Holding Out for a Hero

I am considering the idea of heroes... We are hungry for heroes, but in our need for a rescuer, we think they must be perfect. They can never do anything that causes us to lose faith in them. They can have no flaws. They dare not be complex individuals... they need to adhere to a specific description in our own minds, and if they vary from that, well, we toss them aside.
We paint our villains with the same brush. We don’t like them, so nothing they do can be good or right or correct. I mean, they are wrong, inherently. They could not possibly be complex, with a back story.
We do this with everyone... Our elected officials, our teachers, our ministers, our parents. Anyone who crosses our paths becomes flattened by our judgement. If we saw them as good, and they do something “out of congruity” then we dismiss them as not good enough. If we saw them as bad, and they also do something pleasant that surprises us, we see it as an exception - an accident of fate.
And all this keeps us from seeing deeper into what is going on, and not seeing our own complexity as a blessing. We are not perfect, and never will be, in terms of our behavior. We are human, and we are learning, and we are on a journey.
I just bought a book (yeah, another one) from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. "In the Hands of the People." It describes Jefferson as follows: “why turn to the slave-owning Thomas Jefferson for counsel on how to live in the diverse world of a global age? The author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom was a patriarchal white supremacist; the third president of the United States and the founder of the University of Virginia had little interest in securing the rights of women and played a critical role in the dispossession of native peoples from their lands. And yet, and yet — so much of our history can be summed up in the phrase 'and yet.' For all his faults, Jefferson repays our attention.”
How much do we miss, on both sides of the aisle, by refusing to acknowledge that not everything a “good” person does is going to be good, and not everything a “bad” person does is going to be bad? We need to let go of absolutes and judgements and fear in order to discover where we are all on the same page and how we can reconcile our differing viewpoints.
Every Superman has his kryptonite. Every one of us is multi-dimensional. We are complex stories and experiences, and we have something to offer one another. Thanks for reading this far. Bless you!

The Writer

When I was 9 years old, I decided I wanted to be a writer... I wanted to write books, stories, ideas. And I do that in journals, and articles for the newsletter at our Center, and letters to friends (yes, I still do that) - and other than a chapter in an anthology, I have no "published books" to my name. 
Author and teacher and friend, Kim Hermanson, entered my life through her book, Getting Messy, and she came here and did a workshop which included the most wonderful exercise of using metaphor as a writing tool; picking the topic and writing about it from the first person. 
Of late, I am seeing that I have been setting things up for this to be the year writing really begins - we shall see. So I wrote about the writer.

I am the writer - I capture the story from life, from mind and heart and the dreams of the ancestors, and I put it where those who need its lesson most will find it. Layered between the actions and experiences is a gentle tug - a nudge - an invitation to follow the lead and explore what it is to learn and apply and live the lesson. I am Writer - I, of myself, hold no meaning, yet I can lay it out for people to discover. 
What I really want to say is there are volumes of words and worlds that yearn to be expressed by me and I have yet to find a way to effectively and regularly (even religiously) let them free to dance in the minds and hearts of others.
A treasure locked in the closet where no one can celebrate it is no treasure at all. The gift only exists in the giving of it. 

Once Upon a Time in an Alley

Funny how a quick glimpse of something will take you on a tangent.

Driving down the street the other day, I noticed granite gravel-covered alley moving between blocks of houses. I miss alleys. I grew up in a small California town where residential streets, and commercial ones, for that matter, were traversed by one-lane paved alley ways… where most garages and carports lived. Where trash cans waited for pick up day – none of this bringing your trash out to the front curb… garbage trucks navigated the narrow lanes behind your house to do their work.

These alleys were not well-maintained – deep divots and mounds made them uneven for driving – the entire alley was a speed bump… and in the winter they were fabulous for driving your bike through rain puddles and creating wakes in your path. On really hot, Central Valley days you could literally smell the melting asphalt, and make dents in it with your feet.

Alleys were short-cuts to downtown, and great places to stop and talk with friends… unless your neighbors had an unleashed dog in their back yard. I climbed a fence one day, winding up in a stranger’s back yard because a momma dog did not want us passing by her pups. That was scary. I literally did not know I could move that fast.

Now and then, I will see a television show or a cartoon where something is happening in the alley. Usually it is about people “up to no good,” but I think alleys have been given a bad rap. In small town America, alleys offered a chance to step out of the mainstream and slow down a bit; a place to meet, or take a shortcut, or just get out of the traffic.

Alleys make me nostalgic for simpler times, gentler worlds, and fewer big decisions. I definitely do not want granite chips in my alley, like I saw the other day – old asphalt is far quieter and more inviting.  Like I said, funny how a quick glimpse of something will take you on a tangent, through time and space and it’s all inside your mind.

