Nuturing a Nonjudgmental Stance

Four years ago we had a terrible winter storm barrel through New England in October, when the leaves were still on the trees.  The unfortunate result of this, aside from thousands of people being stranded without electricity, heat and water for almost 2 weeks, was the loss of hundreds of trees.

Due to the unbearable weight of the nearly 2 feet of heavy, wet snow on top of the leaves, many enormous trees just fell right out of the ground- stump and all.

This was not true for all trees though.

This one, in the picture above, is a tree I walk by 2 times a day, 5 days a week on my way to and from work.  And in that terrible storm, this tree lost nearly half of it's core trunk.  It just split right off, and never grew back.  The miraculous thing is, the tree lived.

This left me in awe- still does each time I walk by it. 

Here's the funny thing though, just a couple of months ago, I was able to feel awe for a tree, but when it came to my fellow human-being at that time, I was caught up in critical judgments with little space for a compassionate stance.

Two months ago I was reflecting on the 20 year anniversary of the death of an important someone in my life who died of AIDS.  The person died in 1995, and I was a ripe 18 years-old.  As you can imagine, this experience shaped me in ways that are still unfolding.  Yet this year, I found myself in a pretty judgmental and righteous place about it for the first time.

As the anniversary was going by, I began to reflect on people in my life who I knew close up or at a distance who had had tragedy befall them too (experiences like being told they have a 90% chance of dying), yet somehow they seemed emotionally untouched by the experience. 

Untouched in the sense that, from the outside, it did not appear that the trauma of the experience gave them the gift of a wider more balanced perspective on life.  It did not appear to move the individual to a greater sense of gratitude for the small things in life, or the things that really matter. It seemed the miserable people stayed miserable.  And two months ago, I was questioning: How is that possible?!

This was not a compassionate questioning though.  I was looking down my nose with judgment.

Looking back, I feel some shame about my righteous indignation because that position is not in line with my over-all values.

As of late I have been visiting and re-visiting Omega Founder, Elizabeth Lesser's book Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow.  It has been helpful to read about the unbelievably dark places we as human beings can go, whether voluntarily or by force of life circumstance.  This spiritual reading seems to have softened me again back into the direction of compassion rather than judgment.

What has been particularly helpful though, is to remember that not all of us re-emerge from that darkness.  For some of us, the darkness takes us down.  And perhaps, just like the trees in that winter storm 4 years ago, there really is no place for judgment here.  Some will survive with their broken limbs exposed to the world, some will not.  And maybe, it is just a select few who will actually thrive. 

Maybe it is actually a smaller selective group who move through trauma and tragedy by moving down into the dark abyss like the rest of us, but they then re-emerge stronger, wiser, braver than before.

There is a movie that came out several years ago now called Bruce Almighty starring Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman as the character of god.  A scene from that movie that always stuck with me was Morgan Freeman's description of a miracle.  He says a modern miracle is not defined by something akin to the biblical parting of the Red Sea, but rather more like a single mother who is working 2 jobs and still finds time to drive her child to soccer practice or help with homework.  That's the true miracle he says.  Which leaves no room for judgment on the parent who doesn't or cannot.  

In this case, the exception does not prove the rule.  We can stand in awe of the  tree that survives a terrible storm despite all it lost and still produces gorgeous fall foliage, but we do not stand in judgment of the fallen tree beside it.

Instead, we offer compassion, we mourn, and we believe, with our whole hearts this one paradox: despite the fact that some of us may survive a tragedy, some of us will not, and a select few will thrive, each experience is still valid and valuable.  Because, as the famous saying goes, no [hu]man is a an island. The truth is, we have opportunity to break-open as Elizabeth Lesser suggests from not only our own difficult times, but also those of others.  That is the gift of an inter-connected universe. 

Individuals, families, communities, countries, and even planets have an opportunity to thrive in compassion, wisdom and bravery from the tragedy that befalls others.  Which means, if we can continue to nurture a nonjudgmental stance of others, it is possible to manifest learning and growth from the trauma and darkness of others.  If that is not a miracle, I don't know what is.

Little Zen Teachers

In my 20's I attended an Al-Anon meeting every Friday at 4 p.m. for two years. Like clock work, I would leave work each Friday afternoon and travel to my fellowship of other men and women who were also navigating the tricky domain of a friend or family member's alcoholism. 

