Let Them Eat Cake

I stopped this morning for my morning bagel at my usual spot...and saw outside the usual panhandler, bundled up against the cold. My practice is to not give money to panhandlers, but sometimes I offer to pick something up from wherever I'm headed. So that's what I did this morning--"I'm heading to the bagel place. Can I get you a bagel?" "Get me some cake" was the reply.

Of course I switched (in my head) into always-right Mama mode. Cake? You're sitting outside asking for money and you don't want some protein, some vegetables? Maybe a nice egg sandwich?

On the other hand, sometimes I feel like eating cake. So after a confirmation that cake was indeed what he wanted, cake is what I bought him: apple cinnamon coffee cake, because he didn't specify and because I thought that way at least there'd be some fruit.

It's a funny dance we do, reaching out to help those in need but wanting to do it in a way that's consistent with our values, with our needs. And who's to say we're wrong? I offer to buy food because I don't want my money being spent on alcohol, and I think that's fair. I also support homeless services organizations, because I know they're part of the real answer...that even apple cake is never going to solve the problem. (For a good conversation on panhandlers in the DC area, check out Petula Dvorak's column from a month ago, and for information on the very cool Housing First model of homeless services, read this posting from the NYTimes).

Every time I stop for a bagel, I ask myself what the right response is. What I'm realizing is that there might not be one right response, that connecting and helping in a difficult situation might not ask for a right, but just a kind, or a right-for-today, response. Maybe instead of getting caught up in exactly what's right, we should just buy the cake some days and hope that it's enjoyed. It surely won't solve homelessness and panhandling. It might make someone a little happier.

Philosophy on a Tuesday morning

Some of you might have seen a new series in the NY Times, called The Stone. It's looking at philosophical questions with a slant toward modern life. I must say I resisted reading it, not generally considering myself much of a philosopher...but I gave in this week. And it's great! So good I'd like to comment a bit on it here, and try to do so each time a new topic comes up. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the original essay and on my comments, too.

This week the essay tackled nihilism, the idea that our old concepts of morality are gone and we are now foundering with no way to move forward. The most famous example of this is Nietzsche's pronouncement that "God is dead."

The author of this essay debated two possibilities: that we have indeed sunk into nihilism and everyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves, or that we have actually moved past nihilism into a post-monotheistic understanding of the world where we find meaning in our own particular lives without the need to universalize them.

I'd like to think the latter is the case, and not just because it's a nicer view of the world. I actually think it's a distinctly Ethical Culture view, or perhaps one shared by a number of liberal religious traditions. It depends on the idea that we can experience our own truth without necessarily applying that truth universally...and it values the unique perspective that each person brings, a core tenet of Ethical Culture.

Of course there can be tricky parts to this post-nihilistic, post-universal understanding of morality and the world. As we acknowledge the validity of other truths, we can feel our own truth tested. But I think that can be a good thing--both because it forces us to constantly re-affirm our faith and our values, and also because it opens us up to the possibility of transformation if we experience a different kind of truth that holds more meaning for us than our own.

Is this wishful thinking? Can society really function as a community of people with individual truths, trusting and caring for each other despite their differences? The philosopher in me thinks it's an interesting question. The practical leader in me thinks we'd better work pretty hard to make sure.

Yearning for goodness in ad campaigns

Do you want to know how optimistic I am? When I first saw the headlines that the American Humanist Association (AHA) was doing an ad campaign that involved Biblical passages, I thought..."Hey, that's great! That's what I did in the class I taught last spring. They'll find passages in the Bible that speak to the humanistic impulse, like love your neighbor, and talk about how humanism and traditional religion share so many of the same ideas and values. I love it!"

I was wrong. I do not love the new AHA ad campaign, which actually juxtaposes negative passages from the Bible and the Koran with positive things that famous humanists have said, in an effort to prove that humanism has the real moral high ground over traditional religion.

The ad campaign was intended, I suppose, to be sensationalistic, and it's succeeded. People are certainly talking about humanism, and especially about the AHA. But I so wish the conversation could be different.

