Soul And Spirit

At the beginning of this month I went to a Unitarian Universalist Church, not my own, to hear Thomas Moore speak about the importance of soul work.

Thomas Moore is the author of many books including Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life

and more recently, A Religion of One’s Own: A Guide to Creating a Personal Spirituality in a Secular World. He is also a Jungian Psychotherapist and lived as a Catholic Monk for 12 years.  An interesting guy to say the least.

In his talk, Mr. Moore asserted that it is vital for people to embark on both spiritual journeys and soul journeys, and it was his opinion that these two journeys were distinctive to themselves.

“Try to remember, we are whole humna beings,” he said.

He spent the remaider of his talk discussing what distinguishes soul work from spiritual work- though not in an “us” vs. “them” kind of way.

Mr. Moore defined the soul as far more than one’s biography, and actually limited to the point in which we (human beings) could ever really know or understand it.  “You can never go deep enough” to fully fathom the depth of the soul he said.

He then paradoxically added, “there is [also] something about the soul that is ordinary,” and he made comparisons with writings by classical Zen Masters who discuss an “ordinary” nature to the mind.

Mr. Moore encouraged his listeners that evening to consider soul work as something that can happen in the world.  Reflecting on his years as a Monk, he affirmed his belief that “deprivation” is not necessary or a must in both soul journeys and spiritual journeys, and in fact, “soul and deep pleasure go together, think about that.  It’s not about going crazy, it’s not about hedonism. It’s moderation.”

Mr. Moore also stressed that the language of the soul may not be the same as the language of spirit.  True to a Jungian Analyst who has a strong interest in mythology (frequently naming the Goddess Aphrodite herself), he spoke of imagery and metaphor as opposed to prose as a means to communicate the needs and wants of the soul journey. 

Giving the example of a chocolate craving, Mr. Moore suggested that perhaps this craving is not literally the soul’s desire for chocolate, but rather “more sweetness in life.”

At the end of the evening, Mr. Moore summed up his talk with this: “We all have to be poets.  You have to be a poet to your own life [so that you can] read poetically, not literally...All life is symbolic.

I left the talk with Thomas Moore with more questions than answers.   

After stopping at the grocery store to pick up a late dinner of tortellini with pesto (my soul’s favorite dish!), I drove the 45 minutes home in the dark, and the symbolism did not escape me.

As I traveled along the road  I could feel the, perhaps too rigid, spiritual paradigms that I had created for myself beginning to rearrange in my mind.

I recalled a quote by author, psychotherapist and Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield, who said in a podcast on Dharmaseed that “we must be tender with both our social security number and our buddha-nature.”

Remembering this quote led me to reflect back on a blog entry I wrote back in February of this year called: “Loving-Kindness & the Small self,” that I had coupled with a picture of the Small self as a circle inside a larger circle labled the Big Self. 

All of this left me wondering: are the Small self (or “social security number”)and the soul one in the same?  Is the Big Self (or the “buddha-nature”) and the Spirit one in the same?

And if so, do I give more space, attention and tenderness to what I perceive to be my Spirit or Big Self, thereby neglecting the vital core of my being, my soul or Small self?  Are not both valid?  Are not both true?

What would it mean to live spiritually and soulfully?  Cultivating both.  Nuturing both.

Though possibly a cop-out when my pea-sized understanding of the universe can just go no further, I decided to stop pressing the questions any further in my mind, and I decided to fall back on the ‘ol quote by German poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926):

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Okay Mr. Moore. Okay Mr. Rilke, I’ll hold tight for now…Living the questions until “some distant day.”

How about you? Do you have any answers?

Religious Envy

I’ll let you in on a secret.  I am a very envious person. 

It is not something I am proud of. It is not something I even  like all that much about myself.  But it’s there none-the-less, and it dates back a long time from the very material to the most ethereal- including religions.

A quick example.

When I was a little girl I had a best friend who had a beautiful bright pink canopy bed.  Imagine Barbie Dream House meets the Pepto-Bismol-pink doll-aisle at Toys ‘R Us to get the flavor of how “girlie” this bed was (and the bed set to go with it!). 

