Do you need an earthquake?

Before you read today's post - and I hope you'll read it all & comment - take a look at the accompanying image. It's a card created between yesterday's post of desert blooms and today's words that flowed from my heart. I haven't spent a lot of time with this card, but a couple of observations: it's big and bold - there's a shadow side in there somewhere - I feel empowered and terrified when I consider it - she gives me the courage to step out and post the following reflections that poured into my journal this morning.

I didn't necessarily set out to write this for the public, and was going to heavily edit it if it turned into a post. I opted, however, to make minor revisions and go with the flow. The beginning quote is mine, made at Claire's post, Signs, where she speaks of the earthquake that sets Paul and Silas free from jail.

"yes, those earth shattering moments - many of them have melded together for me almost to the point where i see them everywhere i look - my heart has expanded and softened - fright seems to have been replaced with a love i thought i could never experience. it seems abstract and a bit cliche to put into words. simply put, yes, i've had those experiences and i remember, thank godde!"

the post describes the fear of the jailer when the earthquake shook and the prisoners were set free. the fear of the prisoners. it was elucidated in one of the comments on the blog "yikes, prisoner's escaping - time for fear." prisoners are scary, and i don't want to admit that to myself. prisoners are scary - really the unknown is scary. prisoners are just people like the rest of us and, yes, there is cause to be frightened of some of them, but not all of them. (oh, i hate them/they language.)

yesterday on a Facebook status, a well-meaning woman talked of wanting to provide spiritual direction to an "incarcerated" person and a "normal" person. my blood boiled. are you kidding me? you want to go and share God, but geez, can you hear what you're saying? i hear her saying "us and them". we're normal and they're not. an incarcerated person and a normal person. what bullshit is that? oh, i don't even want to rant about her. i need to listen to my own heart.

why does this grate on me so much? because i can see it in myself, huh? my fear. her fear. the jailer's fear - of the other. we fear 'the other', and as long as we fear the other - whether of another nationality, religion, social status - whatever - there will never be peace. fearing the other is the most dangerous thing we can do. yes, i know we have instincts to tell us when we're in danger, but what of the "instincts" we have been carefully taught? to hate people of color or those who weigh "too much" or fill in your own blank... we're taught to fear being old, too. how many of us fear the handicapped or the infirm? it's scary - really scary, 'cause it could be us!

when my mother was placed in a memory care facility (i.e. she had alzheimer's), my son at age 13 was the most compassionate person i've ever seen. he didn't fear the looping stories or the blank stares - he joined in with the residents and listened to their stories again and again. life has warped his views now with more prejudice, but then, he wasn't frightened - they were just people and he was a friend and champion for the under dog. now he is one. he's the guy behind the bars. he's the one we're supposed to be afraid of.

i sit in the visiting room at the prison and it looks like a class room. i haven't felt a moment of fear in that environment. maybe it's because the guards are standing around. maybe. but they're all people with stories. i feel more curious than anything and would love to sit down and talk with everyone (not allowed - btw). i don't see the men as "other" - other than making different choices than i've made, but i have no idea what life path lead them to those choices. fear - certainly. desperation - probably. self-contempt - absolutely.

and so we pour on the contempt by placing "them" in the other category. we're not scary and they are. we're normal and they're different. it's all fear. so what do we do? who are you afraid of? how does it cause you to be in the world or not be in the world? what's the difference between you and me and the guy in the orange jump suit? choices? luck? nature? God's plan? did God predestine them to be bad and us good? bullshit. yes, it comes down to choice. it comes down to love and fear. how can we be curious? i don't know what it means to be black or jewish or handicapped, but do you know what it's like to have a kid in jail and have the "good" Christian people afraid of him - categorizing him before they've even considered him as a person?

if you've ever read Martin Buber, you know about the i/thou relationship. when do we quit making people "it" and consider them as I/Thou. look into the eyes - yes, you may feel your blood chill - i've had that experience and i say "run". watch "dead man walking" and see sister prejean. yes, sean penn was scary in that movie - the character was terrifying and there was a spark of humanity. my son sits beside the most heinous offenders. does that make him scary? yes, i won't deny that i've dreamed of being terrified of him, and i will still give him a chance to be more than an it or they. i will not categorize blindly. at least i hope i won't.

