Tag Archives: christian

Stressed, Tired? Overworked? Hate Working?

Posted on by
Reply

Some lucky people just love their work. Or they always seem to love to work. Not me. I used to greatly resent the long hours I spent earning a living almost as much as I resisted my long daily list of “Things I Have To Do.”

 

It's not that I'm lazy. I just always thought that working interfered with getting on with my life, learning, and doing what I was supposed to be doing. Now I know that work usually offers just exactly the particular living, lessons, and opportunities I need. And now, more often, I enjoy all the kinds of work I do.  

 

Caveat: I’m now more often able to do work that appeals to me, but I haven’t always been so fortunate.

 

Here’s what I’ve learned about work that has helped me move from (generally) resenting and resisting it, to enjoying it:

 

I’ve learned that putting “work” and “play” into two opposing mental categories (play = good, work = bad) doesn’t reflect reality very well, because so-called “work” can often be very involving, and so-called fun/leisure activities can be quite boring. It all depends on where you're coming from, mentally, as you do the activity.

 

Marketers have pushed hard to convince us of this imaginary dichotomy (work = bad, fun = good) in order to sell us their long list of “leisure” goods and pastimes, such as tourism, food and drink, hobbies, toys and so on. Eventually, consumers started accepting as truth the notion that work is something anyone should want to escape from (to a car! to the boat! to the islands! to drink a Coke!) The idea of working in a cubicle all day started to seem pretty tough after a lifetime of exposure to a barrage of anti-work commercials advocating instant getaways–even though in actuality, cubicles are designed for concentration and privacy and personal creativity, and working in one might just possibly offer something far more interesting than a possibly dull day spent lying on a dock tanning somewhere. It all depends on how you're conditioned to look at it.

 

Some people love gardening (for instance) and spend all their leisure time at it. Others hate it but spend just as much time at it, because it's their job. Both people do the same activities, but because they're coming from different places mentally, gardening is fun to one and work to the other.

 

Mark Twain once attempted to define work as “what a body has to do,” which definition accurately distinguished work from play by focusing solely on where the do-er is coming from. If s/he is coming from a feeling of duty and responsibility, no matter the activity, it becomes “work.” If s/he feels at choice, if the activity feels optional,  the activity becomes play, rest, or relaxation.

 

From a long-term perspective, everyone is always at choice all the time, in everything we do. No one has to do anything at all. On any given day, we can choose to just up and quit and kind of fade away, or die. All we do, all our lives, is make choices, about when and how to die, and about how to spend all the hours we choose to live, in between being born and dying.

 

We need do nothing. Sudden illnesses and accidents prove this frequently, as presidents and slaves take to their beds and the world still goes on. Consider the lilies of the field: they neither toil nor spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was never arrayed as one of these. 

 

However, most people have pretty big life-agendas, so most people stay busy.

 

My husband once pointed out to me that my long list of “Things I Have To Do Today” was in reality a list of all the things I very much wanted to do. Say what?! Like, I want to mow the lawn? Clean the toilet? Pick up the dry cleaning? Yet if someone put a gun to my head and told me that, from now on, I could no longer have clean clothes or bathrooms or a tidy-looking lawn, I’d freak. I want those things in my life. (Actually, someday I’d rather have something more ecologically-sound surrounding me than a lawn, but that’s another story….)

 

What if someone somewhere suddenly walked into my life and prevented me from taking care of my family or friends or possessions, from working, or learning, or exercising, or making any of the myriad choices I currently indulge in as I decide how to spend the few precious hours that make up my life? I’d be pretty mad, despite the fact that he would have effectively relieved me of my daily task list….

 

Last week our local YMCA closed for cleaning. I fretted and whined all week about not being allowed to do my usual workout routine. Hmmm. Usually I complain all week about having to do my usual workout routine. What is fun and what is work depends entirely on where I'm coming from at the moment.

 

Like everyone else, I occasionally get hyper about not doing more of the things on my life list of “Things I Want to Do Before I Die.” But such suffering is mild compared with what I endure when I forget that all the things on my daily “to do” list aren’t merely odious duties and responsibilities that I must somehow grit my teeth and hold my nose and get nobly past; they are exactly the very things I’ve chosen to do, from among all the options I’m currently aware of having, that I most want done.

 

Maybe it would be nice to be wildly wealthy and pay for lots of others to do more of my work. But then I’d have to expend a lot of time and energy managing their help and my money, and I don’t much relish those tasks either. Besides, if the lessons I most need to learn as an individual involve being wealthy, God will help me get there. And until then, he'll have other lessons for me to learn, in other ways….

 

Where we “come from,” mentally and emotionally, as we’re doing work, whatever the tasks, is what makes all the difference. I’ve happily retitled all my daily lists to reflect their more appropriate and accurate reality: now they’re “Things I Want To Do Today,” instead of “Things I Have To Do Today” lists. I work hard to remember, these days, to shift my mind from “I have to” or “I need to” or “I must,” to “I want to.”

 

Along these same lines, whenever my list is long (and it always is) but my schedule flexible (true more often these days than in the past) I’ve learned to ask, given a moment of transition from one task to another, “What do I want to do next?” instead of “What do I have to do next?” The results of this tiny little shift really knocked me out at first. I could hardly believe what a difference this small distinction makes, and I certainly didn’t know the power of this shift until I tried it.

 

To my great surprise, I found that whenever I genuinely asked that question—“What do I want to do next?”—and took a moment to listen/wait for the answer, I always found that the answer was already on my mental list of things I “needed” to do. Surprising. And amazing. Because I had always thought that if I asked such a question honestly, my subconscious mind would leap to answer me with “lie on a Hawaiian beach!” or “take a trailride down a mountainside!” or some such. But no. Not at all.

 

Checking out what I want to do before I begin the next activity always makes the next, “chosen” task much more fun, and certainly lighter. Furthermore, when I get an answer and follow up on it, I often find out that my new day's re-ordered schedule is much more efficient than my merely logical brain could ever have designed. My inspirations are always much cleverer than I am.

 

A related insight about work came to me not long ago while I was pondering the traditional meanings of a religious term, “God’s will.”

 

I used to think that whatever God’s will for me was, it must be something completely different than my own will for me. Probably, in fact, God’s will for me was in direct opposition to my own, me being a miserable sinner and all, with all kinds of disgusting impulses, and him being perfect. Surely our wills would be in complete opposition, considering the devil whispering in my ear and all. God’s will, as I imagined it, had to be something harder, different, and more self-sacrificial than any of my own very-dear-to-my-heart, most-secret wishes. Doubtless, I thought, God wants me to give all that stuff up, give everything I have to the poor, and come follow him to Africa or somewhere, leaving all I love behind.

 

So of course, for a long time, I resisted even asking God The Question (“What is your will for me?”) Being pretty willful already, well, I had plans, and didn’t need anyone adding to my list or crossing out my stuff, particularly not God. I was quite confident that none of his answers would agree with any of mine anyway, so I just didn't ask, hoping he wouldn't notice my modest  omission.

 

Surprise. When I finally did work up the guts to actually ask the question (and now I do it more often, day-to-day, and sometimes even moment-to-moment) I always get the same answer. God wants me to be happy. And he wants me to share my happiness with others. That's it.

 

And the specifics? He helps me with those, too. To my utter amazement and astonishment, I’ve learned that God’s will for me, whether over the long term, or from day to day, is always exactly whatever, on the deepest and highest level, I most want for me, too, at that time. He wants me to do, right now, whatever it is I most want to do right now. Sometimes what I really want to do is so perfect I've reppressed it, but God always dredges it up for me. S/he  just works that way, better than magic.

