Hands Together: Don't Shoot

About once a week, I get a call from the Fraternal Order of Police asking for a donation. I used to donate regularly but no more.  I don't take their calls.  I am appalled by the number of black people who are verbally abused, beaten and killed by police officers.  It is absolutely, unequivocally not OK. We need a zero tolerance policy for murder and assault by police officers. Forget the "internal investigation" process wherein police judge whether their brothers are guilty. We need to call it what it is and put these perpetrators in the criminal justice system.

I'm triggered today by the announcement yesterday that the officer who killed an unarmed black man in Baltimore went scot free in a "mistrial."  It seems that his fellow officers mishandled the evidence. Wait, what?  It was all caught on video tape.  How do you mishandle that?

I don't know what to make of this spiritually.  If I'm seeking inner serenity and enlightenment, should I turn a blind eye to these crimes against my brothers and sisters?  Should I pray for victims and perpetrators alike? What would the good God do in these situations?  I think of the parable of the prodigal son and the lost sheep.  Would Jesus have gone to find the police officer who committed the murder or stood with the black man?

Well, I'm fairly sure Jesus would always stand with those who are marginalized and mistreated, but that's a guess.  I know what the Big Dude would do.  Without question or hesitation, he would stand with the powerless.  I know what I must say the next time the FOP calls for a donation:  "The first month that I do not see a single incident of police crime against black people, I will donate."

I try (not very hard), in the meantime, to put my hands together in prayer about this.  I try to give the whole thing over to some higher being.  I'm not there yet.  I remain horrified at the visible and regular crimes of the police made transparent by the existence of cameras everywhere.  I want to fight back, not look away or pray.  

Slowwwww Downnnnn

"Slow down; you're moving too fast.  Got to make the morning last."  Remember those lyrics in a Simon and Garfunkel song?  They came to me this morning as I was reading something inspiring in bed.  Go ahead and lose control, the reading said.  My entire body relaxed.  I realized then that when I'm all up in my head and holding tightly to old messages, there's no room for the sacred to enter.

After a glorious, inspirational day on Sunday, I crashed on Monday and old messages surfaced bringing me to state of exhaustion.  I slept and told myself I needed a "sick day" after so much effort expended.  "Don't get so excited.  You'll get sick," my mother used to say.  Well, I had gotten "too excited" and darned if I wasn't sick the next day.

After being pretty much stuck there all day, I finally set some simple tasks for myself to accomplish--little things that I had been putting off and that were dragging at the edges of my consciousness.  Never mind Sacred Economics or a quantum revolution of consciousness that I could be a part of.  I was back to survival mode.

Doing that one task did help.  It got me into my car and into a different space.  In recovery rooms, they say, "move a muscle, change a thought."  I moved a muscle and while my thoughts didn't exactly change, they were a little less overwhelming.  This morning, I decided to read something inspirational before I even got out of bed.  There it was.  The message I needed to hear:  "Don't hang on so tightly.  It's OK not to be in control."  Really?  Whew!

I got up with more enthusiasm and as I was walking down the stairs, the words "slow down" came to mind.  Immediately, I was in the moment, in my body, awake to possibilities within me.  Immediately, I was aware of the sacred.

It's such a simple thing.  Anyone can do it.  It's hard to remember it sometimes is all.  S.l.o.w. . . . D.o.w.n.  That's all.  Sweetly flows the sacred into the soul.  Roxie

The Aroused Heart

Last night, I attended a live taping of an interview with Dr. Michael Wayne (http://www.quantumrevolution.net/) who has been traveling around the world with a videographer interviewing thinkers and activists on the "leading edge" of transforming culture and consciousness.

An odd thing for me to attend since I spend so much time trying to sedate myself, calm myself, numb myself from the fears I experience when I look at the human condition.  Not so, Michael.  He calls the part of us having those fears our "reptilian brain" and invites us to work from an aroused heart instead.  I've been plodding away trying to find meaning in the slings and arrows of life and not doing very well at that.  I'm beginning to see that change is driven by that 1 percent of inspiration not just by the 99 percent of perspiration as Thomas Edison stated.

When I watch the ubiquitous insanity that we call "the news," I see a world drowning in the 99 percent.  There are problems everywhere and sometimes people are trying to solve them.  I've been living in that 99. Working hard to survive, that's the 99.  Working hard and getting nowhere. Recently, I've been drawn to the one percent.  I attended a workshop called "Women's Voices, Women's Visions" which brought together 60-some writers and artists who want to use their creativity in what they called "art and activism"--in short, they want to change the world.  They are the one percent.  During four wonderful days, I felt drawn out of my perspiration into the energy of inspiration. (womensvoiceswomensvisions.com)

Last night, again, I was seeking out the inspiration side of life.   Dr. Wayne began the evening by comparing the shadow side of life (the shit) and the inspired side of life (the sacred--to reference the sacred shit in my blog title).  He spoke of the shooting in Charleston and then of the forgiveness that the families and communities of the Emmanuel AME Church offered to the shooter.  He pointed out that the news goes on and on about the shooting; the transformative or sacred side of the event is largely ignored.  He reminded us that living in the one percent never means forgetting the pain of humanity.  He invited each of us, however, to transform shitty or shadow events into the sacred by reframing them by seeing the potential for transformation in the event.  This is the work of the aroused heart.

