long as they convincingly demonstrate conscientious intentions and results over time. History’s message–that sometimes motivated people can and do change—isn’t heavy-handedly religious; Tom admits that even after three long years in the desert, he wasn’t really born again until he met his wife. We all need both God and man to lift us up over our barriers to caring.

 

The very explicit but lively and original sex scenes were touching and memorable, and essential to the movie’s theme, since affection, loyalty, intimacy, and sexuality are often all that hold humanity to sanity and purpose.

I enjoyed watching Tom, like Lady Macbeth, futilely attempt to scrub the blood from his hands, and then receive the grace to be washed clean, rebaptised—forgiven–probably for the seventy-times-seventh time.

 

I wish the writers had clearly disavowed any hint that a schizophrenic split-personality-thing might be going on. For a confused moment I thought the story was bending that way, which would have disappointed me. I was relieved when it turned out to be about one man’s honest efforts at transformation.

 

Tom’s brief but telling dialogue with his brother offered a perfectly adequate argument for his stunning attempt to climb up from the horrendous dark pit of his childhood environment.

 

The movie offered several intriguing mini-plots—one for each character—most of them feel-good stories anyone could relate to. When Tom’s son finally got around to soundly beating up the kids who had continually attacked him, our theatre audience cheered. And when our thoroughly besmirched and discredited, yet undeniably righteous champion returned home, his family’s acceptance felt honest and right.

 

So why is it that we Americans still feel comfortable flinging our invading armies into the far corners of our empire, to threaten the persons and homes and families and livelihoods of complete strangers who are quietly trying to get ahead, in the lands of their ancestors? Where do we get off invading other countries, tearing up their infrastructure, disrupting their social fabric, blowing up their children? A History of Violence should make perfectly clear that people (of all creeds) who are doing their best to care for their families deserve to be left alone.

 

If my gentle reader still holds a belief that our superior culture justifies empire-building, I suggest you go back to your Bible, perhaps starting with the part about the kindly Jewish itinerant rabbi, Jesus, delivering his Beatitudes and his Sermon on the Mount. As A History of Violence demonstrates: fighting for peace on this incredibly small, interconnected and fragile planet–unless the bad guys are really climbing in your window—makes about as much sense in the real world as it does in the movies.

 

 

 

James Agee Does Bill Bennett

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If Bill Bennett had just said, “abort every baby” or even “abort every white baby” instead of “abort every black baby,” he could have made his point just as well without coming across like a totally insensitive Ku Klux Klanner.

 

On the other hand, this whole controversy boils down to: How are we treating all the babies who are born into our culture? Not to mention, our planet?

 

Here’s what James Agee had to say about the matter, back in 1939:

 

“In every child who is born, under no matter what circumstances, and of no matter what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again. And in him, too, once more, and of each of us, our terrific responsibility towards human life; towards the utmost idea of goodness, of the horror of error, of God.” (from Let Us Now Praise Famous Men)

 

 

(I would like to add that I think Bill Bennett a fine, admirable person who has worked hard and taken many personal risks in his life in order to add beauty and goodness to the world. Like all of us, he's entitled to mistakes and shortcomings, none of which are important. When someone has such long suits, and works so hard to make the most of them, sometimes their (our) short suits seem (in contrast) very short. I thank the world for Dr. Bennett's gifts and life, wish him well, and trust that he won't be daunted by his recent negative publicity….) Keep up the good work, Dr. Bennett!

 

 

 

What Went Down In the Miers Nomination, and What's Up Next in the Hearings?

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Bush’s advisors must have momentarily forgotten that their boy-king doesn’t read the newspapers; probably Bush overlooked how desperate right-wingers were to nominate their very own reactionary Supreme being. His advisors also apparently lost track of who it was that first inserted into Bush’s stump speeches all that stuff about nominating a Scalia/Thomas-lookalike. Bush aspired to highest office with hardly a clue about how to thoughtfully select a Supreme Court nominee. With little previous interest in the fine details of constitutional law, he lacked the legal sophistication to distinguish a Scalia from a William O. Douglas.

 

Upon gaining the presidency, however, Bush quickly turned to his small inner circle for the necessary crash courses on foreign policy (Rice) and law (Miers), just as he once turned to his boyhood hero, Cheney, for instruction on how to select a running mate. It’s very likely that, just as Bush learned everything he needed to know (we hope) about geo-strategy from Rice, he has Harriet Miers to thank for his insights into the workings of the Supreme Court.

 

So, based on recent evidence, what did Miers teach George W. Bush?

 

That selection of a Supreme Court justice is a uniquely personal presidential prerogative, as well as a weighty responsibility…

 

…And that someone with the very specific qualities of say, a John Roberts—someone not a partisan ideologue, who loves the law, who is well-trained, accomplished and respected, moderate in temperament and above reproach in his personal life—would be an admirable choice.