Day 9 Quest 2016

Visionary Chris Brogan: How will you better clarify who you serve and what you do for them in 2016?

This has brought up some intriguing thoughts as I have contemplated it. Who DO I serve? Do I serve my Board of Trustees? Do I serve my congregation? Do I serve God/Spirit/Life? In a way, I serve all three, but where and how?

How do I clarify this? Through a stronger and more consistent spiritual practice of prayer and meditation and journal work and physical self-care. Only when I am totally open to Spirit and Its work in and through my body and soul am I able to discern who I serve and how I serve (what I do).

When I strive to “meet the needs” of either the Board or the congregation, am I really just working at the level of effects? Is not my role really, more fully, to work at the level of causation? When what I do is come in to “fix” am I not undermining the personal power of everyone to create their own experience?

For years I have said my ministry is about empowerment – and yet I still struggle with letting go of control to allow people to succeed on their own. My role is to get clear on this and to articulate it more fully and completely in all I do – my talks, my classes, my meetings, my work on myself.

This is a big doorway – a lot of exploration to happen here – and it keeps coming back to big picture thinking and not getting sidetracked… moving out of the level of effects and dwelling in the beauty and power of Cause.

Day 7 and 8 of Quest 2016

Day 7 – Visionary John Jantsch: Payoff - What can you stop doing in 2016 such that it would allow you to focus on higher payoff activities?

Step away from the minutiae! That would be my biggest and most effective act. I pride myself on being a big-picture thinker, but even as I embrace the larger, grander scheme of things, I find someone/something pulls me back to examine some tiny schism along the way that needs attention – (MY attention? Really?)

The “higher payoff” concept leaves me a bit cold. It smacks of Wall Street Banking parlance… and to me, the higher payoff would be a profound change in the way we live in the world, the way we see one another, the way we become God in action. So perhaps this is still all where I am headed – to a scheme of things that keeps me focused on where I am headed, rather than stopping to fix the road signs. I can stop getting sidetracked, because I have a firm grasp on the grand design. I like that.

Day 8 – Visionary Sally Hogshead: 1 of 3 - Of these 3 options, which one is most important in your work right now:

Quality of life

Quality of work

Quality of compensation

And the answer here is quality of life – there is no need for anything else if the quality of life is not there and good. When my quality of life is good, my quality of work is good – and my quality of compensation is assured. This is one of the simplest questions – and perhaps it is meant to be a tap on the shoulder. I am being called to remember what is important. Yes, money and benefits are nice, doing a good job is important, but if the quality of one’s life suffers as a consequence of either, what does it matter. The Life is all we have.

A Different Jesus

In recent years, I have attended Christmas Eve Services with family, and have been fine with them as times for families and friends to get together and celebrate the birth of Jesus. There has been lots of singing and prayer at services over the years, and while some of it is not in line with my belief structure, I have been good with it over all.
This year, not so much. The prayers were virtually all about how unworthy we all are of the great gift that is being given, that God, who is far outside and above us is out of our reach, even though we are calling HIM Immanuel (God with us). People were standing and waving their arms in the air, even as each hymn and prayer seemed more and more exclusionary.
I was sad and then I was angry. Everything was so antithetical to my understanding. An omnipresent God is everywhere - within, through and around each of us. In this group, however, even little children were separate from God, according to the words being intoned in the service.
Finally they closed by saying Jesus was born just to die for us. So, I guess all his lessons about loving one another, and social justice and caring for each other have no meaning? I am so sad that the couple of hundred people in that room, and my family members in particular, actually believe that.
Our faith likes to say that we honor all paths to God, and I am really having a hard time with this one I just experienced. For years, I have seen Jesus differently from what I was taught in church, and the work of the Jesus Seminars and our newer theologians have helped expand my thoughts even further.
Most recently, I came upon the work of Robin Meyers. First I read Saving Jesus from the Church, and am now reading his work The Underground Church. Both of them deal with the idea of how to stop worshiping the Christ and start following Jesus. It is a lot like the idea of not worshiping the finger pointing at the moon and thereby missing the whole moon.
This is the Jesus I fell in love with as a young woman - Jesus the man, the way-shower, the great example... or as Meyers calls it “reclaiming the subversive way of Jesus.”
A bit over a year ago I began questioning what the next step in my ministry might be... it has been evolving, and I am coming to find that it is time to let my crazy subversive heretic out to play. There is no time left to play it safe. It is time to begin going where I am called and seeing if anyone follows.
The key sentence that calls me? “Before the gospel got turned into just another marketing strategy, it contained the two most powerful words ever to address the sickness of the age: fear not.” The time has come to cast aside fear and let the soul lead.

Days 5 and 6 Quest 2016

From Visionary Scott Barry Kaufman - What recurring daydream for 2016 inspires you to do business as unusual like never before?