I LOVED it.

When I would go to my friend’s house to visit or sleepover, I couldn’t understand why my friend would ever want to play anywhere but in her room, and more specifically, right on that pink canopy bed.

For me, the pink canopy bed was the antithesis of my highly-feminist 1980’s home environment where photo albums are filled with me as a little girl wearing blue  t-shirts that read “Her-story, Not History.”

Not that I entirely minded. 

I actually loved the story of Atalantis "who could run as fast as the wind" on the Free to be You and Me record album that played over and over in our house.  I loved trying new activities and sports. I loved taking chances and being daring.  I loved challenging the status quo of society, and all of this was encouraged in my pro-feminist childhood home.

Except, that is, when it wasn’t…

Like when I decided to be a cheerleader.  Or when I wanted to wear certain clothes and shop at certain stores.  Or when I was scared or sad and wanted to hide instead of speak up. Or, when my best friend got the girliest pink canopy bed set one could possibly imagine.

Everything has its advantages and disadvantages, and long ago I learned the dangers of romanticizing anything. Nothing is entirely black or white.

Having said that, I do get swallowed up by the green goo of envy, and this includes my spiritual and religious life.

Two weeks ago I wrote a blog entry called “Reclaiming Religion” that included a nod toward what I am grateful for in the general beliefs of the Unitarian Universalist religion (e.g. respect for the worth and dignity of every human life).

However, or maybe in addition to that, I can sometimes get caught up in envy of specific aspects of the many other religious traditions (e.g. Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Pagan, Native Spirituality) that have stories, rituals, holidays and/or prophets that I covet for my very own.

I try to be careful though.  There is great danger in spiritual materialism and in taking that which is not freely given or available for one’s own consumption.  I recognize this- very deeply.

And yet, in the near reaches of my heart-mind, I find myself salivating when I encounter god in the story, ritual, holiday and/or prophet of a religion that is not my own.

I recently re-read my ol’ beat-up paperback of the very first spiritual memoir I ever read: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott, and when I reached the memorable scene when the author described her first encounter with Jesus Christ I was moved (and envious) all over again.

She writes:

I didn’t go to the flea market the week of my abortion. I stayed home, and smoked dope, and got drunk, and tried to write a little. On the seventh night, though, very drunk and just about to take a sleeping pill, I discovered that I was bleeding heavily. It did not stop over the next hour. I thought I should call a doctor, but I was so disgusted that I had gotten so drunk one week after an abortion that I just couldn’t wake someone up and ask for help. Several hours later, the blood stopped flowing, and I got in bed, shaky and sad. After awhile, as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there – of course, there wasn’t. But after awhile, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. I felt him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this.

And I was appalled. I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends. I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, “I would rather die.”

I felt him just sitting there on his haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love, and I squinched my eyes shut, but that didn’t help because that’s not what I was seeing him with. Finally, I fell asleep and in the morning, he was gone.

The experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition, born of fear and self-loathing and loss of blood. But then everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming my house door whenever I entered or left.

And one week later, when I went back to church, I was so hungover that I couldn’t stand up for the songs, and this time I stayed for the sermon, which I thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling – and it washed over me.

I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running along me heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God’s own dreams, and I opened the door to my house, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said, “[Okay,]. I quit.” I took a long deep breath and said out loud, “All right. You can come in.” So this is my beautiful moment of conversion.

Always willing to try to stay open to mystery, I try to never say never, but, just as I tell my 26.2 mile marathon-running-friend that I do not believe a marathon will ever be in my future, I am just as sure a conversion to Christianity and a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of god is not in my future either.

And yet, I am deeply envious of that little cat…

Earlier this month I was listening to a series of interviews on NPR with Muslims who were sharing their very personal, anecdotal, experiences of past Ramadans- the worldwide Islamic  holiday that commemorates the revelation of the verses of Quran to the prophet Mohammad by fasting sun-up to sun-down for one month. 

As I listened to each person speak (old and young, male and female, white, Arabic and black, immigrant and citizen), what caught me, against this backdrop of vast diversity, was a theme of elegant devotion.  A devotion that is as foreign and delicious to me as a new food in a distant land that I want to scoop up and bring home in my pocket.

