As Addiction Takes Hold of Us This world provides ample opportunity for us to let go. In last month’s column on this topic, I discussed many types of letting go. This month I consider what it means to hold our dreams and goals lightly. This is not always easy. Sometimes our dreams and goals become addictive. All mammals, humans included, have evolved to take pleasure in the many substances and activities we need to survive, such as water, sweets, fat, sex, learning, and caring relationships. When we feel pleasure from a behavior, we learn to repeat it. When we get hungry or thirsty or lonely, we seek out that which…
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Feeling Forsaken and Being Found in Psalm 22
Psalm 22 and Feeling Forsaken Psalm 22 starts with the line Jesus famously spoke as he hung on the cross: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? (1-3) In my years as a chaplain, I have listened to many people describe how forsaken they felt, abandoned by God, alone, and afraid. Most of them blamed either God or themselves. If they felt angry at God, they often felt guilty about it. Though I never felt guilty because of it, I was angry at God for many years. Not that I blamed God for…
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Memorial Day and Healing Our Souls
Giving Away Our Wealth Jesus spoke of sacrifice. For instance, as Stephen L. Carter reminds us in his book Civility, there was the time Jesus told the rich man that to get into heaven, he would have to give away all his belongings. As one might expect, the man could not bring himself to do so. From this we learn that wealth can become an idol, distracting us from our true work which, according to Carter, is to love and serve the divine. We also learn about the importance of sacrifice. We’re encouraged to give up whatever gets in the way of union with the divine. Lest we think that, because…
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Pentecost and Spirit Guides
The Christian Pentecost According to the Book of Acts, when the disciples gathered to celebrate the Hebrew festival of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended on them in a form like fire, and She filled them with the power of speaking in tongues and prophesying. The apostle Peter spoke with such passion that thousands felt compelled to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Thus the Christian church was born. If this had been the first time humans had ever felt the touch of something awesome and spiritually terrifying, Peter would probably have had a hard time convincing his audience that Jesus was worth worshiping. Yet when we…
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Mother’s Day and Letting Go
Equanimity and Letting Go Many years ago, while working with a Buddhist spiritual director, I learned a lesson about letting go. Her son had committed suicide. When I saw her shortly afterwards, she appeared as calm and self-contained as ever. I asked how she managed to do that when her son had just died. She explained that he had struggled with depression and suicidal ideation for a long time. Sometimes, no matter what we do, people die from their diseases. It is part of life. Her main strategy for coping, however, was not so much to be philosophical about our existence, but to focus on living in the present moment.…
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The Least Will Become Great
The Least Among You When the evangelist Luke writes in Chapter Nine of his gospel that “the least among all of you is the greatest,” the sentiment is not new for the reader. In Matthew, for instance, when he’s berating the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy, Jesus says, “The greatest among you shall be your servant,” and “whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matt 23:11-12). [1] Humility was probably not a popular concept back then. It’s not particularly popular now, either, at least not in Western cultures. In hunter-gatherer societies, however, being humble is often more acceptable. Frans de Waal gives an example of such humility from the !Kung…
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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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Earth Day, Climate Change, and Telling New Stories
The Tale of Two Farmers In the Talmud is a story of two farmers who lived next to one another for years, yet who could not agree on which of them owned a plot of land adjacent to both their farms. One of the men claimed his grandparents had built their home there, so he had rights to it. The other insisted that since his grandparents had planted fig trees on that land, he should get it. Unable to resolve their disagreement, they took their case to the rabbi. The rabbi listened to them. He pulled at his beard and considered the problem. Yet, he, too, was unable to decide…
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Moments of Clarity
Our Moments of Clarity The phrase moment of clarity is common in twelve-step circles. Such a moment is when we clearly see the wreckage of our lives, and we make a decision to get clean and sober. Over the years, I’ve heard a number of moment of clarity stories. One evening, for instance, when a woman was drunk, she noticed her child looking at her with sadness, disbelief, even disgust. Suddenly she realized she wasn’t just hurting herself, she was also hurting this incredibly precious human being. Steeped in shame and humiliation, she resolved she would change. In the private space of her own heart and to whatever god she…
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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…