The Saving Nature of Joy Joy can save the world. If we were all joyful, there’d be no hatred, violence, incarceration, collusion, greed, or addiction. We’d all be peaceful, kind, and compassionate. Think about it. When you’ve felt on top of the world, could you have hurt another person? I don’t think so. Most people, when they’re happy or joyful, feel generous, understanding, supportive, and forgiving. Certainly, our moods can change. If we feel threatened, we can instantly become angry or fearful. We could lash out. In the moment of joy, however, we love everyone. That may be because joy helps us feel connected to one another and to the…
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A Quiet Stillness Amid the Storm
A Quiet Stillness A few weeks ago, I wrote about the stillness that allows us to truly listen, whether to another person, to God, or to our own inner voice. That kind of stillness is like a presence, a waiting, an openness to something that is not us or is not currently known by us. In such quietness, we can hear what is said and what is left unsaid. In this way, we deepen relationships. But this kind of stillness takes time. That wasn’t hard to come by when I was a child. Then, the days felt wide and limitless. Often I would lie on my stomach on the rock…
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Listening and Grace
Silence as Listening As a chaplain, I listen. This sounds easy, but listening is complex. To listen, we must be present, maintain our focus, and hold our heart open so we don’t get lost in judgment. Typically, it helps to insert comments, such as paraphrasing what you hear or asking for clarification. Yet sometimes, simply paying attention can make all the difference. The most extreme example of this kind of silent listening occurred when I met with a patient for an hour, saying nothing other than, “So what’s going on?” at the beginning, and “You’re welcome,” at the end. The man told me about his childhood, about a grievance with his…
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Kindness and “Projective Disgust”
Kindness in Folk Tales A common theme in folk tales is the younger brother or sister who is kind to the needy fish, or old woman, or bird and thus is rewarded, while the selfish older brother or sister is punished for being mean. The moral of such stories is that kindness pays. Today, you would think that hardly anyone had read those old stories. When I told my husband I was writing a column about kindness, he said, “You should call it, ‘Kindness is Dead.’” He was referring, of course, to the loud and angry voices of extremists so prevalent in the United States and around the world. These…
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Embracing Change
Our Dream of Paradise Idyllic worlds cannot sustain themselves. Though we long for them, and tell stories of Eden and of Heaven, no matter what myths we create, paradise is as impermanent as the wind. Ultimately, this is a good thing. In paradise there might be no struggle, or confusion, or pain, when we are perfect, we cannot change or grow. I suppose one perfect thing could transform into another perfect thing, but why? What drives us to evolve if not dissatisfaction and desire? That’s why Adam and Eve had to leave the garden. If they never experienced discomfort, they would have remained infantile forever. Like the story of Eden,…
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Chance, Randomness, and the Fault in Our Stars
The Elusive Nature of Randomness Our universe is ruled by randomness. Not that we generally acknowledge that. Most of us believe in a powerful and purposeful divine being who plans events, guides our lives, and has a mission for each of us. It’s hard for us to understand the world any other way, for our minds see patterns everywhere. We naturally create meaning out of chaos. As Leonard Mlodinow explains in his book, The Drunkard’s Walk, randomness and chance are common, yet we still imagine we can predict the future and control events that cannot be controlled. We downplay the way fortune – or misfortune – impacts our lives. [1]…
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Poetry, Gardening, and “the Pulsing in the Universe”
The Pulsing in the Universe The poet Stanley Kunitz said that if one listens in the night, beneath the rumble of traffic and wind and animals, one can hear the “pulsing in the universe.” [1] What is this pulsing? Is it something more true than what we perceive during the bustle of our day? What can it tell us? How do we learn to hear it? Why should we bother? Along with being a poet, Kunitz was a gardener. For nearly all of his one hundred years on Earth, he touched and tended and shaped and loved the soil and the plants that grew there. Along with tending gardens, he…
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On Being Good Enough
A Ugandan Tale Retold by Sophia Lyon Fahs Once upon a time, there lived a boy named Kumba who did not know he was good enough. [1] He was small and couldn’t keep up with the other boys. They beat him in games and teased him. Feeling humiliated and frightened, Kumba took to playing by himself. This only made things worse, though, because he was still afraid, and now he was also lonely. It got so he didn’t dare try to do anything because he feared people would laugh at him. He couldn’t bring himself to try shaping clay vases and bowls like his father, because he knew his pottery…
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Embracing Impermanence
Denying Impermanence Buddha taught that everything is impermanent. We get sick, we lose jobs, we lose homes, we lose loved ones, we die. Even rivers change course; mountains wear away. Nothing lasts; nothing stays the same. This is not new information. In the book of Ecclesiastes, we are warned to remember our creator “before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.” (Ecc 12:6-7) To cope with this reality, many religious people speak…
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Money, Money, Money
A Disease of the Heart In the 1500s, a lust for gold and silver drove the Spanish Conquistadors to feats of horror that would appall any normal human being, or at least one not caught up in the frenzy of a powerful addiction. Not unlike many for whom their drug means more than life itself, Francisco Pizarro [1] was said to be modest, gentle, and affable with his countrymen or with those who won his favor, but ruthless with any Peruvian who interfered with his passion for wealth, power, and control. [2] His compatriot and cousin, Hernándo Cortés [3] was just as obsessed. As historian Inga Clendinnentells us, he mockingly justified the theft of precious…