Little things

Janet (not her real name) left me three messages last night.  Usually it is between four and six, three or four times a week; all labeled “urgent”.  I guess for her they are urgent for her life is pretty much limited to her long term motel room, which is very tiny.  Her phone is her life line, so she is on it all the time, so to actually get back to her is very difficult, so I just leave short messages.   I did tell her that if she needs me to pick up anything, to please put the items in the first message or two but to please not spread it out through all six.  Some days I really can’t listen to all to them, for she repeats a lot, so I don’t want to miss anything she needs, mostly her medications, which she really can’t do without. 

I now that I can’t really do anything for her.  I can’t fix her, nor can I in any way give her ways improve her relationship with her ‘boyfriend’ of six years, who himself seems to have some serious relational problems with woman.  She waits for him to call, he never does.  He says he will take her out, but most of the time does not show, now does he call to explain anything, or give reasons.  So here is a woman with a severe anxiety disorder being treated like this.  So yes her life is ‘hell’ much of the time.  So all that can be done are little acts of kindness that are easy to do and do not take much time.  Just listen to her messages, drop off stuff for her and once in a blue moon when I can, take her out to her favorite Chinese restaurant for supper.  It helps her a little, but without these little acts of kindness that I and a few others give her, well perhaps she would have sunk below the waves by now.  There is no guarantee that she will not in the future, but knowing my limitations helps me not to get overly anxious about her, which makes it easier to try to be there in little ways.

Her plight is not uncommon for there are many like her in our country at this time.  They are all around us, those with mental handicaps, or physical disabilities, who while they may have enough to live on (some of them) they can still be overlooked by those who simply live around them.  Not in any cruel way, they are just not seen.  Each person has so much to carry, so many problems that it can be very difficult to see another in pain and to be able to help them.  These people can be judged harshly, but it is very difficult to get any kind of a job when one has certain kinds of emotional, mental, or physical problems.  It is true that many, perhaps the majority do find ways to live good lives and not depend on others, but there are always those who simply can’t, even if they try.  They may be a lot, but overall they are a minority. 

I can’t put demands on Janet, since if I did, that would mean that I am trying to save her, which I can’t.  That would lead to some kind of inner anxiety that would make the relationship strained and in the end if truth be told, it would be better for both to simply end it.  I don’t want to do that, for she is alone for the most part and I do have limited means in which I can help her; like her other friends who do the best they can.  Though some drop out eventually, it can be too much.

She has a habit of talking to everyone about her problems, asking for advice and then doing what she intended in the first place.  It depends on how you interrupt such kinds of communication, for me I think it is just her way of venting, so when she asks for my opinion on a subject, if I do give it, I don’t expect her to follow it through, nor am I sure she should.  Her world is her world after all and she is communicating the best way she can.

I have said this before, but I do this more for myself than for her.  For what would happen if I were to withdraw and not help her.  Well she would survive and find someone else, for I am only as good as my last favor with her.  I know this and am comfortable, for she is in survival mode and that does make one more narcissistic than usual, so I get it.  No I do it for me.  To turn off a small inner switch could lead to a place that I do not want to go.  I can’t do much, but for me, my heart and my soul, it is important that I keep the relationship open.  Perhaps I don’t want people to become invisible to me. To see through them as if they do not exist, are not really there. To simply pass them by in the street and perhaps have to develop some contempt for them, so I could have a little distance and not see the suffering humanity that is standing before me.  So yes in the end, it is for me that I try to keep my heart open, that is still more stone than living tissue.

Again, Janet is a teacher for me.  She has taught me boundaries; I can help her, but at the same time know my severe limitations, that I can’t change her or her life.  So I don’t make deals, I just try to be there in little ways.   I suppose also, that my faith does help, knowing that in the end, like with the rest of us, she is  in God’s loving embrace, though it seems cold at this time.  Or perhaps she is Christ for me, for I believe that Christ presence in each of us is there, in those we love and in those we perhaps don’t.  So we are called to what?  What is the message?  To love others as ourselves, which can be hard work, but perhaps lived out in the little things, for in the end, on a personal level that is all we can do……the little things.

