What? The Devil?

So, a mother drove her car into the Hudson River killing herself and three of her four small children. War in the Middle East results in innumerable deaths and atrocities every day. Earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes are ravaging the earth's people.

We are seeing or actually experiencing record-setting disasters. In addition, life's smaller hurts eat away at us. A friend seems to snub us, a child grows up and moves away, our spouse has an affair. Heroes fail us. Tiger Woods was a case in point.

Last night, when it was time for my daily gratitude reflection, I couldn't think of anything I was grateful for. I was overwhelmed by the pain and suffering of my brothers and sisters around the globe. I was angry at the smaller pains in my little life.

I railed at the Big Dude and asked the age-old question, "Why do these bad things happen to just regular people?" Why? Why do people kill each other? Why do we reject and hurt each other? Is the Big Dude asleep at the switch? How CAN I have faith in the face of so much evidence that no gracious or even neutral Being is watching over the creation? Last night, I couldn't.

This morning, I wonder if faith is a process rather than a decision. Perhaps, it's just getting up in the morning and walking the dog, making the coffee, brushing the teeth. The little things that make up a life. With that in mind, I turn off the news. Suddenly there are no tsunami's or hurricanes in my life. That which we see on the news, after all, is only real to those who are experiencing it. Perhaps faith is a daily decision not to react to news as if it's happening to us. There's too much of it. Our faith, such as it is, can't take these assaults.

As I sit here quietly, peace washes over me. I return to living this moment, feeling the keyboard beneath my fingers, the pillow behind my back. I listen to the breathing of my dog. Life slows and I'm at home within my body.

I don't understand the state of the world and the Big Dude's relationship to it. Not burdened by knowing only through faith, perhaps even he has turned off earth's news and is holding a billion quiet moments in his hands. Perhaps he, too, seeks occasional refuge from the havoc of humans even as he accepts and loves them. To bring it home, I seek refuge from the humans in my life at times even as I love them. I even seek refuge from myself.

The fact that he doesn't rise up like Thor and in one made moment strike out at the universe is itself testimony to his restraint if not his love. Personally, sick of it all, I yelled at the dog last night. Perhaps faith is ongoing reflection and the courage to go about each day. Wailing, kicking, and lashing out in the face of frustration, I shouldn't cast the first stone. Roxie

Displaced to Develop

So, I'm sitting on the sofa with my faux attack dog, Emma Jane, completely surrounded by stacks of insulation, sheetrock, buzz saws, electrical cords, buckets and random containers. The water is turned off. Tall men with giant tool belts and baseball caps are wandering around. My ceiling and walls are bare with insulation partially installed. Genial guys, they are letting me stay in the corner of the living room so I can work online grading papers and, of course, blogging.

Despite their genial ways, I feel displaced. For several days, I've been sitting outside with the dog to avoid the noise and mess. I invent errands to take me out of the house. Right now, my hair is wrapped in a towel as I managed to wash my hair before the water got axed.

Sometimes to make things better, you have to first be willing to accept them getting worse. You may have a vision that's drawing you forward but nothing prepares you for the kinds of obstacles and disasters you encounter en route to that ideal. Joseph Campbell writes about the hero's journey, stepping off the everyday path into the unknown. You may think you know where you're going, but you don't. The minute you take a step off the trail, you enter an unfamiliar world. The rules you have lived by are suspended and you learn to cope minute-by-minute with the misadventures that arise.

So it is with each new phase of life. You go off to college and, wham, displacement and adventure. You fall in love and same deal. You have children, get a job, join the military, and before you know it, you're facing midlife challenges. And, of course, it's all preparatory for the greatest adventure of all--aging. Yesterday, Paul Simon was on the Today Show, he said, "I'm afraid of dying." A few minutes later, he admitted that his music is getting better as he ages. Displacement and development.

Those of us who are sixtysomething are in Paul Simon's generation; we matured along with his music. We still see him as a poetic genius masterfully expressing the paradoxes of life.

It was reassuring to hear this icon say he was afraid of dying, the ultimate displacement. It was equally stunning to realize that he is still writing his profound music, even more wise from the weird displacement of aging.