 

The specific work God recommends of course varies from time to time (and no, I don’t hear voices)—but on the most general level, his will and my will are always the same–to do something, in some small way, that is caring, accepting, supportive, kind, useful. That's the only thing that ever makes me happy, or anyone else, for that matter. And I do so want to be happy.

 

Mother Theresa once said there are no great acts of love, only small acts of great love.

 

Often the urge to “do something helpful” takes the form of caring gently for myself. Hey, I’m God’s beloved child too, even though I sometimes forget that. More often, I’m prompted to continue my efforts for others in some small way. All I ever need to do is to remember to ask the question/s—either one of them—“What do I want to do now?” and/or “What is your will for me?” because when I do, I am lifted back into my overriding purpose, and am more able to hold it in the back of my mind as I work or play or whatever you want to call it, feeling well-supported in my task, and receiving the help I need to get that task accomplished peacefully and well.

 

Staying in the present moment helps a lot too, especially when the present task seems daunting.

 

In the past, no matter what activity I was engaged in, I spent a lot of time fussing that I really should be doing something else. When I rushed through my half-assed approach to mowing the lawn, I would fret that I hadn’t yet had time to read the newspaper and keep up with current events. Later, as I hurriedly scanned the paper, I worried about doing the laundry. Hastily sorting the laundry, I entertained nagging doubts about not getting in my workout. Yet, running down the road later, I obsessed about neglecting my husband. Alone with him at last, I found myself pining for time to myself, but when I was finally alone, I felt lonely and anti-social and wondered if my life was too self-absorbed. So I’d volunteer, and spend my volunteer hours mulling about not having time left over to use my talents or have a creative life….

 

And so on and on, in a stupid endless cycle of never being here and now, never living in the present, but always focusing on how I hadn't been or done “enough” in the past, or else hurrying to have, do or be “more” in the future. Funny, but no one ever worries or frets about anything when they’re focused on their work in the present–only when they’re mulling about, in the past and future, which don’t even exist….

 

In the past, as I rushed to finish the items on my “Have To Do” lists, I often dismissed any possibility of doing anything as well as I could. I mean, why even try, with so many limitations, with so little time and energy to put into any given task, and so many other things to worry about? After all, I reasoned, the results of giving “my best effort” in such a constrained situation would only be embarrassing. So I wouldn't even try. And thus I rarely earned the very real satisfaction that comes with a job well-done, along with its many other rewards. 

 

I've since learned that, even given only a few minutes, one can do one’s best, strive for excellence, focus on one task at a time, stay fully present, pay full attention to each detail, and work hard to appreciate and accept “what is” in that moment. 

 

Alternatively, one can spend those same few minutes rushing around and fretting. In both these instances, the results and the experience of working for those two minutes are totally different. The difference lies always in where I'm coming from–what purpose I’ve given myself, my atttitude toward excellence, and whether or not I recognize that I'm doing something I want to do–or not.

 

I still often fall into these foolish work patterns (old habits die hard) but I’m also gradually retraining my brain to recall and apply my new insights more often, as new challenges arise.

 

I’m also finally learning to “chip away” at goals or tasks, to take very small steps, and to be persistent in sticking with each of them.

 

Sometimes when I feel overwhelmed by all that I want to do (and even when I recognize that I’m the one who’s chosen to do all this stuff) I'll somehow manage to remember to mentally push away the whole big (scary) picture—the long impossibly hard list of undone things—and instead select and focus on just one small piece of one thing, and start “chipping away” at it. When I totally focus on that one small step, staying in the present, paying attention to detail, doing the best job I’m capable of doing at that moment (which is, admittedly, sometimes crap, but then, sometimes crap is my best), then I can accept and appreciate my own small contributions, whatever they are, along with my own fallibility and mistakes, and keep on chipping away at the next task.

 

I’m also getting better about not rushing, pushing or hurrying through work, although I still try to work efficiently and quickly. Again, the differences between these two approaches may seem like very fine distinctions, but the two are really quite different. Again, it’s just a matter of “coming from” a different place, mentally.

 

Whenever I hurry/rush/push, I just feel bad, because each of these words imply negative self-judgments (“You’re not good enough! You’re moving too slowly! You ought to think faster!” etc.) On the other hand, working quickly or efficiently has the different, more positive connotation of focusing firmly upon effecting my task well, without stress or carelessness. I can work quickly and still attend thoughtfully to the task at hand—something I cannot do when I’m rushing past the present moment toward some vague future urgency.

 

I learned another helpful work-related tip when training for a marathon: the process of getting there, of doing the actual work itself, that leads up to the goal, is almost always far more satisfying than the final achievement of the goal itself. True, I loved the day of the marathon; it was fun, exciting, exhilarating. But when I looked back afterward, what I really loved most of all was the training, all the good and bad and in-between workouts I got through during the months leading up to the marathon.

 

So—as all the wise sages know and express, but as I somehow was very slow to “get” on any personal level for such a long time–happiness is not something you find at the end of a journey, but rather, contained within the journey itself. Of course it’s fun to achieve success, but after a brief moment or a day or at most a week of exhilaration, such happiness wears off, and you just move on to the next challenge. Nearly all the fun, all the meaning, the involvement, all the interest lies in the long trip itself, not in the destination. So nowadays, once I’ve decided on a goal, I let go of it, stop thinking about it, and instead focus my attention on chipping away at that day’s or that moment’s work.

 

Another other good thing I've learned about a steady focus on “process” (rather than on the end-point) is that the final product, the result, usually turns out to be better too….

 

From my husband's example, I've learned that persistence in the face of huge challenges and overwhelming obstacles is not necessarily, as I was raised to believe, a foolish consistency–something maddening and frustrating, to be avoided at all costs. Difficulties had always been signals for me that, whatever my chosen task, it was now clear that it was inappropriate from the start, and so was no longer worth pursuing.

 

No.

 

My husband loves challenges. When he gets one, he lowers his head threateningly, snorts loudly, bellows, and paws the ground thunderously with a glint of fierce joy in his eyes (well, metaphorically speaking, anyway.) He loves it when someone tells him he can’t do something. It makes him laugh. His whole body visibly shifts, readying for action. He loves it when a task is impossible, because for him, impossible takes just a little longer. Challenges energize and focus him, probably because his past persistence has been so well-reinforced by his past successes (and yes, he’s had some failures too, has had to finally give up a time or two, too.) But overall, the harder and more challenging the work, the more he enjoys it. All this came as an amazing revelation to me who grew up with the attitude that if something was difficult, obviously I had picked the wrong task for my talents, and needed to drop it and choose something else to do.

 

My husband has also taught me by example that a good way to work harmoniously with others is to work hard to make them successful, and also, to help them with what is most important to them (which, to my surprise, is not the same for everyone, and rarely what I would want most, but instead, varies greatly from person to person.) Observing his experience with this, I’ve noticed that most of the many people he has taken the time to understand, help, and support, later have come through for him when he needed them the most.

 

He’s also taught me something about myself that is probably generalizable to most people—that I’m happiest when I stay busy. I used to rush through my long lists of tasks in order to get a moment to relax and escape from them (and I still enjoy napping and reading.) But for the most part, these days, I try to stay busy and productive. I find staying busy works best all around for me in a lot of different ways.