 

Miers would also have taught Bush that conservative presidents can reasonably appoint conservative justices, that litmus tests aren’t appropriate, that candidates don’t have to answer questions about their personal and political opinions, and that good justices set aside their own biases, and seek, with each new case, to determine the current law of the land.

 

Bush might also have learned from Miers that, for every thorny case before the Supreme Court, a reasonable legal argument could be made on either side, and that a wise justice resists radically changing accepted law, but rather leaves major legal shifts in direction up to elected lawmakers. If Bush took in the highlights of the Roberts’ proceedings, he no doubt enjoyed hearing distinguished colleagues from both parties echo and affirm his own newly-acquired legal convictions.

 

No minority candidate with anything like Roberts’ sterling qualities appeared on the shortlists, so Bush must have gratefully embraced the idea that Miers would be a good compromise—for the same reasons he believed Roberts to be a sound nominee. Bush probably thought he was cleverly cutting a Gordian knot in  nominating Miers—a woman who (he imagined) would distress no one. Bush’s advisors erroneously had assumed Bush had shortlisted Miers as a professional courtesy, and would not forget where his bread was buttered.

 

Yet Bush has always elevated his most-trusted teachers—Rice, Cheney, and now Miers—because each has taken advantage of their considerable opportunities not only to shape their belatedly conscientious pupil’s thinking, but to successfully persuade his eager blank-slate brain of the soundness of their ideas. Considering our president’s infamous youthful lack of intellectual curiosity and indifference to exploring alternative viewpoints, it’s doubtful he realizes even now that his newly-received pearls of wisdom may in fact be debatable matters of opinion, rather than revealed truth.

 

It’s curious that presidents can be elected with no rigorous public hearings at all (one cannot count elaborately orchestrated debates), yet these same presidents are the very ones given the heavy responsibility of wisely nominating lifetime Supreme Court justices who must jump through elaborate hoops to get themselves confirmed.

 

During the upcoming hearings, Democrats will pacify their constituencies by expressing grave concern over Miers’conservatism, when in truth they’ll be kissing the very ground beneath her feet in gratitude that they weren’t handed a Scalia/Thomas clone. Democrats may even, with some reason, harbor just the teensy-weensiest outside hope that Miers will turn out to be a malleable stealth centrist.

 

It’s both admirable and tragicomic that President Bush so often accidentally buys into the public storylines his cronies elaborately create as cover stories to paper over their less admirable ulterior motives. With respect to Iraq, for instance, Bush actually convinced himself for awhile that his war really was all about democracy, rather than oil, giving his polpals fits as he briefly tried to run the occupation with that primary goal in mind. Now he's gone and gummed up his Supreme Court nominations by equally stupidly buying into the foolish pretense that he was actually supposed to nominate a fair judge.

 

Bush used to submit more humbly to his advisors’ supposed expertise. These days, Bush is apparently contemplating the possibility that he may after all have some small capabilities and experience, and is, indeed, in fact, the president, entrustable tentatively with a few independent decisions. I hope Bush shrugs off all his discredited advisors soon; just as he once picked up several useful approaches from West Wing reruns, I hope during his lame-duck years, Geena Davis will rub some of her moxie off on him, and make him surprise us and himself by going with his gut, jumping right on in—sans old advisors—to do a few things for his fellow citizens, just because they’re the right thing to do.

 

Will Miers be able to handle the tricks and traps that crafty old senators will throw at her with the intention of engineering a nomination do-over? If she’s Supreme Court material, she'll prove herself no slouch by winning over the American public, despite Republican machinations. In fact, the only scenario I can see for the GOP pulling out this big bad ol' disaster to their diehard constituents' complete satisfaction, would be for them to take a contract out on a couple of the current court liberals. Their fates rest….

 

During the upcoming hearings, the GOP will be constrained from coming right out and saying what they really wanted to do, which was to put in place an ideologue whom they could trust to consistently seek out whatever constitutional pretexts were necessary to legally lead the country back to the stone age. They’ll be forced instead to mumble lip-service courtesies to Bush’s candidate, even while scheming to blow her out of the water and replace her with some right wing nut. Democratic senators will also be squirming as they assume the distasteful duty of backhandedly persuading everyone to confirm an avowedly conservative nominee.

 

I hope Miers gets a fighting chance during the hearings to have the American public eating out of her hand before Christmastime. I also hope she gets a new haircut. (I’m not being sexist. John Warner needs one too.)

Acceptance 13 – More questions about “acceptance”….

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(This is the latest segment of a 15-part series of questions and answers about “acceptance” which I began posting early in 2005. I think the series is best read from the beginning, so click on the topic “acceptance” if you would like to see the whole series. All the October posts to the series were written quite a while ago, but I never got around to posting them. So I'm doing it now, in case readers want to read the complete series, as originally written….Thanks! Eppy)

I guess it's impossible to fix/change the whole world and everyone in it, and I guess I couldn't control it if I could fix it. But it's very hard to fix me, and all my reactions. I've spent a long time accumulating all this stuff.

