Michael Valliant | Michael Valliant

Being Neighbors: Our Sacred Call to Empathy

If you take Jesus at his word, loving our neighbors is a big deal. In the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they record the same to-do list from Jesus, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40 NIV)

These are important. And if we take to reading, studying, reflecting and meditating on, and praying on Scripture, we’ll find new depths and heights for how to connect to and love and obey God.

I’ve got to say, the Bible is my favorite book. That is not a statement I could have made 10 years ago. And part of the reason I say that is that I’ve spent the last three years reading Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s versions of the Gospel, slowly, chapter by chapter, studying with different groups, using the help of N.T. Wright’s “New Testament for Everyone” commentaries. And we’ve prayed, laughed (a lot), cried, wrestled with things, been confused, found grace, found ourselves in the stories, found God and Christ in the Scriptures, found poetry, and soared to new heights of feeling and depths of understanding. I can’t recommend it enough and it has become one of my favorite things to do. We’re currently studying John’s Gospel and, wow.

But about this loving our neighbor thing: what if our neighbor has no interest in the Bible? And there are plenty of big reasons they might not (disdain for organized religion being one). One of the best things we can do is look to Jesus for an example. Jesus is constantly reaching out to the lonely, the outcast, the disenfranchised, the unclean, the sick, the marginalized–the people who the “church people” of the day wouldn’t have anything to do with. And when he reached out, he didn’t tell them to go to church, read their Old Testament, etc. He heard them. He met them where they were. He healed them. He loved them. He knew them and spoke to them. In the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, who society would have told Jesus he had no business talking to, Jesus talks to her, tells her things about who he is and who she is; the woman is amazed and tells others he “told me everything I have ever done!” He told her HER story.

At a time where we don’t know our neighbors, or their stories, and in many cases, maybe we don’t know ourselves the way we should, it’s our sacred duty to recognize the divine in each of us. In a 2018 sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, Brene Brown reminds us that,

“If you are a person of faith, you are called to find the face of God in every single person you meet.”
Brene Brown

Sometimes that is not the easiest thing to do. Especially when we disagree with someone, maybe don’t like them; or if they look, think, love, or act differently than we do. A key way to know someone is to hear their stories; to understand who they are. Brown shows one way of doing that in a short, narrated cartoon video about empathy. Sometimes it is no more simple, and no more profound, than just being there.

Brown says that empathy fuels connection and cites Theresa Wiseman’s four qualities of empathy: perspective taking, staying out of judgment, recognizing emotions in others, and communicating that. If we want to love our neighbor as Christ both told us and demonstrated, this is a pretty solid beginning.

Part of the problem is that this isn’t an easy thing to learn. It doesn’t come naturally to everyone. And it isn’t always easy. We need all the help that we can get.

This fall, we’ve had two evening classes reading and discussing Brown’s book, “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.” It’s been interesting, hearing some folks who are not church-goers, who say, “A church discussing a Brene Brown book? Wow, that’s really cool, I’d love to be a part of that.” And some folks at the church, who wonder about discussing a book that isn’t the Bible and doesn’t talk directly about the Bible or God in the way that we are used to. And both of those things are great and right and fair discussions to have.

I love the idea of thin places–places where heaven and earth are closer, or places where we are closer to God. There are absolutely physical places in the world where that space exists. But I think it that space can also be a state of mind or emotion. And when we feel vulnerable, that is one of the places–being exposed, and truly seen and heard, where we feel our need for God and for each other. Brown defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”And she points out that love for us feels uncertain, incredibly risky, and leaves us emotionally exposed.

She points out that, “vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”

This is not easy stuff and it’s not necessarily a feel good book, in that it asks us to look past all the barriers we build to protect ourselves and be open with ourselves, each other, and with God. Being open to God is to be vulnerable, to put our hearts out there, which is the business God is in: the battle for our hearts.

Brown gets the title for her book from Teddy Roosevelt’s famous speech, about the “Man in the Arena:”

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly…”

God calls us not to be on the sidelines, but in the arena. He tells us that Jesus has come so that we may “have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). He wants us to get to know Him and get to know each other. And He knows it is a struggle, a journey to get there, one where we lay down our old lives to have a new life in and through Him. And that it’s worth it.