Oh, there was envy to be sure.

Particularly of a gentleman who shared this:

“Well, first off, my faith, what I enjoy about it and what I have always treasured about it, is that I saw it as a personal faith. In other words, there was nothing between me and my God, and so it allowed me to interpret certain things. It allowed me a greater freedom in my understanding of my God. And, so as I try to practice my faith in praying five times a day, it constantly in a sense keeps me as a reminder and in contact with my faith and my God, and therefore I try to remain humble.”

As I listened to this gentleman speak, I briefly imagined myself as him, wondering what it would be like to speak so freely and devoutly about that which feels unspeakable and private.

And don’t even get me started on the Old & New Testament Parables, the Native Legends, and the Buddhist and Hindu Tales;  I could listen to them all day long and wish them to be my own.

I once had a Jewish patient, who happened to be the spouse of a rabbi, who I worked with during the time of her celebration of the Jewish Passover- a holiday in the spring in which Jews around the world celebrate their liberation from slavery in Egypt by the prophet Moses.

Each session my patient would give me progressive daily updates on the process of her preparation and cleaning of her home of all unleavened bread, and then she shared her own reflections and understanding of the Exodus Story. 

As I listened intently for themes that may be helpful for her therapy, I was also enraptured with the story, silently wishing I had some ancient biblical tale—full  of metaphor and symbol—as a means to reflect on my own life.

Sometimes I think that the 20^th century was so damn full of overly-glorified  Literature, Film, & Song (particularly in Hollywood!)  because all those secularist still craved a place to get their fill of the oh-so-human and oh-so-universal needs met for moral guidance, hope, unconditional love, and inspiration that past generations might have received through religious parable, spiritual prophets and sacred texts.

Sometimes I just wish, when I am really swimming in religious envy, that one of these other religious “packages” (to again borrow a phrase from religious professor and author Reverand Barabara Brown Taylor) would just “fit” me better.  Yet, as a UU, I question to what extent I may beg, borrow and steal from other religions in order to cultivate my own spiritual and religious theology?

And when this question starts to get quite confusing and muddy in my head, with no clear answers, I sometimes think: would it be easier and richer to “just” be a converted Buddhist or Christian or Muslim or Jew? Even without the cultural heritage to go with it…

But then I am brought back to reality with 3 personal truths.

The first is usually in the form of a dear friend referring to him or herself as a “recovering Catholic” or something of the like.  Remember: no romanticizing.

The second is that I truly believe that none of these religious paths are right for me.  I think it would feel like a gay person trying to make themselves straight at one of those camps you hear about that try to change someone’s sexual orientation.

And third, I’m in agreement with Iranian-American, religious author and scholar Reza Aslan that, at the end of the day, the majority of world-wide religions (and especially the mystical dimensions of many) are really all a diversity of paths that take you to the same destination. 

A car, a train, a hike, a bike, a plane, a swim, a skip.  All different means to the same end, yet wonderfully distinctive and idiosyncratic for the vast diversity of this human race.

So with that, I will stay a UU for now, and I will observe my Achilles Heal of envy.

I will also celebrate what is holy and sacred in Unitarian Universalism, like this poem below that was said aloud at the UUA General Assembly in Ohio this past Sunday during the morning service. 

The poem was written and shared by Dr. Glen Thomas Rideout, Director of Worship and Music at First Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and it is called: “god is no noun.”

god is no noun.

and certainly not an adjective.

god is at least a verb,

and even that shrinks her.

god is not so much a woman

as she resides in the improbable

hope of brown mothers.

god is not so much a man

as he is at work in the memory

of my grandfather’s laugh.

god is not trans.

god swims in the tears

of the one who sees

her real self,

at long last,

in the bathroom mirror.

god is not black; neither is he white.

god is wading in the contradiction of songs

from slave shacks.

and I have seen god in the alabaster smiles

of children at play.

we’re getting michelangelo all wrong.

god is not the bearded one surrounded by angels,

floating over the sistine.