i hope i will be like the jailer's in Claire's story and ask what i need to do to be saved - from myself. from my own pettiness and bitterness and fear. that's who and what i need to be saved from. "they" don't need to be saved, I do - especially if i hold malice and unjustified fear in my heart. - uneducated fear. ignorant fear. i say to me and you - to us: listen to yourself. have knowledge before you speak or at least acknowledge your ignorance. don't speak of love if you don't know what it's like to love unconditionally. i don't wish the challenges i've had on anyone AND i am grateful to have been challenged to know what it's like to love without condition. i'm not sure i would have done it on my own without an earthquake - would you?

Thanks for reading today. Wishing you peace and blessings.

sips and drops of blessing

“The element of water connects us to a sacred web across the globe and invites us into acts of blessing, pouring forth love and grace to the world around us and receiving it in return.” -- Christine V. Paintner

I’ve often thought of the air we breathe as being connected to everyone in the world. My neighbor in Puerto Rico inhales the same air that flowed from my Seattle home, across the United States and then south to the Caribbean. In my mind, it moves on around the world across Europe and Asia, crossing the Pacific and then back home again.

Air flows freely and although it may feel stagnant for periods of time, it is still fluid – as is water. While water may not be the exact same body flowing directly from one place to another, there is still the possibility and invitation to connect across the globe - if only in our heart and imagination. When I ponder my flowing tears dropping into a stream that flows toward the ocean which moves via gulf stream, I can witness a piece of myself touching the woman in Africa who washes her clothes on a rock while bending over a muddy river. Perhaps it is the same water melted from the Polar ice cap, evaporated, blown through the clouds and poured out on a different continent half way around the world.

While I am clearly no scientist, I do know that water changes shape and form and has a unique path of its own. What would it be like to consider water in the way Christine describes as “acts of blessing, pouring forth love and grace to the world around us”? Personally, I love the image of blessings passed through sips and drops of water.

photo © lucy - Ireland, 2009

Guilt or Gratitude?

It’s a surreal experience, sitting in an aluminum tube looking out the window from 30,000+ feet to witness only vast expanses of water while knowing this morning I left my Seattle home where it was dark and rainy and by late afternoon, I will be feeling the warmth of the Hawaiian sun. My husband sits beside me listening to an i-pod and reading his Kindle. My daughter and her friend behind us with their manicured nails fiddling on assorted gadgetry to keep them busy. We indeed live a privileged life and at this very moment I am trying to feel gratitude instead of guilt.

My own reading topic of the moment is a book called Trauma Stewardship by Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky, and it is what prompted this post.

“I went shopping last week for a pair of shoes, and I thought to myself, “What kind of person would go shopping for a pair of shoes right now?” Community activist, New Orleans, nine months after Hurricane Katrina

As I read the above quote, I was filled with flashbacks of the last few weeks. As I mentioned in this post, I have spent lots of time working with individuals (myself included) who struggle with “good fortune” and “privilege” particularly in light of the recent devastation in Haiti. A few days ago, I had virtually the same thought: How can I be going to Maui when people are buried under rubble in Haiti? Never mind that the trip was planned months before the recent earthquake. Our thoughts don’t always make sense do they?

Lipsky says it is a common experience of caregivers to feel guilt over the disparity between our lives and the lives of those we serve. I felt a twinge of this same guilt yesterday as my co-facilitator and I finished up our weekly session of Deepening Spirituality through SoulCollage® at the Recovery Café. Our class represents a variety of participants, many who live on the margins of poverty. So when my friend prompted me to tell the participants that I would be absent next week, I felt a slight twinge of guilt. I announced my absence and they quickly replied with “Where are you going??!?!” I hesitated a beat, breathed in and exhaled, “Maui.” “Maui?!? Are you kidding? Lucky you! We hate you. No fair. Teachers aren’t supposed to play hooky!” The good-natured barrage continued until I finally laughed, “Hey, sorry guys, I’m going and I’ll see you when I get back.” They responded playfully and I realized we were having an authentic encounter that brought us closer than ever in our humanity. It turned into a magically sweet moment and my resolve to not downplay my trip, but to send them a postcard and let them know I really was thinking of them.

