A Good Reminder

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choose life, life, Meg Wheatley, Sister Helen Kelley, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Turning To One Another

In what seems a difficult start to the new year in our country and in many places on our planet, I find solace and motivation in a quote I heard and held long ago. It is like meeting an old friend once again and recognizing still our deep connection. I thank Meg Wheatley for including it in her book, turning to one another.

“Choose Life – only that and always, and at whatever risk. To let life leak out, to let it wear away by the mere passage of time, to withhold giving it and spreading it is to choose nothing.” (Sister Helen Kelley)

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Keep Going

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balance, clarity, encouragement, Meg Wheatley, perseverance, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, triumph, winter

Having been shocked into awareness of the impending season of winter with ten inches of snow last Thursday and waking up to frigid temperatures since that tell me it was no fluke, I am slowly acquiescing to what will most certainly remain for the next four or five…maybe even six months: cold and probably gray weather. I do not usually mind winter. In fact I sometimes glory in the crisp cold and the beauty of the winter wonderland provided by  snow-covered hills. I wonder if this year will be different or if this difficult start is a sign of change in my outlook as well as in an aging body. Fearing the worst, I turn for encouragement to Meg Wheatley’s book, Perseverance, and am once again called to a new way of seeing. The title is Clarity.

It can take many years of being battered and bruised by events and people to discover clarity on the other side of struggle. This clarity is not about how to win, but about  how to be, how to withstand life’s challenges, how to stay in the river. 

We never learn to triumph over life, but we can learn that every defeat, every problem, every terror is a teacher that prepares us for the next hardship. And we learn to expect that there are more difficulties ahead.

When this clarity emerges from our experience, what also emerges is trust in ourselves. We realize that we can cope and learn and grow from hardship and trials. We learn to accept difficulty and setback as part of life’s normal processes. We cease feeling threatened by most things…

The encouragement continues but, for now, that’s enough to get me ready for the day when I will get out the winter tires for my car, take them to the dealer to be installed and balanced and hope that I will proceed – balanced as well – back on the road that leads me forward.

The Human Spirit

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apartheid, courage, extraordinary, human spirit, Meg Wheatley, Nelson Mandela, prison, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Turning To One Another

Recently it seems counterproductive to watch – or even listen to – the evening news. The destruction from weather events is bad enough, but the way people are judging and treating each other around our country and in the world is unconscionable. We need more stories of courage to keep the light strong and our willingness to fan the flames of unifying love alive.

Meg Wheatley has a brief but powerful story that speaks to the power of the human spirit. She was touring Robben Island in South Africa where Nelson Mandela and others struggling against apartheid were imprisoned for over 25 years. She recounts the event as follows.

We were standing in a long narrow room that had been used as a prison cell for dozens of freedom fighters. They lived in close quarters in this barren room – no cots or furniture, just cement walls and floors with narrow windows near the ceiling. We stood there listening to our guide’s narration. He had been a prisoner in this very room. The cold came up through the floor into our feet as we gazed around the lifeless cell. We stared through the bars of the door as he described the constant threats and capricious brutality they had suffered. Then he paused and gazed down the length of the room. Speaking very quietly, he said: “Sometimes, to pass the time here, we taught each other ballroom dancing.”

She concludes: I have never forgotten that image, of demoralized and weary men teaching each other to dance in the cold silence of a long prison cell. Only the human spirit is capable of such dancing. (turning to one another, p.74)

All I see in my mind’s eye in the wake of that story is the face of Nelson Mandela on the day of his release from that prison – and again on the day that he was elected president of South Africa. His smile was so broad it lit up the world.