Inner heart

It was Christmas afternoon, about 1:30 and I was helping an old friend take his luggage to his car. As we were leaving the retreat house, I saw a man outside the front door who looked very familiar to me. So I stopped and asked him if we meet before. As soon as he started talking, I remembered who he was, though not his name. He used to come out here many years ago when I was still in my early 20’s and stayed over for Christmas. So we shook hands and I continued on my way with my friend to his vehicle. As I was coming back towards the front door I saw that he was still standing there and I could tell that he wanted to talk. So we conversed a bit about life in general and how we both were doing. He then asked me if we could go into one of the conference rooms so we could converse some more. I had the time so I said yes.

Frank (not his real name) was a big guy, well over six feet and a bit heavier than when I remember him being when young. He was a teacher in the past and also a veteran, divorced from his wife and living alone in a log cabin up in Minnesota. He is also dying; he picked up some sort of fungal infection that is eating up his lungs. At first they thought it was lung cancer, but when they went in to see, they found the infection. He also has leukemia, both of which he picked up from serving in the Viet Nam war; Agent Orange they call it. So he gets 100% disability, which he needs to survive since he can’t hold down a job. They have no idea how long he has to live, which in my mind can be worse than actually knowing.

He is a very devout Christian (Catholic) and he wanted to talk a little about his inner life, which I will of course not go into here. However he did bring up something’s that is common to the human species: well at least I could resonate to what he was saying. He had a lot of fear in his heart. I guess he had a checkered past, he was 62 years old and was in a war, so I guess he saw and did some things that he is not proud of and very sorry about. As I listened to him talk I had to refrain from trying to change him, for his open and honest speaking about his inner fear made me a bit uncomfortable.

I did come away with an understanding of how fear works in my life a little differently, which is often covered over by anger. Fear, anger and anxiety can be ways of keeping the world small enough wherein it can be easily handled. I suppose it also works in our relationship with God. Well at least those who believe in God. From listening to and reading what atheist have to say about God, images that they perhaps get from their discussions with believers, or perhaps from their own past experience, it would seem that the most sophisticated of us can have images and ideas of God that are infantile at best and sadistic at the worst. We can’t seem to be able to get away from projecting and then believing what is mirrored back to us.

For me, faith is a choice and I would think that for atheist his or her unbelief is the same. However I think that choices have to be made over and over again, they just have to be made at deeper and deeper levels as we mature and grow. So some atheists as well as believers can come across as thoughtful and respectful of other people’s paths, while others can do the opposite, making caricatures out of each other. Shallowness seems to be a human trait and it takes study, thinking and contemplation to try to overcome that tendency; of which of course I have in abundance.

So what does it have to do with fear? Well I am only speaking for myself. For how can I possibly take it upon myself to articulate for others, what goes on inside them? As I was saying, any true belief has to be a choice, if it is not, well it can carry the believer or non-believer through life, as long as they don’t speak to anyone who is outside their own in group. It sounds so high schoolish doesn’t it? Belief or unbelief ghettos, where we pat each other on the back and on the upside, if truth be told, encourage as well. However it can all be unconscious and in the end based on fear of the perceived threat from those who are different.

So how does choice come into play with me, in regards to my own faith? For me, as I enter my middle old age, it is becoming apparent that it is a ‘heart’ thing….the longing aspect of my humanity that will not go away but keeps manifesting in different ways. Some of them healing, others still painful, probing, forcing me to move forward, again after choosing to. Perhaps in the end it is all about love? Our literature, poetry, movies and music seemed to be eternally stuck on this level of meaning, and in the end it all comes down to relationships, not only with others but with reality as a whole. The mystery of being, which we all face, consciously or not, in this very large waiting room we call life, waiting for our number to be called and then we are forced to go through that final exit…..or is it an entrance? The dividing line of our different belief systems; and perhaps the one that causes so much demeaning debate, if indeed it can be called that; squawking seems more like it, when it is all said and done.

