Tag: Transformation

Posted on

National Shadow and Me

One minute I’m holding my grandson, delighted by his giggles, and the next minute I find myself nauseated by the latest morsel of news. I love this country and delight in the daily pleasures and interactions of my life here. So much is beautiful. And yet, a dark and sinister shadow is also part of our national truth.

I love this planet and country too much to continue to remain silent. It’s not enough to roll my eyes and walk away from behavior that I know is disrespectful or unjust. Spewing out my righteous indignation in anger might feel good for a moment, but that rarely results in individual or structural root-level change.

My love requires me to fully step into my responsibility as a human being and a citizen, and to look directly into the nation’s shadow, which also means looking directly into the ways this shadow has landed in me.

Let’s start at the beginning. Our nation’s founding supported the buying, selling and brutal slave labor of Black skinned people, the theft of Native People’s land through forced migration and genocide, and the constricting of a woman’s place to wifely domestic duties. The only people considered citizens, and thus to have rights, were white men wealthy enough to own land.

Over the centuries, we have made progress addressing racism and sexism, but the deeply buried shards of domination remain. “Progress” has primarily involved inviting women and people of color into the status quo, requiring them to fit inside the old, patriarchal system.

That which remains unexamined in the shadows is dangerous.

In 1886, eighteen years after the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was enacted to address citizenship rights and equal protection of the law for newly freed slaves, this amendment was twisted to give those rights and protections to corporations. Jim Crow and a whole system of blatant racial discrimination replaced slavery for Blacks while full citizenship was granted to corporations. Our entrenched system of hierarchical power-over has a long history.

As I considered what else I should include on this page, I sifted through my long list of ways the United States has led through domination: Pollution and overuse of natural resources? The widening wealth gap? Unequal pay? Encouraging immigration for cheap labor—for example, building railroads (Chinese), agricultural labor (Mexican)—while simultaneously demonizing or incarcerating those who came here to work? The rising chaos and incivility in Washington DC? Sexual assault and ignoring women’s accounts?

A daunting list. I set down my pen and called my friend Alease.

Alease recounted a phone call she’d received from another friend that morning. Her friend pulled into her faculty parking spot at University of California and was immediately surrounded by two police cars, lights flashing. One of the three policemen accused her of illegally talking on the phone while driving (she was using her car’s Bluetooth until she’d stopped and turned off the car). If I was stopped by police, my heart would pound and my (white) hands would shake, afraid they might give me a ticket. But this professor’s skin was black, and she knew that far too many Black people pulled over for inconsequential infractions (or no infractions) were killed by police. I shuddered at the stark difference between our fears, based solely on the color of our skin.

That which remains unexamined in the shadows is dangerous.

I got off the phone with Alease and checked Facebook before preparing dinner. A good friend recounted her terror upon learning that a woman was kidnapped and raped nearby. She wrote that it brought back flashes of “when my own body was violated…and the shame so thick around that memory.” My heart pounded as I read her words. The fear of rape weaves its way into my daily decisions: Do I leave a window open on a hot night? Should I risk walking to a neighborhood gym before dawn? Did I remember to lock my car doors?

That which remains unexamined in the shadow is dangerous, at least partly because the toxic shards of US domination values are stuck deeply within us. Some are conscious, but more often they are hidden in our inner shadows, unseen but ready to pounce when feelings of fear or vulnerability arise.

Today. Not just in the past.

For white skinned people like me (or for men with violence against women), it is a grave error to blithely assume that these events are isolated occurrences, not part of a systemic problem.

In the journey toward justice we must always begin by looking inward: finding the shards of domination that are caught in each of us, and root them out. But we can’t stop there. Transformation requires that we live in alignment with our values right in the middle of this culture that is still riddled with injustice. Luckily, we don’t have to do this alone or unequipped. This is a spiritual journey we can walk together, armed with transformative practices.

There isn’t enough space here to write about these practices that have powerfully supported transformation personally as well as within family, community, national and our global family.

For more information about these check out my newly expanded website. Together, in little and big ways, we can each participate in building the world we want for all children and grandchildren.

Posted on

The Angst of Inner Spaciousness

It’s been quite a summer. A wedding. A Be Present Black & Female National Conference where I was part of a diverse group of facilitators. A gathering with two organizations looking at “Money and the New Community.” And a Wisdom & Money Board meeting. All as my little grandson Daniel keeps growing cuter by the moment.

All year I’ve been releasing some of my very old, entrenched habits that are seriously unhelpful. That work plus the alchemical mix of these rich events of the summer has stretched me. It feels as if the boundaries of my life have expanded, whispering of possibility.

More openness in my life is gift, but right now it feels strange.

Sometimes this new inner territory seems blank. Its emptiness feels like something is seriously wrong and, thus, is very disconcerting. I know inner spaciousness is part of the transformative journey, but it’s tempting to try to fill up the space so I can feel “normal” again.

In addition, some of my old feelings and habits have crept back in, uninvited, and are creating quite a ruckus. They turn cartwheels. They call out in their tricky sounds-good voices trying to entice me to let them stay. I hear them. I see them. While I can’t ignore them, I’m not letting them take root in the soil of my expanded inner space.

