What is Saving You?

A couple of weeks ago I had an irregular EKG.

It was my yearly physical with my primary care doctor, but since I am now the big 4-0, part of best practice preventative care apparently for my new age box includes a yearly EKG.

And it was my first, so I was a little scared as the nurse hooked me up to the machine with all of those wires and stickers to take that picture of my heart that looks more like a card they show you during psychological testing.

But then, when my doctor came in to the examining room, and made a quizzical face as she reviewed the piece of paper with all of the squiggly lines that showed how my heart is beating, I went from a little scared to afraid.

So now I'm scheduled for the first time to see a Cardiologist later this month, and while I'm in this limbo period I'm contemplating one of the titles of American Buddhist nun and author Pema Chodron's many books: Comfortable With Uncertainty.

Because, really, how on earth do you get comfortable with uncertainty?

Pondering this question led me to think about a Zen Story that Western Buddhist teacher and author Sylvia Boorstein frequently refers back to when she is giving dharma talk that I listen to via Dharmaseed podcasts.

It goes something like this...

A person is walking through the forest  and encounters a tiger. 

To escape the tiger, the person runs through the forest until they can't run any further because they have reached the edge of a cliff of a nearby ravine. 

The tiger still in pursuit, the person decides to climb down into the ravine by grasping a vine.

Momentarily feeling safe from the tiger who stands at the edge of the cliff, the person, who is holding tight to the vine while hanging down into the ravine, now notices two mice (one white and one black) are beginning to gnaw the vine apart.

With the tiger above, the vine being chewed apart by the mice, and while hanging on the side of a cliff, the person spots a luscious strawberry growing out of the cliff-side. Grasping the vine with one hand, the person plucks the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

I like this story a lot.

As a person who is a problem-solver by nature, in-between-times (particularly during stressful events or crisis) are particularly difficult.

Like sitting in a waiting room while a loved one is in surgery.

Waiting for the phone call about your blood work.

Waiting for the response to your well-thought-out email or text.

Waiting for the radiologist to read your child’s X-Ray.

Or in my case, waiting for the next doctor appointment to find out if I have a heart condition like my grandfather had...

Nothing to do but wait.

Dr. Seuss once wrote about waiting in his book Oh the Places You’ll Go in something he called the “waiting place.”

THE WAITING PLACE 

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come,
or a plane to go or the mail to come,
or the rain to go or the phone to ring,
or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.

Everyone is just waiting.

Unless, there happens to be a "luscious strawberry" nearby.

I must tell you, it is completely counterintuitive for me to consider eating, and dare-I-say enjoying, a "luscious strawberry" during times of distress.  No, if problem-solving was not possible, I was taught to linger, dwell and ruminate on every single god-forsaken second of the distress.

(Talk about a sure fire recipe for suffering!)

So what could be my luscious strawberry? What could be my salvation?

Salvation.  I like this word.

As someone who was not raised in any religion and who is not Christian herself, in the most respectful way, every so often I like to try on religious words to see how they fit.  Lately, it has been "salvation."

Twentieth Century Christian monk Thomas Merton said this about salvation in his 1961 book New Seeds of Contemplation:

It is a pity that the beautiful Christian metaphor 'salvation' has come up to be so hackneyed and therefore so despised. It has been turned into a vapid synonym for 'piety'- not even a truly ethical concept.

'Salvation' is something far beyond ethical propriety. The word connotes a deep respect for the fundamental metaphysical reality of man. It reflects God's own infinite concern for man, God's love and care for man's inmost being...

It is not only human nature that is 'saved' by the divine mercy, but above all the human person. The object of salvation is that which is unique, irreplaceable, incommunicable- that which is myself alone. This true inner self must be drawn up like a jewel from the bottom of the sea, rescued from confusion, from indistinction, from immersion in the common, nondescript, the trivial, the sordid, the evanescence.

I love the idea of "god's own infinite concern" and "god's love and care for man's inmost being" as salvation- especially during those times of distress.

I was actually first introduced to the word salvation though through Barbara Brown Taylor's 2006 book Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith.

In the very last chapter of the book Ms. Taylor writes about a question she was once posed at a church gathering: Tell us what is saving your life now.

She writes:

It was such a good question that I have made a practice of asking others to answer it even as I continue to answer it myself.

Then, she goes on to define "salvation," in her own felt experience of the Christian word.