So with me; there are times (perhaps it is a breakthrough), when the truth of what my faith teaches, the very center of it, it depth and intimacy seems to dissolve for a time my protective covering, or is it a bubble (?) and confronts or challenges me to step out into a different world, one that is filled with heart wrenching love and deeper longing. In a way it is a call to deeper suffering and love. For any kind of expansion of the ‘inner heart’ implies new life, which means a kind of death. It is then that I have to make a choice because at that moment I am tempted to atheism, for I don’t want to be taken in, fooled, and besides it is all too good to be true…..right? So in order to continue I have to say ‘yes’. For is it possible that our individual longings, that seem to be part and parcel of what it means to be human, are they just an element of the calling from that which is the only source that can fulfill them? I know that at that moment I have to choose, to go deeper or to back away and live in a world that is Godless. I am not sure faith is an escape from reality, but an invitation to dive ever deeper into its bottomless depths.

The ‘inner heart’ has to die in order for fear to be let go of. “Fear is useless, what is needed is trust”, not something easy to do in a world such as ours. In order to do that I have to let go of all kinds of emotional barriers that in my 61 years I have not been able to let go of completely, for it seems to happen (the letting go) one choice at a time. Who would I be without my fear and the covering of anger that protects it? So little by little, my fears of the ‘Other” lessens and my longing becomes deeper and yes a certain type of suffering becomes more intense; yet it is the healing kind, though who says healing is not a fearful thing in itself.

I still have fear and I know this because of a species of anger that I still have. Anger in itself is something good, healthy and holy, if used according to justice and charity, though that can be difficult. No, I still have that kind of anger that is more primordial than actually human, or perhaps flowing from some part of me that is just angry, fearful and two years old. However it is less than when younger, though more pointed and painful in a surgical sort of way. A lessening of fear of the ‘inner heart’ takes away its armor. For I feel that much anger and resentment flows from a desire to protect oneself from the inner hurting of others, it blocks out empathy, keeps up strong, though I feel unhealthy boundaries which only leads to isolation; which is what anger wants, to block out the unpleasant and suffering that others carry. Anger demands from others what it cannot do itself. A form of perfection and if not forthcoming, indignation is not far behind. So no, I am still fearful, but less so, which I feel is because when the mystery draws close and my boundaries melt for a time, I am giving a choice for in the end we all choose, though each person does this in their own unique and personnel way.

I can’t speak for others, but being human we are united in the fact that we are all on a dark and often lonely road, sharing a common humanity, so I doubt my inner experience is that different from most. So I am not revealing anything really, just my often fragmented humanity. For after all, I write for healing and one day I will be able to stop, or not,    perhaps to the day I die I will be fighting my own species of inner demons, but that is ok, for I will continue to go deeper in and higher up…..as I feel we all do in the end. I am not a pessimist, though I have been accused of it. Without faith perhaps I would have become the worst sort of nihilist, for I seem to have a bent towards the darker side of reality…… but faith transforms that into hope that has to live over the abyss upheld by faith and grace. Again, I know I am not alone in this. Faith is not what many atheists want to think it is, but I have given up caring really about that. For again, we each have our own road to walk, often lonely and dark.

Winter evening walk Christmas Eve

It was very cloudy this Christmas eve of 09, some wind, looking like rain soon a-coming.  The clouds looked pregnant, heavy and dark; just the way I like them.  The ground wet, I could feel the damp cold in my feet, emerging through my shoes and socks, as I slowly made my away around the road.  After a time I left the road to walk towards a small grove of pine trees that were planted over 20 years ago and are now quite tall and beautiful.  The grove has been thinned out once, but will not be completely harvested, since it will be left standing as a noise buffer from the road nearby.

I walked into the grove and liked how much room there is to allow for further growth of the trees left behind.  Slick grass beneath my feet, as I walked the path that went through it, slowly, simply enjoying the dark wet cold; a typical winter’s evening in Georgia.  Well it is if we have a wet winter.  The last few years were experienced as a draught, so I am thankful for the wetness.  I always feel grounded in this kind of weather, so peaceful, quiet, no bright sun to burn, or to cause my eyes to squint.  No just quiet, calm darkness.  Its seems that I don’t need a great deal of light, in fact to much actually tires me out and makes me feel a bit scattered.  Not that I don’t like sunny days, but if I had my choice, it would be dark cloudy ones that would be the most common.