What keeps us from having that life in all its fullness? The life that we might dream of, or that God dreams for us? What, in our culture, are the things that most stand in our way? If most of us had to name it, it would probably involve fear, shame, vulnerability. We are often afraid of failing, afraid of falling, afraid of being ridiculed, afraid of being exposed. This is true in our personal lives, in our education system, and at work. And in Daring Greatly, Brown helps us to look at this, to name and understand it, and talks about how we can connect with one another and develop a resilience that could allow us to try; to dare.

In the Gospels, Jesus compares himself to a physician, who is not here to help the healthy, but here to help the sick. He asks Peter and his disciples to continue his work. He asks us to continue his work today. And when we can diagnose something that keeps people down, keeps us from knowing each other and knowing ourselves; keeps us armored up, numb, and therefore not open to God or His love for us and what plans He might have for us, maybe He asks us to reach out to people where they are. Maybe he asks us to open ourselves up and help others connect to us and to Him.

And maybe we need to use every tool, every language, every means that He has given us to help do that. It’s a sacred call, to love our neighbors. And to love them, we have to know them, and know ourselves.

There are different paths to come to faith. I know my own did not involve the Bible until it did. And that has begun one of the coolest lifetime adventures there is. And our paths also involve finding God in all of creation, in other people, and in books, some of which are obvious, some of which are subtle, but all of which are part of God.

At our best, maybe we are called to synthesize secular and sacred texts, or to view everything as sacred, seeing with the eyes of a Creator who loves his Creation. Maybe we can create a language and a vision with room for both. I appreciate folks like Rev. Arianne Rice, who in her practice is both an Episcopal priest and a certified Daring Way instructor, bringing together Scripture, faith, social work, research, vulnerability, and empathy. And who may be able to help us, and others, do the same. It’s cool to see Christ Church Charlotte offering classes, lectures, and an evening with Brene Brown; Stonebriar Church in Texas talking about healing from shame; and the Episcopal Church and United Thank Offering talking about return, practice, and gratitude, citing Brown’s work. The point here is not about Brown, but about cases where churches are looking to engage their congregations and communities by being open to new ways of thinking about connection, empathy, vulnerability, and how to be neighbors. It doesn’t change our sacred calling, it engages it on the ground.

I have so much to learn from so many different people. And so much to learn about God’s love, and grace, and Word. And I am grateful for all those in the arena, trying to do God’s work , through their unique gifts, perspective, and place in the world.

Carlos

When you lose a pet, what you have left is memories, stories, and love. For the girls, their two Humane Society adopted cats, Carlos and Sesame, have been with them since Anna (now 17) was in kindergarten (Sesame) and then a year later for Carlos (we kept the names they were given at the shelter). The cats have been to different houses, have been dressed up, played with, harrassed, and loved on for a good while. Carlos passed yesterday. I always dug his name because it reminded me of a favorite writer, William Carlos Williams. When he was an indoor/outdoor cat, he was a collector of critters, which he loved to bring in the house and show off.

He had a chilled-out personality. One of the ways I connected to him was being able to find him when he either got stuck somewhere or decided to go on a walkabout. I once came home from a vacation in Ocean City after he had gotten out from friends watching him, and managed to find him in the woods. But a memory that sticks out was one that I wrote about 10 years ago. So I am moving that memory here, told in the same language. Memories, stories, and love remain.

Banging the Plate

December 15, 2009

When our cat wanders off we go outside and bang the plate. Like ringing a dinner triangle, he generally pops out from a neighbor’s yard and cruises home.

So banging the plate calls back lost things. Boomerangs a cat with wanderlust. For me, it has become a bell of mindfulness inviting me back home as well.

Up until Sunday/Saturday, banging the plate has generally worked. It can take a little time and it might be towards midnight, but he would appear out of the chilled dark ready to come in.

Saturday night/Sunday morning, nothing. The cold is kicking, rain is imminent, it is 12:30am. I’m beat and need to sleep, no cat. So he’s out for the night.

