Beautiful and Fun Things

There are a lot of beautiful wonderful things in the world……stories of doing good, people making music, photographer capturing a once in a life time happening, ideas on ways to grow and evolve. Here’s a few of them. Enjoy.

If you didn’t have a chance to read my Thanksgiving post, here it is: The Open Heart of Gratitude

Capturing smiles! What happens when you tell people they are beautiful?  Smile!

Inspiring! Nat. Geo photos

Auroras

Earth. From space  It never gets old.

The Toy Smuggler

Mindfulness Empowering Ourselves

How Kindness Spreads Kindness

Where does compassion come from? Compassion

Mail Man Collects Stones Look what you could do with stones!

What is empathy? Empathy

Harvest festival from around the world Nine harvest festivals from around the world

 

 

The Open Heart of Gratitude

“To love in the face of fear is bold.
To love in the face of hatred is courageous.
To make the choice to love even more deeply
and widely in the face of moments of anguish
is a heroism of the heart that may be our only hope to heal this world.”
Kristi Nelson

So much going on in the world. So much pain and violence, Hatred and fear. I am struggling with a deep sense of sadness. I am reaching and stretching towards what I know is bold and powerful: love.

Ultimately I know deep in my soul that I will always make the choice to be vulnerable, broken and heart broken, lost, afraid, humbled by the profound power of love rather than allowing myself to be closed off to love…I will not shut it out and allow hate and fear to take over.

I am one. It may not sound like much in a world of billions. Still, I will always stand up to fear and hate. I will always speak out in love, with compassion and always search inwardly for empathy towards others. I am one. But I am ONE MORE.

“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once,
but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.”
~ Clarrisa Pinkola Estes

I do not live in bubble or vacuum. There are many things I can do that will have a positive impact on the part of the world within my reach. And I believe, further. Many of them require me to look honestly at myself and to re-educate myself to correct the inaccuracies I was taught. I challenge the thoughts and beliefs I was exposed to. It is okay to have to re-visit, re-think, process and revise.

“What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts,
adding, adding to, adding more, continuing.
We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace,
but only a small, determined group
who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.”
~Clarrisa Pinkola Estes

Accumulation of acts by a determined group. People who will not give up.

“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do
to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul.
Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit
and willing to show it.”
~Clarrisa Pinkola Estes

I feel humbled by my list of things in my life to be grateful for. Mostly the same list I take for granted.  Not intentionally, but out of privilege. Yes, there it is. Privilege.

It doesn’t feel good. Yet, I am so grateful for this feeling. It is bringing me to an open door where I can turn around and see things from the perspective of others. Through the door I can begin the re-education of my heart. I can walk towards the opportunity to gain understanding. An opportunity to grow,  to evolve. I will accept the challenge to open my eyes.

I say this with full humility. I say this with determination. I am humbled and sometimes deflated by the struggles in the world. By the pain inflicted on one person by another. By the realization that there is a cloak of invisibility we throw over those we do not understand, are afraid of, don’t care about, who are different from us. Over people we judge.

This is the season of Thanksgiving. A holiday that needs to shed the untruths of the glamoured up version of history. All you have to do is look at what is happening at Standing Rock to understand what was set into motion in 1621.

How about in honor of being able to feel gratitude for things in our life we work for change, for understanding, for tolerance, for love. How about we learn something new? About abortion, or poverty, or racism (internalized, interpersonal,institutional and structural), or implicit bias, or conformation bias, or Islam, or food stamps, or why consent matters, or about sexuality and what it really means, the facts about incarceration and how it affects the poorest and most vulnerable. How about we learn the truth of the effort to dehumanize Native Americans from the first Thanksgiving. How about we learn about Others?

You know, I can’t live up to these goals all the time. I get lost in my own ego and personal struggles. I get mad, feel anger, get hurt. Underneath all that I know there are so many millions of people who suffer so deeply from so many different things….and that puts so much into perspective.

So this Thanksgiving season I will gratefully spend time with my husband and children, eat a nice meal we all work on together. And for things I particularly feel grateful for I will commit to learning about how I can help others have those same things. And I will learn why I have to help them…what is standing in their way to healthy food, a job, health care, a home, protected rights, education, a safe neighborhood,………..it’s a long list.