Lipsky goes onto say when we downplay our own good fortune, we distance ourselves from others by not being genuine, and ultimately begin “to experience our own life with less abundance and joy than we truly feel.”

All of these moments fit into my primary pondering category of self-care leading to good care of others. My husband and I both declared a night or two ago that we are really tired. It’s been a stressful few months and we need to recharge. Yes, we are fortunate and can afford a plane ticket and a week in a nice condo – but in my heart I take along those with whom I work and know that I will be a better caregiver for this respite.

So, I’m curious – do you ever find yourself downplaying your good fortune? What is the impact for you? Do you feel better or worse? Does it bring you closer to others or increase the distance? And what of ‘authentic encounter’? How has it expanded your view of humanity?

Well, this may be the deepest (or only) thought you get out of me for a few days. Who knows? I’m off to recharge and setting aside my guilt for the time being. ☺

Aloha!

rainbow over honolulu © lucy 2.11.10

first glimpse of maui © lucy 2.11.10

Breaking Open

I need to write these words and I need to have them witnessed. They feel raw, discombo- bulated and important – at least for me. Slowing down this morning, my emotions lean toward the weight of the world – mine, my children’s, the children of Haiti and yours.

Monday, I sat with a young woman who is fighting for her life. She is not physically ill or destitute – most would say she lives a privileged life – and she would not disagree. Still… she struggles. This week, her battle for self-awareness was set against the devastation and death in Haiti… her search for personal peace transposed against a backdrop of events tangibly bigger than her own breaking heart. It is surreal and she paused to decide if she is worth it – to consider if she matters enough to fight for her own life without appearing selfish.

Tuesday, I engaged in a conversation with graduates of a Christian institution. The topic: What makes the institution unique? (i.e. Why go there, donate your money or invest your time?) One young man articulated before he went to school there, he had a 'Save the World' mentality that felt huge and impossible to accomplish. Now he sees things on a smaller scale – one individual - one conversation at a time. This feels doable. This feels like the Gospel to him – and I would not disagree. Can the world be saved on this scale?

As I write, dozens of other faces in this short week flash through my mind. Wednesday’s encounter with a woman who has heart-warming dreams that fill her to near bursting, but has a hard time seeing how those dreams can impact the outer world. Monday’s witness of prisoners in orange jump suits, some angry and entitled – others grateful to be alive and willing to transform one day at a time – some both. The only thing separating them and me is the color of their suit and my ability to walk out the steel-encased doors. Yesterday, I facilitated (& participated in) a recovery group where I am awed by the vast array of socio-economic, cultural, and spiritual representations. All an integral part of the world. All unique individuals. All just like me.

So, I sit here this morning snuggled with my golden cat, slowing down long enough to consider these things. I am near overwhelmed with sadness for my own broken heart and filled with hope for change in the world. Things seem to be shifting – or perhaps it’s just me? I am reminded of Mother Teresa’s prayer for her heart to break wide open so the whole world may fall in. Today, the world is right here with me. In this moment, I am grateful and awash in a sea of other emotions.

Is it enough to care for ourselves when others are dying? Do we not each die a bit every day? Can a breath of life in my body reach across the world? Does it have to go that far or is it enough to touch someone across the room, or closer yet to fill my own lungs?

by the sea © lucy 1.09.10

how do you define violence?

..."violence is not just a matter of dropping a bomb on someone or shooting a bullet at them or hitting them in the face. Violence is done whenever we violate the identity and integrity of the other. Violence is done when we demean, marginalize, dismiss, rendering other people irrelevant to our lives or even less than human. Violence is done when we simply don't care or don't look hard enough to evoke our caring for another." -- Parker Palmer

I share this quote today, because my daughter experienced this kind of violence first hand this week. She is a member of a class of citizens known for their extreme "meanness" - that of the teenage girl. Unfortunately this time the 'violence' came from someone who should know better. He is supposedly a role model. He is a coach.