 

I'm also learning not to worry about what I leave undone. Even when I try my best to follow all the above “rules,” some important things just don’t get done. But a lot of other things do. And I’m learning to be OK with that kind of imperfect result. Because the depressing fact is, well, ummm, I’m human. (How embarassing.) Which means I’ll never do anything perfectly or to my complete satisfaction, and that’s OK, as long as I know I did my (often meager) best at the time (an important condition!) To err is human (to my surprise), and I’ve recently decided to humbly give up the good fight and join the human race. Learning to be more accepting of others’ imperfections has helped me become a lot easier on myself.

 

Regular exercise is never selfish. In fact, it’s the most unselfish way you can spend time in your life, along with ingesting wisely, getting a good night’s sleep, and prayer—because you are more able to help both others and yourself when you feel good.

 

The most tiring thing in the world is the stress of constant judgment, whether it’s directed toward yourself or toward others. Whenever I'm feeling very resistant—about myself, others, or the way the world is, no matter how routine my work of the moment may be, I'm soon exhausted. So one key to peace of mind and relaxation at work (and at play, if I must continue to make such distinctions) is to find new ways to let go of my resistance to others, to myself, and to the way things are in this best of all possible worlds. When I can find my acceptance again, I always return to every task with renewed appreciation for it and for everything and everyone, including myself.

 

Here’s what else I’ve learned about feeling tired when working: I rest or do something else, briefly, when I can, or at least take a moment to take three long deep slow breaths. I also try to avoid rushing through the present moment in my hurry to get to anticipated rest/reward/relaxation/escape, or to different tasks. Mr. Tortoise was right. Mr. Hare was wrong, remember? He collapsed in exhaustion and never got the job done? A steady work pace offers me a much more productive and peaceful routine than rushing-and-resting-and-rushing-and-resting.

 

I enjoy my life so much more these days as I’ve gained control over my various addictions. Alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, drugs, and food addictions gradually increase body tension and inevitably work against anyone's ability to enjoy work.

 

Transitions between tasks often challenge me. I'm too tempted to want to hold onto the excitement of my last accomplishment. Although it's always wise to step back and admire my own small achievements and pat myself on the back before moving on, I mostly need to keep moving on. I read somewhere recently that someone has a computer screensaver that says, “What’s Next???” in bold letters. Whoever he is, he has learned to keep on moving, to go on and take the next step, no matter how small. The present always holds new gifts, very different from the gifts of the past. (That’s why they call it “the present….”)

 

Whenever I’m working, it helps me to remember what the purpose of all my busy-ness is. What is my overriding goal in life, in general, as well as my goal for each specific task I do? The only goal that will ever be satisfying to me or to anyone is always the same one, although it has many faces and many names. Some call it God, others call it peace or truth. Sometimes it’s called service, or kindness, or love, or healing, or joy, or oneness or giving. All are exactly the same goal, shining in all its many different facets. Whenever I’m clear about my purpose as I begin each task, that task goes well and easily. Whenever I lose sight of my goal, or have some other goal in mind, then things don’t go so well.

 

And what if my current task seems somehow beneath me, unworthy, uninteresting, or radically different from what I would prefer to be doing?

 

Our culture puts a lot of importance on choice in career, vocation, avocation, i.e., in what we spend our time doing. And since we change a lot as we grow older, and learn more about ourselves, and for all the other reasons it’s so hard to change directions in life, we often feel stuck in work that doesn’t feel right for us.

 

It is indeed a wonderful thing to be able to do what your heart is pulling you toward. But when I feel I can’t choose that for now, when I feel compelled to work at something which isn’t anywhere near my first choice of activities, I can always make it more interesting, more worthwhile, and more involving by investing my love and time and best efforts and attitudes in it.

 

My favorite example of this approach is the very nice plumpish lady who runs the bus station in our town. When I first entered her mostly-empty station, I thought about how I’d hate such a boring, scary sort of job. But each time I go there, she is so efficient and kind, so courteous and warm to the regulars who come and go, so helpful and thoughtful with each newly confused customer…. The whole place simply shines with her attention. Her beautiful plants adorn each sunny window. She does her job as well as anyone could do it, and she enjoys her day because she extends her quiet, unassuming and gentle kind of love and intelligence and effort to every person who walks in the door. Since she recently (uncomplainingly) lost a leg to diabetes, she has found new resourceful ways to make the necessary adaptations to continue her cheerful work.

 

We’re given the tasks before us for a reason. It’s impossible to be in the wrong place or at the wrong time, for the universe always offers us exactly the lessons we need to learn right now (and when we don’t use the present opportunity to learn them, well then, the universe will offer them to us again, and soon, in another form. So we might as well get on with it.)

 

I try to remember to jump in when something not-my-favorite just has to get done. I try to use the moment to learn, grow, and do my best no matter what it is I have before me, trusting that other doors will open, and other challenges will appear after I’ve learned to do this job well. What I’m doing right now is what I most need to be doing, as long as I’m doing it the best I can. I cannot be but in the right place at the right time. There are no accidents.

 

It also helps to remind myself that I’m not punching a temporal time-clock anymore. With my newfound perspective of having all of eternity to get things right (however “eternity” may look—no one knows) these days I relax more, feel less rushed and hurried. (But I’d still rather learn to be happy sooner, and to share my happiness sooner, so I still try to get on with it.)

 

It’s also relaxing to remember that mistakes are OK with God, and with everyone else too, no matter what others say or act like, because they've made them too, and will make more of them. And the higher up the career ladder they go, the bigger their new mistakes will be, and the more they'll make. Messing up big-time is what being human is all about—that, and learning from our mistakes, and moving on to our next (usually harder) lessons. I see nothing in nature or in the nature of God (although I see much in formal religion) that condemns anyone for their mistakes, and I see great rewards inherent in learning from them, and moving on.

 

I’m dearly loved by God exactly as I am. He made me exactly as I am because that’s the way he meant for me to be—fallible. As the saying goes, God don’t make no junk. With this eternal—and eternally “forgiven”—perspective in mind, I’m much less likely to rush around trying to make up for my far-less-than-perfect past or worry about some vague future. If it’s enough for God that I relax and focus on the task at hand, it’s enough for me, too.

 

God never ever gives up on anyone. The life he gives us is about just-keep-on-truckin’, and he gives us all the time and help we'll need (if we ask him) to do whatever he wants us to do. God never goes away mad, although we often do. He just keeps on waiting around until we come back around to him.

 

My family teases me because I've always been one to keep on making (and raving on and on about) all these great astounding new spiritual discoveries that revolutionize my life—but really, they’re always just the same old rehashed ones, reappearing over and over in different guises. It’s just that I forget about them for awhile, and then I get excited about them when they come up again, all reinforced and seemingly brand shiny-new. God has been so very patient with my comings and goings.

 

I sometimes think dogs are the special creation that God gave us, to teach us what unconditional love really means. God always greets me upon my return to him in just the same way my darling joyous little spaniel Tally greets me when I come home–even when I’ve just stepped on his tail coming hurriedly in the door, and oops, I forgot to feed him, and drat, I’m late, so he’s suffered the indignity and disgrace of having to pee on the floor. What the hell, he says, hey, you’re the greatest! Wow! I sure love you! YAY you’re HOME! With God and his children, it’s always all about “what’s next?” and never about whatever happened before we came home again.

 

Trying to use your special talents if you can (and we all have some) is always a good idea. What are they? They’re all those abilities you’ve always taken for granted, all the abilities you devalued, the ones you were certain couldn’t be all that wonderful because they were always somehow just there, without much effort on your part. People always told you that you were good at them, and to be sure, most other people weren’t so often good at them. All those overlooked  and under-appreciated gifts you tended to denigrate and blow off? Yes, them. They're your talents. You have them.