he is not adam with his muscled back pressing the earth.

no.

god is the closing inch of space

between their reaching fingers.

don’t believe for a moment that god is catholic.

for god’s sake, he isn’t even human.

have you heard the wood thrush

when the sun glistens the huron?

can you see the flowers,

how they speak to bees without a word?

still, god is no spring blossom, no wood thrush.

god is neither the sun nor the bee.

god is what you see in the blossom.

god is when you hear the river

and suddenly discover how

much of it is part of you.

to be clear,

god is not you.

god is somewhere in the 14 billion years

which have come to mean that you are.

god is, after all, at least a verb.

she is neither pharaoh’s rod nor moses’ staff.

we must be the ones to cease our slavery.

she is not interested in blame, neither does she offer praise.

truth, gratitude are ours to breathe.

she will not have your answers.

she is too large for answers.

she dances too wildly to be fastened to them,

and answers are nouns anyway.

god is at least a verb,

twirling in the radiant reds of spring

blossoms,

singing in the rare silences between rapid

opinions,

attending the tears of dark-skinned deaths,

learning in tiny, alabaster smiles.

god is waiting in the space between fingers

that might connect.

he is waiting for us

to stop naming her.

she is waiting for us to

see all of him.

god is waiting

to be un-shrunk.

Kindred Spirits: Reza Aslan

"The answer to the problems of religion isn't: 'Lets get rid of religion.'  It's about making sure that the voices of moderation, the voices of compassion, are as loud as the voices of violence, as the voices of bigotry." 

-Reza Aslan, Author, Religious Scholar, Iranian-American, Muslim

May it be so.

P.S. I strongly recommend the Video: "Five" available on YouTube, produced by The Oprah Winfrey Network SuperSoul Short. 

It is only 3 + minutes, and it follows 5 children from 5 different countries and 5 different religions as they prepare to go to religious services. 

If you liked the Video "Just Breathe" (also available on YouTube) by Julie Bayer Salzman & Josh Salzman, you will likely enjoy "Five" as well.

Happy Viewing.

"Unknowing" Can be Liberating

There are some spiritual and religious phrases that I don’t entirely get, but I like them just the same.  “The Cloud of Unknowing” is one of them.

This phrase is actually the title of a Christian text from the 14^th century by an anonymous author, and it is thought to be based in Christian Mysticism.

This spiritual manuscript has influenced generations of theologians since its birth, and to my understanding, its underlying message (which is admittedly limited at best) is that we must surrender all of our concepts of god in order to align with god.  Or, in other words, we must let go of all that we think we know to be true, in order to know truth.

I think this idea is similar to the Buddhist slogan: "If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha," and if this idea is "true," then for me “The Cloud of Unknowing” is both bad news and good news.

The bad news is: my tendency to over-analyze and over-intellectualize will not be of help with this one.

In the realm of the spiritual life, I’m learning that, to quote a recent Meditation teacher, Michael Grady, “I can’t think my way to happiness.”

However, the good news is: there is tremendous opportunity for freedom in letting it all go.

I actually don’t have to have it all figured out, and man, is that liberating!

So on days like today--when fatigue is dominant, when my meditation practice seems to take the effort of 10 elephants pushing cement up a hill, when my over-all attitude is that of discouragement, doubt and general grumpiness,  and I feel like I am just kind of dragging my body around--I can actually hold tight.

I can know that I don’t know.

That whatever I’m feeling or experiencing in this moment will sooner or later transform into the feeling and experience of the next moment because in this universe the laws of impermanence rule, and it is my job to just skillfully ride the wave.

And maybe, maybe, every so often, during one of those hundreds and hundreds of rides, I might glimpse a sense of union with what I call god (lower case “g”).

In the meantime, I will keep practicing what my teacher Michael called "gentle perseverance" and patience which he defined as the opposite of teeth gritting. "Patience is softer, it's bigger. It sees the big picture so that it allows you to be with- to hold the experience."

May it be so.

How do you understand “The Cloud of Unknowing?”