Cats being stubborn, free-spirited, strong-minded, “in-de-pen-dent” (it is Christmas/Rudolph time, after all), a cat could quite easily play the role of Muse. The artist/writer has to invite the muse back, bang the plate to get it to come home to the house he or she has built for creating their particular art. And we’ve all got those plate-banging activities that we use to call them. Writing in a particular kind of notebook, particular time of day, specific kind of pen, or place in the house. We bang the plate to get the Muse to come sit with us. We hope that it works. And when we find something that works with success, we stick to it. In some cases, we may hang on like crazy even at the risk of choking it. Note: don’t choke the Muse!

Sunday morning, I’m banging the plate in the rain. I’m wandering the cul-de-sacs of our neighborhood. I’m up and down the streets and sidewalks of the cat’s normal haunts. Nothing. Occasionally I think I hear a faint meow, but birds and rain and sounds are having their way with my imagination. False cats.

We’re on towards 11am. It is obvious I need a new approach. Other than a raincoat, I’m not dressed for mucking, but I walk up through one of the cul-de-sacs near Rails-to-Trails that leads up a flooded, grassy path. This isn’t where he goes, but nothing has worked so far. I bang the plate.

There is a faint trailhead, off more toward the field and back toward our side of the neighborhood. More flooded, but it gets me back closer to home anyway. I bang the plate. I come out in the field nearer to our house. Boots and jeans soaked through, but not cold. Nothing to lose. A hunch coming from the gut.

I cruise through ankle-deep water and mud of a flooded field and walk up a wooded path behind the houses across the street from us, between our neighborhood and Route 50. This is his stomping grounds. Where he likes to hang. But there is a lot of ground to cover and he’s one cat.

At this point, I’m not really driving with my head. It’s more intuition, and I’ve been putting myself in his eyes, where he’d likely go, what he’d do. It’s new territory. Off the paved streets and sidewalks, into the muck of fields and woods during a soaking rain. I bang the plate.

After playing hunches and letting the gut drive, I wander next to the woods for maybe a minute, banging the plate, when I hear a high pitched meow (he was neutered early) and see his familiar gray and white prance pop up over brush and out of the trees. Ankle-deep flooded fields, are not a cat’s idea of a way home. I scoop him up and cruise back to the house.

My old notion of banging the plate didn’t cut it. I couldn’t just go through the motions to bring him home. But Sunday’s experience opened up a whole new level of following the gut, intuition. I was sort of following blindly and trusting, but at the same time, intensely aware and alert. The process led me right to him. And thinking on it, he was likely lost and not willing to walk through the deep water necessary to get himself to familiar turf. Going to him was likely the only thing that would have found him.

So I think about the new version of banging the plate. And I think about it in terms of the Muse. And how to invite it back, but also to trust and follow the gut as to where and how to seek it out, when it takes more than just showing up. When the process deepens.

Presence

There was a stretch where Led Zeppelin’s “Presence” was my favorite album. I would listen to the long songs “Achilles Last Stand” and “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” over and over. But that’s not the kind of presence I mean here. I am talking about being fully present.

People make and walk labyrinths to bring them into the present moment; to tune out distractions, all the things that fill our minds and take away our ability to be present. Maybe we need some daily ritual or mental labyrinths to help walk us into our morning, to allow us to connect. Pulling into work last week, it was flowers growing on the fence in front of me.

They stopped me for a couple minutes. David Bailey in his poem “Village in a Labyrinth” talks about just this kind of experience:

“Let me see in a cup of tea, a fire, a fern on a desk,
the favorite hiding places of outlandish
miracles–how all of this is knit
from a nebula’s rainbow, stars reincarnated.”

Hiding places of outlandish miracles. The extraordinary in and through the ordinary.

Fr. Bill Ortt at Christ Church Easton talks about making minutes into moments–when we transform the passage of time into a transcendent experience, something that becomes more than time, it becomes a memory. For those moments to happen, we have to be present, we have to be engaged, and we have to be open.

In her book, “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead,” Brene Brown talks about the openness as being vulnerable:

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”

Being open to the moment also means being vulnerable to things being too much at times. We can’t just shut off the valve and close ourselves off, or we cut off our ability to experience those moments we live for. It’s a process: we spend much of our lives building armor to protect us or numbing what hurts us. It’s a balancing act where we will fall, get it wrong, get hurt, hurt others, and repeat. But we work to get out of that pattern, to overcome it, to get it right. It’s part of being human, or part of what Brown calls living “wholeheartedly.”

