In A Warming Sun…

I look out the window as it whispers quiet melodies of all the goings on going on without me. And yet I wonder whether goings on go on without me or if maybe we’re all connected. And if we’re all connected, are not the goings on of others also my own? If only I could know the quickened pulse of one dancing fit and free and not the rapid race of a heart working overtime for a body whose health declines more than sometimes, sometimes often without provocation.

In my own way, I do feel connected despite the isolation MECFS insists. I hear the city sounds outside my door, and sense a world full of doing. My heart tells me we are one, and in this moment I feel full. And while I feel full, I also feel the many things beyond my reach. Were I to grasp them, therein would a fullness peak, eventually waning. But I would remain.

photo by j. ruth kelly, all rights reserved

What I come to in my non-goings on of a life is that we all must land in the same place. We all face the inner world, an immovable yet flowing eternity. And that same world goes with us whether we are fit or frail and that same world remains when the noise and clamor fades.

I long for more doing and going and yet the fullness of the moment rewards me just the same. I am grateful to be here witnessing the play and tussle suggesting endless horizons. I look out the window knowing their promise.

They only guarantee experience.

Horizons don’t make us more free or more present. They simply pose a chance for more ways to grow and love in a world aching for peace.

But I look out the window and accept my rootedness for now. And I remember when I last chatted with my maple friends forever rooted in my front yard. They whispered a contented grace. They daily taste the world as whole and one, gathering life’s echoes as feast in a warming sun.

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Blessed are…

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called…” the masculine children of divinity, depending on which version of the Bible you may read. And yet many are those of varying gender identifications who make peace by the way they live their lives. Some stay real with themselves about their growth processes, seeking out accountability and listening to those who can constructively school them on their need for change, their toxic exceptionalism and passive/aggressive denial of systemic oppression. Some simply live it out, opening their hearts and minds to the viewpoints and lives of those who will expand their minds to move beyond the status quo, the status quo that lulls us all to sleep when our wakefulness is most needed. We are a many-varied and colorful tribe of humans hoping towards fulfillment on different levels as we struggle to recover from the oppressive backlash of centuries of authoritarianism and the resulting mindset. Some of us seek our recovery by means conducive to capturing truth, fostering freedom and encouraging growth and prosperity for everyone as we confront our demons, the darkness we all wrestle when egos clash and righteous rage collides with denial and judgement. And we wonder, “is it righteous, really?”. Apparently, according to the wise ones, we are all acting out in the wake of trauma. Some of us embody the traumatizers, and some of us war against them, but we all began in the oppressive authoritarianism that ultimately seeks to destroy soul. No one with even just a modicum of awareness will deny that abusers have been abused and neither will they deny that some who’ve been abused manage to avoid the abuser’s program through hard, painfully aware work.

The problem I have with identifying us all as victims of trauma is that such an identification could be seen as a uniting truth when there are those of the grand us who are not wanting actual unity or truth. (Truth like, love is what we do and not simply what we feel. And truth like, we’re all valuable, precious human beings. Not “truth” like, there is one God and one way and those who don’t believe will burn. Not “truth” like, we say so and so it is so.) So, sure, we’re all victims of trauma, participants in reactions against the power-over model of authority. But we’re not all growing and we’re not all seeking accountability, and on the other side of it all, we’re not all perpetuating violent and destructive acts that divide us. These distinctions deserve regard because they distinguish between those who seek to empower others and those who seek power over others, even if only vicariously.

While it’s likely true that those who are openly seeking dominion over others are victims of trauma, my experience in moving from a place of forgiveness and understanding with this slice of the population has only netted me betrayal, slander, loss, isolation and more trauma. I literally unknowingly signed up, in the name of forgiveness, unity and hope, for another round of soul-bruising loss. I thought my faith in love would prevail. It did not. I’ve learned that you can’t afford to smile and approach abused abusers with the assumption they want to actually be anything other than what they are. You can’t project your own hope for a truly noble, truly valuable, truly life-affirming legacy onto those who are “in the same boat” with you. It’s just not that simple. It’s like inviting Leviathan to tea and hoping the beast won’t be a beast. Sure, we all came from the same sea but some of us are walking on two legs and hoping to not regress to more beastly behavior while others of us are glorifying the beast by way of denial-based, narrative-skewing belief systems. The perversion of truth and rationality is unprecedented. Shift blame, redirect focus and make the victim pay. But hey, we’re all in this together? As much as we may technically be in this together, trauma bonds as they are, we are at least as much not in this together in unity, and we are not going to experience true unity with each other when anyone in the boat is eagerly perpetuating the power-over authoritarian model of “community”. The best we can do is sit on the other side of the boat and pray that our work to end generational carnage actually takes while hoping those on the other side finally wake up and join us in the work for emancipation from oppression.

