Learning to Play My mother, though kind, generous, and loving, never learned to play childhood games. Born an only child to two earnest and serious parents who believed they should treat her like a little adult, the fun my mother enjoyed was mature and staid. Thus, I tried to be a little adult, as well. To please my mother, I learned at an early age to play bridge and enjoy symphonies. Therefore, I am grateful for my father, for although he sometimes embarrassed me with his silly antics and corny jokes, at least he taught me not to take myself too seriously. He taught me how to play. Not that…
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Moments of Change and Transformation
When Our World Turns Upside Down When I was twelve, my grandfather died suddenly, effectively leaving me without a father figure. One morning, I’d gone to school, and everything was normal. In the afternoon, when I got home, everything had changed. My world turned upside down, and I spent years empty, angry, scared, and lonely. I needed a poddley, a magical creature who helps children feel better. Most of us experience devastating change at least once in our lives. In an instant, a tragedy tears our world apart and leaves us wondering how we can go on. Whether we’re demolishing a building, ruining a relationship, detonating a bomb, starting a war,…
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The Use and Abuse of Power
Trauma and Power Listening to Bessel van der Kolk’s book, The Body Keeps the Score, I am struck by how we, in the medical and mental health fields, too often use power to control those we deem sick or broken or crazy. As he worked in the field, van der Kolk came to realize that much of his professional training was geared to helping him and other doctors “stay in control in the face of terrifying and confusing realities.” [1] Being out of control frightens pretty much all of us. Clinicians get scared, too. Those of us with authority are used to being respected, deferred to, obeyed. When patients resist…
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The Patience of Recovery
The Patience of Creation Creation takes patience. Whether you’re forming a universe, writing a story, choreographing a dance, baking a souffle, or building a life, creation takes time. They say that God made everything we can see, smell, and touch – and much that we can’t – in six days, but He was a master, and we cannot compete. We can’t build a house in six days, nor can we grow a baby that fast, and it takes a lifetime to mature into our true selves, if we ever do. Becoming who we really are takes a lot of patience. To make it even harder, when we think have our…
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Hope in the Face of Suffering
Hope in the Future What is hope? Could it be trust in a new generation, the joy we feel when we watch young animals at play, babies being born? In our yard, a family of scrub jays has nested in the holly tree. As I write, the father submerges himself in the bird bath while the mother feeds their baby seeds and insects from the garden. Watching them, I smile, thinking of beauty and life that will continue after I am gone. Or could hope be the belief in an existence after death? At the hospital, I sit with a woman who is sick and weary from cancer. She begs…
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Aging with Peace and Equanimity
Raven Seeks His Version of the Truth Leo Tolstoy tells the following version of a common Eastern European and Yiddish folktale. A father raven is flying his chicks, one at a time, from their island to the mainland. While crossing the bay with his eldest in his talons, he asks, “Who will carry me when I am too old to fly?” The young raven answers, “I will.” Not believing him, the father drops him into the water. When the father asks the second chick, she also says she will carry the father. Disbelieving her, as well, he opens his claws and lets her fall. The youngest chick answers his father’s…
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Joy in the Midst of Sorrow that Arises Out of Love
Clap your hands, all you peoples; shout to God with loud songs of joy. Psalm 47:1 (NRSV) Joy and the Weight of the World Today, I don’t feel joyful. It seems the weight of the world is smothering me. Not only does the news distress me, but so does my reading material. This time, it’s Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, a book about his career as a defense attorney for disenfranchised and economically-disadvantaged death row prisoners. He tells the stories of young men whose trials were a sham, with invented evidence and juries purposely selected to be unfriendly toward them. Throughout our country, a fearful and angry white population has…
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Finding a Spiritual Practice that Is Right for Us
A Contemplative Spirituality When I was a child, I wanted to be a nun. Since I was a Unitarian Universalist, this didn’t seem likely. Still, I loved the idea of sitting all day and contemplating. Not that that’s what I did all the time. I ran, climbed, splashed, sang, played kick ball, and bicycled through the neighborhood. But I also daydreamed, or gazed at the brook, or listened to the sounds trees made, or read fairy tales, or wrote poetry. Not a bad life, and I wanted that part my childhood to continue, so I imagined myself cloistered away someplace beautiful, with echoing rooms, mystical stained glass windows, a stream…
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Fathers and Sun Gods
Father Sun Gods Many of the world’s religions worship Father Sun Gods. There’s the Egyptian god Ra who ruled the sky, earth, and underworld. After creating life, he spread warmth and light everywhere and helped things grow. Surya, the Hindu sun god, provided healing and comfort to his people. The Aztecs, however, had Tonatiuh, a cruel god who demanded sacrifices. These gods represent different kinds of fatherhood, whether neutral, cruel, or kind. Apollo, the Greek sun god, revealed yet another type of father, for he was absent. Apollo fathered a child with the nymph Clymene, then he returned to his palace and focused on his work. His son, Phaeton, knew him only…
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The Search for Enlightenment
Asking Questions Who wants to be enlightened? When I first thought about this topic, I assumed everyone wanted to be. After all, what else is life for? Then I realized that most people could probably care less about it. After all, most of us don’t even know what enlightenment means. I’m not sure I know. So if people don’t want enlightenment, whatever that is, what do they want? I guess that depends on the person and, perhaps, the moment. So is there no common, human desire? Maybe we all want happiness. Okay. What do I mean by happiness? Happiness and Impermanence I think happiness and enlightenment are related. The Buddhist…