I have struggled with this for most of the week. I have discovered that I do very little in the way of “daydreaming” - though I do muse about how I might have done things differently or how I can “fix” things... when, in Truth, nothing is broken and nothing requires fixing. My work seems to be to create a new vision for how things might be. What does this actually look like when it is working at optimum speed? What do I look like when I am doing and being a new and “unusual” way of living and expressing? That is going to require some deep work, AND, I am getting so far behind, I plan on creating SOME KIND of answer for Days 5 and 6 so I can move into Week Three and Day 7.
There are five full days in 2015 at the end of Week Four, and I believe my synthesis work lies there.

From Visionary Seth Godin: Would they miss you if you were gone?
What would have to change for that question to lead to a better answer?

Even though I am exquisitely hard on myself, I have to say, I truly believe “they” would miss me if I were gone. My friends in Visalia and Petaluma all miss me since I left there, so the assumption would be this community would also feel that way. I am thanked in so many ways for touching lives with my words. I am also reminded that I am reaching a limited audience and that I ought to have a “bigger stage.” So what needs to change is I need to quit being afraid, thinking small, doubting my abilities and letting fear slow me down. The advice from my future self pretty much says what needs to change (day 4) and I printed that out and keep it at my bedside, to read before I go to sleep.
This is just stirring the pot - there is so much more that is ready to come to the surface. I let my soul work on this and guide the way.

Day 4 of Quest 2016

From Visionary Tina Selig:  What advice would your future self a year from now give you today?

Amazingly, this came much more easily and wholly into my soul than some of the earlier questions. The advice of my future self - a year from today:

It is SO worth it, you have to begin NOW!

“You must do the thing you are most frightened of doing”

Remember when you told Mom that she was the grown-up now and she got to decide how SHE wanted to live her life? Take that advice.

Never, never, never, never, never give up. Ever.

Become self-referring like never before. You are your own best feedback, and you need to go with your gut instinct. You have a great “truth detector”

The “how” will make itself known. Just hold the vision, and let it guide you.

Day Three of Quest 2016

Visionary Guide Debbie Millman asks: How would you do business as unusual in 2016 if you knew – no matter what you chose – you would not fail?

Right now I am in that slippery place where I am not sure what I desire. Not sure whether I am doing things because “I’ve always done that” or whether I actually still choose to. I am grateful for the clarity that this week is helping with, because it truly is “getting clear with myself” and it is moving me in a good direction. At least I believe so.

Removing failure from the computation - always a good exercise - what would you do if....

For years, I have wanted to start a Science of Mind charter school - an elementary school that empowers children as creative thinkers while teaching them reading, writing, science and math skills. Our children need us to create spaces for them to succeed.

Since I moved to Eugene, the plight of the homeless has touched my heart. This town likes to think it is liberal and “with it” and “Berkeley North” and it is so very far from that. We have created no way for the shelterless to find a way out.

My greatest fear is that I will die with my “songs” - my words - inside me. I could write - I could put pen to page and create words that inspire and move people to live fuller, richer lives.

I find right now that my energy level is so low that nothing ‘grabs’ my soul and says YES, that’s it. That is where I need to be. And I know the very act of writing these lifts my creative juices and stirs them up. Actually, exploring the question from Day 2 of how to move toward change without making what IS ‘wrong’ sounds like an appealing way to spend my time.

Perhaps by exploring the synthesis of these first three, as Jeffrey, the director of Tracking suggests, I may get even more “clear with myself.”

Day 1 - Quest 2016

I have made a decision to enter into a person Quest in 2016, to explore my direction, my work, my life. I am so grateful to Dorianne Cotter-Lockard for sharing her blog and her work on this, and I chose to move into it as well. This is where it is described... http://trackingwonder.com/quest-2016/

So, here is my first foray into this. Posed by Visionary Susan Piver: What I most need to tell myself about 2016 is...

That it is safe - that I am safe - that the only one actually judging me - and the only one empowered to “judge” me, is me. I am the only one whose opinion matters. My struggle for years has been to relinquish seeking approval from “others.” I am now ready to act on that, and stop struggling.

2016 is the portal to all I have been building toward the past 66 years. From student to dissatisfied office worker to bar owner to minister, I have traversed a varied and multi-dimensional path over the years. I spent most of last year in recovery from a profound injury to my (dominant) arm, and realized early on it was a pilgrimage.

Lessons have been learned. Gestation time is over. Trail has been traversed. Wall is coming down. 2016 reveals itself as the perfect time and place to step into now. And I come back to my opening line. 2016 is a safe space and place. I am safe moving forward. It is the perfect unfolding of a life-long journey, and the world and I are ready to dance.