This Thanksgiving I am grateful that I have made a decision to care. To open my eyes. To open my heart. To become educated. To understand I have a personal responsibility to bring a little bit of good into the parts of the world that are within my reach.

Check out this week’s readings: This Week

Love Lights

“When the Sun of compassion arises
darkness evaporates
and the singing birds come from nowhere.”
Amit Ray, Nonviolence, The Transforming Power

It’s difficult watching and listening to the news lately. Difficult to sort out fact from fiction. A challenge to balance our personal hopes and dreams with the hopes and dreams of others. A struggle sometimes to balance what we enjoy with the health of the planet.

 In my class of preschoolers we talk about the light that is in each one of us. We call this our “Love Light”. This is the light that illuminates us from within. This same light is in everyone. All of us. The people we love. The people who uplift us and bring us joy. The people we have shared experiences with. The people we do not feel love towards. The people whose experiences we cannot grasp. The people we don’t understand. The people we fear. The people who hurt us.

This is an inner light of love and compassion. It is what illuminates all that is good in us, all that is nurturing in us. All that is humane in us. It is the light that shines in darkness and fear. Our Love Light ignites our love for fellow beings. It lights up tenderness, generosity, empathy and hope. It allows us to wish for the dreams of others come true just as we wish for our own dreams to come true. Like a sun lighting up the dark morning sky, our Love Light is the light of our heart and soul that radiates out with an open hand of love, goodwill, compassion, acceptance, hope and trust.

“See the light in others, 
and treat them as if that is all you see.”
~Wayne Dyer

Somewhere along the way I wonder if we have forgotten how to see that light in each other. If maybe we have come to believe not everyone has a light worth seeing.

The other day in yoga during shavasana, it was very quiet and still. For  a moment I rested in that wonderfully nested place of safety, quiet, stillness, calm, awareness and was what I can only define as being present in the moment. Fears, worries, anxieties, thoughts, hopes, dreams…all those things were shuttered away somewhere and not raising their chattering heads and voicing their distracting opinions.

As my body slowly but surely softened, something in me just stopped. This is important because this is when all the thinking stops. The mind chatter stops. The anxiety ceases. The fears melt. The unknown and the what is not knowable doesn’t matter.

At the end of the class, with my heart, mind and body in this space of stillness, my teacher read:

“There is only one light shining through every person’s eyes.
When you look into that light in others, your mind falls silent.
The two of you share that one light and melt into a profound experience.”

~Swami Nirmalananda

There it was. Light. One, common and shared light. We have to remember to look towards, and at each other, not away from each other. Right in the eyes. To see that Love Light. We have to allow ourselves the trust and space to melt into each other. We have to stop  and look into the eyes of each other. Every “other”. We have to honor the one light that is shining through every person’s eyes. And then maybe we will all hear the same thing; Amit Ray’s singing birds.

 

Jumping and Leaping

“Love recognizes no barriers.
It jumps hurdles, leaps fences,
penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”
~ Maya Angelou

I was reading a poem by Elizabeth Alexander in which she pondered

“…are we not of interest to each other?”

Ars Poetica#100: I Believe

In all the whole wide world, who is of interest to you? Your family? Neighbor? Best friend? Friend with cancer? Refugees from Syria? Those with ALS? Hungry children? The homeless?

Who do you wonder about with curiosity and interest? Who, on the other hand, is not of interest to you?

I love Humans of New York and StoryCorps because they allow me to get to know the stories of people all around the world. People I would otherwise never know about. In learning about others, I learn about myself. In learning about the lives of others my view of the world and all of her beautiful humans is enriched.

In learning about others, people become less of “the other” and more of a real person…just like me. They become of interest to me. If I have a way of hearing the stories of others, few are not of interest to me.

Through the stories people tell of their life, I begin to feel a connection to them, a concern for and a love for them begins to grow. I don’t have to know them, or to touch their hand or hug them to love them. I can love them through shared hopes and dreams, fears, and failings.

“Love recognizes no barriers.
It jumps hurdles, leaps fences,
penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”

My destination? For “others” to be of interest to me. For me to reach this destination and jump and leap over barriers to bring forth hope. Hope for respect. Hope for justice. Hope for an end to oppression. Hope for the end of poverty. Hope for acceptance. Hope for there to be no more “others”. Hope for love.

Hope for peace.

“Are we not of interest to each other?”

