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Saving the starfish

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There’s a story that one day a boy was walking along the seashore. A lot of starfish were being washed up by the waves. They were slowly dying because they were being exposed to the air. He started picking up the starfish one by one and flinging them back into the ocean. A man comes walking by and he sees the little boy doing this. He says ‘Look at all these other starfish. You’re not helping them at all. You’re not making a difference in their lives.” The little boy said “I just made a difference in this one’s life.”

“What we focus on expands”, Oprah Winfrey says. It is very hard when you’re a compassionate or empathetic person. We tend to notice all the people we weren’t able to help. And while it is important to acknowledge loss, it is also important to not focus on just the bad. We have to open ourselves up and intentionally and consciously point ourselves towards that which we are doing which is helping.

We can’t save them all. We can’t help them all. But we are just one part of a huge ocean of people who are helping. We are not alone. We can’t all be Mother Teresa. But she didn’t do it alone either. She had hundreds of nuns working with her whose names we don’t know. Each one of them helped who she was given to help that day. Each one of them did what she could to make that person’s life better. She didn’t do it all but together they did.

If we focus on what we can’t do or who we haven’t saved then we lose energy. If we can help one person, it makes a difference in that person’s life. If we don’t help, locked up in our worry about all that we can’t do, then we’ll do even less.

Help who you can. Leave the rest for others to help. That gives them the joy of helping. By leaving something for others to do, you’ve actually given them a gift. Each of us wants to feel needed. A lot of people feel needed by helping others. When you do it all, you are taking away someone’s task. So you are actually doing a good deed by not doing it all.

Hoarding, overeating, and the pearl.

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Hoarding and overeating are the same things. They are both ways of trying to protect yourself from “out there”. More significantly, they are ways of trying to protect yourself from “in here”. Both build up defenses against the outside world by literally creating a wall between you and it. Meanwhile what you are really running away from is something that is irritating you inside.

In hoarding, you believe that you need more stuff to feel safe. You keep four of something, even if you only need two. You’ll pack five pairs of shoes on a three day trip, because you aren’t sure what you might need. You’ll keep twelve outfits that don’t fit that you haven’t worn in years “just in case”. You’ll keep things that are broken or were given to you and you’ve never used because you think you might have a need for them.

This is all a sign that you don’t believe that your needs will be taken care of. You feel that you are all on your own, alone, and it is all up to you to make sure that you are happy. Meanwhile you can’t even find what you need under the pile of stuff you don’t need. You’ve built up a wall, a fortress, between you and the world.

Overeating works the same way. You feel that your needs aren’t being met, so you try to fix them with food. If a little cake is a good thing, a lot must be great, right? That boss didn’t respect you – eat a cookie or twelve. Your wife is always angry at you – have another plate at the buffet. They can’t tell you not to. It is the one thing you can control – what goes into your mouth. And yet it is out of control. You don’t have control at all. You can’t make them stop being angry or randomly changing the rules, but you can eat something. You’ll show them. Instead of speaking up, you shut yourself down by shoving food into your mouth.

This is how children behave. Sadly, sometimes adults are just children in older bodies.

Consider the oyster. A little irritant gets into it. A piece of sand, a bit of shell – something inedible and foreign gets inside. It doesn’t know how to get it out. The oyster’s inner parts are soft and this foreign thing hurts. It puts a protective layer around that irritant to make it smooth. The only problem is that now that irritant is bigger, and presses up against more of the oyster. So it puts another layer around it. And it gets bigger. So it puts another layer around it. And on, and on, and on. Eventually the pearl that has been created is so big there is no way that the oyster could get it out without being cracked open.

We are like that. We build up these walls inside us against perceived injustices and slights, and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Instead of getting it out or absorbing it and letting it pass through us, it gets stuck inside us, making the situation worse. Eventually the only way to get it out is to be cracked open.

Sometimes being cracked open is literal – we develop a tumor from our worries, and it has to be removed by surgery. Or sometimes we have a heart attack that slows us down and makes us reassess our priorities. Sometimes everything is stripped away from us in a natural disaster. Or a divorce. Or a house fire. Sometimes our need to control is taken out of our control, and all we have left is ourselves. Then we are faced with the question – what now?

Sometimes what we are most running away from is what we need to sit with. Often the best way to heal is to not run away from our pain but to look at it and process it. Let it pass through. We run away when we drink or smoke or do drugs. But we also run away when we fill all of our time with things and events and noise. A busy life isn’t always a happy life. Silence and emptiness can be frightening at first, but they are very healing.

Who is our master?