Quest 2016 Day 2

Day 2's Question, from Visionary Jonathan Fields:

“You wake up to discover a knock at your door. A wealthy uncle you barely knew has passed and left you a fortune. It’s more than enough to live out your days in glorious splendor, but there is a condition. To be eligible to collect, you must commit your full-time working energies to the pursuit of an answer to a single question of your choosing for the next 12 months.

You are welcome to continue that pursuit after the year ends, for years or decades if it warrants, but you must remain fully focused on seeking the answer until the last minute of the 365th day. A minute shorter, the entire inheritance goes to your annoying and equally long lost cousin, Philly.

What is your question?”

For me, the question is primarily how to create true and lasting change for good without making the current conditions “wrong.” It might seem simple or obvious to others, but for me, I see a world where the standard response is to make demons of what is/who is in order to compel change.

I believe that when I am in a state of resistance, I am anchoring what IS into continuity. How do we take the human psyche, with its need to compartmentalize and label, and move toward transformation together, without turning people into “others?” This question is not so much about me, but about helping model this so that as a people we overcome fear and move toward greater possibilities. 

I love my country, and the premises upon which it was founded. I love the idea that we are each, at least in theory, free to believe what we believe and speak that belief aloud, without fear of reprisal. I love that we can vote on what we would like to see happen, and that, somehow, our vote DOES matter, even when we are in the minority.
And I wonder how that potential has devolved into a place where US vs THEM is more important than e pluribus unum - Where fear has displaced hope as our guiding star – Where money is a greater measure of a man than character. I don’t like this world that is shaping up around me, and I am saddened that so many people, including some family members and former dear friends, find war preferable to diplomacy, and their right to bear arms more critical than the right of a parent to have their child come home alive.
How did we get here? What role did I play in shaping this place we are now? I have heard the dear Parker Palmer speak of the “Tragic Gap” – the space between how things are and how we know they are possible to be. If it is my experience, I played a role in creating it, and I search my soul to find the anger and vitriol that are being spewed around me.
Where is our common ground? We are all people, living on one planet, joining in one family – whether we want to be or not. We are on a ball of molten rock hurtling through space with no way off, and I am so tired of the divisiveness.
I always talk about finding solutions. Focusing on what is possible. Affirming “there has to be a way” over and over. It is said “the answer to the prayer is in the pray-er” so I look to myself for a way to end the divisiveness and frustration in my own heart.
We are so much better than how we are behaving. A dear friend’s beautiful husband has passed, and her life is broken open, and all this petty bickering pales in comparison to her journey. Can we stop? Just hold a cease-fire on name calling and snarky comments and see our own humanity?
That’s all I have. Wish there was more… but it is what I have in me to share now. I am struck by how the words of a 50 year old song are so relevant... "What's That Sound" by Buffalo Springfield.

Creative Dreams Adrift

Bits and pieces of me scattered around the house. Looking for an unlined journal, I located the paginated essay book I bought in 1970… a graduation from “diary” to “journal work.” I fancied myself so very mature at 21. It begins just a couple months before my marriage to Al… and ends with the entry of me writing an unsent letter, informing him of my decision to file for divorce. My writing in some of those last pages is small and tight and painful to see – almost a backhand slant to it. One of the last entries speaks of not being able to “find Linda” in all that was going on. 

And I rummaged through drawers of never-opened art supplies, which have been sitting there waiting for the creative urge to strike me. I thought I would like to take an unlined journal and a few pencils with me on this trip to the clergy retreat. Perhaps I could both write and draw my impressions of the experience, I thought. And what I found included a set of colored pencils by Mongol that I purchased for art class in 1968… and a smaller set I bought a couple years ago. Both seemed “too much of a production” to take with me. I am not sure what it is I am seeking. I don’t want to arrive looking like I think I am an artist… but who am I?

Fabric swatches rolled up and stored in a cupboard that was built to be a wine rack. I had great plans to make the guest room closet into a sewing nook, and I have fabrics I bought with the intention of turning them into clothing. Plans on hold, “a dream deferred.”

There is that in me crying out to create – and each week I create a message for my community and offer it up on Sunday morning. That is most assuredly creating. And somehow I do not recognize it as such. And I write my “daily pages” at least three days a week most weeks – and some of them turn into blogs and Sunday messages, and the notebooks are stored in boxes in the hall closet. And the freezer is full of food waiting to be turned into meals, but it is too hot to spend time in the kitchen. 

Is this that Divine Discontent of which 'they' speak? A house filled primarily with potential or spent energy… not much kinetic happening here, it seems. I am willing to move forward, and I don’t seem to know how. “Do what’s in front of you” – ‘they’ say that is the thing. So the computer is in front of me and here are the thoughts. And I yearn to paint, to cook, to write, to play, to release that within that wants to be expressed… and today does not seem to be the day. Not all essays have a resolution, it seems.