Who do wonder about? Who is of interest to you? Who is not of interest to you, and why not?

It Rained This Morning

We are in the middle of a serious drought here in central NYS. This morning I awoke to the soft pattering of rain.

There are the folks who say “Uh oh climate change.” The “others” say “Good thing it’s just weather.”

Lenses. We all look through lenses. Rosey colored ones. Dark colored ones. Clear ones. Lenses that help us make up our mind and decide if it is weather or climate change.

I lay in bed, eyes closed, no lenses in use. Just listening.

Then the lenses popped on. “Oh, we need this rain! This great! Rain Rain Rain!” and in the other breath, “Crap. There go the plans for the day.” Both understandable. Both true. After actually opening my eyes the lens that was now focusing was the clear one. “I am glad to have my daughter home. Her friends are so fun! Maybe it will just be a relaxing day playing games and eating good food.” All lenses focused on different, real points of view. I just had to choose which one to look through.

Every morning I make a point of taking a few very deep breaths. Slow and long. Pulling in the fresh, clean air and exhaling the stale, depleted air. I try to take a few minutes to get grounded for the day. My thoughts are not so different from the ones at night. Focusing on gratitude and compassion. I always give time to remember how many people are suffering in this world and as in the Buddhist doctrine, pray for all living beings to be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

And I never, ever forget a wish for peace in the world:

Prayer For Everyday For All Creation

Let us see one another through eyes
enlightened by understanding and compassion.

Release us from judgment so we can receive the stories
of our sisters and brothers with respect and attention.

Open our hearts to the cries of a suffering world
and the healing melodies of peace and justice for all creation. 

Empower us to be instruments of justice
and equality everywhere.

~Collectively authored by Millionth Circle Initiative,
5th World Conference on Women & Circle Connections.

 

I choose to look through the lens of understanding and compassion. It could easily be anger and fear. Or, longing and desire. Or, day dreams and wishes. Or, judgment and blame.

I want to understand. I want to be compassionate. I strive to be released from judgment and grow understanding instead. I try to hear the real life stories of people who live life similar to mine as well those whose lives are unimaginably and fundamentally different from mine. I strive to grow respect over ridicule. And to hear. Always to listen and hear and never become deaf. I try to use the clear lens, but sometimes I forget and the judgment and comparison begin. Anxiety may arise. I may even begin to turn or look away.

Anyway. I am grateful for the rain. I obviously can’t make it rain or choose where it will fall. I know it is needed, that it is helping to refresh, feed and cleanse the world…..even if it is just this little part of the world right now. And I know I don’t have any kind of power like that, but I do have power and choice. I choose ever day to help the next generation learn what conversation and communication is. I help them understand the power of their words. Words that can hurt, deflate, cause fear or pain. Words that mock and humiliate. And words that can ask to be forgiven, heal, comfort, uplift. And you know what? These very young children learn this and they grow and they become compassionate, forgiving, and uplifting to their peers. One mother told me her 3-year-old talked her through a panic attack by helping her do mindful breathing.

It is a small but effective thing I do. But it matters. Just like this small amount of rain. I can pray my prayers and send my wishes of goodwill out into the world all day long. If I do not take some form of action I feel I am in part responsible if those prayers do not seem to be heard and answered, if the good wishes and kind intent seems to never go very far or anywhere at all.

In this world today with all the contentious and combative words, with all the posturing and flexing, with the all hatred that seems so much more fashionable than forgiveness, with fear that seems to be filling some of our lives rather than hope, all our lenses become covered with dust. When the rain falls near you, and cleans and refreshes your little bit of earth and washes the dust of uncertainty and fear off your heart, and fills you up again, which lens will you choose to dust off and put on, to walk out into the fresh and new day?

 

Keepers of Hope

“….hope becomes a calling for those of us who can hold it,
for the sake of the world…..
It references reality at every turn and reveres truth.”
Krista Tippett

Peace Cranes in the hallway of the Tea House, Botanical Gardens, Montreal

When I was little I played with little green plastic soldiers fighting each other and brown plastic cowboy and Indians killing each other. Internally it was about the good guy winning, defeating the others who were different from me. Externally it was about having something to play with.

I remember in Middle School practicing duck and cover…crawling under a desk in case the drill for a bomb threat became a real threat. Internally there was annoyance because I didn’t fully understand what was happening in the world, and crawling under a table was uncomfortable. Externally there were groans and giggles, even a little smirk of gratitude that class would be cut short by the amount of time the drill took.

