Either/Or

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When someone asks you a question and they give you the answers as part of the question, be wary. They either don’t really care what you think or they don’t even realize the trap themselves.

It is like when someone says the phrase “don’t you think” either at the beginning or end of a question. They don’t really care what you think. They just want validation for what they think.

If they say “do you want to wear the blue shirt or the grey shirt?” They have already done most of the thinking for you. In this instance all you can think about is blue or gray. You aren’t even in the same room with the red, orange, or yellow shirt. And maybe you don’t want to wear a shirt at all. Maybe you want to wear just a vest, or a dress.

I’m saying this to help you be mindful of these tricks that people play. They might not even be aware that they are manipulating you. Whether they are aware or not, the effect is the same. You are being distracted. You are being led along a path in a direction you may not want to go.

Question everything and everyone.

This is different from simple defiance. Saying no to everything all the time is childish. But following along mindlessly shouldn’t be the mark of an adult either.

Do whatever it is because you have researched it yourself and found it to be good. If the reason to do something is “because we have always done it that way” or, worse, it results in a threat, dig deeper.

Especially when the threat is to your soul.

I’ve never understood the logic of telling someone they have to believe the way you do because their soul depends on it. Just believe, like that, something that is huge.

I’m not going to buy a house or a car without reading the fine print. If I’m not going to jump into that major commitment without studying it, then what is the logic of going into an external commitment without question?

It is precisely because I take my soul seriously that I question. I expect the same of everyone. I think any faith tradition that expects blind obedience really just wants you to be blind.

This post was inspired by the title of a book. It is called “Was Jesus a Republican or a Democrat?” Uh, how about he was neither?

This way of questioning is black and white. There is no gray. There is no middle, and there is no other.

If you really want to know what someone thinks, ask them an open ended question. Ask them what they think, without any nouns. Just ask, and let them fill in the blanks.

While providing options is useful when you have a flighty child who cannot make decisions in a hurry and you need to get her out of the house and on to school, it is insulting to do to an adult.

But we do it all the time.

I’m writing this post to help you be mindful to not do it to others, and to not let them do it to you.

It is a hard habit to break.

Consider this. If you frame the question, you’ll miss the whole picture.

Control (dig out the roots)

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Much of our pain and problems come from a need to control. We want to control the future. We want to control our friends, coworkers, and family. We are sure if they just did things our way they would be happier.

At the core of it, what we hate is what we define as evil. We think whatever it is that we are against is wrong. We are afraid. Fear is a lot of this. Ignorance is a lot of fear.

What is evil for one is no problem for another. We want to save them. We want to protect them. We do it out of love, in our eyes.

Don’t fight evil. That is what it wants. Love it. Love is the answer. Really.

Love it by learning about it. Why do you hate it? Who taught you to hate it?

I’m thinking out loud here. I’m approaching this from both perspectives. I’m looking at it from the perspective of the person giving and the person receiving.

It is all connected.

When you come across someone who is controlling, see through the person’s reaction to their fear, their loss, their neediness. Their mess.

Do the same with your own need to control.

Dig down deep and find the root of it. If you feel fear or shame about something, instead of feeling those feelings, try to feel curiosity. Get curious about where this came from. Who gave that feeling to you? Many feelings are taught to us. We are taught to be ashamed of our bodies. We are taught to think that we are greater than or lesser than another. We are taught to be open or close-minded.

If this is an unpleasant feeling, one that isn’t productive, dig down. Don’t turn away from it. Uproot it. Bring it out into the light.

Who first gave you that feeling? Who first taught you to feel that feeling? Where were you? What was the circumstance? What was going on?

Then go deeper. Who taught that person? Then who taught them?

There can be many generations of this line, this rope that we hold on to. This rope that we use to define ourselves. This is how we in this family act. “Don’t shame us. Don’t embarrass the family name.” We are exhorted to not let go of this rope that holds us together. We all have to stay together, you know, or we’ll get lost.

But this rope can also be a noose, a lariat, a line that prevents growth.

Someone is trying to plant seeds of fear or shame into you. Don’t let it bloom into an ugly tree. Don’t give it a space.

There are many things that they will try to plant. They will try to plant seeds of doubt and fear. These seeds are the fruits from trees that have matured in them. They aren’t even aware that they have these misshapen trees growing inside them. They have had them so long that they think this way of thinking is normal.

How about these seeds? Have you been given these? These seeds of fear and doubt and ignorance are common. It is healing to see them out in the daylight. It is hard to look at them – but that is the root of healing. So here we go –

Don’t date somebody outside of your race. Don’t read holy books from other faith traditions. Don’t have gay friends. You are fat. You are lazy. You are ugly. You need to get a better job. You need to support your parents when they get old, even if they are abusive.