It's easy enough to find less-than-wonderful passages in any religious tradition, including humanism. Holy texts are created over hundreds and sometimes thousands of years, and one of the interesting things about them is that they display the range of human behavior. I love the Bible's psalms of lament, even some which are pretty violent, because they are essentially poems of mourning--and they truly do speak to the depths of grief that we sometimes experience. The Bible also has prophetic passages that are inspiring, poetry that is just beautiful and life-affirming, and plenty of humanistic ideas about our connection to each other and our care for the world.

But more importantly, I'm just not that interested in talking about all the ways humanism is different from traditional religions, all the things we are not. I'm so much more interested in talking about what we share in common, and about what we are. To me, humanism is about the dignity of the human spirit, the preciousness of life and the world we live in, our deep connection to each other. There are Jewish humanists and Christian humanists, Buddhist humanists and all kinds of other people who find the ideas of humanism to resonate for them.

I don't know that what I think about the new ad campaign matters much. I'm not a member of the AHA, and neither is my congregation. The American Ethical Union, of which my congregation is a part, has a national relationship with the AHA, but no control over what they do. But when I see those ads, I know I want to raise my hand and say they don't speak for me!

I'm not willing to cede the idea of humanism, though. It's too beautiful, too deep. It's about human dignity and cherishing a faith in human goodness, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. So I suppose what I want to say to the AHA marketing experts is: despite what you've created in this ad campaign, I'll keep the faith.

Everyone Loves a Baby

I was taken by the recent story in the New York Times about a new anti-bullying curriculum that uses babies to teach empathy to schoolchildren. The idea is simple: a parent brings a baby to the class every month for a year, and the teacher helps the children to experience life from the baby's perspective, to imagine what the baby might be thinking or feeling, to identify the baby's personality. Studies have found that the children are engaged and excited by interacting with the baby...and that they begin to understand their own different perspectives and experience empathy among their peers, as well.

The same day I read that article, I read this one, about a baby in a stroller who was separated from her mother on the DC metro. It was presented as a kind of sensationalistic story, and of course it must have been quite traumatic. But--also of course--the baby and mother were quickly reunited, the baby watched over by fellow train travelers to the next stop and then handed off to metro police, sleeping the whole time.

I say of course because there's something about us that can't help but care for a baby, I think. When I get within 20 feet of an infant, I can feel my face pulled into all kinds of strange contortions, as I play peek-a-boo almost against my will. It taps into that hard-wired empathy we all have, and it's difficult to resist.

And so I really loved the idea of using babies with children who might otherwise get a lot of practice in empathy...using our natural pull toward the littlest among us to encourage seeing different perspective and, ultimately, to cut down on bullying. As Felix Adler says, the human spirit really does yearn for goodness. And sometimes babies can help show us the way.

Saying Thank You

November has begun, and with it the flurry of "I am grateful for..." postings on Facebook. I participated last year, and I'm doing it again this year. I like the idea, of posting something I'm grateful for each day, and the way that it really does keep me attuned to the bounty in my world.

But this year I wanted to try something a little deeper. As clergy in a tradition that places emphasis on human relationships, I wondered about being grateful not just for something, but to someone. Sometimes my gratitude really does go out to the universe in all its mystery, but often there's a person who can be seen as the source of the bounty, a person who deserves my thanks.

So this November, I'm writing thank you notes. Schooled in the art from a young age by my mother, I think that thank you notes really are a hallmark of a civil society. But more than that, they connect my experience of gratitude to the person who's given me something. And they give me a chance to spread gratitude, to share my feeling of abundance.

I've been wanting to try thank you notes as a spiritual practice for a while, and this is the right chance for me. I invite you to join me this month. Spread a little gratitude around. They're like the best kind of chain letter: nothing will happen if you don't send a thank you note, but something wonderful might happen if you do.

Sanity Restored

It seems as though everyone I know was at the Rally to Restore Sanity this past Saturday...although of course I didn't see ANY of them because the crowds were so huge. My husband, daughter, and I walked through the slightly-less-packed areas and looked at the signs.

I had my favorites, of course, which included "Everyone needs to take a deep breath" and "God hates...when you go around saying God hates things." But what I really loved was the combination of equal parts earnest beliefs and wacky humor. For every sign about health care, there was someone dressed up in a goofy Halloween costume. And for me, that seems to be about the right ratio.