 

Whenever I’ve developed and used my talents in service to some small slice of humanity, in some small way, it has always been so very satisfying. My gifts were given me for a very special (often unfathomable) reason. So were yours. And someday, looking back, we'll both know why.

 

On the other hand, no one, ever, ever (ever) who ever achieved anything remarkable, whether it be in a career or in any other field of endeavor–whether the work involved special talents or no particular aptitude at all–no one has ever achieved any level of success without a whole lot of struggle, many difficult tradeoffs, very long hours, and a lot of hard hard work. Just because a person has talent, just because they have a real interest, or really really want to do or be or have something, or just because they’re a whiz-kid and a natural wunderkind, doesn’t mean they still won’t have to overcome incredible challenges to reach success in their chosen field or in their chosen goals. This applies to whatever anyone wants most, whether it’s a successful marriage, a career, a lifestyle, an education, spiritual growth, whatever. A lot of life is about tradeoffs, and we'll someday know what was important to us, when we look back at our lives and see where we put our time….

 

Similarly, just because something apparently costs me an unreasonable number of hours or days or years of struggle to achieve, doesn’t mean I’ve chosen the wrong goal or career, or whatever. It only means that I am toughing through all the necessary work it takes to grow into an ever-more useful and happy person, meeting challenges, enduring a thousand failures and mistakes and kicks in the face—just like all the great leaders who have ever lived. Study Lincoln sometime if you want to read a long history of disastrous and heartbreaking failures, right up until the time he became President (and sadly, even after that.) Our greatest leaders aren't perfect. What they are is willing.

 

I’m trying to learn to persevere, for when I do, I find plenty of opportunities for renewed humility and the new wisdom that accompanies each temporary setback, along with the reinforcement that comes with renewed purpose and commitment. Perseverence through difficulties will help me become that much more productive and effective and useful and marketable than I ever was before. God never closes a door without opening a window.

 

I haven’t yet learned to apply all this stuff consistently, or in all situations, and I never will (at least not in this lifetime….) But I'm chipping away at it, and am much enjoying this joyous and rewarding lifetime process. I’ve come a long way toward becoming a happier, more productive, and less stressed-out worker.

 

This particular missive, howevr, has gone on way too long, and I've missed my workout and I'm late in making dinner and I'm stressed out and tired.

 

But happy. So herein endeth my tale.

 

 

How to Polish Up America's Image Abroad

Posted on by
Reply

When I was a child, living in Tokyo after the war as part of the American occupation army, we took every opportunity to visit Japanese shrines, gardens, and teahouses, to learn to play Japanese games, sing their songs, speak their language, to watch traditional kabuki plays and join in national celebrations such as Boys Day, cherry-blossom viewing, and fireworks on New Year’s Eve.

 

Despite the fact that we were no doubt perceived as representatives of a conquering nation by everyday Japanese folk, who must have seen us as responsible for their currently grave economic depression, the destruction of their cities, and the humbling of their leaders, nevertheless, our family’s irrepressible enthusiasm, respect for and interest in Japanese culture was gradually reciprocated by our neighbors’ gentle curiosity about our own “odd” customs—our funny Indian-and-Pilgrim Thanksgiving celebrations, our ghost-and-scarecrow Halloweens, our mysteriously compulsive habit of singing off-key Christmas carols at the tops of our lungs all over our neighborhood at Christmastime….

 

America’s best chance for gaining international respect and understanding will be to increase our own respect and understanding for all other cultures—for their histories, values, traditions, customs, styles, religions, concerns and problems, and their political and economic approaches and ways of life—through more extensive teaching of all forms of acceptance at all levels of schooling—and through more Americans (perhaps our most  influential cultural leaders, such as Limbaugh, Robertson, and Cheney?) traveling to other countries, living with ordinary folk, listening, learning, asking questions, opening their hearts, and marching in solidarity with them at their own sad national commemorations of tragic losses stemming from political violence of all kinds, whether terrorism, assassinations, espionage, or war.

 

Furthermore, since we already direct a lot of tax money toward other countries (but always for U.S. goals) why don't we find out from global citizens (not governments) what's uniquely most important to their countries (projects, problems, goals…) and give generously toward those projects?

 

Only when we’re willing to polish up both our image and our reality as a country that is respectful, appreciative and generously supportive of the unique cultures, values and concerns of other nations, then (and only then) will we have some hope for an image abroad as an informed, compassionate nation worthy of the interest, compassion and support of others.

 

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Treat others as you want them to treat you. This golden rule is the only basis for any relationship—whether personal or international—that ever works.

Hurricane Katrina – A Convenient Scapegoat Arrives Just in Time to Rescue President Bush

Posted on by
Reply

I’m frustrated. And not just by the tragedy that past political indifference has exacerbated in New Orleans, or by the obvious fact that the U.S. is as ill-prepared for serious trouble at home as it is anywhere else in the world, or even by the fact that–well before Katrina–the U.S. economy was, if not on the verge of disaster from gross mismanagement, then at best, going to hell in a hand basket.

 

I’m frustrated because I thought all of President Bush’s chickens were finally coming home to roost.

 

All that money his Republican cronies made off of 9/11 fears, all the profligate sums paid into their friendly war machine’s gaping, indiscriminate maw—on technology and bodyguards and spying and weapons and occupations and war and all the other security approaches that shore up every engine of war profitability and make us all less secure, all that expensive marching off to all corners of the earth to push people around and tell them what to do—I thought all that bad business had finally caught up with them.

 

They’ve soaked the poor and given gobs to the rich. They’ve neglected the environment. They’ve failed to create good jobs. They’ve exacerbated the energy crisis. They’ve propped up favored industries and neglected others. They’ve endangered our economy by irritating people all over the world, who finally wearily resist buying American whenever they can, and take their vacations elsewhere.

 

For once, I thought, all their stupid policies were going to land squarely on their own doorstep.

 

Then along came Hurricane Katrina.

 

And now all of sudden, none of it is anybody’s fault. Our administration’s hands are tied—by Katrina.

 

Without a doubt, Katrina has added immeasurably to the many enormous problems that the U.S. already had before the storm turned her wrathful face upon our citizens.

 

But along with her destruction, Katrina has provided President Bush and his Republican pals the perfect blanket excuse for every failure that was about to be firmly laid to their door.

 

The budget deficit? Unimaginable government overspending? Blame it on Katrina.

 

Our ill-conceived war going badly? Sorry—must divert our efforts to Katrina

 

Dysfunctional international relationships? Too distracted by Katrina.

 

Health care collapsing? Gotta spend the money on Katrina.

 

Lack of energy reform and high heating oil and rising gas prices everywhere? Katrina.

 

Global environmental catastrophes and dangers at every hand? Katrina.

 

Crumbling national infrastructure? Katrina.

 

Underfunded education? Katrina.

 

Terrorism? WMDs and weapons proliferation? Katrina. (Say what?!)

 

Stock market tumbling, real estate buckling, economy faltering? Katrina.

 

For years, the Republican administration has neglected domestic problems and aggravated international ones. Now it’s too late to do anything about any of them.

 

Because, you know. Nature’s power and unpredictability and all that. Shrug shrug. Wink wink. Because…. You know.  

 

Katrina.

Fire and Rain and Answered Prayers

Posted on by
Reply

The morning after our house burned down three years ago, we sat in stunned silence, taking in the wreckage and work that lay ahead. In a weak attempt to cheer everyone up, I joked, “I’d better watch out what I pray for, because my prayers are powerful, and I’m afraid I’ve been praying for more excitement, and more time with my family….”

