Road Signs

I think I've been a bit overly distracted by the big road signs in my life. There is no map to our lives right? So we go along somewhat trial and error, down different roads, some dead ends, some superhighways busy with fast-paced noise. I think it's been easy to get distracted by the big road signs -the "Turn Here!" flashing lights, neon bright signs. Like graduating from high school and the big "Go to College" sign. Easy right? Just take the turn. Of course I've definitely taken my turns onto smaller "road less travelled" routes, some even that had "Dead End" signs I insisted on taking anyway.

It's funny though that as a child growing up in the country on a huge piece of property, that I have found myself often on these well travelled roads. I mean, as a kid I used to wander aimlessly across pastures and through woods with little knowledge of where I was going. I was usually following a well-worn cow path through the tall weeds and thick undergrowth. I think there's something symbolic about these contrasting ways of navigating territory.

Where I live now, you don't leave the people trail because you could get lost or you might destroy plant life or something like that. So you get yourself on a hiking trail or sidewalk or bike lane or paved road and you go to somewhere. You travel to a specific destination. No Sunday drives wasting gas aimlessly exploring the countryside. No weekend ambles following the minute signs of an animal road. No looking for the broken grass, inspecting each step as you take it so you don't accidentally disturb a snake or step on a cow pie. Just head up, look straight ahead. Get to the end of the trail so you can say you hiked it. Get to the store, get to the movie, get to work, get home, get to school....

How can we follow Rumi's advice and let ourselves "be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what [we] really love?" How can we see the imperceptible signs of where we want to go when we are so distracted by the neon, flashing, "Turn Here!"? How do we listen to the whisper of our hearts when the rush of traffic is around us?

Atomic Attractions

OK seriously I have been thinking more about the whole orbits thing. I'm taking a chemistry class right now and we just finished studying about atomic orbitals. There are two basic shapes for the orbitals of electrons around the nucleus of an atom in extremely simplistic terms. The electrons may make a spherical orbit around the nucleus or they make a dumbbell shaped orbit. The spherical orbitals are called s-orbitals and the dumbbell shaped orbitals are p-orbitals.

Enough chemistry. The reason I bring this up is that I really think we each have different types of energy that lead us into relationships that resemble the s or p orbital. S people draw us in and our life begins to revolve around theirs. P orbital people engage more in a dance around with us looking more like the back and forth and interplay of a dumbbell shape. Maybe it's not that we are either p people or s people, but rather how our energy combines with someone else's that makes the s or p dance. When you can recognize if your shared energies are making one of you revolve around the other, rather than dancing back and forth, then maybe those are unhealthy relationships. Maybe there's no good or bad orbital relationship, maybe there is just one you prefer to the other.

Orbits

It occurred to me last night that we are all like little planets with our own orbits. Some people's orbits work nicely with your own, other people's orbits repel you. Then there are those whose orbits try to take over your orbit, that pull you in and have you circling their life. Being aware of the pull of other people's orbits seems to be a good way to ensure you are respecting your own boundaries. What I mean is that I don't necessarily think that one orbit is better than another and I don't mean to judge how another person's orbit affects mine. I am just thinking that, in the moment I become aware of how their energy is impacting my energy, I am more aware of my own needs/boundaries/shifts etc.

Grateful

This morning I came into work and ran into a dad whose daughter was in a car accident months ago. They have been staying with us the entire time as she gets strong enough to be transferred to another facility for rehab. We have two older teens here right now who have been with us for months and are recovering from car accidents (MVA's). Each time I talk to these parents, I get a glimpse of what could have been my experience and I am left feeling like a ghost of myself has just walked by.

We see so many different families here, but MVA families hit way too close to home for me. For those of you who didn't grow up with me, I totalled my car when I was 17. I hit black ice, likely overcompensated, went off a 13 foot embankment and was thrown from the car. If it weren't for a very small ditch within the larger culvert where I landed, my car would have landed on top of me. Because of this little ditch, the car landed upside down straddling that ditch, settling down a few inches above me. The force of the accident broke my back and punctured a lung. I spent a week in the hospital and then a bit more time at home recovering. It was a hellish time, being trapped at home with my mom, as a grumpy teenager who had previously been counting the days until I could leave said home and mom. If you've read Ethan Frome, I had nightmares at the time of being stuck there forever like the broken Ethan in his loveless marriage.

Now when I encounter a family who has a child who was not so lucky, who did not escape so unscathed, who may be at the mercy of other people's caregiving for the rest of their lives, I go cold inside. I stop in my tracks and thank the universe for my luck. I also thank these parents for the care they give their children. I slump a little thinking of how they must feel to watch this bright future change completely. They claw their way toward hope, toward a different future, one they have no blueprint for. I send up my wishes for their self-care, for the progress of their child, for their patience and for a loving community of support for them.

Farewells

This morning I am thinking of goodbyes. I have a friend for whom we are babysitting today so she and her husband can attend a funeral. I have been thinking a great deal about this funeral for the past week for several reasons. One, I had met the woman who they are burying today and she was the sister/sister-in-law of a couple I have married. I had spent time specifically trying to get to know her and her siblings and sat with her for quite some time at the rehearsal dinner.

