Tag: Paradox

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Knowing What is True About Myself

I have been stumped about how to write what I want to say. As soon as I complete one paragraph, I know that the opposite has to be addressed. Therefore, I am writing “in conversation” across my paradoxes.

I am a better partner in diverse collaborative ventures when I know for myself if I am acting in integrity or if I am caught in racism.

Who but me can know what is at work within my words or behavior?

To even suggest that I have to take responsibility for myself and personally know what is true about my racism feels risky. Like many other white skinned people, it took a long time for me to notice the profound bias towards whiteness in my nation and, thus, in myself. How will I know that I am not just blind to my racism?

I have a responsibility to know for myself. When I am buffeted around with every accusation and assumption, abdicating my responsibility to know what is true about my actions, I have nothing on which to build a partnership.

But what if I am unaware that my action is a result of donning my white-colored glasses and my words or actions are actually racist and out of alignment with my values?

I am responsible for seeking out a broader picture of history, one that includes the silenced voices. I am responsible for knowing myself, outside of the distress of oppression. And for holding what I believe is true about me lightly, with openness to the possibility that I might be wrong.

It is true that white people for centuries have been oblivious to their racism. Why should my self-knowing hold any weight against such an overwhelming history?

When accusations come that something I said or did is racist, completely in line with the behavior of generations of other white folks like me, who am I to disagree? Maybe something is still lurking in the shadows, and the accusation just might be true.

I am not just one of a group of folks acting just like so many have acted before. I am a unique individual, in a world of unique individuals. It is disrespectful to lump everyone into a group, wiping out an individual’s unique humanity.

I’ve walked it both ways. In a nine-year cross race and class collaborative process, I have spent far too much time reacting to and wobbling whenever something I said or did was assumed by someone to be racist (or classist). I’ve reacted. I’ve become afraid and stepped back. I’ve looked at all of the reasons the accusation was or wasn’t true. In the midst of that swirl, I’ve stepped out of partnership with the collective and slowed down our process.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I learned to listen, really listen, to the assumptions about my actions. I’ve honestly asked myself what was true about me and what wasn’t. Sometimes it was an opportunity for self-correction. Sometimes, however, it was a time to claim what was true about me.

Always open for new revelations, when I stand clear in what was true about me I participate in relationships in a way that allows me to stay fully engaged in the process, bringing my own thinking and intuition to the conversation as one part of the whole.

Waking up and stepping outside of my personal and the cultural distress of oppression isn’t easy, but it isn’t impossible either. It does require me to take a huge amount of personal responsibility. I will stumble from time to time. But walking this paradox keeps my feet on the path of truth.

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Deep Diving

I come alive when diving right into the middle of topics my father told me to avoid—money, race, religion, gender and politics.

BullNot interested in locking horns or intellectual analysis, I want partners who seek root-level transformation—from personal to global. I am captivated by sharing and listening to a wide variety of personal stories and experiences within diverse groups as these conversations can shift assumptions and misinformation—the things that keep us separated—in order for us to move forward equitably, together.

Since I was a girl, I’ve turned to the written word as my favorite way to explore both the edges of life and my own experiences. During the seven years I wrote and rewrote Big Topics at Midnight: A Texas Girl Wakes Up to Race, Class, Gender and Herself I simultaneously honed my writing skills and dove into my own stories of sleep and waking up. It was a magical process.

I revel in the dance of writing and deep diving. The best way for me to begin a writingDeep diving roots day is to wake before the sun rises with a brilliant first sentence, followed by a flood of ideas for a new writing. While noticing all that I hadn’t noticed growing up isn’t always fun, I savor the sight of expanded vistas that emerge as I begin to see my life as one part of a multigenerational, global human family in the midst of our diverse, earthly home. And then return to my desk to write about what I see.

In addition to writing and poking into the nooks and corners of my life, I also delight in hosting “big conversations” where groups of people share longings and experiences of living in ways that bring our faith and values right into the middle of our deeply divided world. One particularly juicy topic I enjoy exploring is how money flows in our lives, in the community and in the world and how to continue to bring our engagement with that financial flow into deeper alignment with our values.