Having lived all too much in the shit of the reptilian brain, I felt the power of his idea.  Every time you encounter a problem or see something horrifying on the news, it's a call to see the transformative response or potential arising in concert with the problem. I can't say that enough.

I thought of all this in terms of my blog.  I've been struggling to know where to go and mostly I've been working with that old reptilian brain component. I need to remember the sacred in the blog title and in my life. Work from an inspired heart not the terrified brain.  Become the bearer of the good news, the whole news which recognizes the sacred and the shit.

A song is running through my head:  "Good news--chariot's a coming."  Sung by people under the most horrific conditions of slavery. They saw the sacred, for sure, in the shit. So do the people of Charleston Emmanuel AME Church.  So, good new--chariot's a coming, folks.  Led by an aroused and inspired heart, we can evolve to the brilliance of divine consciousness.  

Sense and Sensitivity

Apprehending the good, the universal force, or the Big Dude as I call him, can be tricky.  Sometimes you can almost reason your way there through the domain of quantum physics, Einstein's wormhole, and such. Some people seem to "sense" the divine, noticing it where they live.  Some rare few go beyond reason and sense to "sensitivity."  Often, these folks are called "high strung" or "nice girl, but a bit woo-woo, if you know what I mean."

The quantum reasoning works pretty well if you're willing to read something besides the Bible or the Koran or whatever.  You might have to read Does God Play Dice, for example or Michael Wayne's new book Quantum Integral Medicine.  So, yes, this way of apprehending god uses reason but it requires educating your reason to a quantum level if you see what I mean.  Some people don't have the opportunity to do that, or don't want to, frankly.

Moving on to those who "sense" god.  They hear him/her in the whoosh of the wind in the trees or the steady heartbeat of ocean waves.  They touch him/her in the silk of a peony petal.  They smell him/her in lilacs, new mown grass, or baking bread.  For these folks, the divine is where they live, on this earth, in this moment.  I can be one of these people now and then and really be aware of a cosmic beauty coming to me through my senses.

Finally, we have the enlightened, enlightened-wannabe's, mystics, gurus, and maybe some yoga teachers.  These are the ones among us who can bypass senses and enter an altered state where god or the divine or the Big Dude abides.  I'm told anyone can get to this state through meditation (I almost wrote medication--that works as well, I'm thinking).  I do meditate and things happen but THIS THING, this divine presence, seldom happens.

Nope, I'm securely ensconced in reason and sense.  I read the quantum books and I hear, smell, and touch the divine.  I'm good with that.  Oh, I keep trying with the meditation stuff but I'm not sure I have what it takes--that sensitivity that quivers as the divine takes residence in the soul.  Roxie

You Can't Fake Divine Crap

There's no faking on a spiritual blog!  Well, I suppose many spiritual people do fake it because they're tired, just aren't feeling it, or maybe they're just scamming the rest of us to begin with.  Anyhow, there's no faking on this spiritual blog.

That's a curse and a blessing.  The curse is that you have to BE spiritual to write about it.  You have to think spiritual thoughts, feel spiritual feelings and be transported now and then.  Well, I've been away almost a year, so what does that say about me?  You could assume I've been a-spiritual, spiritually anorexic and I couldn't blame you.

The fallacy in that is that you don't HAVE to post every time you have such thoughts, feelings, and transports!  In fact, I don't see how a human, allegedly a spiritual being cloaked in a physical frame, can go even a short time like an hour, much less a year, without swarms of such experiences. I've been swarmed.

The Big Dude has been hanging around on a regular basis, divine stalker that he is.  And sometimes I even notice he's there, recognize his droppings, notice his signature.  For example, I share my house sometimes and for the first time I have been sharing it with a male.  After turning down myriads of potential housemates, I finally stumbled over Rick, a truly fine human being and I took him on.

About a month later, I was rear-ended by a hit and run driver and entered the labyrinth of no-fault insurance claims, personal injury  or PIP as it's known in the business, and the part of the medical world fueled by non-health insurance companies.  Come to find out, Rick heads up the PIP division of a large insurance company and he's walked me through every piece of paper, every test and appointment, and even through the myriad phone calls from my insurance company.  What are the odds that the very first time I agree to house share with a male, he turns out to have the exact skills that I need to survive a very complicated personal injury, no-fault insurance system.  The odds
are zero to none, right?

I couldn't help but see the Big Dude behind that "coincidence."

So where's the curse in all that?  Clearly, that falls in the category of "blessing," yes?  Yes.  The curse is in failure to shape that blessing into the language of sacred shit so I could post it on my blog.  Better late than never, I say, and so I'm posting today.