When I was in college I was in South Korea when a coupe took place. Corner kiosks selling silk and trinkets were replaced with soldiers with automatic weapons and bayonets. Tanks replaced taxis and buses on the road. We could not leave the country. Internally there was fear. Not a fear of safety but of uncertainty. Externally there was confusion and hesitation. We didn’t know what to do, where to go…even how to get information.

During my first years of teaching I was cleaning out a closet at school and found an old map of the world. Pictured criss-crossing the ocean were intercontinental missiles headed towards the enemy. We were attacking Russia as they were attacking us. Internally there was a deep sadness, almost a sorrow. Externally I took the map and folded it and threw it away.

This past fall in Montreal at the Botanical Garden’s Tea House we saw an exhibit of photographs of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. There was art done by survivors—dark, painful, powerful, helpless art of human suffering that is beyond imagining or understanding. Internally I felt a sharp pain and confusion. Externally I shook and cried. All we could do was to stand there and wipe the tears away.

In the past months we as a world have witnessed hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war, violence, death, famine, leaving family members behind to trek hundreds of miles to safe countries to find borders closed. No one wants a refugee. We witnessed aid workers carrying dead babies out of the water, and there were more pictures of abused and homeless dogs on FB than outrage for these innocent children and their shattered parents. What the hell are we doing to each other?

Last week, in the inflamed world of advancing fear, hate, intolerance, threats, violence, it all became a little too real. My daughter was to arrive in Nice, France the day after the attack during Bastille Day. If they had decided to be there for that day; it is sobering to think what might have been.

In talking with her hours after the attack, I found myself groping around for hope….trying to find it before it became buried under the mounting weight of fear.

And now these smart, loving, compassionate women walk with hesitancy and fear.

What is happening? To our world? To the countries of the world? To the people of the world? To us all?

Who are, who will be the Keepers of Hope? The voices that trust in possibility, goodness, beauty, compassion, unity,  peace? The voices that call out for us to stop and think. To get control of our egos. To check our biases, to challenge racism, to make space for truth over fear. To call for compassion and non-violence.

The world around us seems to be spiraling deeper and deeper under the spell of fear, hate, distrust, despair, violence.

“Hope begins in the dark,
the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing,
the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.”
~Ann Lamott

I watch people all day shrug their shoulders. Filled with apathy—not really concerned or interested in what is happening around the world. Pessimism in their eyes. Others are full of anger. So much anger it is turning towards hate. Hate of people, beliefs, the hopes and dreams of others they don’t understand. We are afraid to ask each others questions. Afraid to listen. Afraid to learn. Afraid to have the conversations that will bring us back towards each other.

In her poem I Believe, Elizabeth Alexander asks, “Are we not of interest to each other?”

It appears we are not, because if we were we would stop the violence, the hurting, the fear, the anger, the hate. We would embrace each other in hope and possibility. If others were of interest to us we would have conversation and ask questions and not just decide someone is worth our thought and time or not, because of some label that has been placed on them: migrant, black, Muslim, Christian, deserving, undeserving, lazy, enemy, immigrant-illegal alien (what a term..)

“One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that.”
Joseph Campbell

Who of us are strong enough to reach out for and hold on to hope? To revere the truth that we are all here on this planet together and all must share the bounty of this earth. Who of us are strong enough to hold our hands out, open and welcoming, ready to offer hope to others? Who of us are the keepers of Hope?

For the sake of the world.

If believing in and empowering hope is a calling you hear, you must use your voice. You must take action. It is not enough to feel sad or bad about things. It is not enough to engage in prayer without action. It has to be about the parts of religion that bind us rather than separate us. It is beyond political parties. It has to be social justice for all those who are oppressed, persecuted, violated, ignored, abused, left unseen and uncared for. It has to be about uplifting the most vulnerable in our world and not protecting our comforts. If you want peace, justice, possibility, opportunity, safety, the possibility of being healthly, clean water, healthy food, safe pregnancies and deliveries, a job with fair pay, to be treated fairly and with respect…..I believe you have to want it for everyone or you won’t really have those things either…because they will come at the exclusion of someone else, at the expense of someone else. How could any of us feel comfortable with that?