Waking up to the paradoxes within and in the world around me is sometimes uncomfortable and often requires me to change my behavior. Yet this is the holy work of spiritual transformation, both personally and in our world. It is pure grace to bring my deep diving faith-in-action to this moment in history.

This is what makes me feel alive from my head to my toes. What makes you tingle with excitement for yourself and the world?

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Grief on the Way to Transformation: My Cell Phone and Violence #2

TeardropWhy concern myself with human rights abuses in far away places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Why make connections between myself and the behavior of a long-ago king, the Belgium’s colonial policies or missionaries’ behavior when, although I personally am outraged by their behaviors, none of these people were my family members?

Why think too much about the fact that materials for my cell phone and wedding ring may have involved injustice and ill treatment of others half way around the globe? For me, my cell keeps me connected to people I care about and my wedding ring is a symbol of a life-long love.

I have no interest in collapsing in shame and despair. That is a dead-end street that feels lousy and helps no one.

Yet, I am no longer willing to keep global horrors at arms length, grateful that since I don’t approve I can wash my hands of any connection to things done by other humans, national and transnational corporations who produce the goods I buy, or “my people” (which includes people who share my Euro-American roots, white skin, Christianity or wealth).

Distancing myself from other’s behavior makes it too easy for me to forget the deep historical roots of today’s world events and the fact that I enjoy the benefits of things grown and produced under horrifying conditions.

Maintaining that distance requires that I go back to sleep. That isn’t an option for me anymore.

However I can’t, nor should I, shoulder the responsibility for all of these actions. Nevertheless, I can stop and grieve. Weep for violence and injustice—for both victims and perpetrators. Let my heart break open for those who suffered and continue to suffer far outside my neighborhood.

My personal grief and the world’s grief meet in my heart. That is where I experience the truth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”1

No defensiveness is needed. Only seeing. Grieving. Not getting stuck there, but also not bypassing my need to wail about tragic aspects of human behavior.

Fear is fanned on every street corner and news show. Despair for the enormity of the environmental destruction and human inequity feels like it could easily undermine our capacity to cope with daily life.

The only path I know of that moves toward transformation, runs right through the middle of grief. “To let ourselves feel anguish and disorientation as we open our awareness to global suffering is part of our spiritual ripening. … Out of darkness, the new is born.”2

Against all logic, this path leads me to joy and gratitude. Standing solidly in the center of both grief and joy, I find clarity about my place in the global world. I am prompted to continue to ask myself, “What’s next? What is my next step to further align my behavior with my values?” Not from a place of despair, shame or over-responsibility but from a solid knowing of the interconnectedness of us all.

Paradox again. I always return here. The more I can learn to hold grief and joy, the greater my capacity to live life fully in ways that serve us all.

 

1. Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
2. Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown. Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World (British Columbia: New Society Publishers, 1998) Pg 45

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One Author’s Paradox

ParadoxI want to live my values, yet so many of my choices are complex, multi-layered. I will never be able to avoid this paradox, but it is important to me to keep asking the questions, noticing my inconsistencies, always seeking to bring my values more in alignment with my actions.

For example, I buy locally; shop predominantly in neighborhood stores; support small businesses; and hire individuals doing a service or producing something that flows from their hearts.

These are important values of mine.

And yet a huge online bookstore is also part of my life. Big Topics at Midnight, both paperback and eBook versions, are carried in that store-without-walls. Occasionally, I purchase a book there myself.

This cyberbookstore is often where book buyers turn to when looking for a specific book—including mine. Their selection is vast. Drive-less shopping is convenient. Prices are often discounted.

And this business is hurting local bookstores.

How can I reconcile this paradox?

Initially, I begrudgingly put my book on their virtual shelves. I didn’t want to be there, yet I wanted my book to be available there. Whenever I could, I directed people to buy the book from my website, local bookstores or at my Big Topics Conversation workshops. I was on their “shelves” but I didn’t want to promote them by advertising that fact.