And writers and historians like Rebecca Solnit help me solidify and give voice to what I see and feel during this epic time of both loss and hopeful growth here in the US. Solnit’s following expression fills up the gaps made real by a confusion of intentions on a boat adrift in the wild sea of meaning.

“The middle ground is not halfway between Nazis and antiracists. The reasonable position is not a compromise between rapists and feminists, slaveowners and abolitionists, Natives and General Crook. The truth is not midway between the liar and the truthteller. That has to be a factor in all those calls for reaching out and unity. The murderer and his intended victim don’t have to agree on what’s right. The people who were harmed don’t have to reach out to those who did the harming. The people who told the truth don’t need to make liars feel better about themselves or what they said. Those who were targeted by this war don’t have to do all the peacemaking. If reaching out and finding unity is good, the haters and liars can go find some olive branches and apologies and do the work to leave their will to destroy the rest of us behind. Then it begins. The party of hate never had a mandate; they lost the popular vote last time and this time; they may think of themselves as the real American and the gatekeepers but we don’t have to, and we don’t have to enter their gates or play by their rules. We don’t have to hate them either, but we don’t have to protect them from the consequences of their choices or sell out our principles for their comfort. When you stand on the ground of truth and justice, let others find their way to you. If you stand firm, many will in the end. Not everyone will; that does not change what truth and justice are.” Rebecca Solnit

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When loving…

When loving is denounced as liberal radicalism and the streets are smeared with pepper spray as children and parents retreat to their homes after being assaulted by authorities hellbent on smashing support for long-overdue change, then we’ve arrived at a time of gross darkness. When those who hold their Bibles with fervent reverence sneer at “libtards” who are guilty of wanting to feed the hungry, then we’ve come to that moment of masks falling away and the love of idol and icon embraced in the name of One who would weep at the carnage posing Christlike behavior. So much for the loaves and the fishes, the loving thy neighbor, no. See, that’s too liberal for the Jesus folk. If thy neighbor is not exactly right next door and not the exactly right American gun-toting Christian, then the greatest commandment doesn’t apply and you can vote for the man who mocks the disabled, openly disrespects, disdains and tramples actual value while you tell yourself you’re fightin’ fer the kingdumb. If you can sit with rapists, worship a criminal posing president, but sneer at those who want to protect value, then you are on the top of a dung heap whilst claiming great righteous real estate in the One Way. Oh the fantasies so many abide as they ignore the stench of their foundations, as the whole world watches their dumbing down any notion of faith. So, since all I can do is wonder and weep as the people I used to break bread with claim their false truth, the one exceptionalist “truth” we all must embrace or be stalked by Trump trains and MAGA refrains ’cause well, Jesus, since it’s more than I can face without going mute, I’m going to turn this post over to a quote from a woman who has a more measured command of the state of things than I do in this hour and who states critical aspirations and affirmations essential to furthering the actual works of love without stringing too many words together in one sentence after another long wordy sentence.

“Let us denounce authoritarianism, racism, sexism and disregard for science and our common health and safety. Let us defend this beautiful planet. Let us voice that tearing nursing children from the arms of their mothers at the border is not an American value. Let us affirm that caring for one another, feeding the hungry, caring for the sick and elderly is not socialism, it is a deeply honorable community and spiritual practice. Let us speak up and affirm that we would not put up with bullying, name calling and abusive behavior in our work or lives or homes—and so we should not allow it such traits and actions to go unchecked in the highest office in our land. Let us be centered in love, but be firm and clear and brave. This is the most important election of my lifetime. This is one of those moments when silence would equal implied agreement and consent—and I do not consent.” Carrie Newcomer

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Refuge

“This magnificent refuge is inside you.
Enter. Shatter the darkness that shrouds the doorway.
Be bold. Be humble.
Put away the incense and forget
the incantations they taught you.
Ask no permission from the authorities.
Close your eyes and follow your breath
to the still place that leads to the
invisible path that leads you home.”
St. Theresa of Avila

Photo by Jay Manti

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The Living Vow

“This is the living vow: to show up with increasing presence for the moment. To make an honest encounter with your longing at every turn. To listen to it, learning which way the energy of your life wants to go. Paradoxically, it is in our emptiness—another way of saying willingness—that we become full. It is in our being fully where we are that we are put in touch with our next becoming. This grows you. You begin to understand that your life belongs to more than yourself alone. It belongs to a momentum which is set in motion towards its destiny through longing.”