Wow. That Is a hard bit to digest.

We are told to “be a good girl/boy”. “Good” is often defined as obedient and submissive. This keeps the status quo. This keeps them happy, but you stunted.

Drop the stories. Drop the seeds. Don’t take them into yourself.

Grow into the light. Protect yourself from this poison. Their fear doesn’t have to be your fear.

Sometimes our pain and problems are given to us by others, but we
don’t have to take them.

Our minds are our biggest hang ups. See your mind as a sense organ. Like your eyes or ears it is limited and faulty. It is not able to relay all information.

Dig deeper. Learn more about the situation. Learn why. Why can’t I have friends of other faiths, other traditions, other ways o living? Is there something to be afraid of?

Is there something that you are being sold? Is there something that they were sold that they are now trying to give you?

Would you eat something without checking the ingredients? What if it is all calories and carbs and fat, and no vitamins or minerals? The same is true of ideas. Test them out. Are they helpful? Are they true?

“Free to a good home”

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How often have you seen a message like this?

“Free to a good home. We are moving and we just can’t take Fluffy with us. She’s been fixed and she has all her shots. If she isn’t adopted in a week I’m afraid to say we are going to have to take her to the shelter.”

Or something like this – “Now that we have a new baby, we just can’t keep Spot. He’s really friendly but we just don’t have time for him.”

While I cringe at the new term “furbaby,” perhaps it is useful here. A pet is a member of the family. Fluffy and Spot were chosen to live at home, with you, by you. No, they aren’t children in the true sense. You don’t have to deal with morning sickness or labor with them. You don’t have to have someone with them until they are 12. You don’t have to save up for their college fund. You might have to worry about them coming home pregnant, but unlike real children you can prevent that problem with an inexpensive operation.

But they are family. They are dependent on you. They need you. You provide their food and shelter. You provide a home for them. Dogs and cats and any other pet are not accidentally in your home. You chose to have them there. You can’t back out and “take them to the shelter” when you find that you don’t have the time or patience for them.

Because “take them to the shelter” is just newspeak for murder.

Sure, some unwanted pets get adopted at the shelter. But most get “put to sleep,” or “put down.” Translation – killed. Does this term make you wince? It should. We are operating under a fantasy that when we take our pets to the shelter they will be adopted and loved. The shelters are overfull and understaffed. There aren’t enough people who come by to adopt. Pets that are there after a few days are killed. Is this fair for you to do to your pet, your “furbaby”? Oh, you might say that you aren’t killing Fluffy or Spot, but killing by proxy is still killing.

Do we do the same with our children when they get to be too much? No? Then why do we do it to our animal children? They are just as dependent on us.

Some people think they are giving their unwanted pets a second chance by releasing them out into the country instead of taking them to the shelter. Surely Fluffy and Spot will revert to their original non-domesticated nature and do just fine. I have a friend who lives out in the country and she assures me that she sees the results of this kind of thinking all the time. Fluffy and Spot don’t suddenly learn how to hunt for food. Instead, they become food for coyotes. Actually, they are lucky if this happens. Otherwise, they suffer a long slow death from starvation.

If you can’t commit to at least twelve years of supporting a dog or cat, don’t get one. They aren’t mandatory. You aren’t required to have one.

If you do get a pet, get it fixed as soon ask possible to prevent an unwanted litter. I’ve heard that guys are the least likely to get their male dogs fixed. They seem to take it personally that their male dog has no testicles. Trust me, dogs do not suffer from the same gender identity issues.

On compassion.

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Jesus tells us we are to love our enemies. Let us take that as far as it will go. Everyone and everything is created by God. Everyone and everything is our neighbor. While it is easy to love the nice people, it is very hard to love the mean ones – but Jesus tells us they are exactly the ones we must be nice to.

They are the ones who need it the most.

So what about insects? Why do we consider a butterfly beautiful but a beetle creepy? Why do we celebrate one and crush the other?

Are you ready to love a wasp, or a roach, or a spider?

Are you ready to see them as created by the same Creator that made fireflies and lightning bugs?

Stay with this a moment. Breathe it in.

Then go further, and yet back.

Are you willing to be loving and gentle with the person who is attacking you or your friend? Are you willing to show mercy to the bigot, the racist, the homophobe?

Are you in a place in your head where you can love them for who they are, right now?

Do you have a space in your heart where you can see them as being the way God made them because He needs them this way, right now?