So what else are you doing for the rest of your life? I'm just suggesting a moment-to-moment substitute. Currently, you freak out at a lot of things. I'm just suggesting that you try acceptance instead of freaking, and see what that changes. It's a start. Both are hard paths, but one leads to peace of mind.

How does acceptance work, in psychological terms?

Everyone's experience in life is different, so although what is “real”–“out there”–may be the same for all of us, what is “real”–“in here”–our experience of life, of others, of ourselves, of the here-and-now–is unique to each individual. So, there is the stuff “out there,” and there is the stuff we add to it to make it ours, all our thoughts, emotions, images, explanations, history, fears, hopes, dreams–you know, our “stuff.”

Acceptance is a practice that helps us change the way we respond to the stuff “out there” in more effective ways. When we practice acceptance, when we work to “be with” the stuff “out there” without adding all our own personal stuff on top of it, we learn to operate with much less extra baggage added on to “what is” in life, in the world, in ourselves, and in others. It really helps to notice, to be aware, of how much stuff (often negative) we bring to what “just is.” And it really is amazing how rich and full and interesting life is, just as it is, when we can live in the present and interact with life without a lot of heavy baggage interfering with our immediate interactions with “what is,” in the present moment.

Where does acceptance fit in with philosophical traditions? Religious traditions?

Acceptance of “what is” has long been counseled in all philosophical and religious traditions. Acceptance seems to be the beginning of wisdom, and is often only attained, if at all, in maturity or old age, often because life is too difficult by then to face without some help. Acceptance offers a lot of help. Maybe our smaller, faster globe has sped up life so much today that sensitive people need to learn acceptance much younger, just to keep on living.

I believe in the Bible as the infallible, direct, consistent and always true Word of God. How does acceptance square with the teachings of the Bible?

The Book of Job, many of the Psalms and Proverbs, and many other teachings in the Old Testament are all about learning acceptance. Jesus always counseled accepting the will of God, i.e., “what is,” and set a fine example of submitting his will to his father's, despite his trials and terrible crucifixion. Nothing in the Bible contradicts the many benefits of acceptance. Acceptance doesn't imply complacency or inaction or indifference.

I believe in a clear right and wrong, an obvious good and an obvious evil. How does acceptance square with these beliefs?

Strong convictions, strong values, and a strong sense of morality are real assets when they are not misused. We all have experienced people who follow the letter of the law and miss the spirit. Jesus told us clearly to treat others as we would like to be treated. He also said that love of God and man contained “all the law, and the prophets.” Acceptance is not about making everything mushy and gray, or accepting bad, wrong things. It's about living peacefully and graciously and lovingly in the present, with the things that can't be changed now, so that we can rise up during the next instant calmly and effectively, hopefully to right the wrongs, and to shine the light of good on darkness.

I'm terribly afraid of dying. How can acceptance help me?

You're not afraid of dying, but of the struggle against dying. You're afraid of your life ending before you're finished with what you want to do, afraid of the difficult process of dying, and afraid of what suffering might come after death. Many religions recommend dying before death: sitting with others who are dead or dying, and meditating on death. Acceptance of death and dying comes with not pushing away the thoughts of death, just sitting quietly with thoughts of death, while you're alive.

While you're dying is not the best possible time to come to peace with death, because dying is hard work, because sometimes it happens suddenly, or painfully. And besides, dying, like being born, is something new, it's change, and thus, is tiring, scary work. Those few who enjoy a peaceful death are usually those who worked to prepare themselves for its acceptance in advance, by accepting the idea of it, by dealing with it.

How can you accept death while living? Sit with it. Don't try to think about it, or look at it, or wallow in all the scary, sad feelings you may have attached to death. Instead, just be with death itself. Just notice all the negative and unhappy stuff that comes up for you despite your willingness to stay unresisting and quiet with your thoughts of death.

What will happen when you try this? The more you pray/meditate/rest unresistingly with the idea of death, the less frightening you will find it to be, until one day, death will just be one more door opening to one more new and different place, a door you will push open with curiosity and eagerness.

I'm shy. How can acceptance help me?

Spend some time with your feelings, right now, in the present moment, about being shy. Eventually, shyness will seem more like what it is–merely an irrational emotional reaction to new situations.

You're afraid of feeling shy because in the past the feeling of shyness panicked you and distracted you from focusing on what you wanted to accomplish. You're not afraid of new things, new situations, or whatever or whoever is facing you, but instead, of that feeling of being paralyzed, helpless, panicky. Get used to the feeling and stop running away from it, pushing it away, resisting it. Go with it. Be with it. Stay with it and stop fighting it. And meanwhile, get into the new person or situation before you as well, without resisting them. Accepting the scariness of shyness, and looking more closely at the needs and requirements of the new person or situation will help you move more quickly and calmly to meet those needs.

I'm generally uncomfortable with members of the opposite sex. How can acceptance help me?

