Cultivating the NO

There are those who take advantage of the generosity of others...and this causes resentment.  There are those that give endlessly...But they do so with transactional motives (in other words, it's not freely given). In both cases, an inability to say NO becomes problematic.

I once learned that there is no YES without an authentic NO. People feel that they have no choice when they lack the ability to decline. Thus, a well cultivated and loving NO is something we all must learn to invoke for good self care.  In this model, every YES is given in freedom.

Imagine a different community paradigm where those in need can ask for help, members of the community can say yes or no, and everyone trusts that both the request and the response are genuine. This removes the discomfort, blame, and resentment on both sides, as each person owns their request and response.

This is my vision...my hope.

How Can I Help?

As we collectively grieve the loss of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, I can't help but feel a sense of sadness at our cultural tendency to ignore those that are struggling in our immediate circles. Let's face it, we all know someone who is struggling, and yet, how often do we reach out to offer help and support?  Every moment of every day we can look around and see someone who is suffering in their own way. Whether it's the encampments on the side of the road, the elderly neighbor living alone and homebound, the woman at school going through a divorce, the new business owner struggling to keep finances afloat, the man suffering from depression and suicidal ideation, or the friend living with chronic illness.......Instead of opening our hearts in loving kindness, how often do we respond by assuming someone else is helping? Or do we respond in judgement? Or do we say we don't have enough time and energy? Whatever the reason....It's worthy of contemplation.

Naming the Cultural Sickness

We mourn the loss of brilliant individuals whose lives end too soon due to suicide, and yet we continue to attach a stigma to all kinds of chronic illness and disability.  We ostracize those that don't live up to perfectionist ideals, either intentionally or by defacto.  We don't gather as a community to help those in need....Instead we judge, ignore, or express pity yet do nothing. This is a CULTURAL SICKNESS that must be named and addressed. It is why we are called to help those that are suffering....in doing so....We prevent the insidious illusion of disconnectedness from infecting our society.

It (whatever "it" is) can happen to any of us, regardless of social status. Life can change in an instant. I learned that only a few people in my life really LOVED ME, independent if what I could do for them. Needless to say, life is different now, and I'm grateful because I am genuinely LOVED.

Get Lost...Richard Rohr

The following meditation is by Richard Rohr...

"Although true solitude—alert aloneness without diversions—can be challenging, it is often the necessary gateway to our deepest passions, and the discovery of what we must do to live them. As David Whyte writes,

. . . Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

The Wanderer learns to look deeply into the face of her aloneness and discover what truly brings her alive and what doesn’t. . . . You discover ease, inspiration, belonging, and wisdom in your own company. . . .

When wandering, there is immense value in “finding ourselves lost” because we can find something when we are lost, we can find our selves. . . . Imagine yourself lost in your career or marriage, or in the middle of your life. You have goals, a place you want to be, but you don’t know how to reach that place. Maybe you don’t know exactly what you want, you just have a vague desire for a better place. Although it may not seem like it, you are on the threshold of a great opportunity. Begin to trust that place of not knowing. Surrender to it. You’re lost. There will be grief. A cherished outcome appears to be unobtainable or undefinable. In order to make the shift from being lost to being present, admit to yourself that your goal may never be reached. Though perhaps difficult, doing so will create entirely new possibilities for fulfillment.

Surrendering fully to being lost—and this is where the art comes in—you will discover that, in addition to not knowing how to get where you had wanted to go, you are no longer so sure of the ultimate rightness of that goal. By trusting your unknowing, your old standards of progress dissolve and you become eligible to be chosen by new, larger standards, those that come not from your mind or old story or other people, but from the depths of your soul. You become attentive to an utterly new guidance system. . . . This kind of being lost and then found is one form of ego death and rebirth, one form of entering the tomb-womb of the cocoon. . . .

In order to live your soul into the world, you must continuously loosen your beliefs about who you are."

Body Positive

There's nothing wrong with having a beautiful body, training hard, getting healthy and showing the progress on social media. But for a moment, consider the silent perspective....those that are suffering with chronic illness or life threatening diseases and can't possibly think of going for a walk let alone sculpting a body...Learn to witness those who have redefined what health means, beyond what we see displayed in magazines and talk shows. Notice those on the margins with children that can't keep up all the time due to life with disability, and find ways to be inclusive...welcoming...kind.  Most importantly, avoid saying that "everyone can do it"...Because everyone can't....And I never would have understood until it happened to me. Let's celebrate ALL bodies!  Amen #bodypositive

Silence - Wisdom from an Early Quaker - Isaac Penington

After the mind is in some measure turned to the Lord – his quickenings felt, his seed beginning to arise and spring up in the heart – then the flesh is to be silent before him, and the soul to wait upon him (and for his further appearings) in that measure of life which is already revealed.

Now, this is a great thing: to know flesh silenced, to feel the reasoning thoughts and discourses of the fleshly mind stilled, and the wisdom, light, and guidance of God’s spirit waited for. For we are to come into the poverty of self, into the abasedness, into the nothingness, into the silence of our spirit before the Lord; into the putting off of all our knowledge, wisdom, understanding, abilities, all that we are, have done, or can do, out of this measure of life, into which we are to travel, that we may be clothed and filled with the nature, Spirit, and power of the Lord.

God is to be worshipped in spirit, in his own power and life, and this is at his own disposal. His church is a gathering in the Spirit. If any speak there, they must speak as the oracle of God, as the vessel out of which God speaks; as the trumpet out of which he gives the sound. Therefore there is to be a waiting in silence till the Spirit of the Lord move to speak, and also give words to speak. For we are not to speak our own words, or in our own wisdom or time; but the Spirit’s words, in the Spirit’s wisdom and time, which is when he moves and gives to speak.

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart how and what things God reveals to his children by his Spirit, when they wait upon him in his pure fear, and worship and converse with him in spirit; for then the fountain of the great deep is unsealed, and the everlasting springs surely give up the pure and living water.

Source: “A brief account concerning silent meetings; the nature, use, intent, and benefit of them,” published 1680 (text lightly modernized)

The Unseen

This morning I've been contemplating the Unseen Among Us. I spent a lot of time with people that live outside, noticing how their life on the margins is often ignored, judged and ultimately not witnessed. I'm discovering that the chronically ill population and the dying are also among those that are often unseen, excluded, judged, and pushed to the margins. This must change.