Salvation is so much more than many of its proponents would have us believe. In the Bible, human beings experience God's salvation when peace ends war, when food follows famine, when health supplants sickness and freedom trumps oppression. Salvation is a word for the divine spaciousness that comes to human beings in all the tight places where their lives are at risk, regardless of how they got there or whether they know God's name.

Sometimes it comes as an extended human hand and sometimes as a bolt from the blue, but either way it opens a door in what looked for all the world like a wall.

I love that phrase: divine spaciousness that comes to human beings in all the tight places...

The tiger. The cliff. The vine. The mice.

Ms. Taylor ends the book by listing some of the "luscious strawberries" that were saving her life at the time she wrote the book. She included:

*teaching at a college,

*living in relationship with creation,

*observing the Sabbath,

*encountering God in other people, and

*committing to the task of becoming fully human.

While re-examining Ms. Taylor's  fantastic list, and waiting for my Cardiology appointment, I've been contemplating: what is saving my life right now?

For the time being, I would have to say, my list probably would not include the big stuff, the salvation I really aspire to. 

Instead, it would most likely include mini-salvations, like snack size.

For example, A bike ride,

A field of golden rod,

Dawn,

Great food that is pretty too,

Meditation by the river,

Meditation by the ocean.

 

And going to church.

However, even when I am able to notice that moment of salvation for what it is, I think what can still make this list hard for me is that I forget to remember that:

1.) it is not merit based, and

2.) it is not indulgence to engage these experiences during stressful times.

Author Anne Lamott reminded me of these two obstacles in her 2014 book Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace when she said:

In my thirties, my system crashed. I got sober, because I had gone crazy. A few women in the community reached out to me. They recognized me as s frightened lush. I told them about my most vile behavior, and they said, 'Me, too!'...I couldn't seem to get them to reject me. It was a nightmare, and then my salvation.

Hugh.  So the salvation, the luscious strawberry, is not merit based and not indulgence...  Very counterintuitive. Very tricky for someone like me.

On the other hand, when hanging on the side of a cliff, with a tiger above, and mice eating the vine I hang from, what have I got to lose?

Maybe I should just go ahead and eat the gosh-darn strawberry, and dare-I-say, enjoy it?

May it be so.

Little Zen Teachers: Part IV

Everyone is Human

 

My 3 year-old daughter calls everyone "human."

Man, woman, child.  Different race.  Different age. Short. Tall.  Stranger. Acquaintance. Doesn't mater.

And I have to say, I find it completely delightful because the word "human" feels so inclusive, respectful and dignified when referring to personhood.

We will be walking down the street, and she will see a person riding a bicycle, working in their garden, or playing basketball, and with total egalitarianism for each and every person, will say, "look at that human!"

We have a children's book that she likes to read over and over that she has to guess what is behind each flap on the following page.

And when we get to this page that says: Who could be hiding in the igloo?

Her answer is always: "A human."

Even after she sees this picture:

Even after her older brother reads the word "eskimo" aloud.

I know that she will soon begin to replace "human" for pronouns, descriptions about appearance, and even just "person" or "people." 

But in the meantime...everyone is human.

Which Way to Die?

This past week I watched the 2012 film, The Life of Pi.

It was on On Demand, and having small children that tends to be the only way I get through an entire movie because I can watch 30 minutes, get interrupted, and then resume watching hours later.

One morning though, my 8 year-old son asked me to tell him about the movie I was watching.

For those readers who have not yet seen the movie, I will try not to spoil it because for me it definitely was a must-see.

But I will tell you, what I told him, or asked him I should say.

Well, it is a story about a teenage boy who is stuck in a row boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean miles from any land.  And on the row boat with the boy is a huge tiger!  And there are sharks swimming all around the row boat. 

So, I asked my son, what do you think the boy should do?

My son being my son, first paused quietly to take in the information.  Then he asked questions to review and confirm the facts.

So, he is in the middle of the ocean?  And so forth.  Then, he took a second pause.

After a moment, my 8 year-old looked up at me, and said completely matter of factly: I guess he will have to decide which way to die.

Hugh, I thought, that isn't  where I thought he would land...But, I went with it.

So, how does the boy decide to die?

My son paused again, his third up to this point.  Then he said: By the sharks.

Why the sharks? I asked him.