Most of your discomfort with members of the opposite sex is “stuff” that you have learned about them that may not be so, certainly with individuals, and probably not generalizable either. Don't resist all the negativity you feel about them, don't push it away; try to accept that you have a lot of negative stuff on the opposite sex. Try to be aware of it all, be with it, and know that all those negative beliefs and feelings are very real to you, if not necessarily true in every situation.

Eventually, if you can learn to accept your own reactions and beliefs, you will gradually learn to react to each person that you meet or interact with freshly, without all the stuff you've put onto men or women in the past. You'll find that you're not really uncomfortable with given individuals, but instead, with all the stuff you've assumed about them. Look at all that stuff, accept your fear or distaste or judgment about it, and then look again at individuals. You'll see something new.

Sex and sexuality are difficult for me in many ways. How can acceptance help me?

You're probably less nervous about actual sex and sexuality than you are about all the stuff you've personally attached to the idea of sex. When you think about sexuality in its most basic form–a drive to reproduce—and then you look at all the cultural, emotional and mental stuff we add onto it, it's no surprise that our sexual mechanisms feel gummed up.

Stop pushing your own sexuality away. Accept the idea that among all your other identities, you are a sexual being. Just “be with” all the fears and discomforts that being a sexual being bring up for you. They are all your unique added “stuff” as an individual, separate from any particular sexual act. When you allow yourself to get into “being OK with” all the stuff you previously resisted, pushed away, fought against, sexual relations lose a lot of their heaviness, and become a lot more simple, natural, and in-the-present “what is,” without all the heavy stuff you add onto them.

I can handle my own sorrows, but I can't handle my children's, past, present or future. How can acceptance help me?

Well, for one thing, you don't have to handle them. Your children do. And they will do it better if they have a calm, courageous, supportive friend to encourage them along the way…. But sit with your present fears and sadness. Stop pushing them away. Just be with them for awhile, without reacting to them. Observe them, know them, accept that what is, is. With this calm and lack of resistance, you will be much better able to offer your children the peaceful support they need to move forward in life toward their own dreams and goals and greater understanding.

My life is OK as long as I can work, stay busy, and contribute. But I'm getting older, frailer, less capable, and it scares me. What can acceptance do for me?

Spend some time with the idea of helplessness. Don't think about it, react to it or develop a lot of mental pictures about it. Just sit with the idea unresistingly. Most of the reactive stuff you have to helplessness is about your own sense of self, about your actions in the past and your hopes for your own future. You don't, for instance, react against helplessness in others, you don't judge it as wrong or disgusting, except as it reflects on thoughts of your own helplessness.

Try to sit quietly with the idea of helplessness, and as the reactions and thoughts and pictures come up, notice them, accept them unemotionally, and let them go. Eventually you'll realize that complete helplessness, without all the stuff that people tend to attach to the idea when it applies to themselves, is quite neutral. It's just what it is. Then extend this acceptance to the idea of your being gradually less capable. Finally, look at your present capabilities, with new eyes.

How does acceptance work? I mean, what's the trick of it?

Acceptance is about learning to stay in the present moment, and be with, unresistingly, what is in the present, no matter how frightening your reactions and feelings might seem. In learning to do this, you learn a lot about what is not part of the present moment. You learn that your culture and your experience have added a lot of emotional and mental stuff to the present moment that put a lot of heaviness and fear into it. When you can be with the present moment and its challenges, separated from all of the extra baggage of culture, individual experience, assumptions and fears, then you can handle it, move past it, and move forward effectively toward making the changes you want to see in your life.

It's fine and dandy to “fix” myself so I'll be more peaceful and happy, but what about the rest of the world? Does acceptance mean that I jsut abandon everyone and everything and go within and be peaceful and meditate or something?

Hey, fixing yourself ain't all that easy…. It took each of us quite a long time to get so messed up…. So, a certain amount of time spent working at acceptance in all the various areas of our lives that we've messed up is necessary….

But every step in learning acceptance in the various areas of your life will also be steps toward being more effective in relationships and in making the difference you want in your life and in the world. It all happens simultaneously. The more peaceful and accepting you can be about “what is,” the more committed and persistent and persevering and focused you will become, the more calm and positive and effective you will become. Working at acceptance changes the way you respond to situations and people, which will make you happier and more effective.

I can't stand relativism. “Everything's relative” is such a weak place to come from. Everything's not relative; it's clearly one thing or another–good or bad, right or wrong. So we can accept what's right and good, and reject what's wrong and bad. Right?

Strong values, strong convictions, a strong moral and ethical sense are great gifts. They come from a lifetime of assessing situations and trying to make the choices and decisions that are the most helpful. The hardest decisions are the ones in which we weigh two goods against each other, or try to find a best alternative among few attractive options–in other words, the gray areas….

Killing is wrong, but what about in a just war? Divorce is wrong, but what if abuse and adultery are committed? Shall I feed the baby, get dinner for the family, or respond to my son's urgent request for understanding on his homework? And so on. In real life, we have to weigh individual goods and evils, rights and wrongs, relative to some other goods and evils, rights and wrongs.