It's not that I don't feel passionately about injustice in the world--I do, and I feel strongly that there are some things that are so serious we must act. But I also know that if I don't hang on to a sense of humor, things will get so overwhelming that I won't be able to act. For me, humor is a key part of sanity.

Humor and connection, which is the other thing I felt on Saturday. Many of the signs were asking people to listen to each other, to stop shouting and try just talking. Humor and connection aren't unrelated, I think. Sharing a funny moment is almost as good as sharing a meal in the bonding-with-strangers category.

And of course humor and connection are both missing when the national conversation devolves into name-calling, pundits, and 10 second soundbytes. I want more people dressed up like Yoda and fewer people yelling. There. Sanity restored.

You Can't Stop the Leaves from Falling Down

Yesterday I spent some time raking leaves in my yard—the first time this fall. I know it’s far too early to bother, I can see the trees still heavy with green leaves (not even turned orange yet!). But there’s something about creating a little order in a disordered world that appeals to me this morning.

So much of life, really, can be seen as raking too early, or raking when we could just as well not bother. Why make our beds each morning, when we’re just going to pull the covers back a few hours later and crawl in? In fact, why bother getting up at all?

There’s nothing like fall to bring on an existential crisis, a collective wondering of what life means. And it’s one place where I think our religious tradition is a true salvation. We are the meaning-makers, our history tells us…the point of it all is whatever we make it. For me, it helps to think of the biggest we I can. We, the people of the world. We, the people spanning all history. We, the deeply connected ecosystem.

We are writing a story together, a story that is so big and so long we won’t ever get a chance to read it. But every day, we have the opportunity to add to the story, and to make our addition, our chapter, one that tells of hope and love, of relationships and giving, of hard work and attention in the world. We won’t have the chance to see how the story ends—and I won’t ever have a completely leaf-free lawn—but we can make our contribution to the kind of story we think we’d like. Rake on.

Library Meditations

I spent part of yesterday in the library, renewing a couple books and looking for new ones. My practice is to head right over to the new fiction section, and then to indulge in exactly what we were taught not to do in elementary school. I love judging books by their covers.

I stand in front of the shelves and pick them up, the slim volumes with high impact graphics, the big hardcovers with faded sepia pictures on the front. I read the title, see who's quoted on the back, occasionally glance at the description inside the book jacket. And then I assemble my little pile, based entirely on what they look like.

I've almost never heard of any of the titles I bring homes, and few of the authors. This book selection practice is, for me, a moment of trusting what I see, and what others tell me. It's also a chance to try something out about which I have almost no knowledge...to open myself to whatever lies between that front and back cover that I found appealing.

Occasionally I find that the book and I just don't agree--not the genre I had hoped for, or writing I find tedious. But most of the time I'm invited into a world, a life, a story that I hadn't expected and that I love suddenly knowing. Which, when you think about it, is true in life, too. So this week, I invite you to pick up all kinds of different books, all kinds of different people, and welcome the adventure of finding out what's inside.

Blog Action Day: Water!

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Welcome to blog action day! As someone who feeds on human connections, it's no surprise that I love the idea of people around the world talking about the same thing. The topic this year is water, and I wanted to take the chance to talk about one of the Washington Ethical Society's social justice initiatives, a partnership with a small village in El Salvador called El Rodeo.

Actually, what I really want to tell you about is buckets and terracotta filters. That's what goes into a water filtration device that can bring clean water to anyone in the world. Water from any source is poured into the filter and collects in the bucket, then is dispensed through a spigot on an as-needed basis. Because the water is contained in the bucket, re-contamination is avoided. Clean water significantly decreases disease, particularly in children, and I don't need to tell you why that's important.

Those buckets and filters were one of the things that the El Rodeo community identified as a need when they met a delegation from the Washington Ethical Society for the first time this past summer. The emphasis of the delegation was connection building, relationship building--you know, religious stuff. But at the end they talked about concrete needs, and clean water was it.