“Beware how you take away hope from another human being.”
~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

We have to look at what we feel and think internally and take action externally. We have to make a choice—accept what we have and go with it like I did with the cowboys and Indians killing each other because it’s what history has shown us we always do to people who are different from us. It’s about taking the old map of attacking with the intent to kill and throwing it out and not teaching that scenario in the hopes that there are alternatives to conflict and that war is not the answer.  It is about standing in front of a painting and wiping tears and internally feeling that horror and externally making the stand to always speak out against this choice in the world. To always have hope that there are other choices even if they seem unfamiliar or out of reach.

Others, “the Other’s” are of interest to me. I want them to have the same kind of hope I do. I want us to be Keepers of Hope and not prisoners of Apathy and Fear.

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.“

~Howard Zinn

You don’t give up.

Be a Keeper of Hope.

The Best I Am Capable Of Being

“I will soothe you and heal you,
I will bring you roses.
I too have been covered with thorns.”
~ Rumi

I first read the poems of Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī in college. Poems of love. Just authentic, unadulterated love. The kind of love the Greeks spoke of. All six kinds…..eros (sexual passion), philia (deep friendhsip), ludus (playful love), agape (love for everyone), pragma (longstanding love) and  philautia (love of self, two kinds). 

I have come to drag you out of yourself, and take you in my heart.
I have come to bring out the beauty you never knew you had
and lift you like a prayer to the sky.”
~ Rumi

Baby Mourning Dove. This is one of the babies from a pair that nested in the sandbox rafter. S/he is unafraid of the children who sing and coo to him/her. Mourning Doves mate for life.

love, love, love

It also seems I have always loved Rainer Maria Rilke. I do not even know when I first discovered him. There are very few of his words that do not penetrate my heart and cause it, and my thoughts, to soar.

“Everything in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it. It is also good to love — love being difficult. Love is perhaps the most difficult task given us, the most extreme, the final proof and text, for which all other work is only preparation.”~Rilke

The classic existential conundrum: why are we here?

“But because life here compels us, and because everything here
seems to need us, all this fleetingness
that strangely entreats us. Us, the most fleeting…
Once for each thing, only once. Once and no more. And we, too,
only once. Never again. But to have been
once, even though only once:
this having been earthly seems lasting, beyond repeal.”
~Rilke, The Ninth Elegy

True? Because everything needs us? What needs us? The trees, the air, the Earth, the universe? Someone? Or, is it not so much about things needing us, being needed, but rather about having been here at all?

Knowing that our time, and the time of everything, is fleeting, what compels you to be the “best” you can be? For me, I am not sure I really know what the “best” me would be. I’d like to believe it would include being compassionate. I do know what, albeit in a certain context, I want to be here for. Living in and with and sharing the love the Greeks referred to as agape: selfless love. A love that is shared with all things on Earth and extended to all people, whether family members or distant strangers. To all. Even the “Other”, those I may dislike, fear, misunderstand, judge, condemn, turn from, ignore.

And it is not easy. As Rilke says, love is the most difficult task given us. I cannot do it without effort. I fail often. I feel whatever the opposite of love is…hate? I think hate is probably not the right word because truly it more of an anger/fear or an unknowing.

Discovering the best I am capable of includes making the time to look, to go within.

“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”
~ Rumi

Many folk consider this kind of “love for all” to be a cornerstone of human behavior. Lately however, I wonder. It is a difficult time we live in. And while there is certainly the case to be made that this is not the first time this may have been believed, we are so aware of all the suffering and violence that permeates our world, it does seem to indeed be a dark time.

When I have the presence of mind to “seek and find all the barriers within” that I have built against love, I find they are in fact there. There is Fear. Of many things. Especially fear of the unknown. There is Hurt. Anger. Mistrust. Clinging. Comparison. Disappointment. Sense of Entitlement. Lack of Knowledge. Misunderstanding. Assumption. Protection and Defensiveness. Confusion. Doubt. Separation.

And when I allow myself to see those things in myself, then I am able to work towards becoming the best I am capable of being. I cannot do it without the self-realization of what the barriers I have built are.

My parents, with their sense of service and care for others and the people they brought into my life built a certain foundation. All the traveling I did and living in other countries, my friends, my husband, my children and my career choice, my own faith and melded spirituality, have helped me open the door and look in and face these barriers of mine. Each day I own up to them and chip away at them, with the hope that one day they will be gone. Because that is the best I am capable of….