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The prophet Hosea speaks to us right now, warning us about our love of money.

Hosea 8:4
They made kings, but not through me.
They set up princes, but without my knowledge.
With their silver and gold they made idols
for their own destruction. (RSV)

This could be read as literally making idols – of melting down the silver and gold to reshape them into sculptures to worship. But I think it is deeper than that, and more immediate. What if it is about worshiping silver and gold themselves, about thinking that money will keep us safe?

When we think that our pension plan, our savings, our get-rich-quick schemes will save us, we are putting our faith in money and not in God. We are saying that we are in charge by all of our money-gaining efforts. But we forget that the bank can default on its loans, an economic depression could happen, embezzlement – anything.

Our house could be leveled by a tornado and we’d lose all the money we’d sewn into the mattress. It would go flying away with all the other debris of our lives. Our treasure would turn into trash in an instant.

Jesus knew about this verse. He often quoted from Hosea. He referred to his own resurrection with this previous verse –

Hosea 6:2

2 After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him. (RSV)

He referred to this next verse often to try to teach people what really matters isn’t following the rules but following God.

Hosea 6:6
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings. (RSV)

So what does Jesus say about the worship of silver and gold as idols? Jesus is all about not worrying. Of course, don’t worry about money. Don’t worry about your future. But further – don’t worry about anything. Worry can make you sick.

Matthew 6:25-34
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life?28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith?31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day. (RSV)

This doesn’t mean that we should think that the future is going to be perfect. It doesn’t mean that all followers of God will have wonderful houses and perfect health. What it means is that we don’t need to worry about it – whatever happens is whatever needs to happen. It is when we struggle against God that we get hurt.

The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 8:28
28 We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. (RSV)

Hear that? God works for good.

So what do we do? How do we know how to act? Jesus was asked that very question by a lawyer – someone who was all about following rules. This is in Matthew 22:36-40

36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” (RSV)

Part of loving God is trusting that God has it all under control. Part of loving your neighbor is serving. Part of both is not worrying about it. I don’t mean don’t worry in the sense of don’t do anything about it, or forget about it. But don’t stress over it. God is in charge. Let God rule your life instead of you trying to.

Tomato cage

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Driving rules keep us from crashing into each other. When we are at a four way stop, driving rules let us know who gets to go first. If we didn’t have that we would all enter the intersection and crash into each other. Social rules let us know the same thing. When we crash into each other we all get into a big mess.

I know a lady who didn’t like the Reno Healthrhythms protocol. She felt it wasn’t organic. She wanted people to just flow around and enjoy making noise together.

Consider a map. If you are going to go to a new city you need a map to tell you how to get there. You don’t just get in your car and drive around following your feelings until you happen to end up where you need to be. You are very likely to get very lost doing it that way.

With this protocol we have a specific place we are trying to get to. We are trying to get to disclosure and honesty. We are trying to get real. It isn’t about drumming at all. It is about getting people to use drums as a way to communicate and connect. Not only do they learn how connect with each other, but they also learn how to connect with themselves.

It is like a tomato cage. The tomato cage doesn’t force the tomatoes to grow into an unnatural shape. It actually gives them a structure upon which to grow and get strong. Tomatoes that don’t have a tomato cage end up sprawling all over the ground and getting eaten by bugs. Slugs will grow fat feeding on them. The tomatoes will get mushy and gross from being on the ground. So you have to have a tomato cage to keep the tomatoes standing upright. The protocol does the same thing. It provides a skeleton or a form to shape the desired result.

It doesn’t constrict. It actually strengthens. It is the map. It is the driving instructions. It is the thing that gets us from here to there. Otherwise we are likely to end up nowhere.

Sometimes nowhere is a good place. Sometimes we think too much and we have too much structure. Sometimes it is important to do things that don’t involve thinking. Mindlessness is sometimes useful. But sometimes it just becomes an absence of anything and we end up nowhere.

Feelings and colors

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Few of us have a large vocabulary for our feelings. We are angry or sad or happy – but we need more words than that. It is like trying to paint a picture with just red, yellow and blue.

Color theory teaches us that the colors blend – we can have happy and sad together in the way that yellow and blue make green. Or we can have angry and sad together, in the way that red and blue make purple. Sometimes we are more happy than sad, or more sad than angry. It isn’t equal, changing the color blend. We could be a bit of all three together, creating a really big mess. Is it possible to be happy and angry at the same time, in the way that yellow and red make orange?

We don’t have a place in our bodies for these weird colors, these blends, so we need to know how to be with them and deal with them. Just noticing them can be a good start. It isn’t about getting rid of these feelings. I don’t think it is healthy or natural to strive to be joyous all the time.

