Post 45: Cold winds blow

I have what is colloquially known as a bucket list, my list includes people who I would like to see in person, to be in the presence of, and places that I would like to see. One of those people is Zen Buddhist Master Thich Nhat Hanh. His words and voice follow me throughout many days. The gift of his reading poetry and words have helped me through times of both sorrow and anger.Live now, love this moment, practice compassion. The work to be present to this moment, no more - no less is work that I come back to in my spiritual journey, especially in this season. 

Every couple of years I look up where these people are or check to see if there are any opportunities to see them. As we prepared to go to Europe this summer I looked into the potentials for visiting Plum Village in France, Thich Nhat Hanh's residence as he continues his exile from Vietnam (a situation that just seems crazy to me). It felt a bit too far away from Paris for the trip. We were traveling through to Germany on a trip focused mostly on moving Genny and meeting her beloved's parents. 

This Sunday I awoke to learn that a north American tour was underway bringing Thich Nhat Hanh to the US. At the mid-point Krista Tippet was interviewing this luminary. Searching the web I quickly found that he was traveling from the east coast to California his last east coast stop had occurred two days ago - I had missed an opportunity. 

This lesson is so hard fought for - there is only so much time, only so many dollars, only so many books, songs, opportunities, there is only so much life that can be lived. Choices make a difference.

What I choose to do today will impact my life for good or ill. How do I remember that? How do I breath into the losses and celebrate the moments brought on by chance? Maybe it is not what I experience but how (thank you always Michael Scott Brooks for this image of the journey is not about the destination but about how we take the trip).

I may not see Thich Nhat Hanh in my life time. I may have just missed the opportunity. Instead I was meeting new people at a congregation for a ministerial internship. Instead I was trying out new recordings, joining a chorus that will be a source of fun, learning how to get to my new room, chanting, praying, walking, healing, being. Instead I was living a full life. I am sorry to have missed this moment but it does not mean I will not hold within my breath the truth that I learned from this teacher Compassion with myself breeds compassion for others - we are all of one body. 

Post 44: A reminder for me from Mella

October has begun - filled with reminders to take care. The earth is turning and the chill spills in the window with the scent of fallen leaves, my sweet take care. Anxiety wakes you with too much to do, to much to live, to much to take on, my sweet take care. Expectations to care for others before myself loom over my heart along with the anger that would inevitably invade my soul, my sweet take care.

What a gift to wake after a restless night to the realization that I can choose to live within the flames of doubt or the passionate fires of reaching toward my true and best self. Either way I will be changed but in one I will be scorched in the other transformed.

And then this gift from Pam - take care my sweet, take care.

Making space - PMR 10-1-13

for nothing
Making space
for breath
Making space
for simply being.
For hope,
for dreams,
for wild possibilities.
Trees nearby hum electrically
a symphony of knowing.
My heart knows the tune.
Will I sing along?
The cat rubs her chin on my fingers.
she's right.
This is why we are here.

Post 43: Poetry & Pros

It is hard to be alone in this world. Hard to wonder who will actually be there when the dust of some crisis settles. It is hard to wake up and ache, cry, push, gather hairs, throw up, stumble, laugh, rage, and simply breath all in the space of a minute. Being sick is hard for a day but when it lasts months and year it is boring and maniacal all at once. Being sick is never to be ignored, if you think you take it on - can just wait it will rear up at you again and again and again and again.

Cancer is like that. For me, as a watcher, I could only (I can only)
bring jokes, beauty, stories, news, love, compassion, patience
              - I can bear witness and make this promise
                        - you will not go through this dark night alone, no matter where you go I will be there.

Perhaps that is too little, but I have found that it is after all, the only thing I have to  offer another, my presence.

*************************

A thought for the window:
How does a hill come into being?
Did it start knowing it would join to another?
Did it know that it would be an angling of grass that children's feet find a curious challenge?

Did this hill start as a wave - as a mountain - as an after thought of G-d?
Did this hill name itself as it waited under corn / trees / rocks?
Did this hill dream of something bigger - something majestic - something meaningful?

Today it takes its place as the ground upon which the young to walk hand in hand.
Tripping on the sloop, catching the arm, smiling a giggled embarrassment,
just grateful for the open space to explore their love.

Could a hill or any of us ever wish for more than this?
To bear witness to budding love.
To offer the sheltering comfort of a place to land firmly.

Sep 2013

Post 42 - To be encircled

It looks like we have finally made it - the we being homosexuals: gays and lesbians - not queer people in general...yet. It looks as if there is a turning tide of acceptance, we are finally allowed to marry. The IRS says that we can file returns jointly, we can get benefits from social security, health care, sign a marriage license and the pope has even issued a lets get on with other work statement.