How about your own thoughts, your own bad habits? Are you able to love them, and see them as teachers?

How about your inability to get up early enough to go exercise? Your habit of spending all you make? Your love of greasy, fatty food? Your need to control others? Your need to be right?

Everything is a teacher. Everything is a gift, a guest in this house that is your soul, your life.

Compassion is a way of living, a way of loving. It is honoring each being, right where they are. It is seeing the beauty hidden behind all the walls, the veils, the shields that we all put up to prevent ourselves from being whole.

It is seeing the lotus growing out of the muck. It is knowing it is there, even if you can’t see it. It is about the potential. And it is about the present.

Our defenses keep us safe, we think. They keep us from having to get too close to ourselves and seeing ourselves in each other.

We are called to communion, to a union-with. We are called to wholeness. This is within ourselves, with every person, with every created being, and with God, the Creator of all.

On keys, and doors

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I am mesmerized by keys.

I collect antique keys and make them into necklaces. I love the look and feel of old metal keys. I imagine their history. Who used them? How many people have owned the thing that this key unlocks? How many hands have touched these keys?

This tiny bit of metal is all that is required to open up this huge door, this wall that is standing before me like a bouncer at a club, saying None May Pass. This tiny thing is all I require to gain access to my heart’s desire.

Perhaps this fondness comes from Alice in Wonderland. Everything got a little strange when she fell down that rabbit hole – but to me the first really strange part was when she encountered that tiny door behind the curtain.

She had the key, but she couldn’t figure out the right sequence to use the door.

I like keys like this, and stories like this. I like real keys and imaginary keys. I like what keys represent.

I have a TARDIS key. You know, just in case. Just in case time and space travel is real, I’m ready if Doctor Who just happens to leave that beautiful, mad, blue box parked along my walking path that day. It is good to be prepared.

I have a key to a phone booth. I have a key to a piano. I have a key to a Ford that was driven long before I could even say the word “automobile”.

These keys are beautiful and poetic and sad. They are missing their locks. They are missing their purpose.

But I keep them anyway. You never know.

They are kind of a focus, a meditation tool. Always be prepared. Notice that it is a small thing that opens a large thing.

What doors are in front of me? What is barring my way? What have I not even noticed is a door, that is preventing me from getting where I need to be?

If you have a key, you’ll be reminded of the door. One points towards the other.

Poem – Key

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It is better to have a key and no door
than a door and no key.

The door, locked, will afford no entry,
no progress towards your goal.
Save for a bit of metal, this wall of wood
is all that stands between you
and happiness.

But a key and no door?
You’re in luck!
Nothing is barred.
Your way is clear.
The path stretches out before you
like a full day off with nothing on the agenda.

Everything is open.

But just
in case
a door
quietly slinks up
in front of your very eyes

You have a key, already
ready

to do the trick.

The Not-Me. (on the yetzer hara)

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My Jewish friends may be surprised to learn how much Christians don’t know of their culture. There are so many amazingly useful parts to Judaism that the majority of Christians just aren’t told about, and thus don’t incorporate them into their lives. It is as if Christians stripped away all the awesomeness of Jewish life and went for the soap-box car rather than the Rolls Royce.

There are so many parts to talk about, but I’m going to only mention one part for now. This is the concept of the “yetzer hara”. This is translated as “the evil inclination.” I first heard about this from the podcast called “Living with G_d : spiritual tools for an outrageous world” by David Sacks.

He refers to the action of the yetzer hara as “spiritual identity theft” He identifies it as a thing outside of us that is trying to prevent us from fulfilling our calling. It is trying to stop us from being who G_d (or Hashem) needs us to be. It tries to prevent us from doing good deeds, or mitzvahs.

This is the most useful thing I have ever come across.

He says that sometimes it is useful to name it. I’m calling it “the not me”.

I now see that desire to stay home and not exercise as the not me. I see the desire to not read the daily Bible readings as the not me. The same is true of not writing every day. These are all the things that further me on my path toward wholeness.

I mentioned this to a guy about exercise. He had a YMCA membership but found it impossible to find time to exercise. He said he wanted to get up earlier in the morning and go, but he just couldn’t. I remember what this feels like. This feels maddening. You say you want to do something good, and then you don’t do it.

With this idea of the yetzer hara, you learn to see that negative inclination as an opposing force. It isn’t you. You want to exercise, to do something good, but the yetzer hara says you don’t. It sounds a lot like you saying that.

Part of the idea is that simply by naming it you have power over it. You know its tricks.