 

As our losses faded with time and our lives returned to our various versions of normal, my feeble “night-before-the-fire-prayer” attempt at humor has become family lore, growing to include (retroactively) pleas for time off work, for new stuff, stronger muscles, weight loss, unique topics of conversation, time in nature, novel experiences, interesting stories to tell my future grandchildren, new learning, and more patience…. And yes, I received all that.

 

The chaos and tragedy on the Gulf Coast can be in no way compared with our relatively tiny little personal loss (no one was hurt, we were insured and financially secure, our neighborhood, jobs and support systems were intact.) Hurricane Katrina’s suffering victims have endured the irremediable and irreparable tragic losses of loved ones—family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers. Many have been injured, and most have lost all they ever worked for, and must begin rebuilding again from nothing. Many lost their jobs and their livelihoods, all their social support, the towns they grew up in, everything they might once have fallen back on. Everything, in fact, except God.

 

What prayers, the night before such a devastating storm, could possibly have been answered by Hurricane Katrina?

 

I’ll give it a try.

 

Dear God,

 

Help me to appreciate my family, friends, and neighbors, my faith, my character, my education, my memories, and my two strong hands. Help me appreciate all that I have—my home, my possessions, my comforts, my pleasures.

 

Help me to see with new eyes the good in people, and to remember that the highest value is the value of human life everywhere. Help me to focus on helping, not hurting, and to learn to give as freely as I have received. Help me see clearly that mankind is one family, that we are all neighbors, that we are all, in fact, one, completely dependent upon one another.

 

Help me to drop my childish barriers toward differences in education, social classes, races, colors, religions, and nationalities, and to see only the face of God in everyone, especially those in need. Help me to support a proud, reliable, world-class American disaster-relief system available anywhere in the world, at a moment’s notice. Help my country avoid adding to the sum of human misery by turning forever away from war and every other form of political violence. Help me to work to build a wiser global energy future, and international and domestic harmony.

 

Help me become part of creating an exemplary, environmentally-inspired American Gulf Coast, and a safe, modern, compassionate New Orleans retaining all her unique greatness, spirit and traditions.

 

Help me remember that it’s always darkest before the dawn, to look for silver linings in dark clouds, and to accept that the Lord works in mysterious ways.

 

Help me to remember that you are my strength, my hope, my ever-present help in times of trouble. You maketh me to lie down in green pastures, you leadeth me beside the still waters, you restoreth my soul. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me.

 

Amen

My First Big Mistake – #6 Insights Series

Posted on by
Reply

I once decided that living well was mostly about being tougher than a very tough world. Life during my younger adulthood was harder than it is now, and a lot scarier, though I was very proud of the fact that I endured stoically, so to speak. I’ve always searched for answers, and having found some, I was know-it-all stuffy and rigid about them. You’d think an American citizen of good family and good health, comparatively well-off and with many advantages, might be more positive. But I thought, no, I’m just being honest and realistic, and (as we used to say in Texas) maybe just a little hard-assed.

 

Now I think that living well is about accepting and loving all that is. And though I still have my problems, resisting the way things are isn’t a biggie anymore.

 

I concluded, sometime during my college years, that I was fundamentally alone in the world. Despite “friends” and “family,” I made up my mind philosophically and spiritually speaking that I was basically on my own, up against a demanding and challenging and chaotic world, with no plausible higher power who could possibly have any interest in me.

 

I spent a lot of hours defending myself against what I now see were a lot of self-created negative results. I thought if I wasn’t close-to-perfect, then I wasn’t lovable or worthwhile at all. My primary comfort was in sniffing that, well, certainly no one else was, either.

 

As we used to say in Texas, I’ve learned different….

 

I’ve replaced my lonely old ideas about “self” with a new, more descriptive, more accurate and less narrowly-constrained identity. I’ll admit that the new “me” isn’t self-evident or obvious at first, and it’s definitely not culturally intuitive.

 

My new “self” isn’t a separate thing at all, not in any way an independent being, and certainly not a body, all wrapped up in its own short ugly brutish life and messy death….

 

Instead, I’m a beloved and eternal creature who is “one with” her loving creator, a unique and precious part of a greater higher “self” who comprises all his(?) lovable and very natural creations.

 

I’m pretty embarrassed about this new spiritual perspective, this new identity of mine, since I used to take great pride in being the most rational, argumentative, two-feet-on-the-ground, scientific type-o-gal. I can hardly talk about it, in fact, without ducking my head and shuffling my feet and mumbling under my breath, because I used to make fun of people like me. I thought they were weak and silly and irrational and dreamers-in-denial and well, just not honest with themselves or with God, who if he did exist, certainly wouldn’t dream up a counter-intuitive reality.

 

I still reject anything in spirituality which isn’t consistent with science, or which is in conflict with anything in nature, although I take an additional leap of faith to get where I am now. And, without a doubt, my new conclusions go against most familiar western cultural teachings about reality.

 

My big important intellectual (or non-intellectual?) leap was taking a single first small step into prayer/meditation, through which I gradually moved away from my cold, impersonal universe toward my new one in which I’m eternally safe and loved. My new universe is ultimately benevolent and peaceful, created by a God of love who is far more interested in my happiness than I am.

 

And all that bad stuff in life? All the things I and others have done and haven’t done? The chaos and cruelty in the world? In the eternal scheme of things, they’re now a more forgettable blip. They somehow matter less because, well, they’re not what's real and lasting, they disappear. In an eternal sense, they never even happened, sort of like all the rest of our bad dreams. When we all finally wake up, we’ll see that all we ever have is an eternal “right now,” and that all our fears about scary pasts and futures don’t really exist. Love is always the only thing left, the basic stuff of eternal reality.

 

So all that good stuff in our lives? All the peace and fun and kindness we gave and received, along with every other kind of love? All that good stuff goes right on forever, and keeps on multiplying….

 

For a weary lifetime, I sadly resisted any such peaceful possibilities, trading my desire to be happy in for a proud insistence on being “right.” My mind was made up early, and I was sticking to it. I looked only for evidence of what I already thought. In all that I saw and read and heard, I carefully picked out the parts that reinforced that life was fundamentally about the random meaninglessness of solitary bodies colliding and competing and dying.

 

Now, having exchanged realities, I’m blinking in the light of childlike, newly-opened eyes. All I see now (with occasional lapses and gaps) is love and all its permutations. Because love is all that I’m looking for now, all I want to see. I feel as if I’ve lifted up an old dark veil of meaninglessness that I once carelessly draped over everything and forgot about, and now for the first time I’m peeking at all the beauty beneath it.

 

So I made a mistake. So I spent a lot of time looking into dark cobwebby corners. So I was wrong. Hey, what the hell, I’ve got eternity now, and a patient, loving higher power who likes to help me get it right….

 

So I’m getting over it. I’m still a know-it-all, and I still want to be right. But I hope I’m a humbler one with a better sense of humor, less interested in being right and rationalizing and analyzing than in having fun and being happy and sharing my joy. All I’ve lost, in any practical sense, is my misery. At the very least, I've finally realized that sad and mad and tough can’t be any kind of smart conclusion. I’ll take happy over smart any day. I’m ready and willing to see all things differently, newly. I’ve moved on, and I like where I live now.

 

No harm done, and lots of good, since I changed my mind. If I feel momentarily lonely, I ask for help in remembering that I’m forever joined in an endless circle of giving and receiving with God and with every part of his beloved and lovable creation. And help always comes….

What Would Jesus (or Pat Robertson) Do?

