Shoe

Since I titled my last post "Hat", I think I'll call this one "Shoe" since it touches the ground, which is the root word for "humility".

Last week my daughter Casey had her 10th birthday celebration, delightedly hosting 10 similarly squealing girls at a local park pavilion which I had rented for the day. What turned out to be a valuable life lesson for me began when we arrived to set up the decorations and found a large group of people gathered under the very pavilion I had reserved.

I quickly noticed they were praying and so maintained a respectful distance. When they finished I walked into the throng with my orange "RESERVED" notice in my hand and asked to speak to whoever was in charge. Eyes and fingers pointed to one man and I informed him that we had the pavilion and they needed to leave. As the crowd began to disperse I added "and please clean up after yourself".

When I began lugging ice chests from the car, one young man from the dispersing group asked if he could help me. "Wow!" I thought. "These folks are the good kind of Christians!" However, as I went back to move my car closer I'm pretty sure I heard one of them mumble in a voice just loud enough for me to hear, "asshole." I didn't blame the person or get upset, since I figured I would be saying or at least thinking the same thing if the roles were reversed.

The group was obviously already near the end of their gathering (I subsequently learned they were affiliated with some sort of church softball league) and most all of them were piling into their cars, saying good-bye to each other and so forth. With this potential crisis thus averted I turned my attention to figuring out the lay of the land.

I walked into the nearby activity center to inquire about the bathroom set-up, since that came with the pavilion rental. The woman behind the desk checked her records and told me that she had no record of my reservation for the day. I looked at the orange form I was still carrying and noticed.......

I had reserved the wrong date!

Somehow in my perpetually addled brain I had made the reservation for the following Saturday! My knees started to buckle and my head went all swimmy as I struggled to keep panic at bay.

The very nice staff member checked the reservation forms and determined that the prior group had reserved the pavilion only until noon, so our 2 o'clock party did not infringe on their designated time span to be there. She then told me that since I had already paid the money and nobody else was scheduled to use the pavilion for the rest of the day that it would be fine to go ahead with our party. She even took out a felt-tip pen and wrote the right date on my precious little orange form which I had only moments before used like a mighty talisman and which now tagged me as an oafish and officious little man.

Tragedy was thus averted on two fronts: that I was able to bring about a party for my excited daughter and that I had not thrust out God's pious children from their rightful haven like some evil idolater in a Biblical morality play.

This incident serves as a reminder to me to walk with a humble and soft step through any adversity or opposition that exists either in the world or (more often) between my ears, that wide and barren expanse where the seductive, tenacious and cunning tyrant that is my ego repeatedly bids me to blindly march headlong into brick walls and over perilous cliffs.

40 years in the desert seems like a day trip compared to my own personal quest to reach the Canaan of my soul.

An Invitation to Abundance

Live For A Higher Purpose

Remember that it is your true nature to be wise and discerning.

Nurture Yourself And Others

Remember that it is your true nature to be good to yourself and to have goodwill and compassion for others.

Develop Yourself And Set An Example For Others

Remember that it is your true nature to take pleasure in your existence and to esteem and value others.

Let Go Of The Past And Be Renewed By Your Experience

Remember that it is your true nature to be forgiving and to use everything in life for your growth and renewal.

Observe Yourself And Others Without Judgment Or Expectations

Remember that it is your true nature to be engaged with reality, contemplating the infinite riches of the world.

Have Faith In Yourself And Trust In The Goodness Of Life

Remember that it is your true nature to be courageous and capable of dealing with life under all conditions.

Joyously Celebrate Existence And Share Your Happiness

Remember that it is your true nature to be happy and to add to the richness of experience for everyone.

Stand Up For Yourself And Speak Out For What You Believe

Remember that it is your true nature to be strong and capable of affecting the world in many different positive ways.

Bring Peace And Healing Into Your World

Remember that it is your true nature to be an inexhaustible font of serenity, acceptance, and kindness in the world.

(The above is reprinted from The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to the Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types, by Don Richard Riso and Hudson Russ Bantam, 1999.)

Assembly Line Angel

Recently my wife and I traveled to Savannah for a much-needed weekend getaway without the kids. The historic district was beautiful, the weather was superb, and we were delighted to find several restaurants with delicious vegetarian choices, such as the delightful Firefly Café. It was while walking through a local antiques store near the river that I saw and immediately fell in love with a small cast iron angel statue.

Although I didn’t purchase it at the time, I thought longingly about it that night before going to bed, so the next day I walked back over to Cobblestone Lane Antiques Mall (no website - I checked) and was relieved to find that it was still there, as if waiting for me, wings spread and arms outstretched. It was less than $50, which seemed like a good deal to my untrained eye. My head made up a number of romantic stories about its possible origins. I questioned the woman behind the counter, but she said she didn't know where it came from since it was being sold by a vendor who leased space in the mall and he wasn't there at the time.

I purchased the statue and carefully brought it back to Atlanta and found a spot in my office for it. I’ve enjoyed looking at it during various moments during the day, and find that it gives me comfort during times of stress. I showed it to one of my clients who has done much work with antiques and he said kindly, “I hate to break your bubble, Bill, but that’s not any older than the shirt you’re wearing. That store probably has a warehouse full of them, and as soon as you left they put another one on the shelf in its place.” Of course he was right. I even recently saw the same statue at a local Ace Hardware store, for $20 cheaper!

I found myself having a complex reaction to this news. On the one hand I’m a little embarrassed to think I could find a beautiful antique statue for a song. Would it be nice to think it was 100 years old and salvaged from some church? Sure! And I'm a little chagrined that the person at the store obviously let me go on thinking that I was getting something old and special. Oh well, caveat emptor!

