Everything Shines With Its Own Light

I ritually stroll the spring garden
to appreciate the wonder of life.
The wet brick walkway effortlessly
supports my feet—a twisted leaf
unfurls in expectation of summer sun—
an earnest and pale green shoot breaks
dark ground and heads skyward.

Receiving this quiet show
of determined proportions,
I almost understand what
I have long suspected.

Clear Intention

I walk in the garden
to find myself.
I walk in the garden
to see what is holy.

I walk slowly
and try to receive
what is already
given. Enough.

Enough. I wish
I could remember
this.

Small Matters of Life and Death

Yesterday, I was forced to transplant some of the zinnias (Benary’s Giant) and my marigolds (Queen Sophia) I have started from seed. Though dramatic futures await these giants and queens, at the moment, they are just little beings—green threads hoisting pairs of tiny ovoid flags. Nothing yet suggests the elevated future of the zinnias nor the latent bushy splendor of the marigolds which, God willing and they’re not eaten by those cute bunnies that frequent the Temple gardens, is in store. Now they are simply fragile bits of green, unbothered by their astonishing potential.

In the morning, I had put several pots out to receive the unseasonal warmth and nourishment of yesterday’s sun. I was concerned that the sun might be too bright, but I forgot to worry about the wind. When we returned in the mid-afternoon after a trip to Boston to celebrate my son-in-law’s birthday, the pots were overturned and the seedlings cast about on the ground.

I was upset with the wind and my lack of foresight, but the seedlings seemed to have no opinion about this matter of life and death—their tender bodies lay scattered, silent and strangely unconcerned in this most dire circumstance. I gathered them as best I could and began the delicate work of repotting.

You must handle them with care, these little fellows – the whole summer is nascent in their slender bodies. Grabbing by the tiny leaves is better than risking the tender stems. Then you suspend them over the dark plastic cell while you crumble soil to fill in around the suspended thread of a root. Now pack down gently to secure the vertical direction of the trunk and softly water.

I know all this fussing around is silly. I could more easily buy mature seedlings at a greenhouse and my careful tending does not help alleviate the oppression of black and brown bodies – does not restore the promises of freedom and equality enshrined in our constitution.

But somehow, I am deeply stirred by my kinship with these small green bits of being. The deep ache of my heart is soothed and I am surely touching God as I husband these insubstantial threads of coming-into-being.

Getting Reacquainted

This cool April morning,
I walk as a stranger
through my own garden.

There’s so much
I’ve forgotten
over the long winter.

Moving slowly, I try
to see what I have
not seen before.

Everything quickens
of its own accord.

This will take more
time than I had reckoned.

Trump Is Indeed Exceptional

After the election, I had two fears: that Trump would lead the nation into an authoritarian state or that he would be so incompetent the country would suffer greatly. So far, we’re seeing much more of the later than the former.

Trump’s signature xenophobic executive order has been twice been blocked on constitutional grounds, his effort to repeal Obamacare was a thoughtless piece of legislation that even his ruling majority couldn’t agree upon, and his unbridled narcissistic tweets are not creating as much confusion for the opposition as they are for his own party.

In his incompetence and boorishness, Trump is reaching unprecedented levels of unpopularity for a President. The latest Gallup polls for the weekending April 2, show him at a new low of 38% approval ratings just to put this in context Gallup compares him to other recent Presidents at this point in their first year:

The honeymoon is not going well. And I must confess, that given my antipathy toward the man and his small-minded, self-aggrandizing and deceitful ways, I am pleased. It appears that there are indeed some consequences to his wild and irresponsible actions.

But there’s no room for celebration. Though his Presidency and his power are somewhat constrained, he is still the President and is the leader of our country. We must still actively speak up against his policies to dismantle policies to protect the environment, to defund programs that enrich our country and support our most vulnerable citizens, and to treat the rest of the world as our enemy rather than our partner.

But the danger of the drift toward authoritarianism is still real. It looks like the Senate will vote today to decrease the number of votes required to confirm a Supreme Court justice. The obstructionism and polarization of our government and our country continues. This is what we must continue to address.

As I write this, I glance at the paper and see that we have fired 59 missiles at a Syrian air base. While I abhor the Syrian government’s chemical attack on civilians, I am afraid that Trump will use an increased level of US aggression as a diversion from his incompetence and the incoherence of his policies.

