Treyvon

Ouch.  What's a spiritual response to this seeming injustice?  I say injustice because in the end, an armed man admits to having shot an unarmed teen-ager.  I say injustice because a person with money and resources brought a better defense than the state could bring an offense.  It brings me to the Biblical question:  "Who is my neighbor?"  To me, that's the essence of the spiritual dilemma.

Treyvon is  my neighbor and (although I wouldn't want him living down the street from me!) George is my neighbor too.  A black teen-ager on the streets of a gated, wealthy community should not be at risk just because of his existence.  A weird dude with a gun who has designated himself the "neighborhood watch" guy should have retreated from stalking the teen when the police requested that he stand down. Again, I ask myself a Biblical question:  Who is the lost sheep here?

I don't know the answer.  Both Treyvon and George are children of the universe.  In the end, I know I'm powerless over this act and this outcome.  That doesn't mean that I can't feel that something went terribly wrong not just in that neighborhood but also in the courtroom.  So, I'm just giving a shout-out for Treyvon.  R.I.P.  Roxie

Sacred Shit: Just Another Name for Compost

After 9/11, it seems that many spiritual leaders issued a statement that re-affirmed the foundational principle of The Course in Miracles that there are only two responses to life:  love and fear.  They believe that you can't hold both states of mind simultaneously and suggested that 9/11 was a failure of love.  Other spiritual and psychological writers critiqued this point of view and I find myself agreeing with that critique.

It sounds so good and clean and simple to say:  Choose love or fear, people!  I don't think such either/or approaches really fit the human condition.  As my last posting indicated, I think evolving humans move away from black/white, either/or, love/fear thinking and move towards some middle ground.  Our task is to be vessels containing both the sacred and the shitty.  This holding of both or multiple impulses at the same time results in unimaginable unfoldings.  Compost fuels roses and weeds, aloe and poison ivy.  We might WISH that our human condition produced only roses and other "good" things, but it doesn't.

It produces fucked up humans as well as enlightened ones.  The grace of it all is in knowing that the enlightened ones are no greater than the fucked up ones in the eyes of the universe or the God.  Love, in other words, is not more valuable than fear.  Each is needed and each needs the other.

This topic is really personal for me.  I have faced so much fear in my life and haven't always had great amounts of love.  This is true for many of us.  In fact, it's a rare person who in the dark of night would say that they have more than enough love. The human condition is pretty dysfunctional.  It is full of corruption, wars, despicable acts by one human towards another, exploitation of the weak for the good of the strong.  But, hey, this is what we have, our sacred shit.

The miraculous thing is how LITTLE love it takes to leaven all the fearful, painful ingredients of life.  That one teacher who recognized your value!  That one man who saw the good in you!  That grandmother or aunt or music teacher or coach.  Those few who knew you as worthy and beautiful and strong--those few turn flour into bread, arid soil into fertile land.

With this awareness in hand, we can KNOW that our own tiniest gift to another is valuable.  Our smile, our helping hand, our NOTICING of another are things we ALL can bring to life.  In this way, we are miracles.  We are grace.    Namaste, Roxie

P.S.  One way that I can notice and give to others is by listening and sharing intuitive responses.  Please email me at anneclarice1@gmail.com for a complimentary coaching session.  

Meet in the Middle

There's a line from a country song that goes something like this:  "You come from your way; I'll come from mine.  We'll meet in the middle at that old Georgia pine."  Meeting in the middle is sometimes a spiritual challenge.  Some days we taste the bliss and serenity of oneness with all of creation.  Some days we spiral away into isolation and loneliness.  While there is spirituality in all of these experiences, finding some balance between extremes is a useful spiritual goal.

Let's look at those extremes.  Bliss.  For me, that happens in a heartbeat when everything slows down and I am present in the moment as if time has stopped.  It happened once when I was saying good-bye to a friend while standing in the doorway of my home.  It was late evening and raining.  I became conscious of the mist, of the cool air, of the sky behind my friend's head, of the street lights shimmering, of the vast darkness beyond.  It also happens sometimes when I'm sitting in my yard after a long day.  In my case, I'm noticing, these moments of bliss occur most frequently in the evening. Maybe there's a "certain slant of light" (Dickinson) coming horizontally through the darkening trees.  Maybe the complete silence suddenly filled with evening birdsong brings it.  Anyhow, that's one end of the spectrum.

At the other extreme is isolation and desolation.  Many of us experience these more than we experience bliss; certainly, that's true for me.  First, let's distinguish between loneliness and isolation (C. Moustakas).  Loneliness is a healthy, creative time of fermentation.  It's being alone with our selves and being content with that.  Isolation is the feeling that we are separated from the human community and the creation, cast aside perhaps, and it comes with fear, shame, and sometimes despair.  So the other extreme of bliss is isolation, not loneliness.

While both extremes bring opportunities for spirituality and while we are still connected with the God, Big Dude, or Universal Good; in the isolation phase, we aren't aware of our connection.  It's there but we don't experience it.

If the divine is present in ALL experience, then why seek the middle as part of our spiritual practice?  There's  an ego-hit that comes with the extremes.  We are self-conscious in an extreme way that can be as addictive as a drug.  The "high" of bliss and the "low" of desolation can become ends in themselves.  We begin searching for bliss, craving it, are disappointed and feel like failures if we can't score it.  Likewise, we become comfortable with isolation and desolation.  They expect nothing of us.  We don't have to DO anything about them.  Poor us.  We're so alone,  ahhhhhhh.  There's a sedation in that state that we find ourselves attached to, preferring it over the slings and arrows of everyday life.

So, we seek the middle.  We seek to live the everyday life.  At first, this may seem incredibly hard or incredibly boring.  Do it anyway.  We ARE in the middle between our spiritual and physical natures.  We live in the sacred and the shitty all the time.  It's the nature of our human condition.  To cling to one side of our experience more than the other may seem safe or wonderful, but it's not whole.  It's not you experiencing the nature of your current life.  It's rejecting the gift of being spiritual beings in a PHYSICAL world.

Wise friends have told me, bring a little of one side with you when you're in the other as a way to start moving into the middle.  When feeling bliss, consciously remember the desolation of another day and bless it.  When feeling desolation, visualize the serenity of those blissful moments.

Meet me in the middle, baby!  Roxie