Neither of these experiences—the unsettling emptiness nor the clanging old voices—are passing on through quickly. Quietly.

I’m impatient. I want to savor and write about all that is emerging—all I’ve learned—what I see from this vantage pint. But new words fail me, and I’m temporarily left with echoing silence or jangling old words.

I’m learning that this is the way transformation works—just like being courageous means I feel my roaring fears and move forward anyway.

At a time when I want to be writing regular blogs again, diving deeper than I’ve done before, I’m slowing down to adjust to the new inner spaciousness and freedom.

It is the fastest way I know to move forward.

 

I couldn’t resist including:

Daniel Gunner Thurston
4 months old
Posted on

The Bigger Story of Hate and Heroes

On August 20, 1965, Alabama resident Tom Coleman, a white-skinned vigilante, aimed his gun at seventeen-year-old, black-skinned Ruby Sales and threatened to blow her brains out. Jonathan Daniels, her white-skinned companion in the Southern Freedom Movement, threw himself in front of Ruby and was killed instantly.

In a recent On Being interview, Ruby Sales reflected on the larger context of this incident: “When you signed up to be a part of the movement, it became very clear that we were willing to die. Not because we were suicidal but because we believed so much in the work that we were doing that we did not believe that death was the end.”

As a correction of how the story of Jonathan’s murder is usually framed, Ruby said, “Truly I am grateful that Jonathan saved my life and truly that was an important event. But at the same time, the narrative must include the profound impact that local black people had on shaping and stretching my life as a young black woman in the south.”*  Jonathan’s heroic act was one small part of a larger justice movement that had been active for generations both in Ruby’s community and around the world.

I thought of Ruby’s words recently when a raging White Supremacist yelled anti-Muslim vitriol at two teenagers, one wearing a hajib, and then killed two white men and injured another who stepped between hatred and those threatened. Ruby’s words remind me that the horrifying event that occurred in my Portland, OR neighborhood on Friday, May 26, 2017, was one part of a nation-wide pattern where other Muslim, Black and Brown people (among others) experience violence.

Racial slurs and violence toward Muslims and non-whites aren’t new. Killing unarmed black men and women isn’t new. Injustice from the “Justice” system isn’t new. Prejudice and threat of deportation to immigrants aren’t new. They are, however, becoming more visible … to whites like me.

The incident in my neighborhood a few weeks ago isn’t an isolated event. It is part of a much larger story of hatred and violence that still festers at the heart of our nation. It is also one part of a long, powerful movement for compassion, justice and equity that many have bravely walked for hundreds of years.

The larger context is important. Oregon was founded as a white supremacist state: black-skinned people were barred from living within our borders. The KKK long supported our governmental leaders. Today, green and progressive Portland is one of the whitest big cities in the nation.

I am grateful for the heroic deeds of Ricky, Taliesin and Micah, and for the heroic deeds of millions over the centuries who have stepped forward to follow the leading of their hearts and courageously stand for compassion and justice. I am saddened by the impact of hatred hurled at two teenage girls, and for millions over the centuries who have long been the brunt of prejudice, inequity and hatred. The power to transform our world’s injustice and stark divisions lies in our ability to see these individual incidents as one part of a much larger movement.

This is a journey of transformation that we must take together. This is not a time to deepen our divides, even if the divides are between oppressed and oppressor. This journey requires us to all step courageously into the gaps that divide us. Standing together in the midst of both hatred and the compassion, each of us can begin—or continue—to look inside our own skins and root out assumptions, stereotypes and fragments of the “isms,” then take the risk to actively build the world that best serves all of our children, now and for generations to come.

Otherwise, actively or passively, we are complicit in supporting the underlying generational behavior that erupts into violent and hateful deeds.

 

*These critical words of context for Jonathan’s death were cut from the finished Krista Tippet’s On Being interview of Ruby Sales. For that reason, I recommend listening to the uncut version.

This blog is one in an upcoming series of “The Bigger Picture” blogs.

 

 

 

Posted on

Transformation and Newton’s First Law

I’ve spent many years barreling along in very predictable ways. One of my life-long habits exhausts me more than the others: Without thinking, in the span of one afternoon, I nag Laura to track her spending, strongly suggest to Howard that our condo board hurry to place a lien on a past-due condo, and email a friend to suggest that she look at a situation in her life from a specific perspective that makes sense to me.

It’s exhausting to try to keep tabs on so many people, and I am tired of being so disrespectful to others in the guise of helping. (Obviously I want to continue to be present to others in ways that are indeed helpful, but micromanaging other’s lives has a totally different feel to it.)

It all comes down to making the choice to step out of my usual rut of telling people what I think they should do and then choosing not to mettle in their business. Problem is, I have to do that over and over again within the span of each day.

It feels like a huge leap to imagine relating in a new, less controlling way on a regular basis. Am I up to making such a drastic change? What if 62 years of habit it too strong to turn away from?

Churning, I brewed a second cup of tea and sat down to talk to Howard, my engineering husband.

