Of Heaven and Earth

On the way to work a couple of days ago, I heard Brad Paisley and Dolly Parton on the radio singing, "When I Get Where I'm Going" (written by George Teren and Rivers Rutherford)...

Yeah when I get where I'm goin

There'll be only happy tears

I will shed the sins and struggles

I have carried all these years

And I'll leave my heart wide open

I will love and have no fear

Yeah when I get where I'm going

Don't cry for me down here.

It's a well-written song, beautifully performed by Paisley and Parton. But even while I was enjoying the music, I found myself thinking, "Why have I never felt that way?"

Even when I was trying to walk a Christian path, I was never focused on "where I'm going." I always felt like I was already there. Here. This is where I'm going, where I am.

As a child, I went to the Baptist church. I sang the Sunday School songs and colored the pictures of angels. Even then, the notion that this life is merely a trial to be endured on our way to our "real home" left me cold. Later, when my mother moved us from Baptist to Jehovah's Witness, the idea of a "new earth" made a little more sense, but not so much that I ever felt like I was just marking time, suffering and hoping to make the grade to get there.

Why is that? I am a southern American and our culture is saturated with Judeo-Christian (mostly fundamental Protestant Christian) references to streets of gold and mansions on the hills of our heavenly home. How is it that I never, not once, bought into that vision of our future or longed for the day when I would shed my earthly bonds and fly heavenward? I don't recall ever feeling burdened by sin and struggle, nor have I ever looked homeward toward angels.

Some will undoubtedly see my lack of heavenly focus as evidence that my heart is hardened and I'm lost to the sin and struggle. But I gotta tell you, my heart doesn't feel hard. My heart feels joy and pain. I feel bad when I do something that doesn't uphold my values. I hurt when I hurt others. I'm not evil. I'm not mean. I'm not cruel. No, I definitely don't buy the depraved sinner theory.

I don't know why I have always known that living this life is more important than focusing on some future state of supposed perfection. Maybe I've lived enough turns of the wheel to have figured that out. Maybe not. Whatever the reason, it's allowed me to find delicious joy and beauty every single day. When I'm in pain, when I'm struggling, the next beautiful thing is right here, right now, not something to hope for after I've suffered until I'm dead.

Regardless of why I've always believed this way, one thing that's crystal clear is my life is richer, fuller, more joyful, and more blessed because of it. Gratitude doesn't always require an explanation.

Joyous Encounters With the Divine - More Than One Door To God

After my post yesterday about opening the God door, I had to share something.

I was given a couple of glimpses of God today by people for whom, I'm sure, opening the God door was the last thing on their minds.

The first came early this morning as I was walking into the office. A few yards from the door, I heard behind me, "She's running...she's running! She's running to catch up to YOU!"  I turned and saw a friend running toward me. We laughed, shared our good mornings, and when she asked how I was, I responded (as I often do), "Fat and sassy!" 

She immediately replied, "Oh, we've got to eliminate that phrase!"

Me: "Oh, but it's a good thing!"

Friend: "Does your subconcious know that?"

Zing! Bullseye! Just the reminder I needed to pay attention to the messages I send myself. Funny thing is...I was just thinking about that very topic as part of a workshop I'm in the beginning stages of developing about how we claim to believe that words have power, yet we're careless with how we use those words, especially about ourselves. Even though, conciously, I infuse postive meaning into the words, I'm not sure my subconscious knows any other than the literal meaning of "fat." I don't mind being sassy, but fat is not a state I want to perpetuate. Shame on me, and thank you, Teresa, for being the voice of God this morning.

Next...standing in line in the company cafe, waiting to purchase my oh-goodie-it's-quiche-day breakfast...a woman turns and smiles, one of those hopeful, please talk to me smiles. I shared my joy about quiche day, and she asked, "How do you eat quiche and lose so much weight?"

Now, I didn't know her...don't remember having seen her...but she had noticed and watched my weight loss. And by commenting on it, she not only made me feel good, she gave me an opening to share my frustration at having gained a portion of that weight back. We then talked at length, sharing our frustrations, struggles, and hopes, our successes and continued efforts. It was a shot in the arm, better than any weight loss drug ever invented. And she reminded me that we are influencing others all the time, even when we're not aware of it. Thank you, Lisa, for being the smiling, sharing face of God for me this morning.

Blessings are all around us, all the time.  Sometimes God wears business casual and runs on the sidewalk.

Wishing you joyous encounters with the Divine, every day...and an open, aware, and grateful heart with which to recognize them.

Opening the God Door

My friend and beautiful, creative sister, Sitara Haye, said something last night that has stayed on my mind all day. 

We (the members of my wonderful writing group) were talking about all the ways we keep ourselves from realizing our creative dreams.  Sitara said (loosely quoted)...