It might look as if we have made progress. Because indeed we have. (A shout out to all the people who worked so many hours on this issue of recognition.) Today I wonder though... what does it mean to support love? To really support love - not the mewing cuddly cute kind of love that fills a 7 year old girls school notebook. Not the kind of love that only says yes - but real love. Love that takes hard work and sets boundaries and has expectations and lives in the trenches of daily life. Love that is weak and fails, love that sits up all night laughing, love that drops a gold coin into the salvation army bucket anonymously - or gives something just as valuable from the coffers of the heart. Love that knows when to step in to save me from myself. Love that will not condone violence in any of its subtle forms.

How is real love supported? Now that we have "arrived," even though in some places it is still only a murmur, what will real love look like?

I wonder because when I came out I got into a relationship that was emotionally violent. I got stuck in a battle of wills about my self-worth and mostly I lost, eventually I got pretty angry, and sometimes I acted poorly. Eventually I stood up for myself and acted better but it took a few years. I got stuck and I have wondered what part being a lesbian played in all of that chaos. If I had been in a straight relationship would it have been any better? Would I have known that I was worth more than someone constantly shaming me? I don't actually think so. I think that there are plenty of people who battle in this field everyday. Couples/relationship between people who are "stuck" because power feels good and can not be claimed anywhere else but through the force of domination.

I wonder because I do not want this kind of "real love" for anyone and I fear that the strength that being a lesbian, an outsider, gave me will not be available now to a scared 20 something just finding where they fit in the world. Being a lesbian brought me into a poor relationship, but it also gave me the tools I needed to get out. As a lesbian I had an edge, I could simply not speak about my primary relationship in my corporate life so that I could thrive there. It gave me a community to escape to once the relationship fell apart. It gave me the language of the oppressed that helped me to frame my experience so that I could push away from it. It gave me the strength of an outsider to choose the lone path. I heard a commentator say something like - well now the GL community can have screwed up marriages just like the rest of us with abuse and divorce and lovelessness. NO NO NO I do not want us to go screaming into that night.

Still while there is strength to overcome that can be found in the wild areas of our lives this is not the only kind of strength - indeed this strength may not be as sustainable as the strength gained in community. I wonder about this in relationship to real love because I also believe that being seen gives us the ability in community to call one another to our best selves. That being affirmed means that my life is open for the conversation that comes from observation and insight. Within a community I can grasp more possibilities about how relationships can sustain life beyond my own vision. Within community I allow my life, my choices, my actions, my interaction, perhaps even my beliefs can be examined. Ah and now the specter of judgement sneaks in, real love might demand of me this as well to withstand judgment to allow for those moments when conversation can lead to transformation.

It is confusing this love. Real love might demand that I draw on both of these things, from my strength forged in isolation and in community. Understanding that I receive something different from both. Affirming that both are needed. Accepting the insight that real love will mean that the conversation will allow for judgment but can also allow for celebration. Acceptance will not wipeout the potential for abuse but instead will demand a different set of tools to eradicate its specter.

Real love. In this place I realize that no matter what the choices I have only one person that I can hold accountable for my actions and that is myself. I have only one life that I can save and that is my own. BUT if I choose to bring that love into the light of a community the accountability can be filled by the grace of compassion, the actions held by the wonder of gratitude and maybe even forgiveness. Real love demands this of me - that I live as an individual responsible to myself and as a communal being accountable to my world.

Post 41 - Atonement

As we come to the end of the Jewish high holy days, I find myself thinking about life within the context of atonement and redemption.

What does it mean to "sin?" 

I believe that as Unitarian Universalist's (UU) we wrestle with this concept of sin as brokenness - in particular brokenness around relationship and commitments. In the broadest sense commitments are made and acted upon daily. I have made commitments to myself, family, community, the earth and Gd. I live within the expectations of laws and rules set forth by my communities. Sometimes those commitments are made in very public ways like within the context of a child dedications or union. I have found myself wondering about how the commitments broken within the context of these relationships might be acknowledged and mended within a community of UU faith?

The task of Yom Kippur (as I understand it) is, of course, atonement (at one ment - as some say). To ask for forgiveness as the year begins so that the course of the year can begin a new. I do ask this out of judgment having many things to atone for myself: forgiveness of broken promises, forgiveness for dishonesty, forgiveness for selfishness... but I find it curious that this holiday offers this opportunity. Interesting that the practices of faith call me to tasks that I might otherwise leave alone.