Because tigers are endangered. And if  people heard a news story about a teenage boy being eaten by a tiger, they might get mad and try to kill more tigers. But, if people heard a teenage boy was eaten by sharks, because sharks do that all the time, people wouldn't try to kill more sharks. And if they did, there are more sharks still in the world.

Now I was the one to pause. Dumbfounded.  Mouth hanging open.

Still looking at me expectantly, I knew I had to respond to him with something parental. 

Finally, I came up with an inarticulate: Okay, good answer.  I wouldn't have thought of all that myself.

My son didn't say anything more, and walked on.

Equanimity

Last winter my family went through a month of back-to-back-to-back illnesses.

Nothing major- with the exception of the Lyme Disease scare. 

But by the end of the 4th flu diagnosis and the 6th day I had to call out of work, I was beginning to lose my you-know-what.

And in one particular moment, I was also doing a less than terrific job of camouflaging this meltdown in front of my 3year-old daughter.

However, rather than melting down right along with me because she was feeling vulnerable and crumby too, instead, she imparted this bit of wisdom to me in the most calm and relaxed manner:

Sometimes I'm sick. Sometimes I'm better. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. That's how it goes.

Well, I thought, there you go.  Equanimity en vivo.

Nuff said.

Good Enough

There are many times throughout the day when I feel stretched too thin and in too many directions.

For example, I want to be there for my children to meet their physical and emotional needs. While at the same time I want to perform well at my job and do meaningful work. While at the same time I have a strong desire to better myself as a person. All the while, wanting to be a partner and friend to my husband, with the added responsibility of managing some of the affairs of my parents and in-laws.

And sometimes, when I don't "succeed," I just feel so defeated.

As a person with just a touch (or more) of perfectionism, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see how my goal to juggle all of these balls at the same time could be a recipe for disaster when, at the end of the day, I don't feel like a success.

Well, just recently on one of those days when I happened to be dropping a lot of those ball all at once, I groaned out loud to my 8 year-old son who happened to be my only witness at the time:

You know how it is when your best is not good enough?

I had said the statement more rhetorically, not intending a discussion (or an answer) from a 3rd grader.

But my son took in my statement/question, knit his eyebrows together to show me that he was seriously considering what I had asked, and then came back with this very matter-of-fact response:

No, I don't.  Your best is always good enough.

Wow, I thought.  That is not the message I received, and not the tape I continue to play and replay in my head.

So there we are.  Little Zen Teachers.

Spiritual Lessons From Nature Part XIII: Abundance

Yesterday morning I headed out to my backyard to see what vegetables were ripe for picking, and I was astounded to find all of this abundance...

I can't tell you what joy it brings me each and every time I see the bounty that mother nature creates each summer in this tiny backyard vegetable garden.

Even though I know in my reasonable mind that it is the perfect algorithm of sun, water, soil, seeds, and photosynthesis that allows a vegetable to grow, I still get so giddy and excited to see all the dark reds, oranges and greens because it feels somehow magical.

I think that "magical" feel is because I do little to nothing to help this garden, and being the human-centric control-freak that I am, somehow that feels impossible to be true.

I am not someone with a "green thumb," and I'm fortunate that I do not rely upon my garden for my sole food source- or unfortunate I suppose depending on your perspective.

And so when I find the time to weed the garden, or remember to water it when it has not rained in a few days, or I am able to get some organic fertilizer in there, it is actually just a bonus.

This combination of factors makes my vegetable garden feel like the grace of earth science.

What's more, the joy extends into generosity beyond me and my family because the abundance is so great, that I am able to bring vegetables and herbs to friends, family and coworkers. 

I never knew the act of giving away vegetables and watching others receive home-grown vegetables could be such a delightful spiritual practice.

As someone who often operates from the restrictive mind state of scarcity purely based out of longstanding habit, the opportunity to live from a mind state of abundance has felt quite freeing.

Perhaps next summer you may try this spiritual practice as well! And enjoy.

White Identity, Anti-Racism & Spiritual Development

I have long identified as a white anti-racist person.

Not because I think labels are particularly meaningful for me, but because I know words are powerful and political- whether you intend it or not.

From my earliest memories as a little girl living in the nearly all-white suburbs of New England, my mother made damn sure I was aware of white privilege, present day racism including the defacto segregation of the northeast, and the sinful (though my mother never would have used that word) institutionally racist American history that remained unacknowledged, unresolved and unreconciled.