Torn between wanting to rake this man over the coals and also wanting to be compassionate because I cannot know what has brought him to this place, I shall keep my public statements to a minimum. My private journaling, however, includes lots of spewing. I am livid to put it mildly.

How can the next generation grow into positive citizens when their role models daily inflict violence on them? How can we stop violence in the world if we do not stop it in our own homes & neighborhoods? So i must consider... How do I dismiss others without a thought? Where do I inflict violence by simply not caring? I hope you will consider this for yourself alongside me.

"headless" by lucy 7.08.09

fire of freedom

This theme of fire continues to find and follow me. The candle beckons me first thing in the morning to light its flame. It dances in the peripheral of my vision and reminds me that We are One – dance – flame – God.

A little journaling and then a “random” opening of “Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours” reveals this:

"The fire of love for souls loved by God consumes like the fire of God’s love, and it is the same love. It burns you up with a hunger for the supernatural happiness first of the people that you know, then of people you have barely heard of, and finally of everybody."

It is easy to love the lovable, but what of the not so lovable? My heart is big even though it grew up in a home of judgment and criticism. My mind turns to Linda on the playground. We are seven years old. I feel her hand in mine. It has a slightly different feel - a little drier – a little coarser, but still it is a small hand like mine. Fingers entwined as we skip across the playground, joyously together.

During that moment, I did not know this was considered an outrage to many. It was 1963 in Bethany, Oklahoma. Linda was black and I was white. I did not know that during this same time period, perhaps even the same week, four African American girls just about our age had been killed in a bombing in Alabama while attending church. I did not know it could be considered dangerous to be friends with this girl who was just like me. I did not know that some considered her unlovable.

I have no idea how long we were friends. It might have been only that one day. She disappeared from our school as quietly as she had arrived. Still 35 years later, she lingers in my mind.

Have you ever heard the saying, “You cannot skip and be angry at the same time?” Try it sometime. Two images of freedom come to me most strongly when I think of my childhood. One is skipping by myself on my way to Kindergarten - scuffing my perfect little shoes along the way. The other is skipping hand in hand with Linda on the playground of our elementary school.

So why does this come to my mind now? I believe Linda has reappeared to me today as that symbol of freedom both for myself and for our country, even our world. We are in an historic time right now. Can you feel it? May the fire of freedom burn brightly!!!

Bless you, Linda, wherever you may be.

Consider this: Who are the "Linda's" of your life? What does "fire of freedom" say to you?

First Moment of Dawn

"There's a sun in every person--the you we call companion." --Rumi

Sometimes it is hard to know where the beginning of the thread is. Or maybe it is more like tiny pieces in a mosaic that look indistinguishable until you stand back and see the picture as a whole. Barbara used the metaphor of a movie to comment on my last post:

"We don't see the big picture. We each only play a bit part in that movie, but one that is key to the movie's completion."

And so the thread continues and more thoughts bubble around in the stew. This happened when I read Mind Sieve's reflections on Veteran's Day. It is a moving post and well worth taking the time to read. It was the last line that has stayed with me:

"Should we look away and save our hurt at the loss of others while our families remain safe....or should we watch and realize that their losses are our losses as well?"

It is my belief that once we begin to look into the eyes of another as though they are our own, we cannot look away...unless, of course, that is how we treat ourselves. Do you look away from your own hurt and suffering? Or do you choose to enter the suffering, so that it can begin to heal? Again, I believe that our threads cannot be unentwined. Our piece of the mosaic is not easily distinguished. We never know how our bit part may affect the outcome of the great movie.

So, in closing, I would like to leave you with this parable to consider. It is from the Talmud and I ran across it this morning in The Book of Awakening.

A Rabbi asks his students, "How do you know the first moment of dawn has arrived?" After a great silence, one pipes up, "When you can tell the difference between a sheep and a dog." The Rabbi shakes his head no. Another offers, "When you can tell the difference between a fig tree and an olive tree." Again, the Rabbi shakes his head no. There are no other answers. The Rabbi circles their silence and walks between them, "You know the first moment of dawn has arrived when you look into the eyes of another human being and see yourself."