On the other hand I've come to realize that as long as it is special to me then it is special. Period. So what if it's merely an assembly-line angel and not an artifact from some history-dripping locale? It is still able to remind me to stay spiritually centered and that gives it all the meaning I need.

Holding Evil In The Light

It is our right to hate an evil man for his actions, but because his deepest self is the image of God, it is our duty to honor him with love. --Rav Kook

When Saddam Hussein was executed this past week, I experienced no sense of joy or satisfaction. It’s not that I feel any particular sadness or sorrow at his death. Even when all the propaganda about him that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq by the United States is factored out, the evidence seems rock solid that he was a plain and simple rat bastard.

Even before I stumbled into the Quaker faith a decade ago I struggled with the meaning of evil in the world, especially when very powerful people do very horrible things. I had a therapist once who interpreted this struggle to be a reflection of unprocessed primal wounding I undoubtedly experienced as a child. I fired him.

In 1998 I wrote an essay about the death of Pol Pot that has languished in my computer ever since. Looking at it now I find that many of the sentiments I wrote then remain relevant to me. So I’ve decided to post it with only a few very minor revisions. To help anyone unaware of the term, “holding a person in the Light” is a Quaker phrase that translates closely to praying for someone.

The death Pol Pot, leader of a regime that methodically murdered well over a million Cambodians in the 1970s, presented me with an unexpected spiritual dilemma. Am I able to hold Pol Pot in the Light? Can I experience compassion for such a man?

Previously, I’d given almost no thought to a man who was singularly responsible for the devastating impact of sanctioning the systematic genocide of an entire country. Now that he is no longer a danger to anyone, I find myself troubled by how to respond to him.

Three arguments for the necessity of holding Pol Pot in the Light have emerged for me. The first is similar to an argument used against the death penalty. Whether Pol Pot is a person who deserves to be loved is irrelevant until I establish whether I deserve to be the one to withhold love from him. Am I sure that I’m not partaking of a portion of evil, even ever so slightly, when I condemn rather than love?

This is a difficult line of inquiry for me to pursue. Surely I must denounce and disown anyone who embodies such evil, for such a person has lost the right to be considered a worthy member of the human race. Therefore it’s hard to escape the conclusion that I am in effect condoning his reprehensible behavior by recommending him in my heart to God.

And yet, where do I draw the line? Do I damn the murderer of a thousand men as much as I do the one who murders a million? What about the murderer of a single man? Shall I then forgive or renounce the person who merely assaults another? How do I stand toward the one who intentionally cuts me off or insults me in traffic? As ludicrous as it seems to compare a perceived slight with the extermination of millions, where is the cutoff point that exists somewhere between the two extremes, and who puts it there?

For some people, that point is more easily reached when the perpetrator of a wrong sincerely asks for forgiveness. The contrite, the humble, the remorseful surely deserve more love than the arrogantly unrepentent. Therefore, I could more truly determine my stance to Pol Pot if I could glimpse into his deepest heart at the moment of his death. But this approach requires the capacity of infinite perception and understanding only God possesses.

The second reason for holding Pol Pot in the Light is reflected in the phrase, “There but for the grace of God go I.” It’s been conjectured that any person, given the proper circumstances, is capable of almost any act. I was born who I am through no choice of my own. I could just as easily have been Pol Pot. The fact that I escaped such a fate is not grounds for scorn and judgment as much as for deep gratitude and humility. It’s hard as a Quaker to look deeply into anyone and not see a part of myself.

The third reason for holding Pol Pot in the Light is that to withhold what there is of God within me from any person is to provide nothing that is transformative to humanity. The act of manifesting love and compassion is a means for God’s presence to nurture the world, and by doing so I can help transcend rather than merely resist evil. In this way I am able to add a measure of love and subtract a measure of hatred in the world . If the Earth is healthier with more love and less hatred, then holding Pol Pot in the Light is an act of ecological healing.

If both the world’s “eco-logy” and my personal “ego-logy”are brought even a little closer toward Spirit by my willingness to even try to love a murderer of millions, then so I must love. I am only fleetingly able to hold to such a standard, but the alternative for me seems increasingly intolerable.

Can the unfathomable atrocities undertaken during the rule of Pol Pot be perceived as anything less than evil? What meaning can these horrors have other than as testament to how cruelly mankind still treats itself, how woefully short a path we have traveled in our evolutionary journey?

May the cruelties of a tyrant serve God?

To paraphrase Victor Frankl, perhaps it’s time to move past the notion that meaning exists outside of ourselves. We have spent countless generations asking the heavens to reveal the meaning of our suffering. The question remains as important as ever, but perhaps its direction has changed. Heaven is doing the asking, and we are the ones now required to derive meaning out of evil and suffering. Maybe human beings exist to assign meaning as emissaries of God.

Consider the death of a child. In grief, a parent struggles to find meaning, purpose, benevolent spiritual force or presence. If that parent descends into unabated despair and casts off all hope and purpose in life, then truly there is no transcendence to that incalculable suffering. If that parent finds a way to dedicate his or her life and actions to the spirit of that deceased child, however, then in some mysterious way this same tragic loss can serve a higher purpose. It stands then that the responsibility of mankind is to assign meaning to events that will allow the horrors of this life to fuel transcendent behavior.

I have a responsibility to seek to transform myself and my world. The meaning of cruelites large and small is not fully determined in my absence. If I dedicate an act of kindness or compassion to those who have suffered evil, then I am giving their fate meaning. If I can take the next step and dedicate that same compassion to those who pepetrate evil, I am capable of changing the ultimate meaning of their despicable deeds.

The sin, then, is not just to murder. The sin is not to give meaning.