Excerpt from “Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home” by Toko-pa Turner

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Prayer #5 (for the self-proclaimed reformed womanizers)

May you know the value you trivialize by believing any form of womanizing is worthwhile.

May you know your worth without first shooting up intellectualism,
riding the high so high and icy cold.

May you come home to the earth of acceptance, not the mind palace constructed
against itself and in that coming home awaken the warmth of uncloaked knowing.

May you take a massive nose-dive into the divine feminine grace eschewed
by your grandiosity, and as your face hits the dirt there,
may you experience an actual fullness,
the presence of true welcome unadorned by any methodology or presentation.

Let all that you claim to be break open,
the husk falling away to reveal what you’ve refused.

May you recognize your need, your deep, deep need for love,
especially the love you disdain and declare fiction,
and when you find it, may you finally know what you’re gonna do with it.

May you take a great rolling leap into the truth beyond your carefully constructed dogma
as your face melts away, shining your visage,
a sun of authenticity feasts and open-hearted screams.

May your dance of control, your Georgie Porgie role reverse itself and succumb
to the surrender you chase, as the skirts all fall down around your face naked.

May you find there the map drawn by the lines of your perpetual retreat
posing pursuit and finally begin the treasure seek as one not master,
not switch, not submissive, but one, just one you.

May your knowing strip you of the sign you hide behind
and dart back and forth from as you desperately evade true connection.

May you turn to grasp that bowl of Peanuts at the bar of life
and find you were the one both setting up the kickoff and aborting it in turn,
over and over again, so sure the spurn was not within you.

And finally, may you learn that in spite of posing, gaming, playing and hopscotch skipping
‘round the block another umpteenth time, your true essence managed to shine,
making revolution alongside the confusion, the obviousness of the game,
breaking at least one heart in ways never broken before,
and leaving a wake of pieces to gather on the floor of a soul
trying now not to hope you know the breadth of the misstep your reformation made.

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Prayer #4 (in the aftermath of rape)

Let me not do more than slam, hammer, pound
and send all the contents smashing against the ground,
the wall, glasses, books, whatever in the vicinity of this holy rage.

Let me not grind my teeth endlessly or linger too long
in the fantasy of obliterating the one who trampled innocence.

Call the gatekeepers, please.

Call the standard bearers, too.

Rouse the warriors against the wave of scurrying human cowardice
that reaches rapidly to blank out, redact accountability
and stroke, stroke, stroke the enablers.

Let me not be so done with children posing adulthood
so fury-blind that I alienate them every last one
in the fallout of the brutalization of one actual child.

Open our eyes to the beasts we pursue in the hopes to subdue,
subsume and subjugate, feeding our own inner monsters
while we weep under the light of the moon
wondering why our children have been devoured.

Stop the generational wreckage smash and crash
rolling through the fast lane in the here and now.
For once, end the long game, the one where the children pay
and pay, and pay for the violations of the fathers.

Keep us all sane, keep us all open to being better people
so the ones who’ve paid a price not their own,
can know safety in our presence.
Make our lives, our days, our minds, our hearts
and our actions a refuge from delusion and insanity.

Waken the dead, the walking dead
who thrive more in pretending love
than the doing of care, of forethought, of protection.

Wash over the blistering wounds made,
the whispering haunt and the innocence fade.
Conjure from the cracks a tree more resilient,
refusing that perpetual derision as it rolls downhill,
mocking how precious the sighs and pulse
of our children, our heritage, our hope.

Conjure creation’s cure, a resounding war cry,
calling from the heart of mother and father divine a raging justice,
insisting growth, smashing lies and building newness in the after.

photo by j. ruth kelly, all rights reserved

 

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