Consider that what sets humans apart from other earthly beings is our ability to create, to do more than merely reproduce ourselves biologically, to create something beautiful, moving, or inexplicable from nothing but our own creative energy. Some say that creative energy is God within us, and  what that energy gives birth to is how God is made visible in the world. Consider then, that if you are filled with the fire, the desire to create, and you let fear or insecurity keep you from giving birth, God is left unborn, unknown. Someone will not see God because you didn't open that door.

Sitara made and demonstrated her point in one fell swoop. Through her ability to string words together, to paint with syllables and sounds a picture I had not previously recognized, she opened the God door for me. And God was there telling me to get off my scared, tentative, never-think-I'm-good-enough butt and use the fire in my gut and the dream in my heart.

What can say to that?

"Yes, Ma'am."

Protecting our Egosystem

I heard a speaker at the conference I'm attending (Society for New Communications Research in San Francisco, talking about protecting our "egosystem." By the time I figured out I had misheard him, that he really said "ecosystem," my mind had already taken off on the idea of egosystems and how we operate within them.

Is there a better word for the complex environment of people and personalities we live in? My egosystem is made up of everyone - including me - in my network. In the most liberal interpretation, that includes the entire world. On a more immediate level, it's all the people in my personal network, on my web. And the balance in my egosystem is just as delicate and important to maintain as the ecosystem of the physical world.

With the exception of a few enlightened souls, we all go through the world with our egos raw and exposed. Even for those of us who work hard to recognize and minimize the destructive power of letting our ego always be in control, it's still there getting bruised and knocked about on a daily basis. Too much knocking and bruising and we start to get defensive, protective, retreating into behavior designed to protect from pain.

That makes sense...except the tools we use and the degree to which we employ them are usually way off base. If something frightens us, for example, instead of investigating the source of our fear, we run and hide behind ignorance (the deliberate kind) or, worse yet, apply liberal doses of anger. When we feel vulnerable, we attack, not to mitigate the threat but to anhilate it. We we feel angry, we gunny sack our feelings and whip out the passive-aggressive survival kit, mucking up the whole mess even further. The list is endless. And since it affects everyone on our web, in our egosystem, we end up with human environmental issues... damaged relationships, poor interpersonal encounters, loneliness, heartache.

So how do we protect our fragile egosystem? Start by recognizing it exists. Think about all the people in your world - your very complex, busy, populated world of family, friends, coworkers, strangers. How you treat them matters. How you react to them matters. And though you don't have any control over their actions, your own will certainly have an impact. Are your actions going to bring about the most desired responses? What if they don't? Do you minimize the damage or do you increase the fallout by reacting badly? Do you seek to engage healthily with your human environment, mitigating and controlling pestlike emotions and behaviors, or do you apply the emotional equivalent of DDT?  Just as in our physical environment, anytime you attempt to completely wipe out a component, even  those that annoy you, you create imbalances that skew the web. You don't want to let anger run amok in your life; you don't want to try to eliminate it altogether, either. It's a valid human emotion that, when recognized and used wisely, is valuable.

Thinking on a broader scale, how do our attempts to control group social behavior affect the fragile egosystem of our communities?  If we restrict freedom in favor of safety, what is the effect? What if we don't? How far is far enough and how far is too far?  Whose rights "weigh more?" 

Fear, anger, vulnerability, love, jealousy...they all have their place, even if it's merely to point us toward something that needs fixing.  Working responsibly within our egosystems means that we pay attention to the ego's messages and look to the sources, read the messages there, respond healthily and in ways that foster growth, peace, harmony, and self-respect for ourselves and others. WE look for ways to balance the needs of society with the needs and rights of individuals.

It's our world, this egosystem. We need to spend as much time working to protect our human emotional environment as we do our physical environment. Living "green" starts at home. So does living human, and in human terms, home is you and me.  Balancing and protecting our egosystems starts with us.

Peace.

Greetings from San Francisco and an Opportunity to Do Good

Hello from beautiful San Francisco! It really is beautiful, too...the weather is gorgeous, the city vibrant and fun. I'm grateful to be here and wanted to share some photos with you from my touristy trip through town yesterday. I'll share those a little further down in this post, but first, something more important...

Have you heard about DonorsChoose.org? I am so totally pumped about this organization that is providing much-needed support for public and charter schools in the United States, one classroom, one teacher, one project at a time. By visiting the DonorsChoose website, anyone can view project requests from teachers all over the United States and donate any amount, large or small, to helping teachers reach those goals. You can search for projects by geographic area or by keywords so you can support your local area or a project that is dear to your heart. For your generosity, you get real thank you letters from teachers and students and photos of the students enjoying what you helped to support.

DonorsChoose is the brainchild of Charles Best, a former Bronx high school teacher. Charles kept having and hearing the same conversations among his fellow teachers. There simply wasn't any money available for the projects, library items, field trips, and equipment teachers wanted for their classrooms. Charles started simply with a low-tech approach; he used free desserts to bribe fellow teachers to visit a simple website he built and type in their most cherished projects, the ones they most wished they could do. He then anonymously funded the projects himself.

