With my father’s illness and death, the last six months have been eventful. Yet as I sit here on this breezy almost-summer day, it all seems to have gone by at a fast-forward pace, leaving so much in the way of life passages and their attendant emotions still to be processed. That is why I look forward to a few months at a slower pace to work my gardens and let Life sink in.
Perhaps it’s this hurry-up, multitasking world of ours which is the cause of spiritual angst. Spiritual healing requires its own time yet we’re often compelled to “get on with our lives”, such as resuming responsibilities at home or work, returning to roles such as parent or employee, and generally keeping pace with a Chronos-driven life – the life of time and externalities of which the soul knows little.
The soul knows time only in terms of passages: birth, coming of age, living, loving, dying, death. Birth brings in a new light; death creates a void; coming of age brings pain and struggle; loving brings joy and sorrow; and our living forms the font of who we are at our depths. Lived experience is the measure of our souls and if we don’t take the time to grieve, to welcome new life, to grow emotionally, to learn love and pain – if we don’t take the time to let Life sink in, we remain incomplete at our depths and our emotional and spiritual life remains dis-eased.
My hope is that we can all find a bit of Kairos time for ourselves – time out of time, that is, to let ourselves heal. I hope we can find a sacred space in which to let ourselves be washed over by the pain as well as the joy of life and radically accept all experiences, whether good or bad, as formational to the soul, to the font of who we are, truly and deeply.
Trust the process; rather than being scarred, the whole of you will be at peace, at ease when, like all things, this too shall pass.
April is the perfect month to hold up our 7th Principle (see title). The beauty and wonder of our one precious earth will soon inundate our senses with birdsong, fragrance, color, and warmth. A few weekends ago, I had the opportunity to escape our persisting winter by attending a conference in New Orleans. There the perennials were in full bloom and the warm, humid air was a welcome change (although my clothes were way too warm for it).
The conference was a joint one between the UU Allies for Racial Justice and DRUUM, Diverse Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries. The site of New Orleans was chosen intentionally to demonstrate, be immersed in, and learn about two intersecting justice issues of the day: Climate Change and Institutional Racism. The trauma of Hurricane Katrina lingers in New Orleans. Hundreds of thousands of evacuated people were unable to return to their homes. The hardest hit population was disproportionately African American. Before Katrina, the New Orleans population was over 50% African American. Now ten years later it is less than half. Disaster capitalism, corporate-favoring legislation like ALEC, and gentrification of old neighborhoods are displacing the unique culture and tradition of New Orleans.
The keynote was an attorney from Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy. She cogently laid out for us all the intersecting issues which Katrina left in her wake. The bottom line: one cannot be concerned with climate justice without also being concerned with race and class, migrant rights, land sovereignty, economic justice, and voting rights (voter restrictions and depopulation of people of color profoundly affect local law and policy).
These may seem like issues that are far from were we live; geographically that might be true. But how we live our lives where ever we are does indeed affect how people live in other places. Our carbon footprint (how much energy we use including fossil fuels) and our consumption habits have a direct impact on climate everywhere. In the month of April, let us appreciate the good earth and how we are nurtured by her. Let us conserve water and fuel. Let us reduce, reuse, and recycle. Let us be aware of the multiple injustices of climate change and help when opportunities arise. In other words, let us be a blessing to the world where we can.
A colleague recently passed this article along to me:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/opinion/sunday/arthur-c-brooksabundance-without-attachment.html?action=click&contentCollection=The %20Upshot&module=MostEmailed&version=Full®ion=Marginalia&src=me& pgtype=article&_r=0
It’s an op-ed piece in the New York Times by Arthur C. Brooks titled, “Abundance without Attachment.” It explains simply and eloquently what I’ve been trying to express about the tensions between the material and the spiritual during the winter holidays. Brooks, an economist, tells of seeking a Hindu swami in New Delhi to ask his thoughts on material wealth. This swami happened to be an IndianAmerican business man who gave up his wealth to become a monk. The swami told Brooks that wealth and material things are not problems in themselves; it’s our attachment to them or our grasping for them that is problematic, especially when one looks to these things as the ends and not the means for a fulfilled life. I know we all know this – it is conventional wisdom shared by many religions and philosophies. Yet our culture and capitalist society bombard us with a much different message about what material things can do for us. We are under tremendous pressure to consume. Brooks and the Hindu swami say enjoy your abundance if you have it but don’t let it consume you. In addition Brooks suggests three practices that promote mindfulness and help us keep our focus on joy and meaning in our lives:
1. Collect more experiences than things in your life – you’ll cherish a memorable vacation more than a new couch 25 years from now. This is the paradox of things: material things fade from our memories while the immaterial endures in us mind, body, and soul.
2. Steer clear of excessive usefulness – in the Gospels, Jesus says, “You see these lilies of the field? No king has ever dressed finer than these, yet the lilies do not toil nor spin.” In other words, they just are. Allow yourself to be like the lilies and toil not; rather than do something for gain, do something just for the fun of it now and then.
3. Get to the center – There is a concept that runs through Hinduism, Buddhism, and even early Christianity: think of life as a wheel: on the outside we endure the vagaries of living in a material world where we can get knocked off our horse quite easily. However, at the center of the wheel is the spiritual, the divine or ultimate truth. This is where we find non-attachment. The more we can move our awareness to the inside of the wheel, the less vulnerable we are to the ever turning wheel of fortune (or misfortune) on the outside.
This is what I wish for you in the New Year: Experience, Play, and Center. May it be so.
As I write, it’s a week before Thanksgiving 2014 yet already Christmas lights can be seen hanging from eaves as well as decorated trees twinkling in windows. Each year as I witness the compression of the holidays from Labor Day to New Year’s Day, I muse: Is it due to a joyful anticipation of things to come? Is it perhaps a gratification that can’t be delayed? Or is it a race to be the first on the block to have those holiday decorations up? Perhaps it’s just a matter of practicality in these northern climes to hang the lights early in order to avoid frostbite. The heavy holiday marketing seems to start earlier each year. I suspect people feel the pressure. I have received notifications from three different retailers that I am invited to their special “Pre-Black-Friday” shopping events so I can get a jump on the after-Thanksgiving sales. Honestly, do we rush any other time of year so? Why don’t we let the season be brief and therefore special? Why can’t we let it be about that brief time when the human spirit lights up the darkest days of the year? The winter solstice itself lasts only a moment. Let us embrace that moment and appreciate what it means in the cyclical nature of our existence.
Let us recognize the holiness of these few weeks of long nights and the cultural importance of midwinter lest we trivialize it. By rushing the season, we disconnect ourselves from the natural world of which we are a part. There is a reason for the season and I suspect it is why the Christian tradition chose the shortest day of the year to commemorate Jesus’ birthday: because it is a time of turning from dark to light, it is a time of hope in the darkest hour, it is a time of faith that the sun will return to warm the ground beneath our feet and bring yet another cycle of life in all its abundance. I hope it may be so for you.