Those meetings in that period of my life were invaluable to me. And the lessons learned continue to help me walk through this world with greater compassion, wisdom and ease. 

One such lesson I learned from my time in "the rooms" is this: anyone can be your teacher. Anyone.  

Once I opened myself up to the possibility that each and every person I meet has the potential to teach me something, I swear, teachers were all of the sudden everywhere!

Including in my own home. Including the little guys who still stand below three feet. 

In that spirit, over the past few months I’ve been jotting down moments when my 6 year-old son has taught me little spiritual lessons just through the course of him being himself.

Here are just a few I’d like to share with you...

The Universe Says Yes

It was a hot summer evening and my son and I decided to take a drive to get some frozen yogurt.  On the way, we excitedly discussed what flavors we planned to eat and what toppings we might get.

However, when we pulled into the parking lot, we saw the whole frozen yogurt shop was dark and already closed for the night.

“Bummer,” I said out loud, and let out a sigh of frustration. Then I mused, more to myself than to my son who was sitting in the backseat, “well, sometimes I say yes, but the universe says no...”

But then my son, who so far had said nothing, spoke up:

“Yes, but sometimes we say no, and the universe says yes.  And sometimes, the universe and me say yes, but mom says no.”

In that moment, sitting there in the front seat of our SUV in my “tragedy” of not being able to have what I craved, I truly appreciated my son’s ability to make me smile with wisdom that I did not realize he already possessed.

That moment was far better than coconut frozen yogurt any day.

Letting Go

My son was standing in the doorway of our house with his hands on one wall and his feet pushed up against the other. He was trying to bend his body like a bridge to block my pathway through our small ranch house. 

I stopped in front of him and asked him to move so I could continue on my path of “extremely important” tasks and business that in the moment felt very urgent- I of course cannot remember what any of it was now...

Not remotely responding to my urgency, my son casually looked up at me and said: “what’s the magic word?” 

“Please,” I said rather rushed and curt.

“Nope, try again,” he said totally unaffected by my irritated tone.

“I don’t know, just tell me,” I said getting more frustrated.

But with nonreactive, calm, cool presence my son looked up at me and simply stated, “Mom, the password is ‘let go.”

This stopped me in my tracks as the wiser voice inside of me said,

“Pause. Slow down. Pay attention to what is happening here.”

And with just that one cue, awareness came back to me.

Acts of Kindness

It was a cool day in spring, and my son and I visited the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston with his godmother.

At the park entrance, each child who entered was given a number of pretend coins.  These coins were part of a fundraising effort for donors to see which animals the children would “vote” for at the zoo for more financial funding. Each coin was a “vote” to be dropped into the box of the animal the child liked best.

So, my son and I walked up to the display that held the pictures of the 5 or 6 animals that needed more funding, and we saw that each box had a transparent glass cover so that zoo visitors could see how many “votes” or coins each animal had received thus far.

I stood by quietly as my son took his time standing in front of each box.  He made no rush to put his coins in a box, and I thought he was looking more closely at the photographs of each animal that was posted next to the boxes.

After what seemed to be quite a long time of discernment, especially given that the whole zoo experience still awaited us, he took only one of his coins, and put it into the tiger box which was already nearly filled to the top.  Then, he took all of the rest of his coins, and put them into the animal box that had the least votes.

After doing this act of kindness, he very nonchalantly looked up at me and said, “I wanted to give that guy [he was talking about the animal that neither one of us could even identify] the most because he hasn’t gotten many votes so far.”

In that moment I realized that I had not even considered to “vote” the way my son did- to give the most funding to the most unknown specie that had the least resources.

Acceptance

It was summertime, and my son and I were on a little road trip.

We were only a little over an hour into it, and I was already starting to get restless, so I began to fidget.

First I played with my hairclip (while keeping my other hand on the steering wheel), and then I began to play with the radio.

As a turned the radio dial from station to station, all I could find were commercials.

Not getting what I wanted, when I wanted (I guess in this case it was a song that would quell my restlessness), my restlessness  then took a turn into irritation.

“Ugh!” I said aloud. “There is nothing on!”  I was saying this to myself, and did not expect a response from my son in the backseat.

However, my son, who had been calmly playing on his LeapPad in the backseat, looked up and made eye contact with me in the rearview mirror.  He then said, “mom, just deal with it.”