[Photo by Claire Olsen]

Reclaiming Religion

On my drive home from work yesterday I saw a billboard on the side of the highway that read:

“Repent. The day of the Lord is near.”

These words were written on a back drop of a black and red inferno.

I was not surprised by this billboard. On a pretty regular basis there are a handful of billboards lining the highway with some version of Christian Scripture or Christian belief system. (And I’m not even in the Bible Belt of America!)

So it was not the billboard itself that caught my attention.

What got me yesterday was the black and red inferno which I inferred to be symbol of hell with a message of fear and intimidation to “get my act together, or else…”

I found myself judging this message and this billboard, and then I tuned my attention back to the news story I was listening to on the radio at the same time.

It was an interview with a grief-stricken mother who had lost her 18 year-old college bound daughter in the Orlando shooting last Saturday by someone who appears to have been a very confused and intrapsychically conflicted young, 1^st generation-American, Afghan Muslim man who described himself as “inspired” by The Islamic State, the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing, and the 2015 and San Bernardino Shooting .

In that moment, the juxtaposition of what I was seeing on the billboard and what I was hearing on the radio became quite synergistic in the way that the two experiences came together for me, and I was reminded of this quote from the novel The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd:

“History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another’s pain in the heart our own.”

For those of you who have not yet this book (though I highly recommend it!), it is a fictionalized piece of 19^th century American history intertwining the lives of two well-off, White, Southern sisters who rebelled against slavery and misogyny as active abolitionists and early women’s rights activists in the United States, with a Black enslaved woman and her family who ultimately escape to freedom.

Being reminded of this quotation and this ultra-American story (though largely ignored by the cannon) brought me back to a larger historical context about the way in which individuals and groups have claimed “religious reasons” for the oppression and harm of others for millennia, and quite frankly, it pisses me off.

(So I guess you could say I have moved from sadness to anger in Kubler-Ross’ 5 Stages of Grief…)

When I finally arrived home last night, after this odd and slightly surreal experience while driving, I continued to contemplate (or maybe stew) about other historical examples of groups mis-using and abusing the role of faith and religion for their own political, economic and/or institutional agenda, and as an American, for me this history is largely in the Christian tradition.

I began to reflect on Manifest Destiny and the genocide of Native Americans as a way to steal territory in  North America all the way to the Pacific Ocean.  I thought about the use of the Christian Bible to authorize the bondage of African Slaves in order to build a viable economic system in early America and the Caribbean.  I recalled a piece of history I had learned, but had never been taught in my early education, that early American Protestants were known to burn Catholics alive in the town square.  I thought about the Salem Witch Trials, and the use of the Christian Bible to rationalize the preservation of a legal and economic system that excluded the entire female sex in the United States until 1920. 

I was reminded of a quote from a film I have written about in this very blog called The Way in which one of the characters, a writer from Ireland, refuses to enter any of the gorgeous Spanish Cathedrals by reasoning,

“Where I come from, the Church has a lot to answer for…temples of tears. I don’t go in them anymore.”

This led me to think about Europe and the Crusades, the Dark Ages, the political choices of the Vatican, the Spanish Inquisition, and the way20th Century Fascist Dictators around the world have claimed “religious reasons” (and I include fanatical atheism in this group too because certainly Joseph Stalin would fall into this category) for atrocities from mass rape of women, destruction of religious and spiritual architecture, forced relocation, internment camps, ethnic cleansing, and of course all out warfare.

I thought about all of individual stories I have been told over the past 13 years working in psychotherapy that involved a woman, child or man being targeted by their very own religious group for the purposes of being hurt or harmed with the implication that the abuse was sanctioned by something “religious” or “holy.”

I called to mind the abuses of power for the purposes of sex, particularly with women, by gurus and yoga founders like Bikram Choudhury

(Bikram Yoga), Amrit Desai (original founder of Kripalu Center),  and Trungpa Rinpoche ( Tibetan Lama and teacher of the author and teacher Pema Chodron), and the more recent multiple charges of sexual assault and rape that have come to light specifically against BikramChoudhury in the context of Yoga Teacher Training events and classes .

