Patricia Pearce

Helping You Be the Change

Regarding Mr. Akin

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

 

 

One Christ Is Not Enough

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It’s about time.

A few years ago, my spouse, Kip, and I signed up for a retreat in Estes Park, Colorado led by Thich Nhat Hanh. I have long admired this Vietnamese Buddhist master who, with his quiet, humble demeanor, teaches that mindfulness and peace can be cultivated in every moment and every act.

We arrived in the Denver airport and boarded the chartered bus to the YMCA of the Rockies. Once there, we settled into our room, then headed for the opening gathering, joining a thousand others who had traveled from far and wide. Finding a place on the floor of the large convocation hall, we sat, waiting expectantly for Thich Nhat Hanh to appear and give the opening talk.

After awhile, one of the brown-robed monks with shaven head approached the microphone and began reading a letter from Thay—as Thich Nhat Hanh is affectionately called. It was a beautiful, loving letter. But I was confused. Why was he communicating with us in writing rather than just addressing us in person? Was this customary in Buddhist retreats?

As the monk continued reading, it sank in. Thich Nhat Hanh would not be joining us. He was hospitalized in Boston, receiving treatment for a lung infection. His community—the nuns and monks from France and their sister monasteries in New York and California—would lead the retreat.

Even though I was concerned for Thay’s wellbeing, this was an immense disappointment. I’d been looking forward to this retreat for months. But I came to a reluctant acceptance. Perhaps this was the retreat’s first teaching: to release my attachment to something I had desired so much.

The nuns and monks did a beautiful job. They gave insightful and moving Dharma talks, and although they surely must have felt trepidation about having to fill Thay’s shoes, their sincerity, the depth of their presence, and the authenticity of their teaching was an inspiration. Over the course of our days together we coalesced into a supportive community, sharing our meals in silence, joining in our small group conversations, accepting the situation and one another with grace and humor. In the absence of the revered master, the community discovered its strength.

The experience made us all more aware of how we so often project onto a single leader the capacities that lie within each of us. Had we really come to see a Buddhist super star? Or had we gathered to become a community—practicing mindfulness, compassion and peace?

As though to express the collective shift we’d undergone, at our joyous closing celebration a spontaneous dance erupted as Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” played over the sound system. (“If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change.”) The energy in the room was extraordinary. Something powerful had been unleashed during that retreat, not despite Thay’s absence, but because of it.

The event became known as the miracle of the Rockies, a story of collective awakening when the master became embodied in the Sangha. The teaching was no longer the purview of one individual; it had become the gift of and to the collective.

It shouldn’t be surprising that the retreat had been billed: One Buddha Is Not Enough.

One of the most meaningful moments for me personally was when I was initiated into the Five Mindfulness Trainings—practices that give concrete expression to the Buddha’s teachings about right understanding and true love.

Sister Pine, the nun who facilitated our small group, assigned Dharma names to everyone in her group who had adopted the trainings. The morning she passed out the certificates she gestured me aside to quietly whisper something to me. She told me that the Dharma name she had heard for me was Living Christ of the Heart, but she didn’t know if I would be able to use it publicly, so on my certificate she wrote Joyful Gift of the Heart. When she told me, she emphasized the word Living, repeating it emphatically to convey to me that the name she’d heard didn’t refer to something or someone in the past, but to a present, living reality.

I have held the Dharma name at arms length. There’s so much baggage associated with the term “Christ.” It can so easily be misconstrued—becoming a mine field for the ego. After all, how many mentally unstable people have claimed themselves to be the Christ, sometimes with catastrophic consequences?

And therein lies the problem: people believing themselves to be the Christ, as though there can only be one. In fact, the belief in one’s specialness—that one is somehow set apart from the rest of humanity—is an indication that the mind is still operating from an ego perspective, not a Christ perspective.

As I understand it at this point in my life, Christ isn’t a person but a state of being, a state of dwelling in the reality of one’s oneness with the All. Yes, it is a state of being Jesus inhabited, and one he wanted others to experience as well.

We have now reached a point where our collective survival may well depend on all of us awakening to our Christ nature, understanding that it the fullest expression of what it is to be human.

This, I believe, is Christianity’s new calling, metamorphosing into a religion that helps awaken the Christ capacity in us all, just as Thay wished to awaken the Buddha capacity in those of us who gathered on retreat.

While I was at the retreat that summer I bought a watch designed by Thich Nhat Hanh. In the center is the word “it’s” in Thay’s calligraphy, and in the four quadrants is written the word “now.” I’m sure he intended it to be a constant reminder to be in the moment, present to the eternal now.

And yet, against the backdrop of my experience at the retreat I hear it also as a proclamation that we all have the capacity to be Buddhas, that we are all the Christ we’ve been waiting for. The time for us to awaken to that truth is now.

The Power of Blessing

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Blessing evokes a new understanding.