….breaking down all my barriers against the love called agape.

Agape, the evolving love that I know is inside of me for the sole purpose of being extended to all people the world over. The best I am capable of is allowing and sustaining the agape inside of me at all costs and against all opposition.

The Illusion of The Rising Sun

During late spring and summer, and a wee bit into fall, I am able to wake up and look sleepily out the window to watch the illusion of the sun rising. Sometimes I think it is very telling that we refer to this time of day as “sunrise”. For in fact, the sun does not rise, but rather we are spinning.

This past week there were two special sunrises. One, as my neighbor described it, was electric pink. A full 360 degree jolt of varying hues and intensity. The other sunrise was just a jumbled, raucous, out of tune, off beat, brouhaha of crow noise. It was deafening.I don’t even remember if there was color!

As I lay safe in bed, safe in my house, safe in my neighborhood, safe in my town, I felt the weight of a terrible suffering that left me feeling deflated and weak as I thought about the shooting in Orlando. I felt for days as if I had been punctured and was slowly being flattened . It was almost as if I could feel the world spinning…..but it felt out of control, not finely choreographed by the Universe.

Recently there was a post on Pema Chodron’s page:

BEYOND OUR COMFORT ZONE
“Compassion is threatening to the ego. We might think of it as something warm and soothing, but actually it’s very raw. When we set out to support other beings, when we go so far as to stand in their shoes, when we aspire to never close down to anyone, we quickly find ourselves in the uncomfortable territory of “life not on my terms.” The second commitment, traditionally known as the Bodhisattva Vow, or warrior vow, challenges us to dive into these noncozy waters and swim out beyond our comfort zone.

Our willingness to make the first commitment is our initial step toward relaxing completely with uncertainty and change. The commitment is to refrain from speech and action that would be harmful to ourselves and others and then to make friends with the underlying feelings that motivate us to do harm in the first place. The second commitment builds on this foundation: we vow to move consciously into the pain of the world in order to help alleviate it. It is, in essence, a vow to take care of one another, even if it sometimes means not liking how that feels.”
(From her book Living Beautifully With Uncertainty and Change)

One of the comments cut through these words like a razor edged sword:

” So we are supposed to step into the shoes of the killers, and understand them?
I don’t think I can do that.”

How do we do this when it seems as if violence and hate are blanketing the world? Has there always been what seems to be an unbearable amount, and the internet and 24/7 news loops help us see it as spreading disease? And…..desensitizes us to it through endless replay until we are so overwhelmed that we believe there is nothing that can be changed?

How do we get to the point where love IS a verb not an emotional enigma? How do we disarm hate? How do we end violence? How do we allow peace into the world?

How do we get the place where we can imagine ourselves in the shoes of the shooter AND the shoes of the victims. The shoes of our “brothers and sisters” and the shoes of the “Other”.

For us to alleviate the pain we have to commit to taking care of each other. Caring about each other. Every single each other.

Going beyond my comfort zone has led me to places I never thought about going. Places I never wanted to go. I have stepped over dead bodies. I have walked through the hell of Concentration Camps. I have seen unimaginable beauty in the eyes of a young child whose arm was cut off so his begging would be more lucrative. I have sat with 13-year-old mothers cradling their sleeping child. I have seen the sadhu with their arms frozen in contorted positions. I have smelled burning flesh. I have seen a woman beaten. I have been circled and touched for being female, tall, white, light-haired and blue-eyed.  I have grown so much as my children have navigated adulthood and seen, thought, experienced, been made aware of and expressed things I had not thought about. Coming into older years in life I have more time to think back on what my mother and father instilled in me.

Everything has a tag line now……a label identifying it as something that seems to isolate it from other things. From other people. Movements, Groups and Causes. I don’t know where I fit or where I belong. Or where it is okay for me to be. Where I am supposed to be. Why do I have to be in any of them?

I am a human being on the planet earth. Those two things bind me to every other single person on the planet. There is nothing in those two things that can separate me from anyone else. And that is what I hold on to….finding what does not separate me from the dead in Orlando, the bombed in Syria, the oppressed in Palestine, the young hostages of Boko Haram, the terrorist, the murderer, the mentally ill, the black youth shot dead in streets, the addict, the sex worker, the starving, the dark, sometimes invisible side of humanity.