It's how I feel at sixtysomething. The rules of the road that I've lived by don't work anymore. I'm clearly on a different path altogether. I have hopes and visions of what might come of this phase of life, but, like Simon, I'm afraid of death. I'm hoping it's a worm hole into the next phase of consciousness. I can't know that, however. There's nothing to do except embrace the hero's journey. Step off the known path and let events, monsters, mentors, and new maps be my guide.

Let's hope, the little displacement and development taking place in my house preview bigger, scarier displacements to come. Let's hope it all leads to an even better home for the errant human spirit. Roxie

How Do You Feel About Lovin' Yourself?

So, the spiritual path seems to say we need to love ourselves as a primal condition of enlightenment or spiritual wisdom. Dude! What the heck does that mean? Since the Big Dude is probably not going to answer directly, I pose the questions to you, my readers. What do you think it means? Are you able to experience this? How do you approach it?

The biggest question in my mind is this: Is self-love a feeling? Sometimes, lately, little feelings of self-respect have swept over me. Is that it? I'll take it. It feels good. But, I'm thinking it's more than that. Otherwise, what do you do with all the multiple moments when you don't particularly respect yourself, when you know you've messed up? There's a person you interact with regularly that you feel dead towards or, worse, you feel confused and untrusting towards. What about that? You drink too much or ignore your spiritual practice. You're petty in human interactions or you enjoy a good gossip a bit more than you should. What about that?

I'm guessing that self-love is a kind of abiding forgiveness of our slip-ups, boundless compassion for the humanity in us. Yes?

Beyond even that, it must be a sense of connection and oneness with all creatures. Long pause here. That's where I know I have a long way to go. And yet, and yet, so do they and you! There it is, the oneness. We are equal screw-ups in the Big Dude's laughing eyes. This may sound silly but, honestly, it rings true to me. Stumbling through life together, grabbing a stranger's hand. Love. Self and other.

Hoping that each of you will share your sense of self-love, I'm grateful for the self-respect I'm feeling today. Roxie

Like the First Morning

Some mornings, there's a hush in the atmosphere. We can feel it. The earth seems a quiet place, home seems a sacred haven. This is such a morning. As I came down the stairs, it was as if I was seeing things for the first time. My footsteps seemed lighter. The act of making breakfast became a ritual with each movement graced by some inner awareness, that sacred hush.

Life has been a whirlwind of visitors and travel. A new housemate and her pets have moved in as well. Today, well, today I'm alone in a house made more beautiful by the knick knacks artfully placed by my housemate while I was gone. Maybe this is why I'm seeing anew, "like the first morning," if you will.

Or, maybe it's because my heart is full from the travel and the people. I spent my travel time in Reno, not usually the most spiritual mecca. Oddly, this time it was. The cab drivers were friendly wanderers telling fervently tales of the old days in Reno. Strangers reached out to lift my baggage. The sun was shining on the old, amazing mountains in the near distance.

My younger son greeted me with a warm hug and we chattered until all misunderstandings and misadventures were shared and healed. I saw him through my third eye and my earth eyes. I gobbled him up with my eyes in the way that Gwendolyn Brooks says mothers do. I also saw his struggles and his moral victories. We spent a week side-by-side laughing our souls into happiness.

And then there were the high desert mountains. Everywhere you looked, there was a breathtaking vista. To the south were endless brown mountains where the sun had melted the snow. To the north, ah, the north, were snow capped mountains sharply outlined against the sky, sprinkled with evergreens and sage brush. We drove up a dirt road on a sunny day ritualistically stopping to open and close each gate as we progressed. We lurched and labored our way until we turned a corner and came to what they call the Irish valley where two mountains see to be facing each other over a sheer drop. Everything was covered with snow and utterly silent. The sacred hush.

When we arrived at our destination, the mountain top, we were greeted by six enormous dogs not one of which weighed less than 70 pounds. Like cowboys coming home, we faced doggie love and a pot of stew simmering on the back of the wood stove. Another kind of sacrament.