I invite you to come hear more about the buckets and filters, and about the El Rodeo-WES partnership, on Sunday, October 31 at 12:30pm at WES. Until then, enjoy all the clean, de-contaminated water you drink today, and may every sip inspire a little gratitude.

And the world celebrates...

Could the world have gotten better news than all 33 miners being pulled to safety today? All day long I kept hearing reports: two have reached the top, half are now out, they expect to have them all up by . Facebook status updates applauded each success. Apparently even the president is watching.

We love these stories, stories of human courage and salvation. And it is that love--not the stories themselves, but the way we love them--that convinces me that we as a species truly have the capacity for incredible goodness.

I thought the same thing at a visit to the Chicago Ethical Society a couple of weeks ago. No miners were pulled to safety there, but I had the chance for a wonderful conversation with members about human dignity and worth, about human kindness. Person after person, they recalled stories of people who helped them carry their luggage in foreign countries, taxi drivers who brought them to their hotel and waived away the fare. What I marveled at was not the stories, which happen all the time, but the way that the tellers cherished those stories. They were reminders, for them, of the goodness of humanity.

Then came the story from the Holocaust survivor. He lost his entire family in the camps, walking to Switzerland as a boy. And he spoke about the kindness he found there, about the people who took him in--"me, a boy, who had nothing to give them!"--who fed him and cared for him and sent him to university. I never lost my faith in people's essential humanity, he told me.

This is true faith. May we all believe in it.

It Gets Better...Someday

My heart has sunk each time I've read about another teen killing himself because of bullying based on his sexual orientation. One would have been tragic. At four in the last few weeks, the situation is truly frightening.

Of course people are responding with sadness and with outrage. They should. But some people are also responding with love. Dan Savage, the very funny (and usually very adult) advice columnist started the It Gets Better Project, which airs on YouTube and features gay adults talking about their experiences of bullying and saying, basically, that it gets better. It doesn't change the horror that millions of teens experience every day. But it's something.

We can all do something. The heart of the religious life, in Ethical Culture and in many religious traditions, is the impulse to do good. In Ethical Culture, that impulse is based in our belief that every single person is precious, is worthy. If you know someone, or see someone, who needs to hear that good news again, be sure to say it. If you need to hear it again, be sure to say it. Be good to each other. It gets better, someday, because we make it so.

It's Not the Soup

I just saw a commercial that started with beautiful images--families hugging, a toddler being tossed in the air, an older woman swimming in the surf. The narrator asked us, "what are you doing to get happy?" I thought back to my platform address on Sunday, to the comments I heard from people later that day about what makes them joyful--dancing, playing with their children, doing good for someone else.

Cut back to the commercial, as we see a delighted looking woman and the narrator asks another question: "Have you tried soup to make you happy?"

I love soup. Especially on a cold day, it really does warm you up. It makes me, I suppose, a little happy to have a good bowl of soup.

But I have to tell you, buying soup is not, in the end, going to make you happy. If I could have added one more layer to my address on Sunday, it would have been considering the way that real human connection, religious human connection, is fulfilling in a way that our material culture never will be. Urged to buy more and more of whatever people are selling today, we think we'll find some kind of joy in that experience. I'm here to tell you, it's not the soup. It's the people across the table.

When All Is Not Well

Last night I watched a movie about super hero kids which turned out to be surprisingly violent. It was cartoon violence--the movie was actually a comic book adaptation--but the blood looked plenty real to me. In an attempt to disengage from the gore on TV, I opened my laptop and scrolled through the headlines.

It wasn't better. A man had barricaded himself in a burning building, shots were fired somewhere else in the city. Even People, my refuge of ridiculous pop culture, was no better, highlighting a tragic story of a child lost.

The world is sometimes simply too much for me. I reach my limit of bad things for a day, and I want to shut my eyes and pretend it's all a comic book, none of it heartbreakingly real.

At those times, I often remember words from Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest whose writing I find deeply resonant. This morning, it's these few paragraphs I remember; the whole piece can be found here. May these words be a reminder to you, too, of the beauty that always lies beneath and behind the heartbreak.