Word got out that the website worked, and requests spread. Charles enlisted his students for a volunteer letter writing campaign and raised the first $30,000 to fund DonorsChoose.

Now, DonorsChoose.org's website houses requests from teachers all over the United States. The requests are all checked out by a volunteer corps of teachers who have successfully used the program themselves and who make sure each project is legitimate and meets the criteria. Donors can read about projects and see how much money it will take to fund it, how much has been given, and how much is still needed.

DonorsChoose is funded in part by an optional 15% administrative fee that is included in each donation. Donors can leave the fee in place or opt out at their discretion. Some costs are still met by private donors, but the company expects to be self-funded in a few years.

Cooler still are some of the ways DonorsChoose.org is working with corporations and companies. Imagine receiving a gift card from a company you do business with giving you the opportunity to make a donation to any project you choose, spending the company's money? Crate and Barrell did it, and it was a huge success. Other companies have done the same. What a great alternative to sending flowers or a box of chocolates or a tin of popcorn!

DonorsChoose.org believes in staying true to its original mission. When they recently received a million dollar award, they didn't think it was right to let the DonorsChoose.org staff allocate the money. Instead, the put the money on gift cards and distribute them to allow others to make the choices. Here at the SNCR Forum, we each received $50 cards to go onto the site and pick any project we wanted to support. I love it! It was so much fun reading all the project requests and so hard to make a decision. In the end, though, I made my choice, a Tennessee classroom that needs a digital camera for projects. You can read about it here, and make a donation of your own if you like.

I hope you will choose to visit and to give, and I hope my company, Unum, will consider including DonorsChoose in their giving programs. I'm certainly going to make a case for it.

Now, as promised, photos. Enjoy!

Earth Day - More Than Just Recycling

I'm enjoying the flurry of messages bounding around my workplace, each encouraging us to recycle, plant trees, grow flowers, drive less, walk more...all the good, green practices that Earth Day brings to top of mind.

Along with all those active, Earth-friendly practices, I'd like to suggest that we add a mindfulness component to our Earth Day:

• When you eat a meal, take a moment to be mindful of every aspect of that meal - where it was grown, how it got here, how it was prepared, wrapped, served. Who touched it along the way to bring it to you? Savor it all, not just the food but all the energy that went into bringing you nourishment.
• When you work, take a moment to be mindful of all the tools you work with - the paper, the equipment, the power that runs them. Think about everything that went into bringing those things to your hand at this moment. What are they made of? Where did they come from? Who made them? Under what conditions? How did they get here?
• When you walk outside, take a moment to be mindful of everything you see - the natural elements and the manmade. How do they work together? What impact does each have on the other? Are they thriving side-by-side? What do you see-hear-feel-smell? Sense the energy of the space; is it calm, peaceful, harmonious...or is it chaotic, agitated, discordant? Why?
• When you walk inside, take a moment to feel the floor below you, to breathe the air, to notice the light. Try tracing all the elements of your indoor environment all the way back to their origins. Do you know what they're made of, how they're made, how they get here?
• Notice the people you see, those you speak to and those you don't. Earth is not just grass and trees, clean air and water. WE are Earth, too. What can you do to promote health, harmony, happiness among the human natural resources in your life?

Mindfulness is a step toward gratitude...and those who know me, know I'm all about gratitude. When we view the world through grateful eyes, it changes the way we see everything, and the way we live.

Happy Earth Day, my Earthly friends (those I know, and those I don't)!

The Sexiest Thing I've Read in a Long Time

Yes...yes, yes, yes!

I love this poem by fellow blogger Maithri Goonetielke at The Soaring Impulse. The imagery, the unashamed intimacy, the sensual nature of the words you feel more than read, and my favorite part...

Where wildness is sanctified, And humanness is holy...

What a wonderful place that is...where we don't try to separate our wild, human nature from our spitirual nature...where we embrace humanness and sexuality as holy...

...holy as a prayer;
...holy as a hymn;
...holy as a sacred fire and a spiritual dance to a drum dedicated to the god and goddess in us all.

Enjoy this gift...with love.

Seduction

Come to me,

When the river
of Daylight
is at its ebb,

And I will show you
How soft
Darkness
can be.

Here
in this
Deep forest

Where yearning shadows
Fall
into the
open arms
of the suppliant earth,

Where the yellow eyed
Jaguar
Stalks the wind
with velvet step,

Where
wildness is
sanctified,
And humanness
is holy,

I offer you this wounded
hand,

Come with me
And I will show
you the
fire
that burns
without smoke

The branches
where the little spider
weaves love
from out the womb
of midnight,

The way
the naked stream dances
As she dreams of
the cool fingers
of the ocean

Kiss my skin
And Iwill breathe you
in
to the soul
of the music
I hear

I will search you
till i find the places
where you are
aching

Lie down
with you
by the shoulders
of the fire,

exchanging
pleasure
for brokenness,

While the drum
beats
on

Into the

endlessness

Copyright - Maithri Goonetilleke 2008 on The Soaring Impuls blog

Saved by an Estrogen Tsunami

When you pray for rain, buy an umbrella.