Posted on by
Reply

Now help me get this straight: It’s not legal to commit terrorist acts or to assassinate important people, but it's OK for someone important to say we should. It’s not legal to “murder” a single human being, but it's OK to launch a multi-billion dollar pre-emptive war that randomly kills and maims and ruins the lives of hundreds of thousands of human beings. It’s not legal to torture an enemy combatant, but it's OK to sniper-kill, firebomb, napalm, use land mines, and drop atomic weapons on patriots and innocent civilians….

 

Why are we confused about all of this?

 

Solving problems through violence will always feel morally abhorrent. America (the most powerful nation the world has ever known) must take the first creative steps toward changing international law, to make political violence (terrorism, assassinations, and yes, war), like social violence, illegal everywhere and always. The highest morality is respect and support for human life everywhere.

Finding Closeness in Relationships – #5 Insights Series

Posted on by
Reply

My siblings, parents, extended family and friends sometimes used to tell me I didn't give them enough of myself. One dear relative commented resignedly that our relationship survived only because she had ratcheted her expectations way down.

 

And sometimes it seemed that I gave too much time, or at least too much worry, to my children and my husband, while still feeling I should do more.

 

I wanted love, acceptance and support from all of them, and I wanted to offer it back to them too.

 

What I didn’t want was to feel guilty so much of the time, to feel like I could never do enough. And I especially didn’t want to feel that I needed to keep all my relationships “even,” or to fulfill any given individual's expectations, in order to fend off hurt and loss.

 

I suffered most when I got into the mindset of living a temporal life and having temporal relationships, because from that perspective, my life seemed way too short, and my list of the things I ought to do so impossibly long. Yet no amount of rushing and cramming provided any relief or solution.

 

My relationships have functioned better since I exchanged my perception of the time I have “left” (limited? temporal? fleeting?) for God’s very relaxing and infinite eternal time—expressed in life as “right now.” I’m learning to stay in the present (eternity’s earthly disguise?) and remember that there’s no rush. Love isn’t going anywhere.

 

I’m also doing better now remembering that I don’t have to come up with all the answers to my issues about relationships, but instead can rely upon God’s surprising solutions and opportunities.

 

One other time-related thing I found most challenging in long-term relationships was always feeling stuck in the past. Too often, my good times with others got mired in past-oriented stuff–guilt and fear–guilt that I hadn’t been loving enough in the past, and so should use the present to make up for past stuff, and fear that if I didn’t give more or differently, I’d hurt or lose everyone.

 

My painful focus on past deficits (both real and imagined) in long-term relationships always pulled me away from happy, present-oriented, guilt-free interactions in the present moment. Whenever I was stuck in fixing the past, distracted by guilt, or remorse, or self-righteous indignation, I forgot about the good I could do and the fun I could offer right now.

 

Attempting to rewrite history—compensating, comparing, complaining—during the time I’m with my nearest and dearest is the very devil himself for me, the very thing that most pulls me away from my best self, my highest goals, my kindest heart.

 

Sometimes I even worry that the time I spend with my higher power or with casual acquaintances competes with my long-term relationships. As if my spiritual growth could diminish my value to my dear ones….

 

But it’s never been the amount of time I spend or don’t spend with them that matters most, but rather the worry, fear, and guilt that I bring to the present out of our past, killing off all the good present moments that could still be. It's those past-seated resentments, and the struggles to justify and rectify our imperfect past relationships, that separates us during the present moment–far more than our mutual histories, which aren't real anyway–they just don't exist anymore.

 

When I am focused on loving, appreciating, and enjoying my dear ones in the present moment to the best of my ability, it’s always enough. All I have to do is let go of the bad stuff arising from our long, past-oriented lists of deficits–of what I owe them and what they owe me. Whenever I focus on the past, my relationships go wrong. Whenever I let go of the past, my relationships go better.

 

So it's not the imperfect past at all, but my focus on it, which is the most insidious and subtle competitor with the good I have to offer my present relationships, whether long-term or short-term, whether we're talking about my relationship with God, or my relationships with all the people in my life.

 

Right now, both my long and short-term relationships are better and more filled with possibilities than they’ve ever been. I feel loved, accepted, valued, appreciated by them, and all these same feelings arise in me toward all of them in return. What could be better than that?

 

Surrendering my life to my higher power, and broadening my circle of loyalty and devotion (the circle comprising all I consider “mine,” “family,” and “near and dear”) to include all of mankind, has had the surprising result that it has increased my closeness to all my lifelong and long-term friends and relations.

 

Since I’ve begun to learn to let go of my own role and history-based demands, expectations, and resentments and to stay in the present, I’m finally beginning to see and learn and hear and respond to all the people who are really before me, here, now.

 

I’ve expanded my definitions of mother, father, sister, brother, husband and wife, children, parents, teachers, students, even neighbor and countryman, to include everyone I meet, everyone there is–and yet my long-term relationships haven’t suffered.

 

As long as my time and affections were limited to a small circle of special relationships, my energy on those few precious relationships was all about expectations and limitations. Now those special relationships are free to be about limitless giving and receiving.

 

In this crazy world, where so much that appears to be so is not so (and vice-versa) a move from the honored position of spouse or mother or sister or daughter, or even neighbor or countryman, to the formerly worthless position of “human being,” would be considered a radical demotion. Wouldn’t you think that such a diminution in honorific status must surely entail the loss of all privileges, expectations, attentions, and duties traditionally conferred upon the select group of people in each life upon whom long-term relationship status is assigned?

 

But when every single person in this world deserves the highest respect, honor, attention, help, kindness, giving, acceptance, and forgiveness, certainly my inner circle is also very much included. Am I likely to suddenly care about them less? Will my dear ones be relegated to sharing only the crumb that’s left of me after dividing myself into eighty gadzillion pieces, among pesky and pushy strangers who will push them from my life?

 

That was, in fact, once my own fear, my own source of guilt–that my devotions and attachments to my higher power and others would compete with my closest relationships, that I'd have to give them up, that love was an either/or thing: either I loved my family and friends, or I loved God and humanity indiscriminately, the one kind of love necessarily excluding the other.

 

But it’s the other way around. As long as you exclude even one person from your circle of love, as long as you leave one person in the dark outer space where all your fears are, your love will be incomplete, inadequate, insufficient. Fear and love can’t coexist. If you accept one, you have to let the other go. Love is all-or-nothing, wholehearted, undivided, if it is love at all.

 

All expressions of love are maximal. And love is a limitless resource, a bottomless well, infinitely renewable. You can’t run out of the love you have to give. There’s always enough. The more you give, the more you have to give. As Romeo’s Juliet said, “love is as boundless as the sea, and as full.”

 

My love of my higher power and my global neighbor make me better able to love and serve the ones closest to me. These days, I’m more present during the moments we’re together, more accepting, and more forgiving. And I spend far less time than before in conflicting illusions about past history or future fears.

 

Now that I find all of mankind lovable and worthy of forgiveness and acceptance, my dearest ones can relax, because although they'll always make mistakes just like me, they will always be enfolded into my all-inclusive circle of love, which includes mistake-makers…. They know they’ll always be lovable to me, no matter what.

 

Focusing on just a few people, I used to set traps for both myself and for those few I called “special.” For when I called someone “special friend,” they were suddenly heavily obligated to me, and we quickly got into the business of weighing out our giving and the receiving. When I called someone “mother,” I ran the risk of narrowing my appreciation for other potential sources of good, resulting in so much less of me for a mother to love, and so much less love for me to give my mother.