There is always tragedy somewhere, as the news reminds us so well. But there is not always tragedy everywhere, which the news does not make quite so clear. The good news, also known as the gospel, is that where ferries are going down, brave people are diving into water to lift thrashing children to safety. Where crops are failing, generous people are providing relief for farmers and migrant workers, and where a young girl is kidnapped from her bed, an entire community is turning out to hunt clues, post flyers, cook food and keep watch with her family.

Meanwhile, there are entire towns where nothing terrible is happening for an hour or two, where parents are caring for children with remarkable tenderness, where nurses are tending patients, mail carriers are delivering packages, and at least one man who owns a small business is taking off work early to coach a girl's soccer team. Terrible things will continue to happen in these places, which the best efforts of such people will not be sufficient to prevent, but their bursts of gratuitous kindness are the mustard seeds from which healing bushes sometimes grow. They constitute the alternate reality that I want to live in, even if it means limiting my exposure to other kinds of news.

When I resist the economy and despair of the dominant world in which I live, I resist from a minority viewpoint that I learned in church. In that alternate reality, which operates on the divine economy, human beings are worth more than what they can buy or sell, and suffering breaks open as many hearts as it breaks down. There are many kinds of evangelism, I know, but here is one I can embrace: in a culture of fear, addicted to the bad news of sin and death, to keep telling stories of human kindness and divine grace—without commercials of any kind. In a world like ours, the church may be the only corporate sponsor that can afford to deliver such good news for free.

Riding the Bus

I took the bus back to WES last Thursday, returning from a rally for DC voting rights (and a celebration of the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, one of my favorites). I don't take the bus that frequently these days, but I always enjoy the experience. Even more so than the metro, the bus feels like the transportation of the people: families, office workers, teens, tourists.

This past Thursday we were joined by a preacher--or rather, by a young man who was definitely preaching. He was sharing his gospel, one I would describe as American conservative Christian. The main message was a personal relationship with Jesus and the possibility of salvation through that relationship.

This isn't my truth, but I wasn't bothered by his sharing of what was obviously important to him. I was more interested, though, in the reactions of my fellow bus-riders. The young man testified for at least 20 minutes, from the time I got on until he got off. The riders, who were I imagine from a variety of faiths and from no faith background, were...tolerant. There were a few sidelong glances, some subtle seat shifts, but for the most part people kept chatting with their seatmates, or reading their books. They sidled past him to get off at their stops, and stood up to let each other sit down, just as bus riders always do.

What struck me, then, was not the unusual situation of a bus ride combined with gospel revival, but the experience of witnessing human toleration for different behavior in a very condensed setting. My guess is that there were plenty of other people on the bus for whom, like me, this man's gospel was not exactly their own. But he wasn't intending to bother anyone with his words, and indeed he didn't. People managed just fine, adjusting their earphones as needed or listening if they cared to. In a time of incivility and division--at least as it's presented in the mainstream media--it was a little window into quiet respect for difference.

That day, the bus got me where I needed to be in more ways than one. So thanks, S2, and all your Thursday afternoon riders.

Changing Chairs

We're trying out some new (well, re-purposed) chairs in the WES library. The new ones are much smaller than the big, clunky ones we've been using...and as I sat in them today I got to thinking about how the big ones kept us just a bit further apart from each other. They even had wheels, so we could make a quick getaway!

There are so many ways we try to keep other people at arm's length. I especially notice this when I'm driving--I encounter so many people on the road, but encased in our own steel boxes I don't really see them at all. And how about buying groceries or pumping gas? We might murmur "thank you" or nod hello, but do we ever actually look into the eyes of the person no more than five feet away from us? The other human being sharing our space?

I came across a wonderful passage about the power of really seeing another person during my summer fiction-reading blitz. Like the best fiction, it starts out with the very particular and becomes a treatise on how to live. I'll leave you with it, from Alexander McCall Smith's wonderful Sunday Philosophy Club series:

"She moved away from the rug shop. A man inside, anxiously waiting for customers, had seen her and had been watching her. Isabel had looked through the glass, beyond the piles of rugs, and had met his gaze. She was sensitive to such encounters, because in her mind they were not entirely casual. By looking into the eyes of another, one established a form of connection that had moral implications. To look at another thus was to acknowledge one’s shared humanity with him, and that meant one owed him something, no matter how small that thing might be. That was why the executioner was traditionally spared the duty of looking into the eyes of the condemned; he observed him by stealth, approached from behind, was allowed a mask, and so on. If he looked into the eyes, then the moral bond would be established, and that moral bond would prevent him from doing what the state required: the carrying out of its act of murder."