Acceptance that life is very difficult and that each moment presents brand new challenges for acceptance of “what is,” right now, that moral decisions are often difficult and perplexing, allows us to move forward calmly and lovingly to make good decisions and choices about the difficult gray areas, the areas of moral/ethical confusion that we often find ourselves in.

 

 

 

Acceptance 12 – Life is too damn hard, and so is change. I accept that I need to give up and nothing is ever going to change. Ever. There. Are you satisfied?

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Life is hard and so is change. And yes, you can accept that the world and people are going to always be … natural … challenging … the way they are. No surprises there. But give up? Give up what? The struggle?

First, consider letting go of the idea of “struggle.” Think instead of peacefully chipping away at long-term open-ended tasks.

Imagine a circle drawn around you–your circle of comfort.

If you choose to give up on changing things, on chipping away, your life won't get easier, because your “circle of comfort” will shrink if you stop working for change.

If you choose to stop pushing out on your circle of comfort, the world has a way of pushing back in on you, hard. So either way, you'll end up pushing–either for your own chosen goals, or to keep your circle of comfort from shrinking down to nothing but discomfort.

So why not pick a few things that you want to improve or change, and push a little at them? Better to push than be pushed, and doing one of the two seems to be the only choice we have. We don't seem to have the choice to hide out, quit, be neutral for too long, because the world just keeps on pushing. Your zone of comfort and peace keeps getting smaller unless you keep pushing its boundaries out. So pick some things to push for and work at. Yes, it's a lot of trouble, but so is doing nothing.

What I'd like to change is everything about me, everyone else and the world. But it ain't gonna happen. So now what?

So approach life the way you would approach eating an elephant. Bite by bite. So you can't do everything. So do something. What are you going to do today?

Sometimes I can accept things, and when I do, everything does seem different. But then I can't keep it going. I slip into my old ways and thoughts and everything's the same again, the same old fight, the same old thoughts. I give up!

When you have spent your life up until now overwhelmed by the immensity of its problems and challenges, it's hard to dim that awareness down to just right-now, just this-moment, just today, which frankly, is much more interesting, fuller, richer, and more potentially powerful than any big picture. But when you feel overwhelmed by the enormity of life and its problems, go small, go now, go present, and accept what is, today, now. Accept what's challenging you today. And from the peace that that acceptance brings, in the present, you will find the energy and the peace to move forward on the small steps you choose to take today.

But each day, when you feel discouraged? Stop. Accept whatever it is in-the-now that you're resisting, and you'll be able to move forward. This can happen in a second if that's the time you have.

Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. Just ask for the acceptance you need, and for the answers.

I'm sick of the pressure to do different, to be better, to always be pushing for change. Yet I'm not satisfied with the way things are. How can acceptance help me?

Probably there are ways that you are that you like, even if some others don't, and you're naturally resisting their pressure for you to change those. Or there are things about yourself you've accepted as what-is, and you are currently unmotivated to change in those areas. Acceptance of what-is today includes acceptance of yourself as-you-are and others as-they-are, including their unwanted pressures. When you can accept both of these, you will be in a peaceful place to work in small steps toward changing the things you choose to work on. Let go of the rest, for now.

 

 

 

Acceptance 11 – I hate the world. It's a mess. How can accepting a big mess help or change anything?

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God apparently intended for the world to be as it is, since this is the way he created it, and he is all-powerful and all-wise and all-good, by definition. He doesn't mess up, and he didn't mess up with the world. For whatever reason, he wanted it as it is: based on the evidence, he seems to like immutable natural laws–birth, death, rebirth, cycles, change over time, variety, diversity, potential for anything and everything. His creatures (including us) seem capable of amazing greatness and smallness. That's what he made, what he wanted, and what he called 'good.' Who are we to argue with god?

So, accept the way the world is, notice that actually, it's pretty interesting and full of possibility, even if heartache and challenge and loss are also part of it. Then decide what you want to do with your time on earth, as everyone else will. Will we/they change the world? Yes, in small or big ways. Will we/they make the world or human nature fundamentally different from what God made it? No. But that still leaves each of us a lot of room for play, fun, ambition, profit, loss, adventure, accomplishment, and changes of all kinds.

Everyone drives me crazy. Everyone irritates me, is stupid, mean, crazy. And that's not going to change. So how can acceptance help?

It's true that people will always be as they are–fallible, weak, mistaken, often harmful, etc. You're right that that will never change, because God made all of us capable of being all things–harmful, harmless, helpful, and all the things in between, as we choose.

But that doesn't mean you have to accept being irritated or hurt by others, either now or forever. You can work with your reaction to other people, but the first step is to accept them as they are, to learn to accept that they are what they are and may or may not ever change, as they choose.