 

When I called someone daughter, how heavy the burden of my expectations for her to carry, and how hard for both of us when she loved others as well as she loved me. When I called someone husband, yet refused to take the rest of the world (metaphorically) into my arms to cherish and comfort along with him, I risked someday becoming a clinging, needy, frightened ghost from his past, with nothing but sad past comparisons and fears of the future, when I could have poured all that love and energy out into a thirsty universe, while he was also offering himself up to others as well.

 

These days, I try to greet each person I meet (whether a long-term friend or a stranger) with no thought of the past to drag us down, no burden of history or future expectations, no role-related duty or expectation or responsibility or fear or guilt that might hold us back from the present moment. Into that present moment I try to pour all the love I have, and for that moment, this person is my father, mother, child, sister, friend, teacher, lover, neighbor, countryman.

 

Nothing could be more out-of-control than my previous attempts to control my relationships. The only thing we've lost are the sad chains of history that we used to drape over each other.

 

I’m still sometimes very unreliable and unpredictable and inconsistent (i.e., human) in applying what I’m trying to learn. But I’m doing my best to always be right here and right now, and I’m far less likely these days to run away from my relationships, fight them, resist them, repel them. I no longer have any use for harboring or indulging in anger, attack, defensiveness or guilt.

 

Feeling closer than ever before to both my dear ones and to brief acquaintances these days, I know it’s because I’ve surrendered my life to my higher power, and remembering that I can only know and love his children as one, right now, in the present moment.

Love and Sacrifice – #2 Insights Series

Posted on by
Reply

I’m giving up on sacrifice. I’m finally seeing all sacrifice as manipulative, as an attack on others, as selfish, harmful, and unkind.

 

What do I mean by sacrifice? I mean all the stuff I’m going to feel bad about later, that I’m going to resent, resist, and in fact, probably would end up not doing anyway, or doing poorly, even if I did believe in sacrifice. That’s the kind of sacrifice I’m giving up.

 

I don’t mean I’m giving up on loving others, or giving up on putting myself out for them. But that’s not sacrifice.

 

I want to be loved as much as anyone else does. Everyone wants the safety and comforts of life. Every human being who ever lived wants people to love and care for them. But people don’t love and care for you because you sacrifice yourself to them.

 

Sacrificing just doesn’t work. Doing things that make you mad later doesn’t work. Setting aside what is most important to you to please another person is in the end, plain and simple, downright mean, manipulative, and rude.

 

Sacrificing isn’t really about being loving at all. It’s about making a tit-for-tat trade—you take care of me and I’ll take care of you. I’ll be nice to you and you be nice to me. Exchanges in kind. I’ll do this if you’ll do that.

 

Sacrifice has nothing at all to do with giving without expectation of return. Sacrifice is a cold tradeoff—a gift given with a clear expectation of return.

 

You know how it works: I give you such-and-such, and now you owe me. I do these things and so now you have to do those things. I sacrifice myself and subjugate myself and do without and do what I’d rather not, and damn it, now you’d by-god-better-do the same for me.

 

So with sacrifice, what relationships come down to is tricks, traps, and snares. Webs of trickery and deceit which we catch others in, and which we find ourselves hopelessly tied up in–caught, entangled, stuck.

 

To complicate things further—and make them worse–sacrifice and guilt go hand in hand. Whenever you sacrifice, you can expect to feel guilty too. Because frankly, I don’t really want to do all that unfair stuff that sacrifice seems to require—and neither does anyone else—certainly no one in my life does. But I have to do it (or so I sometimes think), just so you’ll have to do it back for me.

 

But then we’ll both feel resentful and angry about doing whatever, and we’ll both feel guilty when we don’t do it. We’ll both spend our lives angry with each other for not reciprocating adequately, for not living up to one another’s expectations, or for not handing over (kicking and screaming) equivalent sacrifices.

 

What a mess. Is this what relationships are supposed to be all about? Could this be love? The relationships we’ve heard so much about, spent so much time fantasizing and hoping for and wishing for? Could this be sisterhood and brotherhood? Romance? True love? Is this what being a daughter, or a parent, or a friend or colleague is supposed to be all about?

 

Of course not.

 

Instead, I’m letting go of both sacrifice and guilt, and trading them both in for doing my best to be loving, both to myself and to others, in the present moment, trusting that my best is enough.

 

Who would be crazy enough to stick with me, stand by me, help me and love me, while I wallow in self-sacrifice, guilt, anger and resentment? While I refuse to allow myself to be or become what I know I can be, and instead spend my life sacrificing myself in order to somehow insure that I keep what I imagine I already have?

 

Let’s see, on the one hand, a life of sacrifice, guilt, resentment, and anger … .  Hmmmm. Or, on the other hand, a life of loving and caring and striving…. Which one shall I risk?

 

When I’m trusting my higher power to take care of my life, I can relax and focus in the present moment on chipping away at the details of being my best self and going after my best goals. Surely this best self will be more useful and helpful and attractive and appealing and desirable and loving and giving to anyone I might want to share my life with, than the miserable self-sacrificing, guilty, resentful jerk I could work myself up into becoming if I were running my own show….

 

Sacrifice isn’t really love at all. Sacrifice is a fear of love, the love inside myself, the love of my higher power, the love in others. Sacrifice is what I insert whenever I fear that there’s not enough love to go around, and that I won’t get enough or give enough to sustain and support the relationships and goals I care about.

 

Love doesn’t equal sacrifice and guilt. Love equals nothing but love. Love can’t even co-exist with guilt and sacrifice. Whenever I choose one of these others, I know I’m quite deliberately choosing to let love go.

 

Love is releasing others from guilt and sacrifice (which has the nice added affect of doing the same for me.) Love is accepting myself and others exactly as we are, and loving us all exactly as we are, with no expectations.

 

Love is letting sacrifice and guilt go.

Fear Thoughts – #1 Insights Series

Posted on by
Reply

I’m learning to put away my scary, sad, or upsetting thoughts (I call them collectively, “fear thoughts”) the very moment they arise in my mind. What I call “fear thoughts” are all the little (or big) nagging and negative memories or possibilities that seem to pop into my mind out of nowhere. I used to give them on-the-spot great importance and attention, thinking they were urgent warnings that needed immediate action and thought–portents even–that I needed to attend to in order to fend off the looming bad stuff coming at me out of my past, or pushing into my future.

 

Whenever I had fear thoughts (a lot of the time), no matter what I was doing (sleeping, working, playing, loving, whatever) I would immediately start to time-share–i.e., I would ponder and analyze them while continuing to do the interesting present stuff. And of course, I would soon no longer be focusing on whatever process I was doing in the present moment, but instead would be replaying all those fear thoughts (whether big or little doubts, angers, resentments, put-downs, mistakes, guilts, whatever.) I would work them and work them over in my mind, poke them and prod them and examine them and project them every which way I could, rehearsing a self-righteously indignant and defensive range of responses and explanations and attacks.

 

Needless to say, I spent most of my present moments working over fears and negativities based in the past and the future.

 

Now why would I do such a thing?

 

Why would I make myself miserable in a perfectly good present, with oppressive thoughts about the past or future? I’m sure I did it because I thought that intensively analyzing my fear thoughts was my best defense against their future potential offense—in other words, I believed self-analysis to be a necessity. I endlessly massaged my fears and doubts in hopes that mental manipulation would gradually protect me from potential pain.

 

To the contrary, not only did all this unhappy work carry me away from whatever perfectly interesting present process I was involved in; worse, my tiniest little anxieties would get all blown up from all the attention I was giving them, growing eventually into monster fears. Even the smallest, least significant little worry would gradually puff itself up and up, growing tentacles that extended and burrowed deep into the underground of my subconscious, hiding there in darkness, to emerge later, powerfully, in a multitude of new ugly forms, angers, actions, and emotions.