I have started to see this feeling as a very useful tool. The more I feel that I don’t want to do something that I know is good, the more I see it as a sign that I’m really on to something awesome. I actually use it as a spur to do it. The stronger the force against, the more I know I’m on to something.

It is like having a bratty older sibling saying that “you can’t do it” and working up enough energy to do it, just to prove him wrong.

It is about walking through an obstacle, rather than getting stopped by it. It is about using it as a stepping stone rather than a stopping point.

First you have to see that it is there, and know its tricks. It isn’t you. It mimics you, but it is actually a force outside of you that is trying to stop you. Sometimes, just knowing about an obstacle is helpful. It takes away some of its power.

May this tool be of as much use to you as it has been for me.

Snake handler 4 (seeing stars)

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Twenty-odd years ago, during the time that we knew my Mom was sick with the cancer that would kill her, an amazing series of events happened.

It started one night when I was preparing to go to bed. I had turned off all the lights except one, a floor lamp by the stairs leading up to my room. When I turned the small knob to switch it off, the bulb made a small popping sound and stopped working. I went in to find another light bulb and replaced it.

I went upstairs and went to bed. That night I had a very intense dream. I dreamed that I was standing, tied up to a post, my arms behind my back, in total darkness. I was being attacked, tormented, assaulted. I knew in my heart that my tormentor was an agent of evil in its most malicious sense. As far as I knew I was alone, defenseless, and in great danger.

In my fear and terror, I remembered to say the Lord’s Prayer.

In that moment there was a flash of orange light, like the light of the sparks from a foundry. The light was like the spray from a waterfall after a spring rainstorm.

Then the lights came on and my bonds had disappeared along with my tormentors. I could see that I was in something like a concrete underground parking garage, with many pillars and no natural light. I was free to go.

I looked to my right and there was another person there, who I realized had also just been freed from the same torment. We talked for a moment. I commented that it was strange that God didn’t send anyone to save me. I was a little upset that I had to do it all myself.

The stranger smiled and said “No, he sent Saint John.”

I was short with him and said “If he’d sent Saint John, there would have been stars.”

The stranger smiled again, patient with me, and said “Look” and pointed at the concrete floor. There, fading away, slowly, were orange stars. They were the light that had spilled out when I’d prayed the Lord’s Prayer and we were released.

I woke up suddenly.

Thoughts raced through my head. What was that? Was that real? What does it mean? Saint John?

Still dazed by the vividness of my dream I went to my bookshelf. I pulled down my saint book that I had gotten just a few weeks before from a friend for Christmas. I’d not had time to read all the entries and I was surprised to find there were so many saints named John.

I read through each one, and came across Saint John of Nepomucen.

John was the confessor to Emperor Wenceslas and his wife in 14th century Prague. The story is that he heard the Empress’ confession and the Emperor wanted to know what she said, suspecting her of adultery. John took his duty of being a confessor seriously and refused to tell. After other clashes between the two men, the Emperor had John tortured, ultimately having him bound up like a wheel, where his heels were tied to his head. He was thrown in the nearby river and legend has it that seven stars appeared in the water over where he was drowned.

He is the patron saint of confessors, and the star is his symbol.

I spent the following day in a haze.

That night I again was preparing to go to bed. I again went to turn off the lamp near the stairs, the lamp with the brand-new light bulb I had put in it the night before.

When I turned the knob, there was a huge popping sound, and an explosion of orange sparks like I had seen in my dream the night before. The room was plunged into darkness.

I stood there, motionless, not daring to breathe.

Finally I recovered and carefully walked away, certain that I would step on a piece of glass from the shattered light bulb. I went to another lamp and turned it on, and brought a flashlight to help me spot the shards.

The bulb was intact. That explosion of orange light was not the sign of damage or destruction. It was a sign to me that my dream was real.

It was a sign to me that God is always with me, protecting me, even when I am helpless, even when I am alone.

It was a sign also to take seriously the role of confessor.

Do something, rather than nothing.

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Don’t ever do nothing because you think you can’t do anything.

One time I was making a rosary. I was cutting and twisting each link the hard way, instead of using eye pins. My hand started to cramp up and I put it down. The next day I wasn’t I interested in working on it. A week went by. I picked it up again. And I realized something. The work that I had done hadn’t gone away. I was that much closer to the end.

All progress towards a worthy goal is like this. We aren’t able to just plunge in and get there. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot out of us, but it makes us stronger. The stuff that it takes out is fear of being insignificant, fear of not making a difference, fear that what we have to offer isn’t good enough.