Blessings to you this day. May you see yourself in the eyes of another. May you experience the first moment of dawn.

"face of sagada" found here
"dawn" by lucy

challenged

"Being true to who we are
means carrying our spirit like a candle
in the center of our darkness." --Mark Nepo

What does it mean to weep for “the poor”? After spending my last two posts commiserating of the woes of having a teenager, today I was confronted by two articles about random attacks on 16 year old people. A young man at a county fair is beaten because of the color of his skin. Girls walking to school in Afghanistan have acid thrown in their faces for wanting an education. It makes me sick. It makes me mad at the seeming selfishness in my own home. It makes me sad to feel my own heart that wants to turn away from the violence. Yet I cannot turn away. Once I have seen it or read it or heard it, it is imprinted on my heart.

Everyday I sit with people and hear stories of hurt and rejection. Parents that refuse to hug their children. Others that use demeaning words and shame to control. Men and women who are beaten or sexually abused. Some that can name their pain and others that can only feel the emptiness at the center of their chest. No one is immune. Everyone has a story and a hurt that is exclusively their own. So, what is my part? How can I help? Sometimes it all feels like too much. I think of the theme that God never gives us more than we can handle. At times I feel strong, because I feel like I have and do handle much. Other times, I find myself feeling small and weak because I live such a privileged life. Could I handle being hungry? Cold? Physically abused?

I consider what the election of our new President means for me. Reading the post at Mind Sieve I am challenged again (and still) to know what my part is. How will I speak? How will I live out of the gifts that God has given me? How will I carry my candle into the darkness? Some days it feels like enough to listen to one person at a time and help them see their own gifts so that they may go out into the world a little better equipped. Sometimes I feel like I am living into my full self. And other times…well…I feel at a loss. I wonder what will ever be enough.

Originally, I stopped writing there: I wonder what will ever be enough, but that feels hopeless and dead. If I stop there, then evil wins. If I turn away and refuse to listen, others are left alone. When I consider things globally, it quickly moves beyond my scope and I do become paralyzed. So my personal challenge is to learn how to keep moving forward. One step at a time. One moment at a time.

Today my first step was to ponder and not immediately turn away. The next step awaits…maybe it will be a big one. Most likely it will seem small. Can I let that be enough today? Could you?

photos taken 11.09.08 in my neighborhood

hope

A dear blogging Canadian friend captured my heart this morning with her post which I have audaciously copied verbatim. It is one that I would love every voter to see and take to heart (regardless of party or candidate affiliation!) Please get out and vote if you have not already!!!

[photo by Callie Shell]

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but rather the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.

-- Vaclav Havel

Blog Action Day

Poverty: the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount.

Where do you experience poverty in your life? Do you listen closely to those around you? Do you feel that others listen to you? Do you go through life on autopilot, hurrying from one place to the next? Do you wonder what a blog action day about poverty has to do with you?

Consider this: When we are not fully present to the stories that surround us, we close off the possibility that there is something new to be heard or discovered. We close our minds and our hearts to the possibility that we have something in common with the child in Africa, the mother in Harlem, the Senator in Congress, the homeless man on the corner, our next door neighbor and even the person(s) who sleeps in our own warm house.

On this day of poverty awareness, I would like to pose that we experience a paucity of listening. How might our world be different if we fought the poverty against our own cold hearts of stone? What if we started listening more deeply today? How would the world change? How would you? If only for today, I hope you will choose to listen a little more closely to the world around you.

Peace.

More thoughts on Love

Thought I would share a couple more thoughts from others on the topic of love. These two excerpts "sandwiched" the writing of my post on love and fear.

Maturity doesn't come with age or intellectual wisdom, only with love.
--Ruth Casey

We may have thought being mature meant being "grown-up." This meant acting rationally, showing good judgment, no longer exhibiting childish behavior. It's doubtful that we ever considered the expression of love as an act of maturity. However, we are learning that the key to sustained growth is the ability to love one another and ourselves.