His statement made me pause, smile, and notice my non-acceptance of reality as it was, and how I was clearly making my suffering worse by resisting it further.

I looked back at him in the rearview mirror with appreciation as he turned his attention back to his LeapPad, and returned to his quiet attention.

Human Love & Divine Love

I recently heard a Professor of Persian & Comparative Literature named Fatemeh Keshavarz refer to human love as a metaphor for divine love. This perspective comes from her expertise in the writings of Sufi Mystics like Jalal al-Din Rumi and others. 

She said:

"To me, I think it's a statement by poets like Rumi and others like him that there isn't really a boundary between the two. It's the same thing."

The professor then went on to add  that there is another metaphor that can be helpful to understand how our human love and human relationships can in a way prepare us for our relationship with the divine or god.

Keshavarz said:

 

"There is another medieval Sufi, actually a bit later than Rumi, who says that you can't look at the sun directly, but you can look at its reflection in the water. Now, our humanly experience of love is that reflection in the water of our senses. And it's God's way of teaching us and guiding us from this to the actual looking at the sun when you have gained the ability."

 

This second metaphor of our human relationships being similar to looking at the sun through it's reflection in the water deeply resonates with me.

 

Now, if you had asked me 30 years ago, 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago if I understood what Keshavarz was referring to in her above statement, I probably would have looked like a deer in the headlights because I would not only have no opinion on the subject, but neither would there be an internal response.

 

I have no memory of words like "divinity" or "god" being used in my home or anywhere else really in my childhood- perhaps with the exception of my recitation of the Girl Scout Promise.

 

As I've written before in this blog, you could easily argue my childhood and young adult experiences were remarkably secular. Not atheist. Not agnostic. Secular. God was a non-topic.

 

Interestingly though, as my own spiritual development has over-lapped with the birth of my role as a parent, now, metaphors that compare human love and divine love make perfect sense to me.  Like a truth that I've always known- I just didn't know I knew it.

 

The book shown in the photograph above was part of my journey of knowing.

 

If you haven't read it, please do.  Even if you don't have children yourself, I believe children's literature has messages that are universally appealing, and this is no exception.

 

One of the first things I loved about this book when I found it in a library book sale of used books, was it's dedication at the very beginning:

Isn't that beautiful?

And then of course, the words which follow, line by line, page by page, illustrate divine love as human love, human love as divine love.

They go as follows:

"Mama,' asked Little Bunny, 'if you had a wish,would you wish I never cried?'

'No, Little Bunny,' answered Mama, 'but it does make me sad to see you cry.'

'Would you wish I was brave all the time, and never got scared of anything?'

'No, Little Bunny,' said Mama. 'We all get scared sometimes.'

'What about when I get mad at you?' asked Little Bunny. 'Would you wish I never did that?'

'No, Little Bunny,' said Mama. 'I love  you when you are mad at me, and I love you when you are not.'

'I bet I know what you would wish,' said Little Bunny. 'You would wish I never made any mistakes.'

'No, Little Bunny,' said Mama, 'I love you no matter how many mistakes you make.'

'Even big giant mistakes?'

'Even big giant mistakes.'

'Well,' said Little Bunny, 'you probably would wish I looked different, wouldn't you?'

'No, Little Bunny,' said Mama. 'I wouldn't wish you to look any different than you do.'

Little Bunny was quiet for a moment. 'Mama, if you could make one wish about me, what would it be?'

'I would wish for you to be yourself,' said Mama, 'because I love you just the way you are."

Perhaps today we can all look out for those reflections of divine love in the waters of our relationships that we encounter in our day to day lives.  I will.

 

 

Kindred Spirits: Louisa May Alcott

“I had an early run in the woods before the dew was off the grass. The moss was like velvet, and as I ran under the arches of yellow and red leaves I sang for joy, my heart was so bright and the world so beautiful.  I stopped at the end of the walk and saw the sunshine out over the wide ‘Virginia Meadows.’

It seemed like going through a dark life or grave into heaven beyond.  A very strange and solemn feeling came over me as I stood there, with no sound but the rustle of the pines, no one near me, and the sun so glorious, as for me alone. It seemed as if I felt God as I never did before, and I prayed in my heart that I might keep that  happy sense of nearness all my life.”

-Louisa May Alcott, 1845, author of Little Women.