Another part of color theory is the rule of complementary colors. Red’s complement is green. Green is a blend of the other two primary colors – yellow and blue. Blue’s complement is orange, which is red and yellow. Yellow’s is purple. Complementary colors make each other look their brightest and best. So with that I get that we need to have a balance in our lives. It can’t all be yellow (happy) – because you can’t appreciate yellow (happy) without a blend of blue (sad) and red (angry).

Notice in the complementary color the balance is half-strength of each other color. Yellow is full strength, but we use only half of red and blue to create an equal amount of purple. Thus, we need to get our proportions right. Blue (sad) is balanced out by half red (angry) and half yellow (happy). That makes it not overwhelming. Red (angry) is balanced out by half blue (sad) and half yellow (happy). It isn’t about having equal amounts of each thing to get the balance.

Bus driver.

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One time during the drum circle I was given the task of playing the bass drum. The bass drum holds the rhythm. The bass drum is the backbone of the whole thing. It sets the time and the tone. It has to be a consistent steady beat. It is what everybody else relies on.

Midway through something really amazing happened and a lot of people were in the center and they were singing and drumming together. It was really beautiful and I wanted to look at it, but I realized if I did then I would lose track of where I was.

I realized then that I was the bus driver. They were all enjoying the scenery. My responsibility was to driving the bus and keeping us all on track.

There was another person who was keeping the rhythm with me. Every now and then I’d lose track of where I was and I look over at him. The problem was that often he was holding his drum up so I couldn’t see his mallet hit. I couldn’t use his rhythm to find my own.

At that point I had to find the rhythm within the song that was already going on and just jump back in. The group had based itself on me but then I was basing myself on it. They didn’t really need me to keep it going but I felt the responsibility.

At another point, the facilitator came over and started to talk with me during the song. I got really frustrated and told her that I couldn’t talk to her and keep the rhythm going at the same time. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that I didn’t have to worry so much. I got the group started, but by then there was no way that they were relying on me. They couldn’t hear me at that point. They were doing it all very well on their own.

Which then leads to the next thought – why do I feel such a responsibility to keep things going? Why do I think that I’m in charge and have to control it? It is good to notice this and meditate on it. Some of it is rooted in my dysfunctional home life, then and now. I feel like I have to be the responsible one. I feel like if I don’t take care of things, they will all fall apart. Bills won’t get paid. There won’t be food in the house. No money left for retirement. Lifetime goals won’t be achieved.

Slowly, I’m learning to let go and trust that God is really the one driving the bus. I have my own duties that I’m called to do, but I’m not in charge. I don’t want to slack off and assume that there will be another day to do what I’m called to do – but I also don’t need to fret so much that I don’t enjoy today.

Communication connection

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I’m starting to see a connection with all the classes I’ve been taking on my own, the art I’ve been making, and the tutoring I’m doing. It is all about communication – in as many different ways as possible. It is about giving other people permission, as well as different ways, to express themselves.

Pastoral care, the Circle Process, Dialogue in Diversity training, the Remo Healthrhythms Facilitator training – they are all classes I’ve paid for. Tutoring and the classes I’ve taught in prayer bracelets – that has been without pay (mostly) and taken my free time. This is all in addition to working a full-time job.

Something has driven me to take these classes, but I didn’t know what the unifying theme was until now. At the heart of it, all conversation is about communion – our connection with each other, with our own selves, with the Divine. If that sounds too out there, I can say it is about connection to yourself and others.

And that is part of it too. I want to include as many people at once. All races, all cultures, all levels of understanding and ability. This involves learning about different ways of learning, different cultural norms, different myths and legends that shape us. This involves leveling the playing field for everybody – nobody is higher. We are all working together.

I also want people to be able to express themselves not only so they will feel understood, but so that they will understand themselves. Just because English is your native language doesn’t mean that you feel comfortable communicating in it. You may write well, but don’t like speaking out loud. You may speak well, but are embarrassed about your handwriting. Or you can’t spell because you are dyslexic.

I want to remove all of these barriers between people. I want to learn as many tools as possible to get people not only talking with each other but also listening to themselves. Dance, singing, drumming, fingerpainting, puppetry, beading – whatever. I want to learn as many ways to communicate as possible.

It is critical to get out feelings. I believe that unexpressed feelings are the source of all addiction and many diseases. I believe that giving people different ways to communicate is as important as providing equal access to buildings by making them handicap accessible.