Being present; making moments; living wholeheartedly. Maybe we can build reminders into our days.

This past weekend, it was a set of stairs that led down to the creek. It was making time to kayak and paddleboard in the shallows, sun and shade of a narrow creek full of sunbathing turtles, low-hanging branches, and not knowing what was around the next corner.

We are all invited to be present, countless times each day. We are invited to pay attention, to make moments, to experience something new, to share something with those around us. The questions become: will we hear those invitations? And will we invite others?

Live the questions now

It’s tough sitting in not knowing. And at the same time, being able to be okay with not knowing is maybe the key to happiness or joy–being able to live in questions and uncertainty.

One of my favorite Facebook pages is “Contemplative Monk.” This week, they used a meditation on consecutive mornings by a favorite writer of mine:

Have patience with everything
unresolved in your heart,
and try to love the questions
themselves
as if they were locked rooms
or books written in a very foreign language.
Do not search for the answers, which
could not be given to you now,
because you would not be able to live
them.
And the point is to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday far in the
future,
you will gradually,
without even noticing it, live your way
into the answer.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke

It comes from Rike’s “Letters to a Young Poet,” which is a book I keep on multiple shelves, because I forget it and need to hear it a number of times.

And along with Rilke’s words, the folks at CM posted the picture at the top of the page here, and the two washed over me–the peace, the anticipation, sitting at the ready for whatever comes. With coffee. One of my favorite ways to start a day and a posture I try to take when I sit down at my desk in the morning (though my desk has more books strewn about it).

It’s always the questions that drive me, and people a lot smarter than I am point out that we are defined by our questions. Jesus frequently answered questions with questions (or stories), Socrates was known for the same thing, as were the Desert Fathers and all sorts of deep thinkers around the world.

“Live the questions now.” When we hold out for certainty, we are hopelessly stuck. There are so many things I think I’d like to know, which would put my mind at ease, make life more simple. But that’s a waiting game we can’t win, and even in winning, we lose that beginning of the day, sunrise possibility.

The times my heart beats fastest, the times my mind is most open, the times when I feel most connected to God, Creation, other people, are the times when it’s not a matter of knowing or thinking, it’s a moment or experience full of feeling, shared and reflected back. When no amount of knowledge can add a single thing to it.

When I can look with the eyes of a child, the eyes of wonder, and live the questions now.

When does the butterfly read
what flies written on its wings?
Pablo Neruda, “The Book of Questions”

Beginner’s Mind: Reset to Wonder

“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.” That line from Shunryu Suzuki and the idea of beginner’s mind have stuck with me as much or more than anything I’ve read. It applies to pretty well every breath and step we take each day, but it’s been on my mind a lot lately with different things–particularly practices and passions where you have to hit reset every time you do them.

Beginner’s mind has been loud for running, something I started doing when I was 15, but running doesn’t care how long you’ve done it. Every run is its own thing, no matter how good or bad the last one was. On a nine-mile run this morning, the races and distances I have run in the past don’t count. They don’t get me a step further. In getting ready for the Tuckahoe 25K (15.5 mile) trail race in November, I’m two minutes per mile slower than I was three years ago, when I was running more and in better shape. I may get some of that back, but I’m not really worried about it, I just like going out to run.

Seeing birds scatter from phragmites and cattails, watching cardinals and blue jays in trees along the rail trail; stopping to look off bridges at the sun coming through clouds; or watching a monarch butterfly fly across my path, followed instantly by a leaf of almost the same color, moving in the same way, mimicking each other, as God smiles and says, “see what I did there?” Even running on the same roads and routes I have run for years, there is always something new and different to hit the reset button and dial up the wonder.