This morning's holy silence, that moment when another world seemed to open up in and around me, maybe extended the many benedictions of the last week or so. Is that how it is? Sometimes we see through the glass clearly in a series of synergistic events that tumble us into the looking glass; sometimes it's just grace. Maybe it's always grace. Roxie

Namaste

Welcome to all the kindred souls who are following this blog. Something tells me things are going to get lively in this place, soon. This is a week of contemplation. I'm on vacation and having many rich and helpful conversations and experiences.

I've reached a decision that I need to revise the way I live my life to be more intentional. That decision relates to blogging, exercise, and meditation. I'm in Nevada where the mountains are snow covered all the way to the horizon and the ravines drop to the middle of the earth. It's heart-stoppingly beautiful. I'm grateful for the drama of northwestern nature. It doesn't do damage; it just stands there so varied and beautiful that you can look at it forever.

Thinking about forever, we went to see a show about Black Holes at the local planetarium. Dude, what ARE these terrifying natural occurances? How can it be that matter sucks in on itself so intensely that it swallows itself and disintegrates. It's like bad science fiction. Everything we know regenerates into something else. Can there BE something like a black hole that doesn't regenerate, that goes into nothingness and doesn't return? The spiritual loop hole is the "worm hole" concept. Maybe, there is a tunnel of sorts from the black hole to a white something or other in another plane that is generating life.

My son and I sat at a picnic table in the sun and said simultaneously, "I can't wrap my mind around black holes."

On the other hand, Big Dude, how amazing that there exists something so magnificent, something generating its own laws and forces, something that we CAN'T understand or even approach. Poet Wendell Berry celebrates the darkness and the unknown for the humility and awe these generate in us. That's how I feel about the Nevada landscape and the dark places in space. They leave our minds floundering and our spirits bowed. Roxie

Chaos, Comfort, and Compost: Welcome to the Human Condition

Sometimes a series of external events mirrors a stirring in our soul, unrecognizable in its early stages. Perhaps we find ourselves excessively angry with our children. Perhaps we deplore the helplessness we see in a friend or family member. Perhaps we are overwhelmed by what seem like chaotic happenings in our life. The trouble with "soul messages" is that they rarely come to us directly. Perhaps they don't want to be ambushed and taken hostage by our minds.

This month, I've been plagued by chaotic happenings over which I experience little control. From a leaking roof and little springs of water gushing from various places in the ceiling and walls to an outrageous income tax bill, life suddenly came at me from so many unexpected directions that I felt helpless and out of control.

This wicked earthquake of events culminated in two instances when I acted impulsively and without my normal filters and caution. In both cases, I said something I wished I hadn't. Upon reflection, I realize that the external chaos had moved within. I lost touch with my loving center and began taking cheap and quick shots at others.

Why is it that we sometimes are more inclined to think ill of others than well? Almost certainly it is because we are actually thinking ill of ourselves. I don't know how to fix that kind of chaos. I don't know how to make up for a negative balance in the self-love column. It seems like a vicious circle. I don't love myself and so I don't attract love. That's a universal law of life, isn't it? What a terrible law! Who most needs love? The one who doesn't feel loved, right? In my minimally damaging sniping at others, am I not asking if not begging not to be sniped at in return. Am I not asking for love?

I think about Shakespeare's Shylock crying out, "If you scratch me, do I not bleed?" In the laws of the land, Shylock had to forfeit a "pound of flesh" for his offence. But the ruler of that Shakespearean land lived more by mercy than justice; he forgave the debt. That makes me think about the soft heart of the good shepherd looking for a lost sheep in the night.

I eventually figured out how to manage the leaky ceiling and the overwhelming tax bill. External crises I can handle. I have no idea how to fix the leaks in my soul, the heavy spiritual bills that are coming due. Why is that? Maybe I can't fix them. Maybe I have to wait to be forgiven my debt, for the shepherd to find me.

So, I light a candle and sit quietly watching my mind pick at my spirit. Watching gushers of self-doubt erupt within me. I watch my mind impose its inexorable judgments upon my soul and the fines that it levies seem too heavy to bear. I am awash in despair.