We are all handicapped in one way or another. Written and spoken language is artificial. We aren’t born speaking or writing our “native” language. It is an arbitrary system of sounds and shapes assigned to the things around us. It is symbolic, and often difficult to use.

Rings and drumming

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If you are going to play drums it is important to not wear rings. Wearing rings can damage your hands but can also damage the drum. Repeated exposure of the ring to the side or the head of the drum can slowly weaken it to the point of breaking. Or if they hit very hard it can damage it very fast.

If you were lucky enough to have replaceable drumheads this isn’t horrible. They are expensive and it will slow down your ability to teach drum classes, sure. You’ll be slowed down because you have to go get a new drumhead or order one. Or you may have to wait to raise the money to be able to buy the drumhead. If you weren’t lucky, you’ll have to buy a whole new drum.

While you can ask people to take off their rings, this can cause other problems. Some people may never have taken their rings off. From the time that they got married to today that ring has been on their finger. Sometimes they have gained so much weight in that time that they can’t get their ring off. Or they have arthritis and it is equally difficult. They also may feel uncomfortable about taking a ring off for fear that they will lose it.

One way around this is to bring Band-Aids. You can offer Band-Aids so that they can put one around the ring. This will soften the impact. Put the cushion side towards the bottom. Or you can bring ball chains. That way, people can take the rings off and wear them around their necks. They are inexpensive and will help people feel comfortable that their ring isn’t going to slide out of their pocket or get lost on the floor.

Drum class notes.

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These are ideas I had after the Remo Healthrhythms drumming class, and thoughts on creating circles of people in general. This is a work in progress.

Create a safe space. Comfortable chairs, temperature is moderate. Have choices for chairs so different bodies can fit. Flat cushions, zabuton, rugs. Chairs. Or all the same? Do you want people all at the same eye level, or options?

Ask about any issues, sensitivity. Loud sounds, noise, crowds.

Be considerate of food and water needs. Supply choices.

Remind people that they can take care of their needs – bathroom, water, snack. They don’t have to wait for the group to take a break.

Plan for a variety of breaks so people can stretch, talk, decompress. Have a venue with a lot of different spaces for people to go to, including outside.

Vegas rules – what happens here stays here. Get all to agree. Confidentiality. Don’t talk about what someone says or does – good or bad.

A couple of questions to start – What is your favorite kind of ice cream? How do you fold a towel? These are ways to show that we all have individual ideas, and just because they are different doesn’t make them wrong.

Ground rules – have the group create the list. Discuss. Ask – Does anyone have a problem with anything? Is everyone able to abide by these rules? Don’t proceed until you get an agreement. The discussion during this part alone is part of the experience. How do we work through conflict?

Ask everyone to turn off cell phones so we can be fully present with each other.

Tell people to ask questions – if you are thinking it, there is probably someone else who is thinking it too. You may answer someone else’s question or fix someone else’s issue.

Don’t say “beat” the drum. It reminds people of abuse.

Don’t make it like musical chairs where somebody will be left out. Always have extra instruments so everybody has a choice.

Before the event – send out info to participants about needing to wear comfortable clothes – especially pants. It is difficult to play some drums wearing a skirt. If they are going to use their hands to play a drum (not a mallet) they need to not wear any rings because it can hurt your hand and hurt the drum head.

Assure people that there is no right way to play. Mistakes are where the magic happens.

Ask for what you need.

In the shaker pass icebreaker game, say it is ok to drop the shaker. If you drop it, let it stay. Model this in the first round.

Am I your friend or your customer?

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I’m encountering a lot of people who have started their own businesses. I’m finding that the line between friend and customer is a bit blurred. Someone I thought was going to be a new friend turns out to be friendly just to sell me something.

I’ll meet them in a social setting. It isn’t as if I’ve walked into their business and tried to strike up a friendship there. I didn’t know at the time that they were trolling for new customers. I think we call it “networking”. I call it confusing.

There are many ways that the friend/customer line gets blurred. One is that I’ll ask for advice on how to do what they do and there is a hesitation. They aren’t consultants, but they are afraid that I’ll steal their tricks or their business. They want to charge me to talk with them.

Another is when I give a new friend my email address and then she signs me up for a mailing list of all her activities. I get an email every time she plans some new event. If they were free events, that would be one thing, but they aren’t. These are all things I’m supposed to pay her for, and often the fees are very high.

If she had to pay for the experience to happen or provide materials, I understand. Sometimes the rental place has to be paid for or there are supplies involved. But if it is an experience at her home where she didn’t have to put out any money, then I don’t see why there should be a fee at all. It is as I’m expected to pay a fee just for the privilege of getting to be with her.