Beginner’s mind has turned up during prayer or meditation, where what I did yesterday or last month or last year doesn’t mean I will show up, or make time, or connect today. If I want to get something out of prayer, I have to be mindful. N.T. Wright, in his book “The Lord and His Prayer,” says:

“Whenever we pray, that is what we are coming to do: to pursue the mystery, to listen and respond to the voice we thought we just heard, to follow the light which beckons round the next corner, to lay hold of the love of God which has somehow already laid hold of us.”
N.T. Wright

It’s funny how you can take something like the Lord’s Prayer, which maybe you’ve heard or recited enough not to even listen to the words anymore, but when you take it apart, pray or reflect on it line by line, or read about it, how it can take on new life, new meaning. Whether prayer, The Lord’s Prayer, or meditation, coming at it with beginner’s mind opens it to wonder and newness.

Each year, Uncle Chad and the kids make sand sculptures, just so they can wreck them.

Every year at the beach, my sister’s husband comes up with new ideas for sand sculptures. He and the kids have created airplanes, dragons, castles, all intricately and painstakingly built. But his end goal, the highlight of the creation, is when he has the kids destroy it. Sometimes they line up youngest to oldest to take their shots at it. The joy is in creating it, not trying to make it last. In that, their sculptures are like the sand mandalas the Tibetan monks create, simply to wipe them away. You start anew, every day.

Beginner’s mind applies to having new ears as well as new eyes. On the last mile of this morning’s run, the farthest I have run in a long time, Arrested Development’s “Tennessee” shuffled up.

I can’t count how many times I’ve heard this song, both when it came out, and from being on my running playlist for a while now. But it’s come to mean more over the last few years. The singer is talking to God and about their relationship. The song is a prayer.

“Lord it’s obvious we got a relationship
Talkin’ to each other every night and day
Although you’re superior over me
we talk to each other in a friendship way…
I ask you, Lord, why you enlightened me
without the enlightenment of all my folks
He said, cuz I set myself on a quest for truth
and he was there to quench my thirst.
But I am still thirsty.
The Lord allowed me to drink some more
He said what I am searching for are
The answers to all which are in front of me
the ultimate truth started to get blurry..
Speech (Todd Thomas)

There are songs whose lyrics wash over me new and differently maybe each time I hear them. At the end of a run, when legs are heavy, mind wants to be on autopilot, breathing is conscious, in a moment created and shared with the Universe, is an old song, a prayer, between a man and God.

Beginner’s mind is coming back for more. It’s seeing possibility. It’s starting again. It’s realizing we aren’t perfect and we don’t really know anything. It is finding wonder in the same roads, in the same songs, in the same body, but seeing it differently. It’s being thirsty for more.

And I am still thirsty.

Pray with your feet in the ocean

The ocean overpowers words, on the page or spoken. The sunrise defies fancy language, or maybe any language, but that doesn’t stop us from trying.

Words come for prayer, words and emotions well up in gratitude; questions can come like waves, and maybe waves are answers in themselves.

In three days at the beach, there have been more brown pelicans and porpoises than in other years combined. The sounds at sunrise are the same color as my soul.

If prayer felt like sunlight…
if prayer felt like cool morning sand between our toes…
if prayer tasted like coffee or brought us into the present moment like cold ocean water up to our knees before 7:00 am,
I bet we’d do it more.

It does.

Surveying the Sensational

Sometimes the coolest ideas begin as a conversation. The kind where you talk about every subject under and above the sun, laugh your face off, and find yourself frequently running down paths of wonder. The kind of conversation where when it’s done, you wish you had recorded it, or at least written parts down.

I had one of those conversations with Gary Skirka this winter on our way to Third Eye Comics in Annapolis for a book signing with writer Jason Aaron (who writes the Avengers, Thor, Conan, has written Wolverine). Both of our imaginations have been and continue to be shaped by comic books; we both lead groups at different churches; we both have two quickly growing up daughters; we are both trying to read more, get ourselves back into shape. The discussion jumped from faith to favorite comics; from the Wu-Tang Clan to John’s Gospel; from cosmology to kung fu.

Jason Aaron signing books at Third Eye Comics for the release of his Conan book for Marvel Comics.

Gary mentioned that for a number of years now he’s wanted to do a podcast about comics, pop culture, faith and spirituality, with people you wouldn’t think of as the geek culture type.