With that acceptance, you can go a very long way toward changing your own irritation or over-reaction to the way they are, though. Your high blood pressure and racing angry thoughts and self-righteously indignant pulse can change. Acceptance of others as-they-are-now, along with acceptance of yourself as you are now, can lead to a greater quietness, gentleness, peace of mind with others, and with yourself. But acceptance comes first.

First you gotta get that they are who they are and you are who you are, and for now, you can be OK with what is. Armed with that first step, with that calm, in the present, you can take the small steps that will change your reaction to others, which in itself, often makes a huge difference in others' behavior toward you. Day by day, as you accept others today, you will find that your relationships improve, are calmer, easier, friendlier. They'll just work better all around.

I really don't think much will ever change–not me, not them, nothing. Things are what they are. I am what I am. What will be will be. How can acceptance help or change anything?

Remember the serenity prayer, the one about knowing what things to accept and what things to change? You're right that the world will stay the world, with all its natural heartaches and losses and limitations. And you're right that people will always be people, forever capable of mistakes, failings, weaknesses, fears, foolishness, harm.

What you can change is: all the rest. Given what you have to work with–nature's laws and fallible humans–there is still a lot you can do. You can't make anything perfect, but you can chip away and improve it, for a time. Look around you and you'll see millions of people doing just that, making themselves and their situations better. Not all it once, but very gradually, step by step, over the course of their lives. They pick a few things to work on–whatever they find most urgent or interesting–and then chip away at them. What will you choose to chip away at?

 

 

 

Acceptance 10 – Why should I change? I like myself the way I am.

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I can accept that. Can you?

What CAN'T acceptance do? What are we stuck with, no matter how accepting we become?

People are going to go on dying, being born, getting sick. People are going to keep on making mistakes. We will never get everything right, any relationship, any situation, but we can improve them, and we can enjoy life more. We will always have challenges. God made us and the world the way it is, the way we are, and the cycle of life, illness, death, and human errors seems to be the way he wanted things to be. Part of what is possible in the world and in other people is cruelty and unkindness and nature's catastrophes and the things that happen seemingly beyond our control. But whenever we accept, whatever we accept, it all helps us move on–to work, to love, to living more fully and more happily. When we accept, then we can find the energy to keep chipping away, to change ourselves, our relationships, and our world, little by little. And that's a lot.

I don't like myself at all. Changing is too hard and I don't think I'll ever be able to do it enough to like myself. But I can't accept that I'll be this way forever. What now?

Yes, you will always be you, with heartaches and challenges, and with things you want to improve. That's all you have to accept, for today, for now–that you are not all you wish you could be, and never will be. You will never be 'perfect,' whatever that means, and neither will anyone else. Based on all the evidence I see, God didn't make human beings that way, doesn't expect it of them, and isn't disappointed in them. But God does seem interested in change, diversity, variety, learning, growth, because all over the world, people are doing different things with their time on earth, with their powers and energies and lives. So choose something, and do it, by chipping away around the edges at something. Improve something. You won't ever get it perfect nor will anyone else, but for now, for today, and gradually, as mountains are moved shovelful by shovelful, as an elephant is eaten bite-by-bite, you'll make some changes in some areas that are most interesting or important to you, and so will everyone else. So what would you like to do today, with your new acceptance?

Acceptance 9 – Acceptance seems to work, but it's so hard. Any suggestions? Help?

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One of the things that 'just is,' is that change is sometimes slow and difficult (and sometimes instant and easy too, as in those happy moments when the dawn breaks and everything is suddenly nicer and clearer and we understand some things that we didn't understand before–and now everything seems much easier.) When you ask for acceptance (and it does help to ask for it) don't put a time limit on yourself, don't struggle, don't worry about speed. (If you don't have much time, just give it what you have and that will be enough.) Just stay in the right-now for-the-moment, forget yesterday and who you were then, let go of worrying about tomorrow (it won't do any good anyway), and just be OK with right now, with this minute, today.

Another thing that helps in learning acceptance is taking quiet time to just sit and be in the space of accepting-now-what-is. If you can find a few moments to be by yourself, meditate or pray, sitting or kneeling–and just be in the present, accepting what is in the present without thinking. Mentally make an effort to stay with the very stuff you used to push away and run away from.

Noticing and replacing non-accepting thoughts with other, accepting thoughts works. Make up your own happy mantra; my favorite is 'Surrender.'

Here's another approach: Get active when you're feeling non-accepting. It's hard to hold unpleasant thoughts and feelings when you're busy doing physical stuff, although not all people can be active (an area of 'limitation' one can learn to accept.)

Do something nice for someone: It's hard to think bad thoughts when you're being nice. Think positively: try to find something good about everything and everyone (including yourself). Count your blessings. Thinking good thoughts is an approach which really works when I can't fall asleep. I list every little thing I own, every face that ever smiled my way even for a minute, every raindrop, every ray of sunshine, the shoes on my feet and the spoon I eat with. All are gifts that I have been blessed with (think of life without them!) It helps me to accept my challenges when I take time to remember how blessed I am.