Yes, there is so much anger…

Yes my blood boils when individuals or groups use religious language, religious philosophy and religious text to rationalize inhumane behavior.

Yet here’s the kicker, and many people in my own life do not agree with me on this point, I do not believe that we, as progressive and evolving human beings, need to abandon organized religion and spiritual faith in order to eliminate the threat of more violence, oppression and abuse of power.

In fact, I believe religions should be reclaimed by those who find them to be a meaningful “packages” (to borrow a word from author and professor Reverend Barbara Brown Taylor) for connection to soul, spirit and community in a way that nourishes the life of the individual, but does not hinder or harm the lives of others.

Ironically for me, I take heart in more modern aspects of Christianity, though I’m not a Christian. 

For example, I am very moved by historical religious individuals like Dorothy Day (1897 –1980)

who was an American journalist, social activist, and Catholic convert.

I am also encouraged by those still working and living amongst us like Jean Vanier,

who is a Catholic philosopher, theologian and humanitarian who founded an international federation of communities for people with developmental disabilities called L'Arche , and progressive Jesuits like author Rev. James Martin, S.J. and Rev. Greg Boyle, S.J. who founded HomeBoy Industries in Los Angeles for former gang members.

I am inspired by Liberation Theology which spread throughout Latin America in particular as a means to explore the Christian faith and doctrine for the purposes of empowering the poorest amongst us.

I find lightness and humor in the laughter of faith of leaders like South African Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu

who not only survived South African Apartheid, but then led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help his people find a way to grieve this traumatic period of their history as a community.  I come back again and again to his words from an NPR interview:

There's no question about the reality of evil, of injustice, of suffering, but at the center of this existence is a heart beating with love. You know, that you and I and all of us are incredible. I mean, we really are remarkable things that we are, as a matter of fact, made for goodness. And it's not a smart aleck thing to say; it's just a fact. Because all of us, even when we have degenerated, know that the wrong isn't what we should be, isn't what we should be doing. We're fantastic. I mean, we really are amazing.

This sentiment, posed by this man, leads me to believe that perhaps Western Buddhist teacher and author Sharon Salzberg 

is correct when she says: “We can always begin again.” Perhaps these examples from just one religion, Christianity, demonstrate this phoenix-from-the-ashes possibility that is available to all religions. 

I take heart in my own religion, Unitarian Universalism. 

In one of our texts, A Chosen Faith, by UU authors and leaders John A. Buehrens and Forrest Church, it is noted that there are several core values in our religion that guide an individual for a free search for truth that does not hurt or harm others.

We believe in the freedom of religious expression. All individuals should be encouraged to develop a personal theology, and to openly present their religious opinions without fear of censure or reprisal. We believe in tolerance of religious ideas. The religions of every age and culture have something to teach those who listen…We believe in the worth and dignity of each human being.  All people on earth have an equal claim to life, liberty, and justice; no idea, ideal, or philosophy is superior to a single human life.

I find these words inspiring and hopeful for the future of organized religion.

What individuals and words bring you hope for a humane and progressive future for religions?

In Moments of Despair: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

 This past weekend I attended a talk by author Thomas Moore.  He spoke to the audience about cultivating a life of spirit and soul, and  the need for more active attention toward what is “soul-full” and far less attention toward what is “soul-less.” 

He went on to comment that the emphasis of the 20^th century was undoubtedly technology, which led to a vast series of unequivocal technological fruits born of this endeavor. 

However, with our eye toward the A-Bomb, Assault Rifles, Nuclear Warheads, Dish Washers, Toaster Ovens, Pharmaceuticals, BMW’s, Airplanes, Skateboards, Solar Panels, Biodiesel, Televisions, DVD Players, Cloning, Genetic Testing, Elipticals, the Internet, Tablets, and Cell Phones, we may have neglected the cultivation of the very necessary psychological and spiritual skills human beings need to share a planet together--all 6 Billion of us—while we figure out how to use (or not use) these pieces of technology wisely and mindfully.

The mass shooting at the nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida this weekend is another painful reminder of this reality.

Of all the skills required for co-habitation and co-existing, to my mind, the most important is the ability to act without harming self or other- to act non-violently.