The same is true of any goal. It is easy to put things off because you think you can’t make a difference. It is easy to be jealous of people because they seem to have it all together, so you never even start. Why even try to learn to play the trumpet when Dizzy Gillespie has it down to an art? You can’t ever be that good. So why try?

That kind of thinking is dangerous. That kind of thinking will keep you in a hole forever.

Look at Mozart, or Matisse, or Marie Curie. Each one made it to the top of their field.

They didn’t get it all together all at once. They committed to a goal and worked on it, bit by bit. Nobody loses a significant amount of weight immediately. Nobody gets a college degree overnight. There is often a lot of hidden failure in there.

The trick is, don’t show off the beginner work. Paint over that canvas when you learn a new technique. Don’t think that sloppy painting of a flower is all you can do. You are starting. Every baby has to learn how to walk. Every new skill has to be learned.

Having patience with yourself and the process is helpful. Knowing your limits, and pushing them a little, is helpful too.

When I was in school I’d often get assigned books that weren’t exactly what I wanted to read. I could have waited until the last week and read the book in one fell swoop, remembering only half of it and hating all of the experience. Instead, I decided to use my limited math skills in my favor. I took the number of pages and divided by the amount of time that I had to read. This technique can be applied to anything. Take something you have to do and break it down into little steps.

Slow and steady wins the race.

A Rabbi once said that you can’t burn down a tree with a single match, but if you chop up the tree into small pieces, you can. This is a very useful way to think.

Say you want to do a good deed, a mitzvah. But you don’t think that you can do it all. So you do none of it. The idea here is that it is better to do a little of it than to do nothing at all. And, invariably, you will find that you gain a little more energy and ability towards the completion of your goal from just doing that tiny bit.

Energy leads to more energy. Good creates more good.

It is hard for us to get up enough momentum to do what we know we should do. We take breaks. We stop entirely. We regress. We gain back double the weight we had lost.

I exhort you to get back on and go. I exhort you to keep trying.

I remind you that even just thinking about it, you’ve already taken the first step. That energy can be enough to move on to the next one.

Thank you for your concern for my soul.

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Thank you for your concern for my soul.

Thank you for reaching out to me, exhorting me to “return to the gospel” and to “repent of my sins.”

Your fervent pleas, so heartfelt, only further me on my path.

I follow a Jesus who isn’t prepackaged. I follow a Jesus who offers the Word, instead of lines from a script.

I’m sad to report to you that your message to me reads very harshly. I’m pretty certain that it wasn’t meant that way. I’m pretty sure that you are motivated out of your idea of love. We have to gather in all the lost sheep, after all. We are taught this.

But your words remind me of the times that members of my family tried to shame me as well.

That is what this is.

It is the same as a parent yelling at a child, telling her loudly and firmly that she doing something wrong. They feel that she is doing something so wrong that it is essential to stop her right then and there, before she wrecks her life. They do this out of love, they think.

It is the same as a well-meaning aunt or brother calling the wrath of God down on this same child, for different reasons, for many years. These same people change wills to benefit themselves. These same people lie to get their way. These same people manipulate with other abusive weapons.

God and Jesus should never be used as weapons. They should never be used to abuse another person.

I offer you a new way of understanding God, and Jesus, and the world. I offer you a new way of interacting with them.

I invite you to try to see your words from the perspective of the non-believer. I invite you to see how throwing Bible verses at them does not lead them into the fold, but turns them away. It turns the bread of life into a stone, the same stones that were meant to stone the adulteress. Instead of feeding, your words condemn.

I invite you into an understanding of God as the source of love.

I invite you into this love.

God first spoke to me when I was twelve, standing in my back yard. God has spoken to me many times since, and everything He has told me that was going to happen has happened. I have wrestled with this knowledge, knowing that it is unusual.

Yet I stayed away from Christianity for a long time because of people exactly like you, who made me feel shame for who I am. I stayed away from Jesus because I couldn’t see him for the Christianists who stood in His way.

I invite you into a new relationship with Jesus, and God. I invite you to discover Jesus by serving Him, by finding Him where He is hiding in plain sight. I invite you to find Him in the soup kitchen, at the tornado site, in the mall. I invite you to find Him while you are teaching a foreigner how to read our language. I invite you to find Him while listening to the heartache of a stranger who has been excluded from church.

I invite you to discover the joy that comes from letting God work through you.

I invite you into a relationship with a Jesus who loves all, serves all, and died for all.

I invite you into a bigger love.

This path isn’t paved. This Way is narrow and hard to see. It is a beautiful journey.

I will pray for you, as I hope you will pray for me.

I wish you peace and blessings on your journey.