Fast forward to earlier this week. Seven of us got together and laid out our own origin stories when it comes to faith and comics. We’ve got a few guys that work for churches, a couple police officers, a former Army medic. In one case, comic books had been an outlet during chemo and childhood cancer. In another comics were a bond between father and son; one found he could draw superheroes to pass the time or sell his art. In terms of faith, it was all over the map–from one-time adamant non-believers, to lifelong church goers; former philosophy students. It was a melting pot from a number of different churches and theologies, with maybe the constant being guys who wouldn’t be told what to think or do or what box they had to fit in, but who found their own path to God.

Grant Morrison is one of the most acclaimed comic book writers of all time. He’s written everything from Superman to Batman, the Justice League to Green Lantern, shaped the DC Universe, as well as creating new characters, universes, and books that transcend the medium. In his book “Supergods,” he looks at what superhero stories might say about our culture:

“We live in the stories we tell ourselves. In a secular, scientific, rational culture lacking in any convincing spiritual leadership, superhero stories speak loudly and boldly to our greatest fears, deepest longings, and highest aspirations. They’re not afraid to be hopeful, not embarrassed to be optimistic, and utterly fearless in the dark. They’re about as far from social realism as you can get, but the best superhero stories deal directly with mythic elements of human experience that we can all relate to, in ways that are imaginative, profound, funny, and provocative. They exist to solve problems of all kinds and can always be counted on to find a way to save the day. At their best, they help us to confront and resolve even the deepest existential crises. We should listen to what they have to tell us.”

Yeah, what he said 🙂 Add to that, graphic storytelling is currently doing some of the most creative and imaginative storytelling going, and are often just plain fun to read and experience as art at the same time.

Comics and dime detective and science fiction novels have their roots in pulp culture. Not the orange juice kind, the “Pulp Fiction” kind. Merriam Webster gives a definition of pulp as:

PULP (noun), a magazine or book printed on cheap paper (such as newsprint) and often dealing with sensational material.
Merriam Webster Dictionary

As we all got talking back and forth, we dug the ideas of podcasts, interviews with different guests, blogs, articles, videos, road trips, movie and book reviews on any and all things pop/pulp culture as well as faith, spirituality, theology, etc. And we wanted a name to go with the pulp idea. Something big, reaching, something that calls your imagination into action. And who knows, maybe something that calls “Young Guns” or Nate Dogg and Warren G. to mind.

Revelators. Why revelators? Why not! You could ask Blind Willie Johnson, or Son House, who both have stripped down, bare bones versions of the song “John the Revelator,” or you can go with the dressed up version the used in the show “Sons of Anarchy.” You get the idea.

With “Pulp Revelators,” we are starting a discussion. We hope you’ll follow along on different social media channels and look for a website to be up and running before long. We hope you’ll join in, ask questions, tell us what you think, and what topics, characters, or subjects you’d like to hear more about. We’ve got some fun adventures ahead. In a nutshell, what we hope to be doing is “surveying the sensational.” Stay tuned.

Choosing Joy

We choose what we give our time and energy to. We choose how we see situations. We choose what we will do with the time we have.

This is oversimplifying things, but if it rains on a day off when I hoped to be outside, I can throw up my hands and give my day away to disappointment, or I can change plans, change course, and even notice flowers and plants getting what they need from the rain. We can look for, or try to create, small moments of joy, even when things don’t go how we wanted them.

Life hurts. It is full of war, sickness, death, anger, jealousy, hatred, injustice, suffering, and so many crappy things that it is an entirely justifiable and sane reaction to say, it’s too much, what can I do, I am insignificant, what I say or do won’t matter anyway. But it matters in your life. And it can matter for others.

Joy is a choice. In his book “Return of the Prodigal Son,” Henri Nouwen writes:

“once you choose to claim the joy hidden in the midst of all suffering, life becomes celebration. Joy never denies the sadness, but transforms it to a fertile soil for more joy.”
Henri Nouwen, “Return of the Prodigal Son”

Nouwen talks about the parables of the prodigal son, the lost sheep, and others, where God goes out of his way to reach the one lost or wayward soul who chooses to return, and to celebrate their return, not because He doesn’t love those already in the fold, but because He loves each of us uniquely, and it is a reason for joy.