It seems so much easier to focus on others' faults than on their assets. In childhood we learned to compete with our classmates, and this taught us to be critical of one another. No teacher tested us on how we expressed love; rather, we worked on spelling and multiplication tables, and we were pitted against other students for the gold stars.

Now we are discovering how much more comfortable life is when we all get gold stars. We are handling every situation more sanely now that we have realized the gift of serenity that accompanies our expression of love.

My growth, my maturity in this program, can best be measured by my attitude today. Am I loving, or am I still competing with the others?

You are reading from the book:

A Woman's Spirit by Karen Casey

This next quote is from actor, Val Kilmer. It appears in the January issue of O...The Oprah Magazine.

What if we made it mandatory to teach love in schools? It would be a subject you study, like algebra. You'd have to pass a test to get married or have a baby, after learning how to love. Our children would learn to be nurturing. It would be safe for boys to be loving. I heard a quote once: "Men have come and for a time made evil victorious, but they never win...Love always prevails." If we taught love, it would do more than prevail. It would manifest through our actions. Total love would liberate us all.

And here are those questions again: What if we taught love in schools, instead of fear and competition? What if we chose to act daily from love instead fear? What if we started right now with a hug instead of judgment? How would the world change?

In closing, here is one of my favorite videos that I have shared before. Think about it, please.

Joyful Work?

Recently as I read a friend’s words discussing the struggle of living a contem-
plative life versus one of more perceived compassion toward the world, I found myself getting anxious that I do not do enough to help the world, the poor, the marginalized. As I read on, tears came to my eyes when I sensed God speaking directly to me saying, "Don't you see how your gifts extend into the world, so that others may find their way?"

Words such as these can be hard for me to receive. While I have never understood much about asceticism per se, I have a sense (for myself) that if it feels too good (i.e. if I find joy in my work), then there must be something wrong. I see myself as not working hard enough or doing the "right" things. These are long-ingrained messages that I have only recently started to challenge.

I LOVE the "work" (and it is difficult to even use that word) I do with Soltura and at Mars Hill. My heart fills as I see men and women come to have more self-awareness, compassion for themselves and begin to understand what truly brings them alive in the world.

The psalmist said, "Harden not your hearts,” and it is when my heart is open that I see change happen in my world. Can I be satisfied with changing the world the way I am best equipped or must I be a woman doing big, radical, self-sacrificial things to be effective?

And so my challenge, and question perhaps, is can I allow myself to do the work that brings me joy without feeling that I must embody suffering along the way?

A wise man prompted me to remember one of my favorite quotes and suggested perhaps that is where I am already living. Hmm. Guess I'll keep pondering ☺.

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." --Frederick Buechner on vocation

Where does your deep gladness meet the world’s deep hunger?

photos by lucy

What is Soltura?

Many of you who are regular readers may have noticed that about once a month, I disappear and go incommunicado for a few days. Where do I go, you might ask? Many would recognize that I have gone to Soltura, but not necessarily know what that means. So, today as I prepare to disappear again for a few days, I wanted to share my own little piece of “social action” where I see the world changing one person at a time. It is a challenge to describe, because I have never heard of or experienced anything so unique in my life. Soltura is the place I began to find healing for my soul and it is the place I go to be refreshed and restored as I pour my heart, time and energy into helping provide a space for others to either begin or continue their own personal journey.

So here’s a little bit of my personal history: While at therapeutic boarding school my then 14-year-old son went to his first workshop. My husband and I were subsequently invited to participate in our own workshop. Entering into the experience, I considered myself a pretty high-functioning individual who handled life’s ups and downs with reasonable “success”. I was very unaware, however, of how much I was just getting by and hiding behind defense mechanisms rather than fully participating in life.

Soltura gave me the space, the safety and the exercises to help me find my own best answers to the questions and roadblocks that stood in my way of truly knowing myself and therefore knowing the world around me. I came to know God in ways that I had never dreamed imaginable as I opened the door to new possibility. The tenet that I most admire and hope to live by is “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” What I have found is that if I do not know who I truly am I cannot love myself well and thus cannot love anyone else well; for I end up loving them exactly as I love myself which can be pretty crummy some of the time.