Fixing Long-Term Relationships – #8 Insights Series

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One of the most difficult challenges to long-term relationships is the time we spend together fussing over our shared pasts. Whether we’re with siblings, parents, children, other family members or friends, we drag around our conflicting memories and dredge them up over and over, analyzing them endlessly or sniping at each other whenever we get a chance to make our points—that we were right, back then, and others were wrong, that we were justly aggrieved and unfairly injured.
 
Our pasts are all dark and filled with resentments; none of us is an exception. We just didn’t understand very much. We were misunderstood and mistreated. And pretty mean, too. And stupid. And insensitive. And at times downright destructive. We generally made a mess of things—certainly our relationships—and none of us, none of them, were ever as forgiving and accepting and appreciative as we should have been.
 
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all just agree to let the past go, rather than try to change it, or dwell on its disappointments? What a relief that would be. Because, in fact, we can’t change the past. It’s not possible. The past is gone. It has passed. Maybe that’s why they call it “the past….”
 
Spending present moments trying to fix or change our variously  muddied versions of what happened in the past is a perfect waste of infinitely valuable present-time.
 
The present moment is the only time we’ll ever have to be kind to each other, laugh together, share interests and good times. The present is the only time we can ever actually hold in our hands, make the most of, do something with, and about. The present is the only time we’ll ever give or receive anything, any gift at all. Maybe that’s why they call it the “present….” 
 
The past is just gone. It isn’t, anymore. It can’t be fixed or remedied.
 
When we spend the present moment attempting to rectify something that happened in the past, we surrender all the fresh possibilities inherent in our sparkling new moments—to our sad pasts! Because in attempting to fix the past, we relive it.
 
If we want justice, vengeance, fairness, recognition, or love because of our unhappy pasts, and choose to use our present moments to work hard on addressing all that sad past stuff, we’ll just stay stuck back there in all its ugliness. By hauling our dismal pasts into our present moments, we’ll not only fill up our present moments with past hurts, guilt and regrets, but we’ll also insure that our futures will be as bleak as our pasts were—because we are not using our present moments to create happier realities.
 
Similarly, while reliving happy memories may have its place, when we dwell on them, try to relive or recapture them, we lose our present opportunities to create new joy. No matter how tender or alive the past feels compared with the present, whether incomparably sad, or incomparably sweet—either way, our happiest option is to leave the past behind us, get out of our past completely, and focus on what’s next, on creating whatever different possibility today holds for joy. (It helps if you can see yourself, your identity,  as a very light, empty container ready to be filled with present possibilities, rather than a heavy one already filled to overflowing with past influences.)
 
One can listen attentively to another’s past grievances, or express profound regret at having caused them pain. However, apologies work because they’re rooted in deep caring during the present moment. The only part of apology and forgiveness that heals is the part that conveys, in one way or another, “I deeply care about you now, you’re important to me now, your happiness is important to me, now.” Add to these a mutually concerted effort to let the past go, to forget that the injuries ever happened, and we have received a brand-new gift: a lifetime of new, present-moment opportunities to contribute to one another’s lives upon which to build our future relationship.
 
And what is a relationship, after all, but an opportunity to serve another person, permission to love them?
 
Will we ever hurt each other again? Of course we will. The uncontrollable and unavoidable cost of human relationships is their potential for unpredictable pain. We’re called humans because…well, we’re human! How we handle that pain, however, is what makes human relationships possible.
 
Unfortunately, beating one another over the head with our past sorrows never changed anyone, or any relationship, except perhaps for the worst. Whether we decide to leave our dear ones, or to keep on loving them, our best response to being hurt or having been hurtful is always to let it go, right now. Forever. It didn’t happen. And instead, do your best to make the next instant a great one, either with them or without them. That’s the best we can ever do anyway, for ourselves or for anyone else.
 
When we accept, appreciate and forgive ourselves and each other, right now, we’re free to focus on doing our best to create new loving and happy present moments, whether apart or together, right now. And if we don’t experience happiness right now, if we don’t choose to share love right now, when will we ever? Now is the only time we will ever have to do anything.

 

 

Feeling Alone, Feeling Oneness – #7 Insights Series

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Loneliness, one of mankind’s greatest problems, seems even more prevalent in the modern world than it used to be. In the midst of crowds, in the middle of a busy work life, in a teeming city, people still often feel alone, and then withdraw further to feel even more isolated in their separate living spaces.

 

Unfortunately, most modern cultures view humanity in the worst possible light, spreading the word that our fundamental reality is one of independent, separated beings struggling to survive and prevail, competing with one another for the fulfillment of our needs, defending ourselves and our self-images, fighting for our rights and our dreams. What perspective could be lonelier than that?

 

Yet all of nature and science and spirituality and religion cry out together in unison that our lonely sense of ourselves as separated, independent beings is complete nonsense, an illusion.