I asked the universe to rain on me and end the creative drought I found myself in. Salvation came in torrents, waves of beautiful, quenching relief that washed over me like a flood, waking me up and bringing me back to life.

I went to a women's retreat this past weekend. We called it a Goddess Weekend, but I like the name a friend from Twitter used for a women's outing - an estrogen tsunami. (Thanks, @micrathene!)

This tsunami was made up of woman of all ages and stages of life. There were the just barely eighteens, the young mother suckling her son, the single, the married, the divorced, the mothers and grandmothers. Some were healthy and robust; some were battling illnesses. Some were happy and cheerful; some were seeking solace. It would be hard to find a more diverse group. Yet among them all there was a common thread of strength, creativity, survival.

How can I tell you how good it was to be in the company of these women? We laughed and talked and told stories. We shared a powerful ritual in which the maiden, the mother, and the crone used us to tell the stories and teach the lessons we needed to hear. We made food together and cleaned up together. We danced and celebrated being sexy and fun. We loaded our own gear in and out and hooked up our own electronics and backed our own cars in and out of the woods. It was fun, but most of all, it was healing. Whatever the cause of my creative drought, the beautiful, wild, soaking rain of my sisters' company has put it to rest.

In honor of the estrogen tsunami, I'll share some photos I took this weekend. Water is a favorite subject for me and my camera, and the light and patterns of the creek flowing over the rocks just fascinated me. Maybe it reminded me of the way we women flow through life...over rocks and jagged edges, under, over, and around obstacles, sometimes in a flood, sometimes in a trickle, but we keep moving, moving, moving. Along the way, we cleanse, heal, soothe, refresh, nourish...when needed, we reshape, remove, and destroy. We are strong, even when our touch is tender.

Rush on, sisters...rush on.

Rain on me! Surviving a Creative Drought

I am parched.

Cracked.

Dry as dust and windblown.

Not a drop of creative juice is flowing. It seems that all my energy of late has been expended on work and getting over a sinus infection, and there just isn't anything left over for this blog or any of my other writing endeavors.

I want a rain dance. Sweet, Blessed Lady, send me a gully washer!

While I await the gentle-to-pounding rain to come...what do you do when the river of words dries up?

I've always found inspiration in the world around me...in things people say and do and in the near constant stream of questions I ask the universe. When I'm so consumed with work and not feeling well to boot, even the questions dry up. I know they'll come back...they always do. In the meantime, I'll go to bed early and catch up on some much-needed sleep. When the dry bed is once again roaring with surging, juicy, creative goodness, I'll remind myself that sleep is overrated and make up for lost time.

I hope.

Choosing God

Wow...I've been away for a long time. I've missed you!

I just finished (finally!) reading "Life of Pi"...a wonderful book. In it, the main character as a child wants nothing so much as to know and love god. He finds willing teachers...the Rabbi, the Imam, the Priest...and studies with all of them, willingly and happily enjoying the good things he finds there, mixing and matching the prayers and rituals at will, happy with the closeness to god each brings him. Imagine his confusion when, on a family outing, he and his parents (somewhat agnostic) run into all of these religious leaders, each proud that little Pi has been studying with him...and watching them dissolve into argument when they learn he's been "two-timing god"...insisting that he MUST choose and demanding that he do so.

Then I received an email from a dear friend this morning with the following:

Oh Jesus I love you
And I love Buddha too
Ramakrishna, Guru Dev
Tao Te Ching and Mohammed
Why do some people say
That there is just one way
To love you God and come to you
We are all a part of you
You are un-nameable
You are unknowable
All we have is metaphor
That’s what time and space are for
Is the universe your thought
You are and you are not
You are many, You are one
Ever ending, Just begun
Alright, alright, alright
I love you and Buddha too
-Mason Jennings


You can see it performed live here. Worth a view!

Enjoy...and don't let anyone make you choose if you don't want to!

How Big Can Love Be?

I've become quite a fan of the HBO Series "Big Love" that airs on Sunday nights. The show features a fictional Mormon family who live "The Principle" - the idea that a man should take multiple wives and have many children. I don't know much about The Principle; actually, I don't know anything other than the tiny bit I've gleaned from the show, and I don't count an HBO series an accurate source of information. I do know two things - the show opens up all kinds of thought about the nature of romantic love, marriage, and family, and the show paints a beautiful picture of people trying to live their faith in a positive, loving way.