Generally, I end my stories with a lesson of some kind, gleaned from that self-same story.  A little parable, if you will.  Maybe the lesson is this:  I'm coming to take the Dude for granted.  How great is that?  I don't have to write about him to make him come alive.  He's kind of taken up residency in my neighborhood, that in-dwelling thing that mystics write about.  That's a little fancy for me though.  I'm just a chick who's blessed with a stalker-god.  Not that I'm condoning stalkers, mind you; but if I've got to have one, then I'm glad it's the Big D.  Blessings, Roxie

The Big Dude Dwells Within!

We read about the God who lives inside of us.  I've always thought of that, intellectually, as some kind of co-creative spark that each creature uniquely possesses.  I'm coming to see that literally some kind of different spirit or being lives in my being--in lock down along with childhood feelings both of sorrow and glory.  Wordsworth wrote:  "those first affections,/Those shadowy recollections,/Which, be they what they may,/Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,/Are yet a master-light of all our seeing."

 He's saying that some higher being inhabited us more fully when we were children and as adults, we have a harder time grabbing on to that innate connection.  To my absolute amazement, every time I unlock a childhood feeling, bring it into the light of day, I am closer to
that indwelling Spirit or God or the Big Dude, call it what you will.

 We're on a journey as "spiritual beings in a physical world" says Teilhard de Chardin.  Before we were conditioned and shaped by our parents and our culture, we were instinctively drawn to whatever life presented--laughter, clouds, a loving touch, a butterfly.  We knew that life was amazing!  In my own case, I learned to NOT be amazed, to stifle my amazement and joy.  I learned, in fact, to be afraid.  I learned to be quiet and to try to please authority figures.  By age 5, I had very little wonder left in me.  Mine is not an unusual situation.  Many, many humans have far worse experiences in childhood to wipe out those "shadowy recollections" and even those "trailing clouds of glory" that Wordsworth speaks of.

 Many of us learned that the God of our families and even our schools or churches was a harsh, punishing God who would separate those sheep from those unacceptable goats, who would see our slightest sin, who might strike us dead if we doubted or questioned authority.  This was the God of my mother, for sure.  He was a weapon used to scare us into the behavior required of the moment. How do we recover from that false idol and begin to open ourselves to our own spiritual nature lost in the rules and judgments of family and culture?

 I'm learning that every time I free a feeling that has been on lock down for decades, I experience a bit more of my connection with the Divine.  I feel the fear of my 13-year-old self white knuckling it through church services as I'm sitting in church today.  I feel the horror of my 5-year-old self rejected and shamed for being injured on the playground as I'm dancing with friends.  Don't feel.  Don't be so excited.  Don't be happy.  Be afraid.  Be. Afraid.

 How do we know, much less love, a God that seems to have been a perpetrator of pain and fear or, at least, seemed to be at the command of such perpetrators.  I think of watching a priest beat a third grader with a switch in front of a room full of 8-year-olds.  I remember trying not to move a muscle, trying to be invisible, trying not to ever be noticed by God or any of his representatives.

 And so it was for many human children. It doesn't have to be once we're adults.  We can heal. That divine spark, all but extinguished, burns a little higher every time we remember a squashed feeling and let it live.  God lives, for me, in all those locked up places--in enthusiasm, spontaneity, joy.  In my unbridled 3-year-old self, arms outstretched, running and leaping into Uncle Phil's arms where he sat in a speedboat. That "running toward" is the diving spark that's coming back to me.    
     

After a Long Hiatus, Grace

I've been away almost a year.  Perhaps I had cancer and was fighting for my life?  Perhaps I had no computer?  Perhaps I . . . no excuse.  I lost faith for awhile and was wandering in the dark.  It happens.  If we're honest, it happens a lot.  If our "faith" is not just intellectual, but permeates all corners of our being, it happens really a lot.

Intellectually, I can't reason my way into any kind of faith.  My heart and spirit and gut apprehend it in some strange way.  The only way I can really explain my lapse is this:  I was looking down afraid of the next step.  Instead of looking up to find the way, I was focused on staying erect, on not falling, on putting one foot tentatively in front of the other.

That, too, is the journey.  That's where I've been.  Sometime is IS faith to take one step at a time. Sometimes that's all the faith we can muster.  Listen to my words. We don't "muster" faith or, I should say, our spiritual nature.  It's in and around us.  We can ignore it.  We can refuse to trust it.  We can be hurt so much by life that we can't conceive of a God who would treat us that way.  All of that.

In the end, faith is really mysterious.  It's a choice but we don't make it alone.  There are forces in an around us, guiding us.  Sometimes we are aware; sometimes we are not aware.  They are there whether we believe it or not.  Our beliefs do not shape the universe.

There.  That's when I have faith.  When I get out of my poor ego self and recognize that I'm just a particle, not the wave.  I have to trust the ocean which I can never fully know or understand from the droplet's perspective. My beliefs do not shape the Universe. Roxie