 

Look at nature. Nothing is independent in nature. Not one thing. Everything is dependent upon everything else for life, every single second. We couldn’t live a minute without the earth’s air and the sun's energy, nor a week without food and water. We count on the web of life for everything. Even in modern society, we rely on those who came before us, those who are living now–near or far–and those who come after us, for everything of value in our lives. And they all rely on us in return.

 

Every year at springtime, without fail, an apparently dying nature renews itself in a bubbling, burgeoning blossoming of rebirth.

 

So in what way are any of us doomed and separate beings, except in our culturally-programmed imaginations?

 

The healthiest, happiest perspective we can have (and also the most scientifically and socially sane one) is to see our fundamental reality, our identity, not as separate beings who struggle to survive and then die, but rather as unique and necessary aspects of a unified whole which never ends and never dies.

 

It’s a difficult “self” to grasp at first, and then to accept, and finally to live in accordance with. But it’s the only identity that recognizes, from somewhere deep within, the truth that “we are the world; we are the children.”

 

We can embrace this perspective by letting go of our resistance to ourselves, to one another and to the-world-as-it-is. We can’t feel the truth of our oneness when we are busy judging and picking on ourselves, or others. We cannot know our undivided self when we are holding it at arm’s length.

 

We can start loving and appreciating others and the world when we stop resisting ourselves. When we learn to be easier on ourselves, we’ll learn to see others, this earth and the universe without all the defensive negative coloration we paint over it, but instead, just as we all really are, just as the world really is, wonderful and completely amazing, just exactly as it was made and meant to be by its creator.

 

Right now, however, we see ourselves and all-that-is in the worst possible light.

 

But the “evil” world we see “out there” isn’t really out there at all. What we’re seeing out there is rather, what’s “in here.” The worlds we see are just our unhappy projections, our reflections of what we think we are, at our worst.

 

What if I could genuinely believe that I am fundamentally and forever safe, loving and lovable, powerful, and good, despite the mistakes I've made and will make? I would find it much easier to see others, both strangers and those I know, the same way.

 

Unfortunately, most of us have been brought up to see ourselves as messed-up—some might call us “sinners”—struggling, hopeless, frustrated, at least a little crazy, and a lot mean and angry.

 

And to be sure, we are still learning, still making a lot of mistakes, still feeling confused. But that doesn’t change the eternal and essential truth about ourselves—that on the most permanent, basic—and real—level, on the spiritual level, we are exactly as we were created to be, forever safe, lovable and loving, powerful and good.

 

The only thing that ever stops us from being happy on this earth, in peaceful oneness with one another and all of nature, is our resistance to accepting ourselves and others, and the world, just exactly as it is, and as we are. God is quite up to handling everything else in his own mysterious ways.

 

Now why is that so hard?

 

It’s hard because we have carefully built up, brick-by-brick, a hard-and-fast idea of who we are as human beings that is quite different from God's universally lovable and beloved creation 

 

To be sure, we've left within the nasty and sweeping identity we've hung upon humanity, one teensy comforting little clause, a convenient “out” just for ourselves (and maybe a few others we like,) one we can take out and look at whenever we need some reassurance: this caveat is that we are the lucky exceptions to the rule. It's all the rest of the people on earth who are the messed-up problem. Then we hurry to make every possible effort to shore up our confidence in our own specialness by defensively walling out most of the world, and walling ourselves “safely” in within God’s in-crowd. 

 

Unfortunately, such an isolationist identity, however dressed-up and fancy, is nothing more than a momentarily comforting fairy tale, all about how much better we are than everyone else, how much more deserving, how much smarter, how much less guilty, how fundamentally…different.

 

The bad thing is, though, we can see right through it. We can’t really buy into this temporarily reassuring illusion, not really. We just don’t believe in it. Oh, we want to believe it, all right, because we’d feel a lot safer if we thought that we really were basically different from everyone else. But in our deepest hearts, we know the truth, which is that we, uh, may, well, actually be, er, like, uh, human. Sort of, well, like, you know (gulp) all the rest.

 

Which scares the bejesus out of us.

 

It is such a relief to just let go of everything we’ve stored up against ourselves and everyone else, and live freely in the present moment, as both a giver and receiver in the great cycle of dependencies and exchanges which is our most fundamental nature, our truest reality. It is such a relief to stop worrying about distinctions and differences, and about human mistakes. So what, if some of us have been lucky enough to have learned more than others, if some are currently “ahead,” and others “behind,” in understanding? We’ll all eventually be given all the time and help we need to learn whatever it is we need to learn…. How else would a just and loving God operate?

 

When we use the present moment simply to give all we can and to take what we’re given, we can all just relax….

 

Happy lives are not about discriminating and selecting among those aspects of society we might want to associate with. We can start seeing ourselves and all others differently, learn to love ourselves and all others, give to all, enjoy all, embrace all. And as we learn to accept and appreciate ourselves and all others, there is no doubt we’ll be loved in return.

 

How lonely is that?