Tomatoes: Pay What You Want

Driving around rural Maryland this past weekend, I saw the lowest-key farm stand: a card table on the side of the road, with a plate of tomatoes and a big sign reading "Tomatoes. Pay What You Want."

It was the kind of experience that makes us nostalgic for a simpler time, or a smaller community, where we had that kind of trust in each other. But two ventures happening now--and not in rural Maryland!--make me wonder whether we aren't more trustworthy than we give ourselves credit for.

Panera, the sandwich cafe, has opened a non-profit branch in Clayton, MO where customers are invited to pay what they can (and volunteer their time if they can't pay at all). Here's an article about it: http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2010/05/17/daily21.html. The upshot is that it's working--people are mostly paying what the items go for in a regular Panera, and sometimes popping in a little extra to cover those who can't.

Then I read about a completely free store in New York City, where people are dropping off items they aren't using, and picking up what they need. Here's the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/nyregion/16free.html?_r=1.

The sign at that store reads "Take what you want. Share what you think others might enjoy (not limited to material items)." Seems as though if we try, we can put up that roadside stand anywhere we want.

Marriage equality, one pop culture moment at a time

I've been working this week to get ready for the Big Commit, a marriage equality rally in DC on Sunday afternoon. The rally is bringing together a number of gay rights and advocacy groups, and it will serve as a counter demonstration to the National Organization for Marriage's One Woman One Man summer tour.

I love a rally--the flags waving, the music, the great speakers. But I'm also aware that in the end, rallies aren't going to change the hearts and minds of America. That's what we have People magazine for.

Earlier this summer, I picked up an issue of People (a favorite escapist read for me). One of the human interest stories was about a woman with a rare and difficult to diagnose disease. The article followed her journey from doctor to doctor, the toll it took on her professional life, the light at the end of the tunnel now that she's received a diagnosis. Pretty standard stuff, and of course accompanied by a couple of photos, including the usual shot of the woman in the hospital, hand held by her spouse. Who was a woman.

The fact that this article featured a same-sex couple wasn't even noted; not a single line about their status, their families' opinions about the relationship, nothing to suggest that it was the least bit unusual. Because, of course, it isn't. And that's what gives me real hope: when People magazine thinks your same-sex relationship isn't the interesting part of your human interest.

Here's hoping I'll see you at the rally, and that in a few years we won't have to rally anymore.

Cold drink, anyone?

I write this post in beautiful weather, but the last few days have been just scorching--especially for those without power. Monday I drove around town doing errands, and I was struck by odd sensation of passing through powerless neighborhoods, with plenty of air conditioning and functioning street lights just across the road. The power grid works, apparently, in mysterious ways.

I was also struck by how patient the drivers were, how everyone brought out their best behavior for a day they knew would be a little hectic. At one of those powerless intersections, I watched as a small, woman police officer, working solo, directed a complicated traffic pattern. Her hand flipping up, then making a fist, then pointing, she looked like a uniformed conductor, leading a silent symphony of obedient musicians.

And then a car pulled up next to me, a delivery vehicle. It stopped a little fast for my taste, and I could see the driver lean out the window and begin to gesture to the police officer. Great, I thought. Here comes the wise guy, thinking he knows best when to go.

The police officer turned to him, and I tensed for the confrontation I could already see coming.

The police officer nodded briskly, and pointed toward the median. The delivery man darted out of his vehicle, and set down the cold drink he'd offered, complete with a straw. They waved, and he got back in his car, ready to follow her next instruction.

Sometimes people are just plain nice. The little tiny drama on Monday morning was a reminder to me not to be so surprised.

Ripping up the pansies

I've been thinking about all the wonderful words shared by our Coming of Age graduates this past Sunday, and especially about one young woman's story about learning that mistakes are okay. That learning is part of my ongoing journey, and I don't think I've figured it out yet!

