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h-o-m-e
I'm not really sure how we authentically detach from an
inherently enabling relationship to the bloated dominant
culture. That's a bleak outlook and, when I was younger, the
introspective winter months often brought depression of a
sleepless nature. It was something dependable and
Dickenesian in its pattern of extreme best/worst contrast.
I often wonder why this type of introspective gloom is so
attractive to us as privileged members of our species. Why
should it require an enormous ongoing conscious effort to
disengage from negative or superficial lines of thought, or a
harshly skewed internalized Life Editor? I think I may have
put the cart before the horse in my last entry. How can any
one of us hope to be kinder to others if we have no real clue
of how to be consistently kind (rather than merely
implementing cyclical indulgence) within our self-relationship?
These questions highlight my latest objection: how very easy
it is to forget the ongoing business of maintaining an open
mind and heart and having the effort begin and end at 'home'
within ourSelves. I have made three personal new year's
resolutions and now I share a fourth more globalized
intention. I'm going to do my best to eliminate the word "hate"
from my casual conversations or as a verb defining my
personal response to any thing or sentient being. I'm also
going to do my best to stop judging those who clearly intend
to make no such effort.
When I thought about writing a new year's addition for this
page, I couldn't stop thinking that my greatest current
objections related to my ongoing failure to live up to my own
best evolutionary intentions. I still judge others - generally at
a very subterranean level that I am loathe to claim as an
honored guest in my emotional household. I'd much prefer to
leave it in a basket at the revolving door of the local nunnery,
or better yet be born into a consciousness that simply steps
away from it like worn-out clothes.
My path of service shows me so many people who struggle to
sit comfortably in their own skins. From them I've learned that
we share a collective uncertainty: we've been raised to Dare
to Dream but we'd like to stop bringing on quite so many
nightmares. I object to how fragile and endangered so
many of us feel and how insidiously rooted those feelings
have become at an empathic level.
***********************************************************
12/08 -- I've spent the past month being quietly appalled at
how poorly we treat each other. This relates to so many
different forms of garden variety immaturity and self-serving
hypocrisy that I've hesitated to return to this page and start
writing about it, lest I sound like an unrealistic or inflexible
crank. Every day I ask myself why I've been blessed and
guided with so many inter-personal insights that seem to
have little direct application beyond my own family and most
direct forms of influence. It's taken me a few weeks of this
question to understand the most relevant answer:
I'm blessed because I AM able to apply it in my family and
anywhere else that I might be further blessed to possess
influence of a positive and loving nature. The further
refinement goal, clearly, is to be in a good zen with that
possession 24/7 - irrespective of where I may "be" in either
physical or philosophical sense, and what I might be
challenged to confront as oppositional force.
Living in an absence of fear is not easy but it's clearly
possible or I do not suppose I'd be given so much life
experience to support the spiritual/evolutionary belief that it's
actually necessary as well as relevant. Sometimes I get
caught up in that experience so much that I lose track of the
fact it isn't necessarily a collectively held awareness. Many
of the people who are working on a certain aspect of global
healing and practical application of raised conciousness are
working privately - all-too-frequently driven deeply into a state
of introversion by a supposedly spiritual community which
ought to, just as hypothetically, support the bona fide seekers
and visionaries among their numbers rather than demonizing
them. All in all, it's enough to make me ever so reluctantly
embrace the sense that maybe a lot of my colleagues are
right after all: maybe this planet is filled to overflowing with
members of our species who are quite wilfully dense and
disinclined to challenge their own limits.
Sadly, groups of whatever nature tend to be defined at a
grassroots level by their lowest common denominators. We
see this in the illusory drama of national and globalized
politics and we see it in our literal and figurative neighbors.
We see it in our own reflection, at least some of the time. We
see it in our offspring and elders even if we turn away from
the knowledge we're afforded. Simply put: the knowledge
of greatest meaning and illuminated spirit doesn't relate
to matters of difference - it relates to matters of unity.
And I object, quite strenuously, to how easily overlooked this
truth remains. I hope the season of walking the North Way
towards the quickening moment of re-birth brings me greater
compassion and patience. I also hope it brings me new
insights on how I might continue to rid myself and other
sentient beings of this collectively held affliction.
**************************************************
My first official topic for this page didn't present itself in a
reasonable or compassionate form. I made a published note
of that as well as my intention to temper my emotions with a
little more heart-space and detachment from outcome. In the
interim my daily world presented a far more compelling topic.
I recently attended a memorial mass for a very well-loved
high school senior. The church was filled with his
classmates. Many were still stunned by their friend's passing
- indeed a number of them were weeping and clearly hoping
for solace from the service.
Alas all involved would have to be very strong - or still largely
numbed with grief - to perceive the attainment of what they
sought. It certainly wasn't forthcoming from the priest. My
son was quietly appalled by the way this community spiritual
guardian railed at the grief stricken crowd. He was further
disturbed by the rote quality of parish participation throughout
the service. Beside him in the church, and definitely feeling
his pain, I was far more appalled to watch the bright lights dim
in so many young eyes and auras as, one by one, our Next
Generation stopped listening to the priest. We might as well
have been living in a group hallucination that this was nothing
more than a South Park episode.
I stopped counting how many times he threatened them in
place of offering wisdom or authentic guidance in a hour of
shocking crisis. To focus on what I perceived as a level of
fairly basic job-related ineptitude on the priest's part would
have been enormously disrespectful to the purpose of the
gathering. For this reason I wept right along with everyone
else. It was ultimately impossible to forget our reason in
gathering - then.
Now? I'm calling out ANY spiritual leader who does their job
from a predatory stance. Who among us can POSSIBLY call
their path a true Union with Divinity - by whatever name - if
their methodology includes the practice of preaching fear
and/or retribution in the face of terror or stricken vulnerability?
Throughout the service I distracted myself from these aspects
of the religious dogma and its highly arguable applications
through my observation of a young man who clearly entered
both building and service with a well-established relationship
to prayer. I watched him pray virtually non-stop from the
moment he entered the church until the moment he left. I
don't hold a single doubt in my mind that we were all
sustained and rejuvenated through his efforts - however
specifically or divergently his petitions may have been
focused.
As much as the priest angered and discouraged me, this
unknown peer of my son, the dearly departed and two thirds
of the attendants, provided an extremely powerful antidote. I
object in advance - conscientiously or otherwise - to anything
that stands in the way of this young man's obvious
connection to pure depth of faith. One way or the other he's
part of our collective spirituality's Next Wave. I hope there
are many many others in his spirit tribe.
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