Sad and Angry

Even though it is no surprise, I am quite undone by Tuesday’s Executive Order which rolls back most of Obama’s policies to fight climate change by reducing emissions from fossil fuel. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the accepted scientific reality of global warming is baffling to me. Does he think that ignoring inconvenient information is enough to protect us from it?  (See the NY Times editorial ‘President Trump Risks the Planet‘)

I feel sad, helpless and angry.

I sent a personal email to the White House and though it felt rather small, I suppose a snowflake doesn’t feel of much account when it descends—but enough of them together can easily close down business as usual.

I also went to the Sierra Club web site and sent another email from there. (And in the process put myself on one of their email lists.) The Sierra Club site had some small sliver an encouraging perspective:

Only an outpouring of public outrage can help turn the tide and defend the climate. We’ve seen it happen with the attempted Muslim ban, and we saw it last week with the disastrous attempt to repeal health care reform.

Trump and Pruitt will try to pull a fast one with the climate, but we won’t let them. Send a message to them now demanding they keep the Clean Power Plan in place or replace it with something that reduces carbon emissions even more. Stand up, together, and we can defend our progress on climate change and continue our climate leadership.

Only by acting individually and together can we reverse the course of Trump’s stated intention to gut these many (and still rather minimal) protections to our environment.

It’s Not Just Personal

Here in America, we have made life personal. We assume that the basic unit of existence is the individual who is free to make choices based on their self-interest. We are then responsible for the life (our life) that flows out of these choices. If we have the right attitude and are willing to apply enough good old elbow grease, we will end up prosperous and happy. The corollary to this belief is that personal difficulty and/or lack of success, is merely an indicator of insufficient character and effort.

Though there is some truth in this point of view, it ignores our inescapable location within the personal, social and natural environment. We all live and die in a web of mutual causality. We exist within a context of relationships, beliefs and circumstances that are beyond our direct control. Any decision we make, any action we take comes from a host of causes and conditions, some we may be aware of, and many, we are not. There is no such thing as an individual human being.

But we humans like things to be simple and we tend to fall into one of two views: either we are responsible for our lives or we are victims of forces beyond our control. As with most dichotomies, the most useful way forward is some middle way that honors the truth in both sides.

I do believe that each one of us does indeed have some responsibility for our actions and inactions. What is important to you? What will you do about it? These are essential questions that have a huge impact on the quality of our lives and touch the world around us. If you want to make a difference in the world, what can you do, right here in your present circumstances, begin to practice making a difference? If you think people should be more respectful of one another, how do you start acting more respectful? Or courageous? Or compassionate?

When we act in alignment with what we love, even in small ways, we come alive. Though our values are a receding target that we will never ‘reach,’ they are a compass that can guide us. When you’re traveling east, each step east is a fulfillment of your intention.

But it’s not just personal. Each of us is born into particular circumstances. Some of us are born into more stable environments where we feel reasonably safe and get more than enough to eat and get to go to school. Others are born into violent environments where we are neglected and abused – by our caretakers or by the world around us. And everything in between.

And the world around us views us in particular ways based on our skin color, our gender, our speech, our appearance. These social judgments and prejudices we encounter effect our every move and influence the outcome of everything we do. Though they appear to be ‘personal’, they are actually cultural and political forces played out in our personal experience. Some of us have benefitted from forces that have been mostly invisible to us. Other of us have been victimized by attitudes and beliefs that have nothing to do with who we truly are.

While we should be aware of the power of our capacity to chose, we should also remember that we are embedded in a culture that is working itself out through our personal lives. As we exercise our personal power to choose what we give our life to, we also need to continue to see more clearly how power and privilege play out in our lives and in the world around us.

To paraphrase what my friend and colleague James Cordova said last night: “You’re not in control and everything you do matters.”

Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern

I am reminded this morning of Stephen Covey’s ‘Circle of Concern/Circle of Influence.’ I first encountered this teaching as an egg-in-the-frying pan drawing in his life-changing book: THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE. It’s a simple concept. The yolk is our circle of influence (or control)—all the things in our life over which we exercise some degree of choice: what we read, what we say, what we buy, where we go, what organizations we give our time to. The yolk is contained within the larger circle of the egg white is our circle of concern: all the things we care about but are beyond our control: the weather, wars and terrorism, the political views of others, what people think of us.

