Amazed With Mystery

Let’s expand the space around our wagon. We need community. We are dependent on one another. Not just the people in our small circle, a world community. Without it we all suffer. Where is our sense of self without community?

Is it ironic that in the last few days everything I have read that touched me has been about turning out from myself to community. Is it not  enough that I work “for” capacity building by raising resources. I bring time, talent, influence, leverage and money to the table to build community. I too, am guilty of  not practicing patience and tolerance for those who don’t share my ideals.

First was Richard Harwood’s blog on his comments on the state of the union:

“We must turn outward. So much of what is happening these days is driven by an inward pull among individuals, within organizations and communities, and across our nation. But the challenges we face – and our deep desire to act on our aspirations – cannot be met by people going it alone. Nor can they be solved through retreat or reaction in attempts to protect our narrow interests. Rather, so many of the challenges we confront can only be effectively addressed by people taking action together. For that to occur, we must change our very orientation, our posture, our stance and turn outward toward our communities and one another. This won’t cost us a dime, but it will pay huge dividends. We must re-engage and reconnect.”

From Thomas Moore in Spirituality & Health Jan-Feb 2011

“Ethics is rooted in a love of people. and appreciation for unfamiliar cultures, and a desire to create community out of the large number of people on the planet… the ultimate challenge of community, taught clearly by Jesus and the Buddha, is to expand your deep feelings of community from those in your circle to those still outside it. Eventually, one hopes , no one will be outside.”

So maybe we need to stop circling the wagons around ourselves and those like us and  act as part of the larger world community  to better serve the greater good. We can create a better world, and can rest assured that help will be there for us as well…..we can live every day,  free from fear and worry that allows us to receive and share the protection and support of community life.

So today let’s let a perceived enemy hitch their wagon to our circle and get to know them. Let’s look outward.

From Elizabeth Lesser’s TED talk “invite the other  to lunch” and just listen to them with out judgement. Just hold the space. With a little dose of humility and wonder we might find their idea of community is very similar to ours.

You know the sort of day. You are busy, thinking of where you need to be not where you are. Late, rushing.

Pulling into the parking lot I had to immediately stop for a frail elderly woman, walking right in front of my car with her walker. Trying to stand up tall, making her way slowly to the entrance of the library. Happy to be under her own steam on this beautiful fall day. Happy to be alive,while I was not even present. I suddenly thought of my mother, long dead. She too, walked slowly and sometimes was not aware of how she held others up. she loved every day that she was alive. Always ready to go out for an adventure, lunch or a walk. I was very grateful to that elderly lady today. Bringing me back to  present time, bringing back wonderful memories of my mom. Where had my compassion gone?  My loving kindness to all, my being here, right in that moment. In the twinkling of an eye she brought me back where I needed to be. Eternally grateful.

In loving memory of my beloved Heidi Sept 1997 to October 2010

Ben Hur Lampman

THE BEST PLACE TO BURY A DOG

If a dog be well-remembered, if sometimes she leaps through your
dreams, full as life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing,
yearning….

It matters not at all where that dog sleeps, at long
last, at least

On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream she knew in puppy hood, or somewhere in the flatness of pasture, where most exhilarating cattle graze, it is all one to the dog, and all one to you and nothing is gained and nothing is lost….if the memory lives.

Nevertheless, there is one place to bury a dog, best of all.

If you bury your friend in this spot, she will come to you when you
call…

Come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down
the well-remembered path to be by your side again. Though you call many dogs to heel, they shall not growl at her or resent her coming, for she is yours and she belongs here.

People may scoff at you, those who see no lightest blade of grass bent by her footfall,
those who hear no whisper pitched too fine for mere audition, those who may have never really had a dog.

Smile at them, for you know something that is unaware to them. And which is worth keeping…

The one best place to bury a dog is in your heart

“And he will raise her up on eagles’ wings

Bear her on the breath of dawn

Make her to shine like the sun

And hold her in the palm of his hand”

Had a fantastic walk  in the grasslands today. Sun shining, 27 degrees, incredible warm wind from the southwest. The grass was dancing. Standing tall to feel the sun, bending and swaying with the wind. The hills were alive. It wasn’t hard to have loving kindness for myself on such a glorious day. I wanted to blow like the grass, fully here but bending to the force of the wind, then standing back up again. A sort of flow.

What is flow?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind

I share my life with two beautiful old dogs. Heidi is 13 years old and Echo is 11. Both have outlived their breed life expectancy. Heidi is approaching the twilight of her journey. Her breath is sometimes laboured and she has a difficult time walking because she has what appears to be degenerative myleopathy. She drags her right rear leg. She still loves to eat, play and go for her walkies. Painfully slow walkies. What use to take twenty minutes in the morning now takes forty-five minutes. The walks aren’t painful for her. It’s me. I haven’t learned to slow myself down to match her. I am still trying to just get the morning routine done and get to work. I have forgotten the story of Heidi, how she came to me with her brother Willie as a puppy. How she fell in the fish pond the moment I  let her out of the car. How she loved the cat, her first friend at her new house. How she wept with me when the cat died. How she taught me to be humble in the dog show ring.  How she has loved me forever and will continue to love me when she is gone.

Heidi came to me to be remembered. She came with a message, like she was an angel, a fairy or a wise woman. My relationship with Heidi has been choreographed by Creator, teaching much about who I am, can and will be. Heidi’s relationship with me has been long and enduring. The lessons have never been gut wrenching but kind and gentle.

I need to take the time every morning to honour our relationship. To not be in a hurry to get my day on its way. the day doesn’t need my help,  it  happens all on its own. Even in her twilight Heidi, is teaching me something important. Slow down, life goes fast enough. Take time to honour it and the relationships that come into it.

Heidi and my time are gifts.

I had to peel  50 pounds of potatoes for the PIT Stop meal yesterday. (feeding marginalized in my community, I  organized it). It was a sort of chop wood mediation. Peel, peel ,peel. I got rid of lots of anger and then got to thinking about what really matters. That’s the bonus of repetitive tasks? I was feeling unloved. I was chopping heads off with every peel but then I started thinking about why I was doing this. I let go of  the unworthiness I was feeling and rejoiced in the everydayness of peeling potatoes. I made it a meditation on what matters. I was here, fully connected and one with my ordinary life. It felt good. The mashed potatoes were delicious.