In the midst of this little grove, there is a very old tree.  It looks like it could be nearing the end of its life span, for it looks weathered in the best sense of the word.  Long gnarled limbs reaching up to the sky, almost like a soul in supplication, seeking light and the grace to simply go on. Yet also strong, with deep roots in the earth; it is not going anywhere without a fight.  It is very beautiful to me, this old thing with its own kind of beauty.  I always feel a little sad when seeing it, this aged friend, for when it passes it will be the last old tree in the grove, all the rest of the trees being less than 30 years old. 

As I was leaving the woods, I noticed another old tree that I also loved, but now dead, pushed over by a big storm a couple of years ago.  Its limbs are still beautiful in death, slowly being returned to the earth.  I caressed one of the huge limbs thinking of how transitory everything is; even the strongest will one day fall.  Yet I noticed new sprouts growing up and hopefully in a few decades someone else will be able to enjoy the strength and beauty of the tree.  By then, I will myself be just a part of history of this place, probably forgotten.  Which is fine with me, being known or famous is highly overrated I would think.  What is famous is an image projected outward to the public and what is perceived is just another projection, both mingle, yet the real person is hidden, private, known only to God. 

Near the bell tower I noticed a small flock of birds flying around, then settling in and taking off again, restless perhaps; I know the feeling.  I would think seeing lots of birds fly together is another one of my favorite things, right up there with walking near the ocean and yes, dark heavy clouds and rain.  Around and around they flew, how I envy birds their flight, I feel so heavy and earth bound when I see them soar so elegantly in harmony.  I have had lucid dreams were I would decide to fly and they were ecstatic experiences for me, flying up, looping around, diving and going back up again; just like dancing.  Yeah, for me dancing, when you step onto the rhythm chain, is like flying. The body floats, the heart zooms and there is only laughter in the heart. 

So I felt really rooted, connected to the earth all the way down, like I was drinking in life, something I can’t experience on sunny days.  Sun filled days have their own experiences, just as powerful I guess but not as fulfilling.  One other thing, the soft patter of rain on leaves is another sound that I can’t get enough of, it is like drinking water straight through the heart.  Perhaps that is why I love the dark; it is a heart thing, something I feel I am often out of touch with.  It can seem like an iron fortress at times and I don’t have the key to unlock it.  Perhaps in the end, it is the grace of nature that holds that key, at least some of the times.  At others it is music and literature and the smiles and love from those around me. 

I wonder if our true nature is utter simplicity buried under layers of complexity; perhaps another mystery to what ‘being made in the image of’ means.  Perhaps the waiting is also an indication of the deepest meaning of advent, and the birth a fulfillment of the promise that is perhaps longed for by all.

 
For a child is born to us!

The reason


Christmas can be a joyful time for many,
gift giving,
receiving,
visiting and parties,
music and laughter;

for others,

well,

things can be very different,
the season is depressing,
painful,
isolated,
pretending to go along
with the merriment,
or withdrawing for a time
to just find some peace
and yes sanity.

What is the reason as they say for the season?

Gift giving is an end in itself,
secular,
something good,
yet it can be empty
if memories intrude of times past.

A revelation is not something new,
just something revealed,
novel yes when heard,
yet there all along.

Incarnation,
God with us,
perhaps the season is about that,
Christ one with those sad,
lonely,
isolated and broken down by life.

 Immanence,
God tabernacles with us,
skin on skin,
bone on bone,
closer to use than our thoughts.

Infinite love
journeys with us,
suffers with us,
yes perhaps that is the reason,
the revelation
of something always there.

 In our sorrows and joys,
never alone,
though the journey of faith
one long and dark,
hard and lonely,

yet
also joyful,
filled with peace,
love abounding,

either way

we are loved and cherished,
something at times hard to fathom,
yet pure gift.

Jabbering

I was talking to a friend this weekend about some issue that he was trying think through.  As we were exchanging ideas and I was saying something, his right eyebrow sudden went up and I laughed and said "what". He looked at me quizzically and responded by saying, "how is it that you can sum up something I have been trying to understand by saying just a few words".  I responded that perhaps I just use language differently than he does and my particularly slant in how I communicate, perhaps, at times, helps him to look at things from a different perspective.   It happens to me all the time when I converse with friends. A word, or a simple phrase and then comes the insight; I get it!  Sometimes I like to think the puzzle, something I am trying to be put together, is really a diamond with many different facets, and the words we use light up different ones at different times leading to some kind of breakthrough.  Not just on an intellectual level, but emotional as well.  The more surprising the event, from my experience, the deeper its effect and long lasting, often leading to other avenues of insight and growth, it is almost organic in nature.    