“If that is God’s way, then I am challenged to let go of all the voices of doom and damnation that drag me into depression and allow the “small” joys to reveal the truth about the world I live in.”
Henri Nouwen

Allowing the small joys. That’s a thought worth sitting with and trying to live into. It could be a spring breeze coming through the window in the morning. The first sip of coffee. A Red-Bellied Woodpecker at the feeder. The smell of cutting the grass. A thought or phrase spurred from reading that hadn’t occurred to me in just that way before. Watching the dog bound through the back yard. And that’s all without leaving home.

Both Gandalf and Fr. Bill Ortt have pointed out that “all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” That is a thought or a mantra that sticks with me. So does this thought from Tom Robbins, which is an all-time favorite:

“There are only two mantras: yum and yuck. Mine is yum.”
Tom Robbins, “Still Life with Woodpecker”

It was more than 20 years ago when I read Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, “Peace is Every Step. Nhat Hanh is known as a Zen master, peace activist, teacher, community leader. There is a ton that has stuck with me from that book, much of it on interconnectedness, cultivating inner peace, and daily wonder and miracles. He has a great section on doing the dishes and household chores and how, done mindfully, they can be sources of joy and happiness:

“The secret to happiness is happiness itself. Wherever we are, any time, we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine, the presence of each other, the wonder of our breathing. We don’t have to travel anywhere else to do so. We can be in touch with these things right now.”

It’s Monday evening. As I am at the desk, the dog lies on the stone path through the back yard, smelling the air, watching for birds or squirrels, or neighbor dogs to come to the fence. I’ve got box garden beds to weed, dinner to make, the work week to get into full swing and the girls back to school. There is some small joy in each of those things, but right now it is even more simple and immediate: the look on the dog’s face as she takes in the evening; pinwheels spinning in the breeze; birds carrying on conversations and being able to pick out one or two I recognize; and a grateful heart for just saying thank you for a moment.

In the scheme of things, all that’s wrong with the world, that is not much. But it matters for this moment. And it might help to make more moments like it. And it all starts with a choice.

Nothing gold can stay

“Nature’s first green is gold, / Her hardest hue to hold.”

Robert Frost might have had a magnolia tree in his front yard. I’ve never seen anything like it. Over the past week, it’s been in different phases of bloom and I just go out and stand underneath it in complete awe. It will only last a week or two, but man, what a week.

“Her early leaf’s a flower; / But only for an hour.”

Spring is a time for rebirth, for taking root and for growth. But within that, there is also the notion that it doesn’t last, like the magnolia tree in bloom, so appreciate it while it’s here. Be present. Feel the growth. Take the moment.

W.S. Merwin in Hawaii at the Merwin Conservancy. Image from Stefan Schaefer.

W.S. Merwin, one of the brightest shining, most brilliant, and most venerable American poets died recently. I met him briefly in Washington, DC, after hearing him read. I’d made it a point to catch him after work when I worked in the city. He was one of the voices; one of the lives worth emulating, or using as a model to find your own.

In a great New Yorker article, Casey Cep writes about Merwin’s writing and his effort to preserve Hawaiian landscape, “The palm forest, like Merwin’s poetry, has become a kind of prophetic stance against contemporary life: bearing witness to individual, almost foolish acts of creativity while devastation abounds.” We do what we can in the time that we have.

Sometimes I can connect the dots, sometimes I lose the picture. My reading list of late has included large parts of Luke’s Gospel, Henri Nouwen’s “Return of the Prodigal Son,” and legendary and/or mind-bending graphic novels, including Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev’s “Daredevil” run, Donny Cates’ “God Country,” and Jonathan Hickman’s “Fantastic Four.” I’ve never read Hickman, who is known for his epic story arcs for Marvel Comics. Marvel announced this past week that he is set to take over the X-Men this summer.

I’ve been thinking about the Faust/Faustus storyline a lot lately, where to gain unlimited knowledge, the seeker sells their soul to the devil. It has to deal with hubris, excessive pride, and pushing beyond the limits of where we should go. And Hickman plays that exact storyline out with Reed Richards in his Fantastic Four story. But when faced with the decision either come up with the answer to everything, to save the universe and feed his ego flashing his brilliance, or to be human, be with his family, Richards thinks back to the words of his father.