Ever since I first read Robert Heinlein as a young adult, I've been intrigued by the theory of multiple partner marriages. The idea of love and realtionships simply expanding to encompass as many people as want and are wanted to be there makes perfect sense to me. At the same time, I am personally and intimately aware of the difficulties and pitfalls of such relationships. What I wonder most is - are those difficulties unavoidable or somehow inherent in human nature, or are they the product of our belief that such relationships are supposed to be limited to just two people?

That's not a new or original question. A lot of people ask and there are numerous answers. There are those who firmly believe that the two person partnership is the only legitimate romantic relationship, whether through Divine sanction or human nature, or both. There are others who believe that love will, indeed, expand to include multiple partners. Some, like the small number of Mormon Fundamentalists who continue to practice polygamy, believe that God encourages (commands?) the practice with rules about how it takes place, including the one-man-many-wives rule; others simply believe that the human heart has a limitless capacity for love, that we are not monogamous by nature, and that with conscious choice and effort "polyamorous" relationships of various types are not only possible but desirable.

My own heart is split on the issue. Philosophically, I embrace the idea that love is big enough to share. Ah, but when I think about my beloved with another woman, I feel a strange mixture of compersion and unease. I want him to know all the love there is to know in this world; but I still feel...what? Threatened? Maybe...sort of...though I know he loves me and I don't believe that would change? Jealous? I'm not even sure what that means, to tell you the truth. Scared? Yeah...I just don't know what I'm scared of.

Before I go any further, it's important to add that this is a conversation I have mostly in my own head. My husband and I are monogamous and have had no serious discussion about changing that. We do talk about the idea of polyamory, though, and about how, in an uncertain world with more and more demands on our time and resources, forming bigger families makes sense in a lot of ways.

And I'd like to know what you think...if you even think about these things. I suppose there are lots of people who don't even give it much thought. If you do, though, I'd love to know what you're thinking.

Back to the show, "Big Love"...

Another thing I've enjoyed about that show is the way they portray the lead character, Bill, responding to those who disrespect and try to discredit his faith. In one episode recently, a man contradicted a portion of history that Bill and his family believe to be true. Bill didn't engage or call the man down for it and, later, his young son asked him why. Bill's response was that there was no need to embarrass that man in front of his family. They knew they were right and that was enough. Later in the same episode, he was accosted by a man claiming to be a Baptist minister and behaving very badly. The man was angry and accusatory, telling Bill that they had perverted the gospel, among other things. Bill tried talking to him a bit, but finally turned and left without engaging further.

In my book, the title "Big Love" applies to more than the show's marital configurations. Bill's love is bigger than that of a lot of people I know. It was big enough that he chose to disregard someone contradicting and dishonoring his path rather than embarrass him. It was big enough to walk off and leave a spittle-flinging man arguing with himself rather than engage in a fruitless battle, and without degenerating into the same kind of accusations and name calling.

What I want most is a world where no one disrespects or discredits another's walk or accosts anyone with accusations of perverting whatever sacred text they have decided to follow as the path to truth. Until that day, examples of people who won't allow themselves to be dragged down to the same level are worthy of note, even if they're fiction. We should all be so strong.

Music For Your Heart - Amazing Grace on Two Native American Flutes

Please Meet My New Friend...

...a man whose loving heart and spirit shine through his words. Dr. Maithri Goonetilleke is a medical doctor and gifted writer in Australia. His website, The Soaring Impulse, houses his beautiful poetry and his work toward growing love, compassion, and peace in the world. He is a bright light in the blogosphere and I encourage you to visit his site, read his words, feel his heart and mind and soul. You will be blessed.


Here is one of his poems, shared here with his permission:

Pick up your Pen

When the darkness falls

And you're just barely
clinging to a

single,

rapidly
unraveling
thread

on life's frayed garment.

Pick up your pen

And in the broadest,
boldest strokes
you can manage

Write the name of love across the sky

Maithri Goonetilleke Copyright 2007

Interfaith Heroes - Great Stories

I love to share with you things I stumble across on the web.  Today, the find is "Interfaith Heroes" - a section of a website called Read the Spirit. The site features, "...true stories of men and women who risked crossing religious boundaries to heal communities and, in many cases, to save lives."  Martin Luther King, Jr., Thich Naht Hanh, The Dalai Lama, Corrie Ten Boom, and many more are profiled here. More stories can be found in the book, Interfaith Heroes 2 and its predecessor, Interfaith Heroes.

We make heroes out of atheletes, business leaders, politicians, and cartoon characters. In a world so hungry for acts of courage, so in need of dialog and bridges to understanding, acceptance, and peace, I'm grateful for these true heroes. May their stories inspire courage in all of us.

Free the Word...Save the World

I ran across a charming website today called My Inner World. It's the gentle work of Michele Bernhardt , filled with pretty illustrations and thoughtful insights - nothing heavy or dense but worth a visit. 