If you visit this website because you love Lucy and how she embraces life, you might be intrigued to know that I found Lucy (or she found me) through a Soltura workshop. I cannot imagine my life without her.

I have seen people from all walks of life experience Soltura…from Presidents of international companies to the abused mom who formerly slept in her car. Rich and poor. Ages 14 to 71. Addicts and teetotalers. Bold and timid. Christian and agnostic. Jews and followers of Zen. Businessmen and starving artists. Students and stay-at-home moms. People pushed by loved ones to get there and others seeking help on their own. I believe that Soltura is for everyone who desires to live life fully.

Soltura is where I go to work. It is where I go to play. It is where I go to be with God and be with friends and laugh and dance and be Lucy at her fullest. Soltura is a gift I am compelled to share with the world. I invite you to check out the Soltura website here. (The testimonies are really my favorite ☺.) Other posts are available here and here or check out the Soltura topics in my sidebar.

Anyway…that is where I will be from August 13-19. I’ll “see” you when I get back and pray you will come to find the Soltura of your life.

Adios!

The Word That Is A Prayer

by Ellery Akers

One thing you know when you say it:
all over the earth people are saying it with you;
a child blurting it out as the seizures take her,
a woman reciting it on a cot in a hospital.
What if you take a cab through the Tenderloin:
at a streetlight, a man in a wool cap,
yarn unraveling across his face, knocks at the window;
he says, Please.
By the time you hear what he's saying,
the light changes, the cab pulls away,
and you don't go back, though you know
someone just prayed to you the way you pray.
Please: a word so short
it could get lost in the air
as it floats up to God like the feather it is,
knocking and knocking, and finally
falling back to earth as rain,
as pellets of ice, soaking a black branch,
collecting in drains, leaching into the ground,
and you walk in that weather every day.

photo by bill

Caring...or Not?

Entering the downtown parking garage after an evening with friends, the smell of urine was over-
powering. As I turned to my husband to comment, there was a flurry of movement and from out of nowhere came a man who now stood between the exit and us.

“You guys got any money?” He said in his gravelly voice and before we could even respond he had jerked up his shirt and was showing us his heavily bandaged chest.

“Got blown up in the war. Come on, guys just give me some money.”

It was only earlier that day that I had written about no longer being able to ignore the homeless man in the street. And now, here was this man making certain that we would not ignore him. His movements were erratic and we were alone in an isolated, dark garage—only the streetlights from outside lit where we stood. His eyes were outlined as though someone had drawn around them with a bright red marker. His body was wiry and he was probably not much taller than me and there was something dangerous-feeling about him. It was desperation.

How do you respond to desperation? How do you have a conversation? Suggest a cup of coffee? Hand over $10? For $10 would not ever be enough. Enough for what? A score of crack cocaine. A decent meal. A bus ticket out of town. His lost dignity.

My husband responded, “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any cash.” The interchange—request for money and refusal—was repeated a couple of times at which point the man clenched his fists, made a grunting sound along with a short, quick punching motion, started to leave and then said, “Hey, you guys Christians?”

What could we say? We said nothing and then he was gone.

I say ‘he was gone’ and yet he has not left my mind for more than a few moments in the four days since this happened. I feel strong compassion and care for this man who represents thousands of others on the Seattle streets. I do want to make a difference, and in the moment, I feel as if we did nothing. We were stunned. And scared. We felt trapped and potentially in danger. Trapped.

I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like to feel trapped and desperate every moment of the day. If money is not the solution and conversation/relationship not an option, what else is there? What will I do the next time I am faced with a similar situation? What will I do in the meantime? Can caring be enough, as Brian McLaren says?

“Just caring is a good start. That’s a real start. Who knows where it could lead.”

I look forward to seeing where this caring leads, because not caring is no longer an option.

I’d love to hear thoughts from you and ways you see that are making a difference.

photo from google images