Archive Archives - Page 9 of 15

Leading the Way

September 26, 2012 by Patricia Pearce

What terrain do you know like the back of your hand?

A couple weeks ago Kip and I were headed home after having dinner at some friends’ house. As as we were driving along a curvy road that follows the bank of the Schuylkill River, a car ahead of us with Maryland plates was weaving all over the road.

It being Saturday night, we assumed the driver was drunk and kept our distance. When we pulled up alongside him at a red light, the driver honked and motioned to Kip to roll down his window.

“Can I get to 76 from here?” he called out.

It turns out he’d been swerving all over the road because he was lost. He was probably trying to find the route on his smart phone, or his car’s GPS, or who knows, maybe reaching for a map in the glove compartment.

“Yes. Follow us.”

We weren’t headed for I-76, but it wasn’t far out of our way, and it’s a very tricky ramp to find.

So we led him around the traffic circle in front of the Art Museum, onto the Ben Franklin Parkway for a couple of blocks, then took three more quick turns until we reached the inconspicuous, unmarked ramp onto the freeway he needed.

As Kip and I pulled off to head home our Maryland friend zoomed past us to merge onto the highway, and we honked and waved our goodbyes.

We were elated. It felt so good to help a visitor to our city find his way. It was definitely worth the detour.

One lesson of the experience hardly needs mentioning: it feels good to help other people. For me, though, it was more specific than that. It made me realize I don’t just like helping people. I like helping people who are lost.

I’ve been known to stop on many occasions to ask bewildered tourists standing on city sidewalks studying their maps if I can help them find the Liberty Bell, or Ben Franklin’s grave, or the Rodin museum, or whatever they might be looking for. Maybe I have a special place in my heart for people who are trying to find their way around because I’ve visited many unfamiliar places in my life. I know how confusing and overwhelming it can be.

But it’s not just helping people navigate city streets that I find enjoyable. I like helping people who are feeling inwardly lost. I’ve been exploring the inner terrain for most of my life and have come to know a thing or two about the lay of the land.

Just like that confusing route onto 76, I’ve had to navigate plenty of bewildering twists and turns along my spiritual journey—sometimes in the dark of night—until I finally discovered a hidden entrance to the “free” way.

I think, though, the most beautiful thing I took away from our encounter with the man from Maryland was that it reminded me that we all have some area of expertise in which we feel completely at home but that would be totally confusing and overwhelming to someone else. I wonder what that would be for you. What terrain has life taught you so well that you know it like the back of your hand? It doesn’t matter if it’s something that seems simple to you, because chances are it isn’t so simple to somebody else.

Whatever it is, I hope you’ll share it, not only because you’ll make someone else’s life easier, but because you’ll probably feel just as elated as we did when that driver from Maryland safely merged onto the highway, headed for home.

Miss Leach and the Butterfly Effect

September 19, 2012 by Patricia Pearce

I went into the ministry and now live in Philadelphia because Miss Leach, my third grade teacher, loved the French Horn. The story has a lot of twists and turns, and it’s too long for me to tell you many details right now, but in general it went like this: I moved to Philadelphia 15 years ago because I took a call to serve as pastor of a church here. I went into the ministry because of some of the experiences I had as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador. I went into the Peace Corps because of the ways my horizons were expanded while I was an exchange student in West Germany. I was an exchange student in West Germany because of the influence of some of my fellow French Horn players in college. And I played French Horn because of an off-handed comment made one day by Miss Leach.

I loved Miss Leach. She was one of those teachers a child is very lucky to have. She taught us well. In her class we made colored pencil drawings of grasshoppers, labeling all the parts of their anatomy, in our spiral notebooks; we drew cross-sections of the Earth, learning the names of all its layers; we learned about fulcrums and levers, resistance and strength.

But I loved her not because of what she taught us, but how. I still remember the day she started teaching us how to write in cursive. She told all the left-handed kids to cover their ears for a moment while she explained to the right-handed kids how to position our paper and how to hold our pencils. Then she had the right-handed kids cover our ears while she instructed the left-handed kids how they needed to do it. She taught us about much more than handwriting that day; she demonstrated to us that she understood and valued our differences.