But today I spent some time gardening with my father and we decided that the pansies, which had gotten leggy (not enough sun) and yellow (not enough water), really needed to go. We picked a few plants to save in a pot, but mostly turned the soil right over, raking through the green and preparing the bed for a new life with vinca minor--a much more appropriate choice for the location.

And it felt great! Almost as good as the time that I ripped out the half a sweater I'd been knitting, having finally accepted that the pattern just wasn't a good one. Somehow, even though making mistakes can feel scary, realizing mistakes and taking action to fix them feels great.

So I wonder if in some ways we can re-frame mistakes as solutions waiting to happen...and if that helps us to plant with abandon, knowing that we can always pull it up and turn over the earth if we did it wrong.

Filling the time...

I've always thought of myself as a multi-tasker in work settings, listening to my voice mail while I do a first glance at the mail and keep an eye out for any emails with those little red exclamation points. But I've realized in the past couple of days that I'm also a multi-tasker when it comes to rejuvenation...and that may not be such a good thing.

Like most of us, my busy days give me little pockets of time for mind breaks: three minutes to read an interesting article online, four minutes to drink my tea while looking at the comics, thirty seconds to admire my pansies before shutting the door and starting dinner. This week, though, I'm spending time up at my parents' house between speaking engagements and I suddenly find myself with a whole 30 minutes and nothing planned. It's too long to fritter away checking the Washington Post online, but not long enough to dive into a novel.

I've already picked up a book of short stories, but I want to invite you to think with me about what else I--and we--could do during these longer-than-a-blog-post moments. I'm challenging myself to find ways to be quiet this summer: to take those thirty minutes and just sit outside, or walk and let my mind wander, or lie down and allow myself to exercise my imagination (possibly in the form of an actual dream while napping). Being quiet doesn't come naturally to me, so it really is a challenge. But I think it's worth it. After all, multi-tasking is okay in its place, but life really deserves our complete attention once in a while.

I hope you...have bad karma?

I have what is, by Washington standards, a VERY easy commute. 10 minutes in light traffic to drop off my daughter, then 5 minutes in even lighter traffic from there to work. So I know I have no right to complain...but even so, this morning I waited through a couple cycles of a light while watching a woman in another car engage in a series of not-quite-dangerous-but-definitely-annoying driving maneuvers. First she blocked the traffic going in the other direction as she tried to swing into her lane from the gas station. She forgot to inch forward when possible, since she was reading the paper. When the light changed, she took up two lanes--as it turned out, because she wanted to get to the right and turn, but no one could have known that since she didn't use her blinker. ARGH! Gee whiz, I thought to myself as she drove off, I hope you...

What? Get a ticket? Nothing she did was illegal or really dangerous. Get in a fender bender? Even in my worst moods, I wouldn't wish that on someone. Do I hope that she has a crummy day, or that she's kept waiting behind some other car on her travels to wherever she's headed?

It's an interesting thing, the human need for revenge--however small we'd like that revenge to be. I suppose it's natural to wish that the person who cut in line at Starbucks later burns their tongue on their coffee, but it's surely not the high road we ought to be taking. And I know that on the days when I'm able to stop myself and turn my wish for minor revenge into a wish for better driving, or a wish for serenity for the impatient line-cutter, I feel as though I'm engaging in the world more in the way I'd like to.

On the other hand, having secret little wishes that we don't act on isn't the worst thing in the world. As a child, my mother (a psychologist) helped me identify aggression toward a friend by imagining that her beautiful blond hair turned green. I didn't DO anything to make it green, and of course it stayed blond, but being aware of the emotion and using my imagination to address it helped me to move on.

Like many things in life, my guess is the answer is about balance. Go ahead and notice when you're annoyed, and when you harbor a secret wish for minor, traffic-ticket-level revenge. Allow yourself just a moment to access that side of yourself, and to acknowledge that you're human, and humans like things to be fair, and you feel that something wasn't (which is often what's behind our minor revenge fantasies, I think: a wish for justice). But then take a deep breath, and remember that part of being human is growth. And see if you can let go of the traffic-ticket fantasy and replace it with a hope for better driving on everyone's part.