There is so much that goes into communication, much of it non verbal.  Facial expressions, bodily stances, tone of voice, the look in the eyes, all of these along with the spoken word, both help and hinder communication.  It can be a tiring business at times trying to build bridges in which both parties can walk away with the thought that they were heard, understood, even if not agreed with.  Bring in different cultures, religions and family influences and it only gets more surreal at times when trying to communicate.  To tell you the truth, there are times when I feel like giving up all together.  For it is frustrating to not be heard no matter how hard I try, but even more so when I know that I can't seem to get what the other person is trying so hard to convey to me.  Mind melding would be so much easier, but perhaps not as much fun that goes along with the aggravation. 

To make matters worse, when two different tribes try to communicate, who are on opposing teams of a particular issue; well it can bring out the worst in both sides.  In fact, both groups can begin to resemble each other more and more as the intensity of the exchange grows.  Whether it is hyper rational, or emotional, in the end both sides sound like mirror images of each other, both rigidly holding on to very narrow and unyielding beliefs, that each hold to be the truth; so the other point of view is obviously false to anyone who has an ounce of sense..  Well perhaps held during the rabid exchanges that can be the fruit of such jumbled communication, for when each side reduces the other to a stereotype, they tend to be acted out in living color.  Village atheist, or raving fundamentalist; each a role, an archetype, that seems easy to wear and act out of to perfection, for the entertainment of some and the sorrow of others.  Or perhaps the stance that the Democrats and Republicans take towards each other is another arena where this kind of thing is played out for an even bigger audience.  I myself do not find it entertaining or funny, but very human, for I have not been able to rise above this kind of thing and perhaps never will.  Perhaps that I why I do find it distressing, seeing myself, even if unconsciously much of the time, easily falling into the same traps myself.   

So what is to be done?  Perhaps nothing and in the end that is what brings me a semblance of peace over the whole thing.

Heart to heart

People come and go in our lives.  Some make a big impression and others don’t, some are loved, others not liked at all and many do not evoke any kind of response; they can be a neutral presence in our lives.  Some can drive us crazy and others can have a healing effect on us. And in the end, it is often difficult to know why people fall into these different, diverse, categories at all.  All in all I somehow think all of these different relationships are equally important and need to be meditated upon.  Our belief systems will of course have a great influence on how we relate to others, even if not consciously adverted to. 


Some believe that we are not called to anything special; others have other thoughts on the matter.  Yet each day we either leave others better off or worse. The fruit that comes from the seeds we plant in our relationships with those we have met.  Perhaps even those we meet for a very short period of time.  I have memories of meetings with people that go back decades, that were just passing events in the overall schemes of things, yet their influence is still with me.  Snap shots really, yet very clear and poignant. 


I have those that I have been friends with for what seems a lifetime.  I love each one differently, some like family, others differently, yet each very important to me and I hope I am also important to them.  Some relationships have very deep roots; they just seem to happen, even from the first meeting.  Others grow more slowly, yet just as important.  At times people will wander off and I will not see them again and only then will I understand how important they were to me.

Mind to mind, heart to heart; relationships make or break us.  It is how we learn from others, listen, observe and treat them that make us who we are.  Others stretch us, draw us outside of ourselves and make us face our own narcissism, which can destroy the strongest friendship if left uncheck.  Love, no matter what kind; be it love of family, friendship with others, or even in care giving, even if they are strangers, call us outside of ourselves and will bring with it a species of suffering that comes from letting go of unhealthy self centered preoccupations, that in the long run can be self destructive.  Often times we are called to show compassion on those who are unable to return it, yet even then, perhaps these are the most important people in our lives, for they truly stretch our hearts and test our emotional responses.  Even in failure, we learn, and hopefully continue to do better.

Perhaps it is love after all that we are called to.  Not just the emotional kind, but to a love that is stronger than death, which truly draws us away from just using others for our own well being.  It is easy to turn others into objects, but to see them as another ‘thou’ takes work and I feel grace.  Well that is the language of a Christian isn’t it? ‘Grace’ being central to how Christians see how God works in the world.  However even Christians don’t always agree with what actually ‘grace’ is, or even what it means.  Which is at is should be, for there is an evolution in religious thought, so it is normal that there will be different ways of looking at how grace works in the world. 


