The Trickster Elegba Elegba, also called Èshù, is a Yoruban trickster deity. He mediates between the heaven and earth, has dominion over the crossroads, and, though he creates mischief, he does so in the service of harmony. Elegba teaches us that there are two sides to every question. [1] In their book of stories, Nina Jaffe and Steve Zeitlin retell a story about Elegba. Once upon a time, there lived two farmers, Olufemi and Olushegun. They lived next to one another and were great friends. Every day they talked, and they always agreed. If they were deciding how to harvest their crops or how to discipline their children, they agreed.…
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Creating Love Out of Tragedy
Tragedy and Faith The man had lost everything. His four brothers had died, as had his parents. A few weeks ago, his marriage fell apart. When his wife left him, she took the dog. He had no children. Sick and unable to work, his income was limited, and he couldn’t pay his rent. Now he was in the hospital. He felt scared and overwhelmed. Once up a time, he believed in God. He’d grown up Christian, but the message he heard was that if you believed in God and prayed for what you needed, God would take care of you. He explained to me how, after hearing that promise, he…
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Being that Leads to Doing
No Thing There’s a story told of a Bodhisattva who went to the mountains to meditate and teach. He had special powers, such as flying and hearing people’s thoughts. He built a Sangha, and five hundred holy men came to there. One day, when the chief follower brought half the community into the woods to gather food, the Bodhisattva lay down to die. As was the tradition, those who had remained behind sat with him, and as the end came near, they asked him, “What was the greatest thing you achieved in your lifetime?” “No thing,” their teacher said. Then he died. Nothing? Their teacher accomplished nothing? He must have…
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Ownership and the Spiritual Life
The False Idol of Ownership In trauma circles, there is a saying, “Don’t ask, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Instead, ask, ‘What happened to you?” In other words, all those people who seem crazy and wrong—the addict, the mentally ill, the homeless, the timid, the broken-hearted, the hungry, the prisoner trapped by cell walls or greed or an unacknowledged emptiness of heart—are not crazy or wrong. They are wounded. Trauma, which is the battering of our defenses, the shattering of our spirit, an event that overwhelms our capacity to cope, is not the only way we become scarred, though it is, perhaps, a more common one than we might suppose. Not…
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Communicating with God
Does God Communicate? Her parents talk to God. Her partner feel God’s presence. They all say that the Holy Spirit guides them. Yet God has never spoken to her. That doesn’t mean she stopped believing in God. She believes. How could she not when she has been taught since infancy that this Christian God was real, that he created the universe, walked through a perfect garden with Adam and Eve, and blessed the faithful. This woman tried so hard to be faithful. She did not feel blessed. What was wrong with her? Had God forsaken her because of some terrible thing she had done, something she could not remember? She…
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Magic and Magical Thinking
When Magic Ruled In the days of myth, when the land was wild, and the animals talked, and the people knew the shape of time and the color of laughter, and the gods spoke from the grass and the clouds and the creek, magic filled the pores and cells of every creature and every stone, and the people and the cosmos were one. Magic was the thread. It connected the creation to the gods and embedded humans solidly into the natural world. As it wound its way through everything, magic made the universe whole. Sometimes it was huge and dangerous, for it could trap people as easily as save them.…
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The Journey of Forgiveness
Revenge as a Gift of Evolution It’s all about the stories we tell. After we have been attacked or abused, betrayed or exploited, we can keep our anger alive by rehearsing the offense. We might not be able to control our initial burst of emotion, but we can choose to feed it. By proclaiming our innocence and condemning the other person, we can cling to our resentment for a long time. We can successfully keep forgiveness at bay. While it’s probably better for us physiologically to soothe our anger, there are times we might want to hold onto it. If we’re trying to get away from an abusive relationship, for…
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Changing into Fire, Merging with the Tao
Changing into Fire In the latter part of the third century, an Egyptian monk named Anthony was inspired by a sermon to sell his belongings, give the money he raised to the poor, and move into the desert where he could seek communion with Jesus. Paul the Hermit already lived there, surviving on palm fruit and bread delivered by a kindly crow, but it was Anthony who gathered monks and nuns around him to live an ascetic, isolated life of devotion to Christ. [1] Over time, these religious men and women compiled sayings and stories. One of these, adapted from Joan Chittister’s book In God’s Holy Light, speaks of turning…
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The Courage to Face Our Inner Pain
What Is Courage? It is human to long for greatness. As psychotherapist Edward Tick notes, we “hunger for heroism.” [1] We want to know that we, too, can be courageous. What better way to test our mettle than in battle? Young men and women enlist in the armed forces for many reasons, but if we didn’t yearn to prove ourselves, war probably wouldn’t be possible. Governments might start wars for political or economic reasons, but if no one signs up to fight, there can be no battle. Therefore, the military has to convince the young that being a soldier – or a rebel or a terrorist – will make them…
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Bearing the Beams of Love
Our Capacity to Love Although I haven’t heard this sentiment from other than Christians, I suspect they are not the only religious people who find it hard to imagine how an atheist copes. This makes sense. After all, if you find comfort in your relationship with God, you might conclude that peace comes from this connection alone, yet I have known many atheists, and from them, I have learned that the ability to cope with hardship, to find peace in the midst of adversity, has less to do with the specifics of one’s belief than with the capacity one has to love. Of course, this begs the question, what is…