There is an assumption that people (men, women and children) either:

a.) already know how to be non-violent, or

b.) are not capable of being non-violent.

I don’t believe either are true.  I think human beings are capable of non-violent action with skills training.

Yet, even though I believe this--even though I know this to be true-- I can still fall into deep despair when I hear that more people have lost their lives due to hate, ignorance, hopelessness, and violence. 

Whether it is a middle aged man who takes his own life because he is unable to provide for his family, or an unarmed young Black person caught in the wrong place at the wrong time looking down the barrel of a police officer’s gun, or a child going into their first grade classroom at  9 a.m. on a Tuesday never to walk out again, or a French woman getting on the subway to go to work and never arriving, or a teenage girl who cuts her own wrist to avoid emotional pain, or a woman tormented by her spouse in her own home, or an Army Sergeant doing drills at Fort So-and-So and being confronted by a disenfranchised colleague, or a disabled child being severely bullied by their peers on the playground, or a member of the LGBTQ community spending a Saturday night out with friends on Latin Night at their favorite club when a well-armed 29 year-old decides to use this club to carry-out god knows what…

Yes, I can despair. Yes, my heart breaks.

For this reason, I find it helpful, and sometimes necessary, to re-read words that are nourishing and hopeful that our human species will wake up and rise to what we are capable of in this one precious human life.

Today, these words are those of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Read these words Slowly.  Carefully.  And With Heart.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,

begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.

Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.

Through violence you may murder the liar,

but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.

Through violence you may murder the hater,

but you do not murder hate.

In fact, violence merely increases hate.

So it goes.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,

adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness:

only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

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Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

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Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?

Expediency asks the question - is it politic?

Vanity asks the question - is it popular?

But conscience asks the question - is it right?

And there comes a time when one must take a position

that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular;

but one must take it because it is right.

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Nonviolence is the answer

to the crucial political and moral questions of our time:

the need for man to overcome oppression and violence

without resorting to oppression and violence.

Man must evolve for all human conflict

a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation.

The foundation of such a method is love.

***Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech,

Stockholm, Sweden, December 11, 1964

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A nation that continues year after year

to spend more money on military defense

than on programs of social uplift

is approaching spiritual death.

***Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967

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Man was born into barbarism

when killing his fellow man

was a normal condition of existence.

He became endowed with a conscience.

And he has now reached the day

when violence toward another human being

must become as abhorrent as eating another's flesh.

***Why We Can't Wait, 1963

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Somehow this madness must cease.

We must stop now.

I speak as a child of God and brother

to the suffering poor of Vietnam.

I speak for those whose land is being laid waste,

whose homes are being destroyed,

whose culture is being subverted.

I speak for the poor in America

who are paying the double price

of smashed hopes at home

and death and corruption in Vietnam.

I speak as a citizen of the world,

for the world as it stands aghast

at the path we have taken.

I speak as an American

to the leaders of my own nation.

The great initiative in this war is ours.

The initiative to stop it must be ours.

***The Trumpet of Conscience, 1967

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Darkness cannot drive out darkness;

only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate;

only love can do that.

Hate multiplies hate,

violence multiplies violence,

and toughness multiplies toughness

in a descending spiral of destruction....

The chain reaction of evil --

hate begetting hate,

wars producing more wars --

must be broken,

or we shall be plunged

into the dark abyss of annihilation.

***Strength To Love, 1963

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Like anybody, I would like to live a long life.

Longevity has its place.

But I'm not concerned about that now.

I just want to do God's will.

And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain.

And I've looked over.

And I've seen the promised land.

I may not get there with you.

But I want you to know tonight,

that we, as a people will get to the promised land.

***I've Been To The Mountaintop, April 3, 1968

Re-reading Dr. King's words remind me of Metta or Loving-Kindness Meditation. 

I think this week I will commit to practice Metta Meditation everyday as a way to bring my own awareness to the ways in which I may act, speak and engage psychologically from a non-harming, non-violent perspective because I truly believe it is a skill we all are capable of and we all must practice. Again and again.

May it be so.