Most of all I remember a day when we were playing Password. The classroom was divided into two teams. One person from each team would come up front and Miss Leach would show them the word they were to help their teams guess by giving one word clues. When it was my turn, I went up and she showed me and the girl from the other team our word, which was carefully written out in black magic marker lettering on a strip of tag board. Then, taking turns, the other girl and I began giving our clues.

I don’t remember whether the word we were given was “headache” or “hedge”. All I know is that I misread it, thinking it was the other, and, as you can imagine, began giving my team bizarre clues. It wasn’t long before the other team guessed the correct word, whereupon all the kids in the class started mocking and ridiculing me for the absurd clues I’d been giving. Shame descended upon me.

That’s when Miss Leach, bless her soul, came to my rescue. She admonished my peers, telling them that I may have understood something they didn’t. She was insinuating that perhaps my clues were so sophisticated that nobody else was comprehending them, which instantly quieted everybody in the class. Because of her brilliant intervention I was able to return to my desk with my head held high and my delicate 8 year-old ego still intact.

Maybe you can understand, then, why I was so devoted to her and why my life changed one day when a girl in the class asked Miss Leach what her favorite instrument was and she said the French Horn. Since Miss Leach was so wonderful, I concluded that the French Horn (which I’d never heard of) must also be wonderful, and so that spring, when we had the chance to sign up to learn to play instruments for the band, I chose the French Horn.

There’s a lot of talk these days about the butterfly effect, which describes the uncanny way whole systems can be altered as a consequence of one small event. A butterfly flapping its wings in China, for instance, can cause a storm on the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. I wonder, though, if we ever really think about and marvel at the wondrous influence we have on one another, how, for instance, one off-handed comment made by a third grade teacher we love and admire can alter the trajectory of a lifetime.

I googled Miss Leach yesterday and found out she died January 5, 2000 at the age of 84. The short obituary in the newspaper said she had no survivors, but it was mistaken. She survives in the lives of all the students she touched, including my own. She is alive in the words I write and the things I teach, because all of it is an outgrowth of the influence she had on my life.

I know the effect Miss Leach had on me, though she never did, just as you may not know about the lives you have altered. But if you think back, you just might be able to remember a moment when someone you loved and admired did or said something that caused an ever-so-slight alteration in your life’s path that, in the end, changed everything.

Are You Doing It, or Just Getting It Done?

September 12, 2012 by Patricia Pearce

The way I come alive is to actually do what I’m doing.

I find one of the great things about To Do lists is being able to check things off when they’re finished. It gives me such a sense of satisfaction to know that I’ve actually accomplished something. My To Do list, with all of its checked off items, is proof of my productivity.

But lately I’ve become aware of something: To Do lists have a shadow side. They encourage me to get things done rather than actually do them. Let me explain.

When I’m doing something just to get it done, I’m not really doing it. I’m not stepping into the moment and relating to whatever I’m doing as I’m doing it. I am not in an I-Thou relationship with the people I’m with, or the objects I’m touching.

When I’m focused on checking things off my To Do list, I’m not living my day. I’m just getting it done.

I’ve noticed something else: when I’m trying to get something done, I start feeling agitated, irritated, bored. These feelings are signals for me to wake up, bring myself back to the moment, and actually do what I am doing.

Here’s an example.

Kip and I garden, and August is a month that demands a lot when you grow your own food. It’s the time of year when you’ve got pounds and pounds of potatoes, pounds and pounds of tomatoes, pounds and pounds of carrots, and you’ve got to do something with all that abundance. You’ve got to cook it, can it, freeze it, use it, or you’ll lose it.

So one day not too long ago I pulled out the heavy bag of carrots I’d harvested, and I started to make a big pot of spiced carrot soup. I figured we’d eat some of it right away, and the rest I’d freeze for one of those winter days when I don’t want to cook.

So I began chopping and sauteing onions, peeling and chopping carrots, tossing all of it and the spices into a big pot, along with some stock, and I let it simmer for a while. When it was ready, I pulled out my hand blender and started pureeing.

And that’s when I noticed it. I wasn’t enjoying making the soup. I was just getting it done—and feeling irritated that I had to do it.

That was my wake-up call. I started doing what I was doing. I let myself drop into the timelessness of the moment, and I beheld the most amazing thing.

The blender, its blades whirring just beneath the surface, was creating a vortex of the most astounding patterns. The chunks of carrots and onion got smaller and smaller, until they had combined into a velvety, gurgling current swirling gracefully within the shiny stainless steel pot.