 

Whatever I pay attention to in my life grows bigger within it. These days, I attend more strictly to my most positive impulses, my most loving thoughts, my enthusiasms, my highest aspirations, my goals, my values, and my happiest processes. Let them grow bigger!

 

Whenever fear thoughts arise out of nowhere, I brush them aside, like ephemeral cobwebs, because I want to leave room in my mind for the positive things with which I would rather fill it. With my higher power’s help, I push the unhappy thoughts away and fill my mind with better, higher, happier thoughts, and into those more peaceful thoughts I put my energies and time and power.

 

Best of all are the times when I have no thoughts at all, but am caught up in the flow of some present-oriented involvement. (Zen masters say, “An empty mind is a divine mind….”)

 

The happiest lives are those lived fully in the present. The unhappiest lives are lived in the sad, worrisome and angry thoughts about a threatening, punishing past and future.

 

I like the old saying, “I’ve had a lot of troubles in my time, and most of them never happened.” I also like Jesus’ teaching, that “Sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof.” He also taught, “Consider the lilies of the field. They neither toil nor spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was never arraigned as one of these….” And again, Jesus assured us that we cannot add one hair to our heads by worrying….

 

All the good things that will ever happen to me, all joy, all achievement, all the giving and receiving that will ever happen in my life, my creativity and delights, will only happen in the present moment, or they’ll never happen at all.

 

Fear thoughts are never about the present. They’re always (only) about the past and future, which are just concepts—they aren’t real things, they don’t exist. “The past” and “the future” are abstract nouns. They’re nothing. The present, on the other hand, is something you can experience, somewhere you can be.

 

If I stay in the present, I have no fear thoughts at all. (And it’s perfectly possible to work in the present on reasonable and necessary everyday plans and future goals, without dwelling on bad stuff….)

 

In meditation/prayer, I hand over my fears and negative emotions–en masse–to my higher power, to deal with however he sees fit. I feel especially humble and grateful to be able to do this, knowing my fears will be attended to in the best possible mysterious wonderful surprising ways for all concerned, which I certainly couldn’t have thought of myself. I let all of them go. (“Let go, and let God.”)

 

He waits for us to ask him because he seems to want us to be at choice. And although asking is humbling, in every other way it's quite a bargain.

 

I don’t ever need to analyze, worry, fret, plot, project. Instead I can relax, and focus on having a loving and positive present, do my best, and turn my life over to my higher power, trusting that he is now transforming my past into something useful and good, and carrying my most positive and productive present into a powerful, joyous, and giving future.

 

Against Nationalism: A New Revised Standard Version of American Allegiance

Posted on by
Reply

As I pull up the tiny plastic U.S. flag (tagged “Made in China”) which my well-intentioned neighbor leaves on our front lawn every July 4th, I ponder my deep affection for America–her ideals, traditions, and achievements. This land has been home, safety, and opportunity for me and mine. I acknowledge the good will and sacrifice of patriots of every nation. And I do want to be an accepting, supportive neighbor.

 

Which is why it's so very hard to explain why I can no longer countenance nationalism and patriotism in this shiny new century. We Americans could choose to salute the amazing human achievements which have arisen in our unique context of a vast, rich new land teeming with seemingly infinite natural resources. Instead, we too often associate all that is good and proud and fine and brave about our land and history and people with a divisive sort of me-first superiority thing that insists that the people on our side of an arbitrary border are us–the more-deserving good guys in the white hats, with all the best approaches to everything–while those sub-humans on the other side of the borderline, their side, are they, them, the other–fearsome, strange-looking beings, susceptible to all kinds of dangerous differences. It's just exactly this kind of automatic us/them competitive perspective that power-hungry demagogues tap so conveniently when they want to lead aggressions.

 

At least our growing understanding of ecology has finally helped us see that birds and insects and seeds and wind and rain and sun, in fact all of nature–sans humanity of course–have the common sense to be oblivious to imaginary, arbitrary borderlines. I guess that's some progress.

 

The more closely I look at nationalism, the more of our planet’s ills I blame on it. Wars. Terrorism. Unrepresentative politics. Social injustice and gross inequities. Coldness to the plights of non-“us” humans. Environmental disasters. Global epidemics. Unfair trade policies. Prejudice. Intolerance. I could go on. You name it, nationalism hurts it. Stirring emotional associations prettify the concept of nationalism, but ultimately fail to conceal the ugly truth that its most predictable fruits are separation, fear, and hatred, along with their natural corollaries, violence and suffering.

 

Perhaps not so incidental in this so-called Christian nation is the sad reality that there is not a single Christ-like or Christ-advocated thing about nationalism/patriotism. Equally tragic is the fact that nationalism doesn't accomplish anything which couldn't be achieved far less harmfully through unfettered, internet-linked local, regional, and global organizations supporting human endeavors of all kinds, whether social, political, economic, spiritual/religious, artistic…whatever. What positive thing could nationalism possibly accomplish which a consistent allegiance to and respect for human life on this earth could not do better?

 

Nationalism is an empty rhetorical device crammed full with irrational, emotional connotations, a burning nonsense cipher comprising all our breast-swellings, gratefully blown to life by small alienated power-hungry groups capitalizing on it to quickly inflame frightened masses into exploiting, occupying, attacking, retaliating, and avenging. However painfully and slowly, we need to wean ourselves from our knee-jerk heartfelt faith in nationalism, and begin to reconsider its value and its harm to all human beings.

 

I know, I know. Some people still believe in the devil, and think that human sinfulness necessitates all the “us”-es marching furiously off into all corners of the world carrying big sticks, breaking into their houses and changing their ways of life. If someone tried to bust into my home, push around my family, hurt my neighbors and interfere with our ways, I too would fight back. Meanwhile, I’m left to wonder whether nationalism and its spawn are the evils we're so afraid of, the devil incarnate himself.

 

The very concept of “nation” is, historically speaking, a relatively new one, going back only a few centuries. Before our present age of nationalism, local and regional thugs used fear, religion, ideals, and money (as recruiters do today) to attract followers. However, in those days, the accumulation of power was blessedly limited by the mortality of such temporary leaders. Today's nationalism requires citizens to blindly and permanently transfer their loyalties, indeed their lives, over to whichever country they happen to be born into, regardless of incomprehensible and rapid changes to the integrity, responsiveness, principles, and even the intelligibility of leaders, policies, and processes.

 

On this past 4th of July, I sat out under the trees with my family, eating hot dogs and spitting watermelon seeds along with other lucky Americans. With them, I took time to express gratitude for past and present leaders and workers, and for our battered but hopefully still resilient legal, economic, social, and political traditions. And then I added thanks for the uniquely American gift from God–the richest swath of untouched land in the history of mankind–and asked for guidance and humility in using what’s left of that unimaginable wealth more wisely and generously in service to mankind.

 

I prayed that nationalism will soon be just a memory of a sad, crazy passing political phase, albeit one which, during its brief reign on earth, provided a multitude of rationalizations for aggression, greed, and barbarism, always characteristically cloaked in beautiful passionate colors–among them, our own beloved red, white, and blue.

 

This morning, I try to find a dignified way to dispose of this small flag, symbol of my ardent childhood pride, devotion, and innocence, symbol of the anguish endured under patriotic predations everywhere. Of course I want to pay my respects for yesterday’s sacrifices and values. But I am moved also these days to honor the emerging, competing value which more and more Americans and their fellow earthlings are finally recognizing as far higher and purer than nationalism/patriotism. And that is respect and support for–allegiance to–human life everywhere.