Let us think on these things when we are feeling bowed down. We say, “Yes, but he was extraordinary.” We need, rather, to turn to one another and draw the extraordinary out of each other – together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Morning, Still In the Dark

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appearances, enjoying each other, judging others, Meg Wheatley, stereotypes, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Turning Toward One Another

This morning, another entry from Meg Wheatley – from a different book of hers:

Whenever we get past the categories and stereotypes, when we greet each other as interesting individuals, we are always surprised by who we are. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of stereotyping someone because of their appearance, and then being surprised when they didn’t fit that judgment. This has happened to me so often you’d think I wouldn’t keep labeling people – a laborer in ill-fitting clothes who talked to me about his love of Shakespeare, a youth with brightly dyed blue hair and body piercings who described his work teaching non-violence to young children, a factory worker who shared her poetry, a desperately poor village woman who invited me in to her immaculate one-room home. But still I am surprised. When will I be free of these categories that prevent me from enjoying who you are? (turning toward one another, p. 117)

 

 

 

 

 

Light In the Darkness

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Christianity, Cynthia Bourgeault, difficulty, Joko Beck, life, meaning of life, Meg Wheatley, patience, perseverance, spiritual practice, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, vow, wisdom, Wisdom School

Last evening we sat, a group of 12 seekers, to begin what is the last in a series of events that have taken place over the last six years in different places in the Northeast United States. We call them “Wisdom Schools.” Drawn first by the work of our teacher Cynthia Bourgeault to delve into the Wisdom Tradition of Christianity, we have joined an ever-growing network of people who choose spiritual practice as a discipline for deepening our living. Explaining how that happens, we admit, is something difficult to do and generally only seen in retrospect. We will spend the next three days “swimming in that sea” and hope to go home ready to meet the challenges of our everyday lives with more determination and willingness because of having been together.

As I sat down and opened my computer this morning, I opened as well Meg Wheatley’s  small but powerful book, Perseverance, and read the following paragraph that gave a hint of what I might be trying to say. It is, at least, all I need for now as I go to prayer.

Human life should be like a vow, dedicated to uncovering the meaning of life. The meaning of life is in fact not complicated, yet it is veiled from us by the way we see our difficulties. It takes the most patient practice to begin to see through that, to discover that the sharp rocks are truly jewels. (Joko Beck, Zen teacher)

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Look Back and Inward

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counteract, fears, life experience, Meg Wheatley, perseverance, predicament, survival, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, upheaval

As I sit this morning looking out at rain that is predicted to continue for two or three days and remember that last night I saw a weather map picturing not one or two but three hurricanes that might possibly come our way (with Florence, the first, sure to damage much of our East coast) I consider just sitting where I am and avoiding every eventual happening or news report of the day. But then I open Meg Wheatley’s little book, Perseverance, that shakes me out of my inertia and reminds me of the need to get about life once again. I want to copy the entire page here as it feels to me like a worthy reminder that, as she says, “We’ve Been Here Before.”

We have never been here before in terms of the global nature of our predicament. For the first time in human history (at least that we know of), we have endangered our home planet. And for the first time, we know what’s happening to just about all 7 billion of us humans, the challenges and terrors we endure and the occasional, reaffirming triumphs. Never before have humans been so aware of one another’s struggles, pain and perseverance. Never before have we known so many of the consequences of what we do – our thoughtless, violent, heroic and loving actions.

Yet we have been here before. In our long, mysterious history, humans have had to struggle with enormous upheavals, dislocations, famines and fears. We’ve had to counteract aggression, protect our loved ones and face the end of life as we’ve known it. Over and over again.

The scale is different now, but the human experience is the same. And so are our human spirits, capable of generosity or abuse, creativity or destruction, survival or extinction. As we face the challenges and struggles of this time, it might help to recall the centuries of solid shoulders we stand on.

And if you reflect on your own life experience, what else have you endured? You’re still here – how did you stay here?

How have you come through rough times before?

What from your own personal history gives you now the capacity to get through this time? (Perseverance, p.9)

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s Life!

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aging, capable, grace, life, Meg Wheatley, opportunities, partner, perseverance, relax, surrender, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust, wisdom

I’ve been engaged in a number of conversations lately where the topic has been the need to let go of what we can’t control – like the weather and the march of time (specifically our aging process). This morning I opened Meg Wheatley’s little book, Perseverance, to a page called “Life Is Life” and found there some words worth my time and reflection. Perhaps we can all benefit from her wisdom.

Instead of working so hard to actively construct our lives, we could relax with the opportunities that life provides, both the good and the bad ones. People who have this type of relationship with life truly are more relaxed. The seeming loss of control doesn’t create anxiety or feelings of distress. It does the reverse, it creates feelings of ease and clarity – and the capacity to stay.