Besides the pretty drawings and nifty Flash work, I picked up something really useful from the site. Michelle talks about the concept of "freeing a word" in her site, noting the power of words and the associations we form with them. Michelle says, "Words have great power. When you hear a word, act as if you are hearing it for the first time."  She adds, "Try not to allow one thought, one memory or a world view opinion influence your relationship with any word."

Though out of context with Michelle's work (though, I suspect, not entirely), my immediate thought was what an incredible tool for spiritual bridge building!   If we "freed" all the words we use for religious beliefs, spiritual paths, and those who follow them...removed the associations we have with those words and looked at each individual instance with fresh eyes...what might we see?  What blinders and obstacles to understanding might we remove?

Next time someone says, "I am a ....," or, "I follow a ____ path," free the words and hear them as though for the first time. Ask what they mean. Listen.  Freeing the words may not save the world, but it will save us from assumptions that create barriers, opening space to build the bridges we so desparately need.

What's In Your Cookie Jar? How Spiritual Labels Fail Us

What is it about us that insists on labeling ourselves and each other?

We apply and wear all kinds of labels. Christian, Pagan, conservative, liberal, straight, gay, pro-life, pro-choice…you name it and we’ve got a label for it. We seem to have a need to distinguish ourselves from others not of our kind and to identify with those who are. Labels are a kind of shorthand for describing ourselves and our characteristics, for creating sub-groups to filter the big database of human criteria into meaningful chunks of like and unlike.

Are our labels really helping or hurting us?

Labels for people bother me, and nowhere more so than when we try to label beliefs and ideologies. People are complex, evolving, ever-changing repositories of experiences, thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. How do you label that accurately? And accuracy really matters; once you apply a label to yourself or others, you create a set of expectations that go with that label. Inaccurate labels lead to inaccurate expectations and assumptions. The matter is complicated by the fact that everyone creates different expectations based on what they know or think they know about the label and how it compares to their own labels.

Once we apply a label to something, we create a static image of its contents. If I put a big jar on the counter and label it “cookies,” you immediately get an image of the contents of the jar. But it’s my jar, and I might or might not actually have cookies in there. I could have nails, receipts, money, marbles…or a few cookies and a lot of crackers, some cake, and a pretzel or two. If I do have cookies, are they oatmeal, chocolate chip, or oatmeal with chocolate chips? Unless you look in my jar, how do you know? And if you do look, does that mean the contents will always be the same and you need never look again? If you look into my cookie jar and find raisin walnut cookies, does that mean that every jar labeled cookies can be expected to contain raisin walnut cookies? And if you think cookie jars are supposed to hold cookies and I decide to put pretzels in mine, do you think I’m living a lie, a pretzel-eating hypocrite? It gets complicated.

It’s the same with our spiritual beliefs. Once we take or apply a label, we are then subject to whatever static image is associated with that label by each person who encounters it. If I say, “I am Christian,” you have a set of expectations about what that means. If I complicate it and add, “I am a Catholic,” (or a Methodist, or an Evangelical, or Fundamentalist, or Episcopal…) you may have further expectations. When I say, “I am a Pagan,” you have an image of what that means. When I say, “I am a Witch,” you may have a different image. What image does atheist bring up? How about agnostic? Jewish? Morman? Muslim? Hindu? Buddhist? Wiccan? Druid? Heathen?

The problem with all those images is that we are all spiritual cookie jars, our own, unique vessels containing whatever we put in them, regardless of what the label says on the outside. If you can show me two Christians, two Wiccans, two Druids, or two agnostics who believe and act exactly the same way, I’ll buy you lunch. Yet, we still use the “label and lump” method, using whatever label they or we apply to categorize and sort and make decisions on whether we agree or not, whether their path has value, whether we have common ground. In doing so, we miss the chance to really see the contents of the jar.

Wouldn’t it be better to lift the lid on the jar? Talk to each other? Ask questions? Wouldn’t we know more about the guy or girl sitting in the next cubicle or living next door if we didn’t think of them as one-word summaries, but actually had a dialog about what they and we believe, what we have in common, where we differ and why? What if we said, “So you’re a _____; what does that mean to you?”

My cookie jar contains the total of my experience and learning so far, and changes constantly. If you ask me what I believe, I can answer you with, “My current understanding is…” If you ask, as so many do, “What are you?” – meaning, “What religion are you?” “What label can I stick on you?” – I don’t have a good answer. My beliefs incorporate bits from a number of paths and belief systems because they match my experience of the world around me and are in harmony with my inner voice. I use “Pagan” or “Witch” because they provide a top-level categorization of my belief system, but there isn’t one label that captures everything I believe. Even if I found the perfect label, I couldn’t be confident that it would remain accurate. Every experience and every bit of new knowledge shapes and reshapes my beliefs all the time.