It was magical. I was filled with wonder at such physical marvels and overcome with gratitude for Earth’s plenty.

Can you believe I almost missed it?

I know this: when I actually do what I’m doing, when I sink into the pure experience of it, when I let myself truly relate to the moment at hand, I come alive.

I’m no longer an automaton going about her daily tasks. My “tasks” become spiritual portals—blessed opportunities to delight in life’s simple mysteries.

I enter what Buddhists call beginner’s mind, that state of awareness and engagement that is filled with the wonder of experiencing life anew in each moment.

What I’d like to do is let my To Do list become an aid, rather than a hindrance, to my spiritual practice. I’d like to use it as a tool to help me stay awake to my life by posing the question, whenever I check something off the list, did I actually do this thing? Or did I settle for just getting it done?

It might be one of the most important questions any of us can ask, because there’s a huge difference between the two. It’s the difference between missing our experiences or living them. Just between you and me, I’d rather not get to the end of my days and have the painful realization that I didn’t actually live my life. I just got it done.

Pas de Deux

September 5, 2012 by Sara Steele

Where did the expression “leap and the net will appear” come from? When did it come into use? Is there evidence for its veracity? I guess I don’t have enough faith to assume that this vast Universe cares enough about any particular leap of mine to put a net under me in the nick of time.

They say spider’s silk has a relative tensile strength greater than steel cable. It is certainly far less visible and weighs a fraction of it. Is the tensile strength of the theoretical net-to-appear as strong as spider’s silk? Is it as invisible as wind?

Several years ago I was driving along a familiar road when out of the corner of my eye I saw a large hawk, high on a branch in a cluster of pines. I pulled over immediately and shut off the engine to watch this bird sitting silently amidst wind invisibly setting needles and branches dancing.

The bird was quite still. I watched. Time telescoped. I don’t know how long we stayed that way, in spacious time.

Spaciousness feels liberating –– a big inhale, ribs expanding, arms extending wide, followed by an exhalation of great relief. So comforting. A friend once explained her experience of Sabbath as “A Palace in Time.” In the luxury of spaciousness I can float, buoyed by invisible currents of thought or creativity or simply being. Yet without a center that can hold, vast openness can provoke anxiety.Continue Reading

Instinct

August 29, 2012 by Kip

a pair of Vibrams lying on wood chips — We are born instinctively knowing a lot of stuff.

When I lived with my wife in small-town Missouri in the 90’s, I tended a big garden where I grew edible yummies: snap peas, string beans, tomatoes, onions, southwestern chilies and Silver Queen corn – the works. I loved picking the corn and running it straight indoors to the boiling kettle on the stove. During one of my periodic telephone garden reports to my Pop, he once kidded me that he had half-expected me to say that I had taken the boiling kettle outside to the garden so as to reduce the ‘pick-to-pot’ time so that the sugars of corn ears wouldn’t turn as quickly to starch. As a meticulous gardener, over the years I amended the soil with gypsum, sand and compost, ogling the tilth like John Deere himself and fretting over slugs, cucumber beetles and aphids.

The small town gardener has only one potential problem associated with tending lovely soil: feral cats love to shit in it. After doing so they then scratch up the soil surface — along with recently planted seeds and seedlings – entire rows of carrots, destroyed. Have you ever planted a carrot seed? It’s no more than a fleck of dust under a thin film of sifted soil. One cat swipe buries those tiny seeds too deep for the sprouts to ever surface.Continue Reading

Regarding Mr. Akin

August 23, 2012 by Patricia Pearce

This, Mr. Akin, is what rape feels like.

It has never been my intention in my writing to enter the political fray. I prefer to draw people’s attention to the life of mindfulness, compassion, and wonder. But the recent uproar about the comments of Rep. Todd Akin regarding rape has prompted me to make an exception to my norm and say a word or two.

I can understand why Mr. Akin’s comments have offended, incensed, and wounded so many people. Along with millions of women in this country, I, too, have experienced rape, and Mr. Akin’s beliefs about rape and pregnancy reveal a profound level of ignorance and insensitivity on his part. Others have written eloquently and powerfully about that, so I won’t go into it.

But as a former pastor, what I have found myself asking is why he and so many other devoutly religious people cling to beliefs that are simply erroneous. Why are facts so blithely tossed aside and ignorance so aggressively guarded?