“All of my hopes and desires rest in you becoming what I am not. When you grow up, I expect more. Son, I expect better. I want you to be a better friend than I was. Be a better husband. Be a better father. Be a better man.”

Father-son, father-daughter messages hit me straight in the heart. And it makes me reflect on the prodigal son story, and how the father wants his sons to know his love, no matter what they’ve done. And that’s big.

For Lent this year, Fr. Bill Ortt at Christ Church Easton, has given out prayer stones during worship services. There are 11 different words and you choose without looking: love, peace, believe, remember, listen, forgive, hope, pray, heal, follow, grace. The idea is to use your word as a mantra during Lent. And to look up Scripture for your word that you connect with, and pray, reflect, and meditate on it for the season.

My stone is love. It’s not the one I expected or the one I would have picked. But it’s the one I needed. It’s what I need to remember and to focus on. I picked two verses.

John 13.34-35
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

And

Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.

Those are big for me. Because it is easy for me to look past, to get too busy, to be in my head or deep in thought too often.

Finishing up Robert Frost’s poem:

Then leaf subsides to leaf. / So Eden sank to grief, / So dawn goes down to day. /  Nothing gold can stay.

Nothing gold can stay. And that’s true for spring. It’s true for knowledge and accomplishments. It’s true for the world. It’s true for almost everything we see around us.

But not for God. And not for love. “Love never ends.”

Of sleeves & cave walls

My mind is dancing, fickle like fire. It won’t stand still–it jumps, flicks tongues, wall rides, scattering darkness, but dives back down before illuminating. Can’t see what’s there.

I’m sitting in a cave. It’s me, the fire, others in the cave. The girls, probably wondering what we’re doing in a cave…

Can’t make out the cave walls. There are shadows. I need to stoke the fire. With what? Drugs bring smoke but no additional light. They are not the stoke. Prayer. Adventure. Creativity. Nature. God.

tucked up in clefts in the cliffs
growing strict fields of corn and beans
sinking deeper and deeper in the earth
up to your hips in Gods
your head all turned to eagle-down
& lightning for knees and elbows
your eyes full of pollen
the smell of bats
the flavor of sandstone
grit on the tongue.
women
birthing
at the food of ladders in the dark.

Gary Snyder chants. The flames dance higher. Figures on the wall…

Art. Poetry. Drawings. The child, surrounded by nature, is the one connected to the Universe… “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” (Luke 18:17)… childhood wonder in the eyes of a child. I know these drawings. I’ve seen them. I’ve written about them, read about them. Snyder’s book “Turtle Island” is never far from my backpack.

Caves. Fire. Shelter. Food. Primal elements. Fire meant food, community. It still does. Fire pulls the tribe together. It is conversation, happy hour, camping, return from a trail run to crack a beer, sip soup and share stories. Fire lets us see in the dark.

The cave has more. Skateboarding. Future Primitive. A love that began at 13 and has continued through today at 46 and tomorrow at whatever age. The figures on the wall look like this…

Lance Mountain. The figures are also running. Tribal. More of the cave, the walls are showing now. Scenes, images, symbols from my life. The girls. Birds. A cross. Fish. Notebook and pen. Passions. Shared experiences. Spelled out on the walls of the cave. Plato would be pleased.

I get up and walk to further parts of the cave. The walls are bare. They are uncovered. Unwritten. Still to be written. The writing is from life. From love. From experience. What is the rest of the story? What symbols? What art?

What becomes paintings on the cave walls begins as dreams. Neil Gaiman knows dreams. He has written Dream’s story in epic and graphic fashion. He begins “The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections” with an artist, a playwright and director who is afraid of heights. In his dreams, he fears falling. He believes there are two possible outcomes to falling in a dream: either you wake up, or you die. No good outcome.

And the artist, the dreamer, finds himself in a dream, climbing. At the top of the mountain, he meets Dream. Dream points out that there is a third alternative. “Sometimes when you fall, you fly.”

The most unlikely scenario. It flies in the face of common sense. But we aren’t talking sense. We are talking dreams. Why would anything sensical wind up as a cave painting?

* Originally written and published on December 10, 2014, with some revisions now.