Labels may be handy for initial pre-sorting, maybe even as a jumpstart to conversation. But if we stop with the label and whatever expectations we associate with that label, we’re missing out on the true contents of the cookie jar. Let’s look beyond the labels – lift the lid and find out what it means to the person wearing it.

You may be surprised at what you find in a jar you thought was just cookies.

Can I Get a Witness?

I received an email  from someone at work recently (who reads this blog and will know I'm talking about him) that made my heart sing. He just asked if we could sit down and talk sometime about my path. In his words, "I'm generally fascinated with the teachings of Wicca and Paganism (well, I’m fascinated with teachings of most faiths, but I like naturalistic aspects of the two particularly), and I'd really enjoy learning more about it from someone who practices the faith."

If more people said just that, not only about Wicca and Paganism, but about any faith or system of belief they are not familiar with, how many walls could we tear down? How many bridges could we build?

I believe that one of the biggest ways we can begin to tear down the walls of religious intolerance is through awareness, education, and understanding. That requires that more people have the courage and openmindedness my friend displayed in asking to know more about a path he is unfamiliar with. It also requires that there be people in all paths willing to put themselves out there to be asked.

Another good friend shared with me the wise words of a missionary who told his fellow Christians, "You can't witness any more than you already are.:"  Everything we do is a witness to our spiritual path - if our path is known. People observe us and our lives are our testimony. A responsible, caring, thoughtful person who respects others, is honest, accountable, and sets a positive example in society is a living witness with a stronger message than any stand-up testimony could ever hope to deliver.

Among those who walk the various Pagan paths, there is a great reluctance to be "out" and, in many cases, there are good reasons. It's a sad but true fact that former and current spouses have challenged the fitness of Pagan parents in court based on their spiritual path, employers and, more often, coworkers have made work life difficult, and families have shunned, abused, and berated those who come out about their paths. Openly walking a spiritual path outside the mainstream always carries risk of disapproval, and the risk is greater for some than for others. If we are going to change the way Pagans are perceived and, hopefully, reduce the risk of disapproval and repercussion, those of us with minimal risk have to start letting ourselves be visible, allowing our lives to be the witness and testimony that tears down the misconceptions and builds bridges.

That does not mean that we have to make grand announcements, start dressing "witchy" (save me!) or wearing pride bracelets everywhere we go. In fact, I'm convinced that it's more effective in the long run to simply live life according to our conscience and allow our spiritual paths to reveal themselves in the normal course of conversation and discovery. It doesn't have to be your lead card. But it doesn't have to remain hidden up your sleeve, either.  And if you have been witnessing with your life, the revelation of your spiritual path is much less likely to be met with ridicule, fear, or loathing. 

I know as I write this that there are those who simply cannot afford to take that risk. I respect that and would never suggest that anyone put themselves, their livelihoods, or their families at risk.  But I also know that there are a lot of people like me...people who are in the enviable position of not being as vulnerable to potential fallout from revealing a non-mainstream spiritual path...people who are well respected professionally and personally, and who do not dress or behave in ways that reinforce negative stereotypes, and who, hopefully, are willing to be open when it is appropriate to do so. 

We are the bridge builders, the Pagan Corps of Engineers who can, if we will, continue building infrastructure begun by others who have put themselves out there.  Our testimony is subtle, our witness quiet, but we can affect change one interaction at a time if we have the courage.

Community: I've talked a good game, but...

Back in October, I participated in Blog Action Day by posting on the 2008 theme, poverty. I felt pretty good about the post and about the response it generated (I made good on my promise) and then, sad to say, I pretty much forgot all about it.

A recent essay on The Witches' Voice yanked my chain and shamed me back into awareness. Jeffrey Pierce's, "The Magick of Giving" is an engagingly written, passionate wake-up call to examine our me-more-mine culture.

I tried in vain last night to write a clever review of Jeffrey's essay and restate his already well-stated points.The fits and starts convinced me that I was trying to reinvent a perfectly fine wheel. Better I should just point you toward the essay and toward the author's website, Old Ways, and let you feel first-hand the impact of the stark truths he presents and the reminder of our accountability to our community I felt when I read this admonishment:

Being Pagan isn't simply about working magick or casting a Circle. It's more than taking a magickal name or building an occult library to further our own growth and knowledge. We follow the phases of the moon and the journey of the sun around the Wheel of the Year, we attune ourselves to the cycles of Nature, but we lack any sense of community. Yes, we have Pagan friends - but that meets our needs, not the needs of those who are struggling simply to survive.

Community isn't simply about developing friendships, but putting the whole ahead of the individual. We staunchly argue that it's not how things should be, that we deserve to pursue our individual goals and have earned the material rewards we heap upon ourselves. And yet the ancestral village, tribe, or clan of our spiritual ancestors that we look to for inspiration on our path put their neighbors and their community ahead of their own personal gain.