As a young adult, this early education in racial consciousness led me to:

• be curious about and participate in organizations like Facing History, Facing Ourselves and The National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ),
• to continue to educate myself about our racist history in the United States and in the world, and the ways in which others have confronted racism non-violently,

and it prompted me to

• sit with other white anti-racist individuals, in a safe and non-shaming environment, to reflect inward on the biases and stereotypes that I have carried on in myself.

Now, I am grateful for this education and the moral values my mother parented into me, as I have found all of these endeavors to be valuable to me.

It has allowed me to have an understanding of my own white identity and what role racism played in its creation.

For example, the way racism bleached the ethnicity of my white ancestors, so that when my great-grandparents and grandparents immigrated to the United States, they were no longer Norwegian,  English, and Russian (each with its own unique languages/accents, cultures and last names!), they became "purely" white.

This process of institutionalized racism not only left a cultural vacuum for most white European Americans, but for many, including my family, it left a spiritual vacuum as well.

I see this not only in my own white identity formation, but in others as well; which for some, could lead to a spiritual crisis.

Over the years, I've begun to conceptualize 5 spiritual deficits that seem linked with the impact of institutionalized (and internalized) racism on white identity.

These 5 spiritual deficits for white people can include great struggle with chronic feelings of:

1.) Scarcity instead of Abundance,

2.) Fear instead of Safety,

3.) Shame instead of  Self-compassion,

4.) Resentment instead of  Forgiveness,
and an over-all schema or worldview as

5.) I instead of We, or Separation instead of Interconnection.

What's more, rather than recognize Scarcity, Fear, Shame, Resentment, "I," and Separation as spiritual deficits, they can be misperceived as false refuges- floating rafts to cling to in times of change and confusion.

I was reminded of these 5 spiritual deficits recently while re-listening to an On-Being radio podcast of a show titled "Where Does it Hurt," which included a Krista Tippet interview with African American Civil Rights leader and activist Ruby Sales.

In the interview, Ms. Sales said the following:

There’s a spiritual crisis in white America. It’s a crisis of meaning, and I don’t hear — we talk a lot about black theologies, but I want a liberating white theology. I want a theology that speaks to Appalachia. I want a theology that begins to deepen people’s understanding about their capacity to live fully human lives and to touch the goodness inside of them rather than call upon the part of themselves that’s not relational. Because there’s nothing wrong with being European American. That’s not the problem. It’s how you actualize that history and how you actualize that reality. It’s almost like white people don’t believe that other white people are worthy of being redeemed.

In contemplation of these 5 spiritual deficits, in the last couple of years, I have had increasing interest in looking at the over-lap between my social and moral values which includes living from a place of anti-racism, and my spiritual life and spiritual development.

I realize for many people, this evolution of bringing social and moral values to the realm of spiritual life and development may seem completely obvious- it probably is.

But for someone like me, who grew up in a completely secular world that was sterile of anything related to religion, god and spirituality (or ethnic culture), this was actually pretty radical for me.

After the White Supremacist Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this month that led to a death of a counter-protester, Heather Heyer, I came upon an interesting online article called: "For White Christians Non-Racism is Not Enough," in America Magazine: The National Catholic Review.

Though not a Christian myself, I've always been intrigued with the work of those Christians who demonstrate their profound and admirable commitment to equality and justice through their day-to-day lives.

In the article, the author Meghan Clark (a white female professor of Moral Theology at St John's University) said the following:

We live in a culture that idolizes personal choice. This has obstructed our ability to recognize, confront and dismantle racism. Our narrow focus on the individual has deluded us into thinking that as long as we do not personally malign, attack or discriminate against persons of color, we can claim to be non-racist. Non-racism is a supposed third option, beyond racism and anti-racism, where politeness and civility are paramount. It recognizes the evil of white supremacy but, like Pontius Pilate, washes its hands of responsibility. As such, it is a rejection of racism that is also a passive acceptance of white supremacy. It allows white Christians to acknowledge racism is a sin while continuing to reap the benefits of white supremacy.

It seems necessary, now more than ever, to challenge ourselves to dig deeper than the visible thoughts and behaviors of racism and anti-racism in order to touch into what may lie underneath.

For many white people, I believe this may include the 5 spiritual deficits I mentioned above.  Because, just imagine what variety of thoughts and behaviors would be born of a white person who lived from a place of Abundance, Safety, Self-Compassion, Forgiveness, "We," and Interconnection?

May it be so.