How do I want to be treated?  That takes some thought, allowing unconscious material to come to the surface and hopefully integrated.  For that journey can be a painful one leading to some dark places.  Only then, can I begin to care for others as I want to be treated.  It is easy to show contempt towards others, because it is not thought through. For the experience of having disdain directed at oneself, is not very pleasant and often wounding. Yet it can be very easy to bludgeon someone else, because good reasons can always be found in doing acts of injustice. 


For we each represent the group that we belong too.  It is not fair, but we are still tribal, even among the most rational of us; which is not very rational, when all is said and done.  For broad strokes are taken in judging other groups, simplistic judgments, that the one making them would react angrily to if directed towards them or their particular tribe.  In fact the more rational many seem to want to project out towards others, will in fact, come across very emotional and often inhumane in how they actually relate, though this will only be seen by those who are experiencing it.  I have been on both ends of this kind of thing. 


If we self destruct it will because of this tribalism that we as a species can’t seem to outgrow, yes perhaps it is our fatal flaw.

 Humpty Dumpty

I have some friends who could listen to music all day and with all the ipods and mp3’s around today it is easy enough to do. I often feel a little envy at that, this importance of music and their deep appetite for it. For myself, music has always been important, but it is not something that I just ‘do’, but usually listen when I am doing something else; like driving for instance. Perhaps it is when driving that I listen the most. I am one of those drivers who can ‘blank’ out if they are tired and do not have any music to keep that from happening. So more often than not, I have a CD on, or perhaps talk radio. Though I find talk radio less and less appealing these days. Everything seems so polarized today, that I don’t really feel like being drawn into it when I am out and about. Besides, I am a political moron and not sure where I fall in the spectrum of political beliefs; though I can say it is most likely a little left of center, but not much I think.

Music, like with most people, has the power to touch me deeply and perhaps that is one reason that I will not listen to it as much as some of my friends do. It is like a scalpel, a very sharp one, which has the power to cut through all kinds of defenses and free up many different kinds of emotional critters that live inside me. Ok, I can be emotionally blocked, well at least for some kinds of emotions. I think I fear them because if they come on too strong, I will melt, or lose control, or whatever. Irrational, yes, but more often than not, insight is not all that big of a help for me.

I suppose I am fragmented and all the ‘stuff’ I do is trying to put ‘Humpty Dumpty’ back together again; yes an impossible project. Yet perhaps one worth the journey even if the putting back together gig won’t happen in my lifetime. I write for that reason, trying to figure out ‘something’, but not always sure what that ‘something’ really is. Words pour out of me, as well as poems, but there are moments when I wonder if this is really me, if what I write is really from some part of me trying to get my attention, but not really a central aspect of who I am. It is like Ann Marie once told me about my writing as well as my listening to music: “You Mark, are trying to bring head and heart together”. Well I guess my head and heart are still quite a distance from each other. Funny, I always thought that by the time I turned 61 (which I just did), I would have more things figured out, but in the end, I still feel young in some ways and very immature.

So back to music; it does allow my constantly racing mind to slow down, to just be and to actually feel something that is down below, if spatial metaphors must be used. When younger I would often go into ecstasy when dancing, my mind, body and soul becoming one, where I would actually feel like flying…….zooming away. To this day, even listening to music will make it seem that my soul wants to leave my body and zoom again as it I did when younger. Though my taste in music is not all that stellar, at least that is what my friends tell me, in good humor of course. But if truth be told, I have to agree with them; my tastes for the most part move towards the more primitive sounds. Yet music, if it touches the soul and opens it up to the light, then I don’t think it matters, we each have our own unique taste and needs when it come to what we listen to.

I am not confused, but to tell the truth, I think I know less about myself now, than when I was young. By the time I am 90 (not too long away), if I live that long, I won’t know myself at all…..perhaps that is the way it should be. The less I know the more I search; even if I know closure is impossible. Perhaps that is why I believe there is something more for us after we leave this life, the inner journey seems to point in that direction.