Not pulling any punches, Malidoma Patrice Somé, an African Shaman, writes in his book, Ritual: Power, Healing, and Community, "The only place where abundance is warranted is in nature. A person who wastes is a person who insults the gods. In light of the waste encountered in the modern world, one wonders if anyone knows that there is a world outside of this abundance where people are aware of priorities other than materialism."

Go read the essay, then visit Old Ways...and then let's talk about what we can do.

3,000 Beautiful Words

Sharing some beautiful things that have captured my eye, my lens, my heart of late...

Heraclitus said (loosely paraphrased) that a man cannot stand in the same stream twice because it is never the same stream and he is not the same man. We are constantly in flux, dynamic, evolving, works of art and works in progress.  The stream is always moving.
 

I love sunrise, expecially in winter. As the days grow short and cold, the daily affirmation that the wheel is always turning warms me and renews my spirit. From light to dark to light again, from strength to weakness and back to strength...take no great pride in days of light...feel no great despair in days of darkness...turn, turn, turn...

Beautiful things are everywhere..like this gentle gift from a farmer's market awhile back. I'm grateful that glowing slivers of July can be saved through the lens to light the shadowy corners of January.

Photos by Autumn Heartsong; Stream in Cosby, Tennessee, USA; Sunrise in my back yard, Harrison, Tennessee, USA; Sunflower and Grapes, informal farmer's market, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA.

Common Ground, Holy Ground - Working for Peace One Thought at a Time

I want to live in a peaceful world.  The whole world, not just my little spot on the hill here in Tennessee. Jim and I have managed to bring our dream of a peaceful, welcoming home into reality and we're grateful...but it's hard not to feel helpless and overwhelmed when we look at the larger world and realize we have no control over events. I can't transform the whole world.

Or can I? 

I've stated my belief here before that we have very little control but enormous influence, and that we are shirking our responsibility when we don't use what influence we have for the good of all.  If the world is, as I believe, an interconnected web...if we really are all made of the same stuff, connected and influenced by the actions of all in that web...then we influence the whole with every action.  And if, as I also believe, thoughts are things ...that what we choose to think about will make its way into reality...then we influence the whole with every thought and that influence grows exponentially stronger when we think about something repeatedly and with intent. And if I can influence the thoughts of others with words, spoken or written, am I doing all I can to use my influence for peace? 

I don't have the data, but I'm making an educated guess here that there are more people in the world who want peace than there are people who don't.  Theoretically, with all of us thinking about peace, we should be able to influence the world in that direction, right?  Obviously we haven't succeeded yet, so there's a fly in the ointment somewhere.

The problems start with the fact that violence, even a small amount compared to the whole, creates fear and fear keeps us from thinking peaceful thoughts. You can't be afraid and not think about what you are afraid of. Hatred directed toward you, even if you don't return it, is so emotionally overpowering that we can't seem to help thinking about how unfair it is, how wrong, how damaging. Those are not peaceful thoughts.  Doubt, grief, envy, jealousy, depression, anger, attachment...how many other detractors from peaceful thought enter our lives every day? 

And we, in our infinite wisdom, add to the problem by selecting entertainment that puts images of violence and misery into our image-processor brains and call it good.  Many movies feature more violence, cruelty, and pain in ninety minutes than many of us will experience in a lifetime. While we consciously know that the images on the screen are not "real," they're still there, saved and stored and cataloged.  I watched two movies with my husband this weekend that gave me a stark reminder of why I made the decision years ago to not watch such things. "Dark Knight" and "The Happening" were both good movies; Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker was astounding. But I have replayed over and over in my mind scenes from those movies, pictures of madness and horrifying death. Why did I think it was a good idea to put those images in my mind, images that weren't there before and serve no good purpose? I'm still trying to shake my mental Etch-A-Sketch clean.

What if we all made a conscious decision to think about other things? What if we, on purpose, with will and intent, choose to think about things that promote peace?  If the world is filled with conflict and we want peace, focusing on the conflict isn't going to get us there. What if we made a concentrated effort to turn our attention away from the source of the conflict and look for the common ground? 

It will only be a ripple. I know that the horrible mess in Gaza and Israel won't disapper tonight even if the whole world takes up the cause. Peace won't greet the dawn in Afghanistan...hatred and bigotry and genocide and senseless violence won't fade from the world and leave great peaceful holes in their wake. But my looking for common ground in my own interactions will affect me and my personal actions on the great web. I am the only thing I can control, and by controlling my thoughts I alter the influence I have on the world. If enough of us exert influence, what might we accomplish?

Today I will focus my thoughts deliberately on words, actions, and images that promote peace, understanding, coexistence, and joy.  Where there is potential conflict in my life, I will look for common ground and resolution. I will use discernment in my entertainment choices. I will choose words that promote peaceful thoughts in others.  I will make every effort to use what skills and talent I have to influence the web for the good of all.

I challenge you to do the same, and post a comment back here with your thoughts. Can we change the world, one thought at a time? I believe we can.