Big Dude, why is it sometimes so hard to find our way to you? Like some dark warlord, you just seem to melt into the darkness leaving us without comfort or grace. Why do our souls just seep out from under us sometimes? What's up with all this inner and outer chaos? Stop! Don't give me any holy crap about how you created life itself out of just such a messy kind of darkness. I'm not buying the creation myth today. I'm not buying it.

I am sitting here with a candle just barely smelling the yeasty, incubating dark hope of the human condition.

Snow and Water and Rain, Oh My!

I've been sitting here listening to the dripping of water from the leaks in my ceiling, watching the snow grow deeper and deeper. How complacent we who have homes become even in the face of natural disasters!

Most of the US is experiencing one of its biggest, widest, and most fierce snow storms. All life outside of the home is cancelled--no work, no school, sometimes no roads or power. I am awash with gratitude for my home even with its leaky ceiling.

Do you ever wonder about the cycle of the seasons, however they occur where you live? The obvious connection is to the human life cycle. Egocentric, we think most things are here to teach us about human life. And that's probably true, but it's not all.

Although there's probably meaning in the rhythm of all this, it could be random. It also could be quantum--having an order that we don't comprehend at all. Not logical or symmetrical for those are concepts that we invented to make manageable meaning out of mysteries.

Did you ever think that there are far more unexplained phenomena than explained ones? That there are mysterious healings and remissions for no known reason? That there are heart attacks without cause, randomly attributed to stress or adrenaline? Lost, we create names and purposes and causal relationships in the face of the most overwhelming and chaotic natural occurances.

So, I'm thinking about all this snow. It defies the limits of my reason to imagine that it actually will melt. I used to run a children's camp in the middle of rural Michigan. The children got trapped at the camp one year because a terrible blizzard completely isolated it from the outside world. We had no power, the snow drifts were over the buildings and to the tree tops. Sara, age 10, was crying and I went over to her. "What's wrong?" I asked. She said, "I'm thinking it's the coming of an ice age and I'll never see my parents again."

I reassured her that it was just a storm and it would pass. Of course, it did pass and the children eventually were restored to their families.

Young and glib, I believed my own words that it would pass. Today, I wonder if her instincts were right. Maybe something bigger than my mind can imagine is at work, manifesting in catastrophic weather patterns and natural disasters. I'm not denying the cycle of the seasons. I'm wondering if that's a small cycle within a much bigger, unrecognizable pattern.

Like the heart attack for no known reason, is the overload of snow, water, and eventually rain more than it seems? My Buddhist self says, "It is what it is, breathe." I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure.

Sometime, imprisoned in our lodgings, we are as much at risk as those who are out battling the storms. We are a risk of a failure of imagination, of a failure of heart and nerve. Living behind walls and seeing out of windows is truly viewing the Divine itself "through a glass darkly." We like to think of the Divine as a person, a bigger human, someone who thinks and feels as we do only more so, maybe better. It's comforting to think there is a lovingly cranky Being watching over this natural world and its creatures. Hemingway's novel, The Sun Also Rises ends with the line "Isn't it pretty to think so?" It is pretty and comforting to think everything will be alright.

The trouble is that when I reassured that child and when we reassure ourselves, we are hoping for a good outcome on human terms. We hope the storm will pass, we'll survive the heart attack, and we'll be safe and well. I do think we'll be alright (I can't help it!) but I'm pretty sure that I don't know what that means in real terms. Clearly, we're all going to die and, in some sense, this is not alright. I can't help believing,however, that it's also going to be alright, right in a sense that reason can't help me with.

My favorite way to think of meaning uses the particle and the wave from physics. If I'm thinking of myself as a particle, then I think of myself as a separate entity and I fear my demise, the loss of my sense of self, the loss of what I experience as my existence. If I'm thinking of myself as a wave, then I know that I sometimes and briefly get to raise up out of the water and look around. As a wave, I know that human life is just looking around.

As a wave, I know I'm made up of water and I don't fear subsiding back into the ocean. Sitting on the couch listening to the water dripping watching the snow bury my car and windowsills, I'm trying to remember I'm a wave. I'm water and snow and rain. Oh my.