I can't say that I "knew" her as I had only met her a few times and had that one nice conversation with her over dinner. When I was informed of her death though I had a very clear image of her face in my mind. She had left an impression on me-  one of quiet strength and yet vulnerability. Jovi and I had played with her son that evening too and I too easily pictured his loss as well as her husband's.

The other reason I have been thinking of the funeral, I was asked by a family member if I might be offered as a stand-in for a pastor for the burial in the event they were unable to locate a pastor for the burial today. I had quickly responded yes as, in addition to wanting to do whatever I could for this family at this time, I have been thinking over the past year about presiding over funerals.

I know this sounds morbid. Why would anyone want to do this. I can't quite answer this. I don't think it would be anything I that would have crossed my mind had my friend Jason, years ago, not contemplated having me preside over his father's funeral. Jason had an extremely difficult time finding someone to perform the service for his father as Jason lived out of town and his father didn't belong to any specific church community. He had asked me if I was willing to do this and I hesitated and suggested we look harder to find someone professional. At the end he was able to find an experienced person to perform the service, but the man had no connection to Jason, his father or the family in general. I regretted having pushed for someone else as I knew that I could have spoken to what Jason needed at the time much better than this gentleman had.

When I was asked this last week, I didn't hesitate as I felt that if the family decided this was what they wanted, or that they couldn't find anyone else, I might be able to relieve some amount of stress from their ordeal.

I can honestly say I am relieved that they found someone else to perform the service. I can also honestly divulge that I am more interested even now in being of service to others in this capacity. I have mixed feelings about that. What could my motivations be and is that weird to want to do that for others? I need to think about this one more.

Rockin' the Kwan Yin

Years ago I had the image of Shiva given to me from a therapist. At the time I was going through a not so pretty divorce and coming out to my family. The therapist had likened the change I was experiencing and initiating to the Hindu deity of transformation. Shiva is sometimes described as the one who creates birth through destruction. You can think of Shiva's power like that of a forest fire. The idea was that, while change can mean an end, death or destruction of something (the end of my marriage, the end of how my family perceived me) it is also the beginning of something. This was a great tool for me at the time and helped me stay the course of much needed change.

More recently, in the last few years, as my life has undergone a completely different kind of transformation, one that I don't quite understand fully yet, Shiva hasn't quite worked for me. I've needed a different Eastern embodiment of some "om" figure to fixate on. The change I've been working on has been a much less personally empowered change; a giant wave that I must attempt to ride out and just keep my head above water kind of change. It's been changes that have happened to me rather than change that I have initiated.

Enter Kwan Yin, or White Tara. The Chinese or Tibetan embodiment of compassion. In my paid job I have learned a great deal about compassion over the last seven years. As I have had countless first hand opportunities to practice witnessing to the trauma of families with children who are ill, I have dramatically improved my deep listening skills. I've become a practitioner of "being present" with others in their struggles. I have come to place an enormous value on just sitting with someone else's pain. Compassion for others has never been something I've been challenged by (I am the type of person who sees a stuffed animal on the side of the road and I get an ache in the pit of my stomach thinking about a sad child missing a fluffy friend...). Compassion for myself is a entirely different story and the brand of compassion I've been practicing is depleting and I've been left exhausted and drained.

I've been reading Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha, by Tara Brach, nightly over the last month or two and just came across a passage on Kwan Yin. Ms. Brach presents us with the image of Kwan Yin as the mother of compassion who extends her healing presence through acknowledgement of the suffering of others. Ms. Brach then invites us to turn that image inward. For those of us who work in the community service sector, it is easy to view compassion as an outward practice and something that we embrace for others. Ms. Brach challenges us to turn that compassion inward first and posits that compassion will then naturally flow outward. I woke up this morning with the image of a pebble thrown in water, the ripples radiating outward effortlessly from that central point. Compassion begins with lovingkindness towards ourselves. When we greet ourselves with compassion, there is no effort required to share that compassion with others. It flows naturally outward.

Postscript: For another good book on self-care, especially for those in non-profit work, please see the lovely Ms. Laura Van der Noot Lipsky's Trauma Stewardship. Ms. Lipsky's book gently turns us toward self care as a source of energy and asks us to consider how we may improve our service to others through that self care.

Meaning and Purpose

I have often heard the most famous of Viktor Frankl's quotes from Man's Search for Meaning: 
"...everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." This is a profound thought, often repeated, but difficult to implement. It is a quote that I often cling to in difficult times.

I am currently reading Man's Search for Meaning and today I came across the quote. I read it with surprised joy, to come across it in it's original context. What surprised me more was the quote on the exact opposite page. It is not a single sentence that can be easily picked out of the paragraph and quoted alone, which is why I'm certain it's not as frequently recited. It had as profound an effect on me though. So I quote it here. To best understand it, I am adding the context of the quote above, with the emphasis added:

"...everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.... It is this spiritual freedom - which cannot be taken away - that makes life meaningful and purposeful."

This is the further action. The action that does not require difficult circumstances before we show our best. This is the part of his thesis which compels us to make a purposeful life even absent suffering. So appropriate for this time of year and for those of us to whom fortune has been more attentive this year!