I can choose to be separate by identifying myself  as American, Christian Buddhist, white, married, heterosexual, a mother, a wife.

Or I can say yes, I fit in those labels, but first I am a Human Being on planet earth and I will not use those categories to separate myself from feeling compassion for all others and to embrace love as a verb and do something to lift others who by reason of chance are in pain, suffering, struggling……

I don’t have answers. I don’t always get it right. But I do try to be aware and not allow the news to desensitize me. I make financial donation where I can. I go to vigils because of respect. I challenge racist and bigoted comments, I get information from all sources not the ones that support my beliefs. I write to my Representatives. I vote. I know there are always 2 or 3 sides to a story. I can and should do more.

But mostly I challenge myself not to dismiss the life of anyone as being insignificant or irrelevant. Or useless. Or evil. At a bare minimum I can choose to recognize the common and shared threads that are spun out of love. So, when I put myself in the shoes of another, they fit. They fit because at a bare bones level they are a Human Being, they live on this planet, they have been loved by someone, they have loved another and they have experienced joy and they have suffered.

I can condemn their actions, their motives. I can work to define solutions to war, poverty, starvation, disease, mental health complexities, fear, isolation, racism, and class to possibly prevent someone from having the anger, fear, hate, suffering, oppression, stigma that leads to horrible, violent actions.

I do not ever want to be blind to or complacent to the fact I am a white American living a middle class comfortable life. Sometimes this brings pain to my heart. It is a privilege and as such it brings responsibility to help, love, care for those who do not have shelter, food, clothing, a job, medical care, education, safety, a voice. It brings the responsibility to end things that divide: religion, race, wealth.

It is time to swim out beyond our comfort zone and “vow to move consciously into the pain of the world in order to help alleviate it. It is, in essence, a vow to take care of one another, even if it sometimes means not liking how that feels.”

The more you swim, the stronger you get. The further you go. There is another shore we can walk on together. If we are not afraid to get in the water and start swimming beyond our comfort zone.

Sign the Charter for Comapssion

 

 

 

Stories Told

Storytelling is an ancient art. Long before there were books, there were bards who sang songs and told stories. A living, mobile entertainment and news source. These bards would travel great distances, sharing stories of what was happening in other places. On special dates people would travel many miles to come together for festivals and gatherings where the bard was often a key participant. This was a means of keeping people informed. Much of it was about entertaining, but it also provided warning when necessary. Some stories were based on myths and legends and helped people understand the mystical, mysteries and the “unknown”. It was about sharing and educating. It was about bringing people together. Sometimes music and dance were included in the storytelling. Sometimes puppets. It was an important resource for individuals and the community.

As books were printed and reading became more widespread the traveling bard faded away. News could be posted in the center of town, read as one had time. Some of the storytelling moved away from the center square in town, the dining halls and courtyards of castles and became bedtime stories for children. Books became illustrated and children had visual props to bring home the imagery of the story. The Brothers Grimm were famous storytellers who created vivid, imaginative stories to help children learn of hidden dangers in the world at that time in history. Current interpretations of many of these famous stories have been modified to keep them current as perceived dangers changed over the years, or make them more appealing—less frightening, resulting in the original intent often being lost or even changed completely. In reading an original today you might not even recognize the story.

Mother Goose favorites hinted of political commentary of the time. Mother Goose

There are two teaching stories that remain very much untouched. Their story lines transcend time, cultures and religions. Names, settings, words change to help people identify with the stories, but the lessons do not change.

Statue of a monk and a pot of soup in Portugal

One is Stone Soup. You remember: a single person or a small group of wandering people come to an unwelcoming village. There are no people walking in the streets, no bustling businesses providing services and goods. Doors are closed tight. Lights in windows turned off. Knocks on doors go unanswered. Not only are the the doors and windows closed to the strangers, but also to each other. The villagers kept everything “closed” to protect what was theirs. Usually it is a child who inquisitively, fearlessly ventures forth to find out what is going on. “We are hungry and would like to make some Stone Soup” comes the traveler’s response, “We would love to share with you, but we need a pot.” Curious at how soup could be made from a stone, the delighted child scampers to get a pot and in so doing the word spreads among the fearful adults. Slowly they emerge from behind their locked doors. Through gentle encouragement and support, the travelers are able to coax small quantities of tightly guarded food from the villagers…a potato here, a few carrots, some onions, a dash of salt… all thrown into a pot of boiling water simmering with a roadside stone. Before long, the savory scent of soup trickles through the village. More doors open. More people emerge. Tables and chairs appear, perhaps even a table cloth and flowers. It isn’t long before the entire village of fearful, isolated people gather together to share a communal meal. The travelers depart and the people in the village are forever changed. Working together as a functional community. A new understanding develops: that every individual has something to contribute that results in the health of themselves and of the whole village.