In essence, I was trying to go two directions at the same moment. Stepping in while holding back put me in conflict with myself. That was neither good for my health nor for selling books.

Since neither removing my book from their stock nor being in conflict with myself is an acceptable choice for me, what can I do?

I am searching for the deepest foundation where I can stand solidly, with integrity, amidst opposing values.

Online publishing options, bookstores and social media platforms are central marketing arenas for today’s author. Part of me resists offering Big Topics at Midnight in eBook form. I love reading books printed on paper, underlining favorite quotes, leaving colorful tags sticking out to note cherished passages and sharing a favorite read with a friend. But my deepest value was to offer Big Topics at Midnight in a variety of formats, both paperback and eBook (and, I hope, an audio version sometime in 2014).

In a similar way, I love to meander through a local bookstore, touching books as I walk down the aisles, flipping through ones that catch my eye. When I purchase a book, I know that I am also supporting a business I want to remain in my neighborhood. But I also want to offer Big Topics at Midnight to readers at the huge online “bookstore” where so many routinely shop.

That is where I have landed. For now. My preferences remain, but my choice is clear: I want to reach readers through a diversity of formats and locations.

As I type, I must admit that I am a little afraid that writing about my issue with huge online stores will result in their refusal to sell my book.

But silence in the face of fears of retaliation by a powerful corporation also violates my values.

Paradox again. Nevertheless, my choice clear. I will click “publish,” and this blog is released to cyberspace.

Illustration by Khara Scott-Bey

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Whale Blows, then Dives Deep

The moment my eyes open

the old story—

inflated, puffed up and glowing—

shatters.

I sit with a heart full of dread

grief

sorrow

the ache pours out my eyes and belly.

I want to rush ahead.

How can I fix it?

Make it OK again?

Make this ache go away?

Escape merely tightens the clinch,

lets it all decay underground again.

One option is all that remains—

wait, sit in the ache.

Slowly

morning light returns.

The big picture emerges from the shadows.

The moment spreads across time and space.

A blue whale blows then dives deep down

into the abyss of the Monterey Bay,

making me remember

the present moment held in the middle of eternity.

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It All Depends on My Perspective

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. This morning, the remainder of nine book-related events before the end of June set off my internal alarm system, waking me before dawn.

Sitting in the Mercy Retreat Center chapel a few hours later, my perception shifted.

How many people have the privilege of returning to places, people and organizations that have been the source of a lifetime of wake-up calls and gentle support?

I walked that trip in my head and on paper during the writing of Big Topics at Midnight. Pouring over diaries, journals and little tidbits tucked into dark corners of my memory gave me a new perspective on my life and Life in general. Now I am physically returning to the places and relationships where these moments occurred.

Yesterday I was with twenty-two others here at Mercy Center as we explored wake-up calls that have filled our bones and flowed from the Spirit.  Most came because they’d heard about my event through Mercy Center—much as I was drawn to some of the events I’d attended here for the last twenty-nine years. But some were important people in my life; Pam, my first spiritual director; Bill and Peter, pastor and priest; Kate, an old friend; Ann and Paul, part of a now-ended Harvest Time circle; Holly and Bill, newer friends.

This morning I got an email from Andrea at the Presentation Prayer Center in Fargo, North Dakota where I will be doing a couple of events in October. In the late 1980s and early 1990s I traveled across town almost every week for the seven years we lived in Fargo to gather there for my covenant group’s meeting, a class or spiritual direction.

Following unexpected guidance while writing my book, I discovered the power of returning to the land where important things had happened—both ancestral and personal. I now realize that my book travels are the next step of that pilgrimage.

What had felt overwhelming is also a grace-filled gift. An “overly full calendar” holds the opportunity to be in places and with people who have been part of my formation while also meeting new acquaintances and having the transformative conversations I long for.

My heart overflows with gratitude. I feel like the luckiest person on the planet.