I think to answer that question I need to look not at their political views or even ideology, but at their theology. I suspect that Mr. Akin’s belief that women can’t get pregnant from rape arises out of a firm belief that God will protect the righteous. God, in this worldview, is the Intelligent Designer and therefore “He” must have built into women’s anatomy a protection mechanism against the catastrophe of pregnancy resulting from rape. God, in this worldview, is omnipotent, just, and good, therefore, if bad things happen it must be because the person had it coming to them.

It is a simplistic, Pollyanna theology that simply refuses to accommodate itself to the very real facts of oppression and cruelty. Rather than facing the hard challenges that theodicy presents, this theology skirts the issue by blaming suffering on those who suffer. It may well be that Mr. Akin and those who hold similar viewpoints aren’t simply trying to prevent unwanted fetuses from being aborted. They are trying to protect their understanding of God.

This understanding of God, however, is not a Judeo-Christian understanding. The book of Job, perhaps the most ancient piece of writing in the Judeo-Christian canon, addresses this very issue, and it is unwaveringly clear: bad things happen to good people; God does not necessarily protect the righteous.

If Job had been written with a woman protagonist, one of the horrors visited upon her may very well have been rape, with the compounding catastrophe of a resulting pregnancy, and her friends would have tried to convince her that she must have done something wrong or this never would have happened, or that perhaps her rape wasn’t really legitimately rape or she wouldn’t have gotten pregnant.

Jesus, too, challenged those who would blame suffering on the victims, and of course his own crucifixion at the hands of the Roman Empire was a graphic display of the truth that God doesn’t protect the righteous. The conventional Christian resolution of this dilemma has been to claim that, instead of protecting those who suffer, God suffers with them, which is the literal meaning of compassion, something that has become tremendously lacking in the politics of our day.

Anyone who advocates for the idea that this should be a Christian nation would, by definition, have to have compassion — suffering with the suffering — at the centerpiece of their political platform.

I was fortunate. I didn’t get pregnant. But it never entered my mind that if I had I would have been forced to carry the fetus of my rapist in my body. Such a sentence was unthinkable, unconscionable, and the belief that such cruel and unusual punishment should be written into the Constitution, as some would like it to be, is abhorrent to me. Whether or not a woman seeks an abortion in such circumstances is not Rep. Akin’s decision, nor any other politician’s, to make. It is hers, and hers alone.

But there is something else that has been present in my mind these last few days. It is a memory I carry with me from a time, several years ago, when I was on spiritual retreat.

I was walking the labyrinth one day and a message came to me saying: “Release all concept of enemy.” It was a revelation, because it was telling me that “enemy” is a concept I hold, a frame of reference in my mind, not something inherently real. Since then I must have taken the teaching to heart because, even though I vehemently disagree with Mr. Akin’s stance and I do not want him to be in a position of political power nor his beliefs codified into legislation, I have been unable to see him as an enemy. In an odd way, I can even sympathize with him. I can understand his desire to live in a world where things make sense, where complexities, such as abortion, can be boiled down to simple absolutes, where rape and other such atrocities can be explained away. That is not the world we live in, but the point I want to make is that I see him as someone not entirely dissimilar to myself, someone who, like me, wants his life to have meaning and needs something to believe in, a human being who is not more and not less than any other.

If I want him to do the hard work of wrestling honestly with the suffering of others and the complexities it presents, I must be willing to do the hard work that my beliefs demand of me: recognizing that we are all members of one human family. His name itself places the challenge before me: to see him as a kin.

Listen to the Birds, and They Will Tell You

August 8, 2012 by Gwendolyn Morgan

Heron, by Judy Rose — May you have time this season to listen to the birds.

“Listen to the animals and they will teach you
the birds of the air and they will tell you…”

— from The Book of Job

At five o’clock in the morning, the Robins sit on the peak of the neighbor’s house facing the east, singing their morning song. Sometimes each house has a Robin heralding the dawn. Sometimes it is only one bird for the whole cul-de-sac. At times the House Finches take the place of, or join the Robins. For the past three decades I have been out running or walking early in the morning, often before the sun rises. I had never noticed the consistency of the placement of birds on the peaks of rooftops of houses until recently. It seems that their singing facing the direction of East is particular to the spring and early summer months.Continue Reading

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