Surrendering to life offers some wonderful realizations. We learn we’re capable of being in this dance, of working with whatever happens. We learn to trust ourselves and then others and, gradually, we learn that life itself can be trusted.

The grace of surrender offers us the awareness that life is on our side, that life is our partner. Whatever may be happening in our private worlds, inside the noise and disturbance, a lovely realization dawns. 

Life wants us here. (p. 117)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good Conversation

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closer, conversation, curious, differences, different, good listening, judgment, listen, listening, Meg Wheatley, messages, relationship, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Turning To One Another

I’m up early to greet the day with Meg Wheatley’s book, turning to one another. (Yes, the title is written in all lower case letters – most likely to emphasize the desire to have a conversation of equality.) I haven’t visited this treasure for a long time but have been trying to live with its messages nonetheless. It all seems so timely now when, day by day, so much in the world seems so fractured. I don’t know why it called to me as I turned to set my coffee on my side table. Perhaps it’s the appearance of the book itself, skinny but tall and dressed in a coat of red and yellow on its spine. Here are the two paragraphs that wouldn’t let me go this morning.

I hope you’ll begin a conversation, listening for what’s new. Listen as best you can for what’s different, for what surprises you. See if this practice helps you learn something new. Notice whether you develop a better relationship with the person you’re talking with. If you try this with several people, you might find yourself laughing in delight as you realize how many unique ways there are to be human.

We have the opportunity many times a day, everyday, to be the one who listens to others, curious rather than certain. But the greatest benefit of all is that listening moves us closer. When we listen with less judgment, we always develop better relationship with each other. It’s not differences that divide us. It’s our judgments about each other that do. Curiosity and good listening bring us back together. (p.36)

 

 

 

 

 

The Best We Can Do

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answer, blessings, happiness, health, loving care, Meg Wheatley, perseverance, prayer, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, treasures

Looking out and seeing one more snowfall in this third quadrant of the month that is supposed to bring us May flowers, I once more reached for the book called Perseverance for an encouraging word. (Meg Wheatley is good at providing solace in down-to-earth terms when everything looks bleak.) I shouldn’t complain; look at the destruction on the beautiful Hawaiian island of Kauai and other serious weather disasters around the world. And that’s just the beginning of what people are enduring in their lives.

As I pulled the book toward me, a bookmark fluttered out and landed on my lap. It was the answer to my need for help, of course. It was familiar – “a blast from the past” – and reminded me of all the singsong prayers in my childhood that made up a treasure chest full of meaningful messages that always seemed an answer on days like this. It also brought to mind the beautiful, giving friend from whom it came and whose example I try to follow. Perhaps you will find it meaningful today as well.

I said a prayer for you today and know God must have heard. I felt the answer in my heart although God spoke no word. I didn’t ask for wealth or fame; I knew you wouldn’t mind. I asked God to send treasures of a far more lasting kind. I asked God to be near you at the start of each new day, to grant you health and blessings and friends to share your way. I asked for happiness for you in all things great and small, but it was for God’s loving care I prayed the most of all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walking Together

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brothers, doggedness, faith, James, joy, Meg Wheatley, perseverance, persistence, sisters, steadfastness, success, tenacity, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

The beginning of the Letter of James says this today:

Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (JAS 1:1-2)

These are days when it seems that our perseverance is being tested in many ways. Meg Wheatley, who wrote a book of that title, speaks of a persevering person as “one who sees through to the end,” or “one who does not yield.” It includes notions of maintaining our activity in spite of difficulties and is synonymous with tenacity, steadfastness, persistence, doggedness…My favorite notion in Wheatley’s introductory remarks is this: In Chinese, the character for perseverance is often the same as the need for patience.

On a mundane level – which is where most of us live all the time – I see perseverance as simply putting one foot in front of the other to “keep on keeping on.” But here is the key to success, I think. We cannot do it alone. Regardless of how strong we think we are or how capable of achieving success on our own, we need each other in order to survive. Once we conquer resistance to that reality, we are at least half-way there.