Long Spoons is another famous story. Much like Stone Soup it is found across the world in diverse cultures and is inherent in most religious teaching stories. Often it is a student, man, woman or spiritual/religious person wishing to understand the difference between heaven and hell. The props and language change to reflect the culture and religion in which it is to be received. (In that alone there is a lesson….the lesson is the same for all people all over the world.) In many versions it begins with a request to God.

Usually the story begins with the person being shown two doors. They open the first door and see a group of thin, sickly people. Each person has a long spoon tied to their arms. They are all sitting together around a pot of soup/rice/noodles. With such long spoons tied to their arms they are unable to get the spoon full of food to their mouth to feed themselves. It is a heartbreaking vision.

The person closes that door and opens the second door. Here are the same people sitting around the same pot of food! Long spoons are still tied to their arms. These people, however, are healthy and robust! Thriving and joyful! With their spoons they reach into the pot of life sustaining food and then reach across the pot and feed a person on the other side. Everyone is fed. No one goes hungry. There is no “mine” or “yours”. The Other is needed.

The lesson is clear, is it not?

Do not doubt the power of kind and compassionate actions.

“Through practice, we can learn to make our own hearts
a place of peace and integrity.
With a quiet mind and an open heart
we can sense the reality of interdependence.”
Jack Kornfield

 

 

This Moment

I want to stand each moment of each day with my arms wide open.
I want to stand fragile and strong before everything that is now.
I want to hold my arms wide open and speak my heart in this moment.
  I have only what is here now.
And I choose to hold my arms wide open right now.
To embrace the joy of this moment as the sun rises.
To be comforted and sheltered in the love given freely from others.
To receive and accept that love with humility and in gratitude.
To hear the cries and screams of humans around the world at this moment.
To shed my tears and sing my songs to what is here now.
To feel, and not shut out what it means to be human.
My arms are wide open to this moment.
To everything.
To everyone.
I stand with my arms are wide open to this moment.
~ KBH 2016

I was on a silent retreat two weeks ago, and in that silence I cried often. I had to sit silently with those tears and the feelings and thoughts that brought them forth. I had to let them be. Real. Full of sorrow. The hurt and misery in the world brought about by one human being to another human being was like a cattle prod to my heart and soul. All that could manifest were the tears.

During a short meeting time with Joan Tollifson I expressed my feelings of sorrow. In her talks of ‘unbroken wholeness’, or, similarly, ‘the perfection of imperfection’, she points out there is no one-sided coin. Things in the world are as they are, in this moment. We cannot deny the hurt, suffering and pain in the world. Joan shares her thoughts that we have to move from empathy with our fellow human beings who are in pain and suffering and rise to compassion. Through empathy I may be able to understand and share (in most cases minutely so…) the feeling of others, but through compassion I elevate them to a “universal and transcending” experience. (Psychology Today)  Compassion builds on empathy and impels us towards deeper humanitarianism.

I will not stop believing we can do better for and by one another, no matter who the “other” may be. In this moment I take small actions by listening to and checking the words I speak, to keep judgment, bias, hate, fear and narrow-mindedness at bay.  In this moment I work to understand the fears I have and to inspect them for validity. In this moment, with compassion and interest, I listen to the spoken stories of others in an effort to learn and understand, so that I may be informed, free from fear and ignorance and grow in compassion and consideration. In this moment I look beyond my sheltered world, to a world where there is so much violence, hatred and hurt. In this moment I remember I am the same as “others” on so many levels. In this moment I can choose action or inaction. With arms wide open to this moment I open up the possibility of action. I open up to compassion and grow in understanding. With that compassion and understanding I may, as a result, be the source of a small increment of change for the greater good of our world and all people.

In this moment I stand with arms wide open.

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