That is where Newton’s first law of motion entered the conversation. Newton, Howard explained, said that an object—me—has a natural tendency to continue to do what I am doing—resisting change in my state of motion…

…unless acted upon by a force.

In other words, by habit I am sailing along with ease, navigating life in the speed and direction I’ve always been going. Little effort is required to steer. However, when I want to make a course correction, something bold is required of me.

It’s possible, but dangerous and difficult, to try to make a sudden course correction. Turning while going full speed ahead usually results in either a crash or seriously overshooting my goal.

Its far easier to make this course correction by slowing down first. Slowing down means opening up the moment that got me to the point where I am tempted to react out of my old rutted ways. What was happening inside me just before the sparks started flying? How about the moment just before that? The earlier I can slow myself down, the easier it is to access my intuition and spirit, make choices to overcome the momentum, and make a choice to step outside of my old course. This would allow me to make a fresh and new choice more in line with my values.

Changing course mid-stream is only half the battle, as Newton’s law is also in effect when I am at rest, docked at the shore. At that point, there is great inertia that must be overcome in order to get me to move at all. I know the stuck feeling of sitting in meetings, knowing that something is happening, in me or in the room, that feels off, knowing that I should ask a question or share my perspective. Too often the inertia is strong, and I remain silent.  There are lots of reasons for my inertia—I don’t want to slow down the meeting, I’m timid around a particular person, I fear I would be a pain in the butt to voice the question, or I don’t want to speak when I am confused rather than fully clear.

All those are real feelings. They are inner voices and fears to notice, but not always to direct my behavior. I need to reach down deep inside me to find the spirit force that remembers the responsibility of my partnership in the task at hand, take the risk, and respectfully speak.

I need to make these course corrections personally, for sure. But this moment in our nation’s history where we are so deeply divided and confused, the momentum behind our nation’s ship is powerful in places where we are barreling along full-speed ahead like we’ve done for generations or mired in the muck unable to move at all in places where she is stuck.  Everyone is needed at this moment in our nation’s history—all hands-on deck so to speak—ready to step out in new and life-giving ways. In our personal lives (we need to start there/a great practice place) and in our public lives, this requires us all to slow down and respectfully take risks that make the choice for love, justice and equity for everyone and all of creation. Each day.

Sometimes a good engineer, with a little help from Newton, is the best spiritual director.

Posted on

Double Helix Transformation

Science has affirmed what I know intuitively—genetic changes happen throughout our lifetime, can affect our behavior and are passed from one generation to another.

In the last few decades, epigenetic research showed that epigenetic changes (molecular methyl groups attaching to our DNA) occurred during one’s lifetime.  In the middle of writing Big Topics at Midnight, I discovered the work of Barbara McClintock exploring changes in a gene in response to environmental stress. In my book I noted, “Dr. McClintock had won the 1983 Nobel Prize for her discovery that stress to a corn plant caused genes to change their position on the chromosomes. She proved that genes, the genetic building blocks passed through the generations, were mutable and could be changed. If this change could happen due to stress, I presumed it could also happen due to a positive stimulus. It appeared to me that generational healing through changes in our DNA was scientifically possible.” *

dna-double-helix1

When my ancestors began to share their stories with me, and then wanted them woven into my social change memoir, I knew experientially that transformation was possible not only in my own life but also genetically in my family line.

Often we trace physical characteristics back to our families: creative like Mother; stubborn like Grandfather; walk like Dad. But the similarity can also flow into emotional states: fear, anxiety, optimism. There are also behaviors to consider: control, integrity, obsessive tendencies.

In addition to family patterns, we also carry the imprint of the culture’s influence on our ancestors over the generations. For me that has included guilt around playing when there is work that needs to be done or dissatisfaction with my body. Culturally we also have the stain of sexism/patriarchy and racism/white supremacy woven into our DNA (both conscious and unconscious).

Trauma, nurture and emotional patterns of all sorts can be passed to us through our genetic make up at birth.  However, genetic and epigenetic research both point to the fact that change is possible within our DNA itself and/or molecular attachments to our DNA.

Some of the characteristics I’ve inherited, I want to keep. Others I’d like to shift, such as generalized fear, feeling inadequate and unconscious use of excessive power and control sourced merely on society’s inaccurate and unjust bias toward those of us with white skin.

Every choice I make can have genetic/epigenetic consequences. When these choices and changes are sustained over a period of time, I believe they will support healthy genetic evolution.

I want that change to improve the integrity of my life, to be sure. But I also want to make changes in my life that will support generations that follow me.

Here is where my understanding boldly steps beyond scientific proof. I believe that these genetic changes move both directions in our family lines, affecting our ancestors and those descendants who are already born and those yet unborn. In addition, I believe that this shift can change the culture as well as individuals

Maybe one day science will catch up. Maybe not. Either way, I chose to believe this intuitive knowing that my efforts to shift entrenched, generational patterns—familial and societal—are part of my love and service to the world.

* Thurston, Nancy. Big Topics at Midnight (Portland, OR: Rosegate Press, 2012)  pages 205 and 206.

Posted on

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?