Covey’s simple assertion is that whichever part of the circle we spend time in will grow. If we spend most of our time worrying about things we cannot control, the white grows larger and the yolk smaller. When we spend time focusing on the things that we can actually do something about, the yolk, the area over which we have influence, becomes larger.

We would do well to continue to be concerned about things we have no direct control over (e.g. the disastrous ‘health-care reform’ bill that would eliminate access to health insurance to millions while giving a tax break to the wealthy), but to spend more time focused on what we can do, today and in the weeks to come.

If you are concerned about health-care, what can you actually do today? Maybe take care of your health so you can be available to march in the streets or call your representative in Washington or write a letter to the editor of your local paper. Maybe learn more about local health care for low-income people in your area. Maybe appreciate the fragility of life in all the tender beings you encounter throughout the day.

Whatever it is, I would challenge us all to live today as an expression of what we love rather than what we fear.

The Fight Continues

Another victory today against blind fear and blame as a judge in Hawaii blocked Trump’s revised order to halt immigration from specific parts of the Muslim world.  In the ruling, the judge used public statements by Trump and his administration to ascertain the discriminatory of the ‘intent’ behind the ruling. This is encouraging as we begin to have a way to hold our new President accountable for the power of the words that he says.

I was also heartened by another installment of Charles Blow’s eloquent stand for truth. Though I value the reality of our common and troublesome humanity, I also value the necessity to speak truth and to hold our elected officials accountable for their words or their actions. We must not fool ourselves into believing that Trump’s lies and manipulation of truth is ‘normal’ or acceptable.

But Trump doesn’t speak so much from facts as from feelings. For him, the truth is malleable and a lie is valuable. He creates his own reality rather than living in the reality of others. Deception is just a tool; betrayal is just an inconvenience.  (Disciples of a False Prophet, Charles Blow, 4 16 17 NYTimes)

Ongoing Invitation

For me, the crisis is over but the problem is ongoing. I’m not in a state of perpetual panic. The new normal is to read the paper with a sinking feeling as I learn of some new environmental regulation roll-back or the latest walk-back of a Trump tweet.

These walk-backs are probably the most entertaining news recently—to see how Trump continues his penchant for bursts of irrational anger and accusations, and how the people around him must pretend to be reasonable while standing behind that which is most unreasonable. Our current President seems congenitally unable to acknowledge that he has ever been impulsive, ill-informed, or just plain wrong.

Of course, all of us know what this is like. We’re all in the subtle business of projecting and defending an image of who we think we are. We all, at a deep level, think that we are a rather more reasonable sort of person than the general lot – slightly more aware or slightly more fair-minded and realistic. It is hard to admit when we are wrong, or have been ill-tempered.

Part of our work with an irrational and impulsive liar like Trump, is to use him as a tool to do our inner work. He is such an easy target to make into ‘the other’—someone who is clearly ‘not like me.’ He is irrational, irresponsible and mean-spirited. He thrives on fomenting fear and separation. We must, of course, watch out and protect ourselves from ‘people like him.’ But when we make him into one of ‘those people who are not like us,’ he has succeeded in creating the world he seems to want.

The inner work is with the part of all of us that is blind, narcissistic and irrational. Not a pretty picture, but part of every human who has ever lived. How do I begin to acknowledge my inner Donald? Can I begin to notice when I am carried away with outrage or blame? And when that happens, can I learn to not pretend that it’s not happening? Is there a way to work with our dark energies that goes beyond just suppressing and denying them?

And then, looking around us, what kinds of deniable dark energies of division are operating the same way within our country and within the world? Where are people being disrespected and marginalized? How can I open my eyes to the differences of power and privilege that are all around me? And what steps am I willing to take to create the kind of world I say I believe in?

This is where ongoing resistance is required. (Invited?) Inner work is only part of the picture.

Each one of us is constantly shaping the world through our thoughts, words, actions and inactions. The Bodhisattva path is an invitation to use one’s life to save all the beings of the world. (More on what this might mean at a later date.) I believe each one of us has something of immeasurable value to give to this mysterious and suffering world. Our truest happiness lies in uncovering our gifts and using them in service of the world.