Anyway, that's what I'll be doing on my very low-key commute to work tomorrow. Will it work? I'll keep you posted.

Hand Over Your Papers

I was so proud to serve in DC this week, as the DC City Council brought forward a bill that essentially condemns Arizona's new immigration law--by forbidding the DC police chief to share immigration information with federal officials and asking DC to divest of all business with Arizona. All 13 members of the Council co-sponsored the bill, as they talked about human rights, racial profiling, and the need to take a strong stand. Yes!

It does have me thinking, though, about the ways in which our country feels divided these days. I don't know if it's really more than usual, or if the media's just covering the divide more. But when we have states divesting from business with other states, when we have some jurisdictions legalizing same-sex marriage while others actively prohibit it...it poses, for me, interesting questions about what unites us. The whole concept of a country made up of individual jurisdictions, with some laws universal and others local, is a slightly crazy one. How do we find the thread that defines us as a country, when we seem to be retreating into our little red/blue territories?

I don't have the answer, although my guess is it has something to do with talking to each other more. And perhaps there's a need for people to find the ethical underpinnings that bind us together, even when they lead us in different directions. I'm curious if others think that the country is unusually divided these days, or if it feels as though this is how it's always been. And is that division just part of democracy, messy and volatile and exciting...or is it a rift we need to heal?

In Praise of One-Car-Only Bridges

I recently heard Michael Schuler speak--he's a minister in Madison, WI and the author of "Making the Good Life Last: Four Keys to Sustainable Living." One of those four keys calls on us to "exercise patience." Dr. Schuler talked about all the times in life when we get the chance to exercise patience, to practice our "patience muscle," as he put it.

It made me think of a moment just a few weeks ago, when I was driving through Howard County to visit a colleague. My GPS had taken me on a strange route, through back roads and along a number of twists and turns. As I rounded a curve, I saw the speed limit: 30 mph. Only 30! I could feel the frustration mounting--why wasn't I on route 29, zipping along at a nice normal 55? But suddenly I remember that I was in no rush, had no deadlines. It took a conscious effort to slow down the speed not just of my car but of my body, to relax back into the drive. I could actually feel my heart rate begin to drop, my breathing calm. This was nice, I realized. This was just...driving.

And so that was my mood when I came to the little bridge with only enough room for one car to pass. I actually go over a bridge like this every, taking my daughter to daycare--but then I'm usually intent on reaching my destination quickly. I always stop appropriately, of course, but I'm looking across to see if there's a car waiting, craning my neck to make sure it's safe, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel while I wait for the car to cross. This time, on this bridge, I just stopped, enjoying the view while the car coming toward me passed over. And as the woman driving went past me, she gave me a big, wide smile. A moment of instant connection, of gratitude for safe driving, of recognition that we aren't just 1-ton steel machines but people driving those machines.

These days, when I go over that other one-car-only bridge on the way to daycare, I try to remember the bridge in Howard County, the bridge on the day when I wasn't rushing, the bridge on the day when I felt calm and peaceful. I try to remember the bridge on the day I exercised patience. I slow down the drumming of my fingers, I take a breath, and I wait.

Love the whole wide world...

I took a walk with my toddler this morning, which included a stop at a playground where we saw a baby in his stroller. We didn't have a chance to really meet the baby--just waved across the mulch on our way back from the slide--but as we left my daughter waved goodbye and called out "Bye bye baby! We love you!"

My daughter is telling everyone she loves them these days: babies we hardly know, fish at the pond we visited, our new porch furniture. As we left the playground, I almost started a conversation with her about who we say I love you to, and the possibility that the baby-whose-name-we-don't-know might not qualify.

And then I thought...wait a second! I'm going to teach my daughter about how to appropriately circumscribe love? How to keep love within conventional boundaries, how to maintain our usual social structures so that love doesn't grow too wildly in the world?

What if we all had that toddler impulse--what if we all loved a little too wildly? Today, I'm thinking about how I can love as broadly as possible. Not just how I can show respect, or behave with tolerance, but how I can love.

And so on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day: I love you, world.