When we moved into our house ten years ago, it needed a lot of work. In fact, the home inspector said in his report that, while the house didn’t have any huge structural problems, it was remarkable in the number of things that needed attention: crumbling masonry, rotting window sills, open junction boxes, worn roofing, a garage door that wouldn’t close. . .

Of course, he made no mention of all the aesthetic shortcomings of the space: ripped linoleum in the kitchen, porch windows covered over with plywood, a dining room painted goldenrod with lavender trim, a bedroom painted royal blue with silver trim. I could go on, but I won’t bore you with the details.

We’d been looking for a house for months, right when the housing market was at its peak and competition among buyers was fierce. We were running out of time. We needed a place to live and we needed it now. So we bought a fixer-upper—which had not been our plan—and we’ve been working on it ever since.

We worked on the basement first, because we knew if we didn’t it would never get done. We parged and waterproofing the walls, stripped the paint from the overhead joists and the concrete floor, installed new lighting, rebuilt the staircase, put in a new window and door, painted the walls, the floor, the ceiling. All the while, as the months dragged on and on, stacks and stacks of boxes—the stuff that was destined for the basement—sat in the living room and dining room having no place else to go.

Beauty Matters

I’m a person for whom my living space matters. The space I inhabit doesn’t have to be fancy, but it does have to be welcoming. When I was in the Peace Corps I lived in a cinderblock house with a tin roof and no running water, and I did simple things to make it feel like a home. On the walls I taped up photographs of nature scenes from an old calendar, I tacked up reed mats on the exposed roof joists to create a ceiling, I built simple tables and stools from unfinished lumber, and sewed tablecloths to brighten them up. It was nothing elegant, but it was home.

So I was having a very hard time those first few years in our house. I dreaded coming home at the end of the day and being assaulted by the ugliness and clutter.

After more than a year of this I was finally at my wit’s end.  Renting another space to live in while we finished the work would be too expensive, but the renovations were taking far longer than we had ever anticipated.

I recognized that, since I could do so little to change the situation, I had to do something to make peace with it. So one day I gathered up some scarves, feathers, and ornamental objects that were beautiful to me, and I went through the house setting up altars on the stacks of boxes. I went through with my prayer bowl and a smudge stick and blessed it all, lingering over every box, every crack in the plaster, every unsightly patch of paint, holding it all in love.

It was miraculous. While the altars brought a touch of beauty, which is important in and of itself, it was the act of blessing that really changed things.  By blessing all the things I’d been resenting I moved into a relationship of acceptance with them. I stopped seeing the boxes and paint jobs as enemies to be vanquished and more as companions in a challenging time of transition. This was perhaps the most important renovation of all—making new my perception of the situation.

It really brought home to me (no pun intended) what a radical and transformational act blessing is. When we bless something just as it is, including all of its “flaws,” we are enacting a different sort of reality, one that doesn’t depend on “perfection” or hold out for the future to make everything right. Blessing brings fulfillment into the here and now.

Just because we bless something doesn’t mean we don’t do what we can to improve the situation, any more than Kip and I ceased our home renovations after the altars were set up. But when we operate out of the energy of blessing, our efforts arise from a field of love and possibility rather than judgment and disdain.

Having learned of its power, since then every now and then I practice blessing in other situations, like when I’m riding the bus or walking down a city street. I don’t say my blessings out loud—that would probably alarm most people—but I say them silently to myself. I’ll look at someone as they board the bus or pass me on the street, and say in my heart, “Be blessed.” I don’t know if it has any effect on them in the cosmic scheme of things, though it might. What I do know is that it changes me. It makes me see the person as a person—not just as one more anonymous stranger, but as a fellow traveler through life.

 

Enough Already

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Do you still think you’re inadequate?

If I had to characterize the dominant belief that orchestrates our society it would be: Not Enough Yet. If you think about it, this basic belief drives just about everything we do. In fact, it forms the foundation of our entire economy. Stock prices aren’t high enough yet. Profits haven’t been maximized enough yet. Jobs haven’t been outsourced enough yet. The Gross National Product isn’t high enough yet.

The belief shows up in our individual lives too. Our income isn’t big enough yet. Our house isn’t elegant enough yet. Our car isn’t sophisticated enough yet. Our clothes aren’t stylish enough yet. Our computer isn’t fast enough yet.

The harm this belief causes is obvious. In our frantic efforts to reach that elusive state of enoughness, we raze more forests to build new tracts of bigger houses, displace more workers to maximize corporate profits, lead more stressed out lives trying to keep up with the bills and the Joneses.

Imagine what would happen if we all stopped buying into the myth of Not Enough Yet. We would only buy clothes when we actually needed them. We would be content with a simple home. We would no longer demand that the corporations we hold stock in exploit workers and the environment in order to give us a slightly higher return. We would enjoy the local fruits of the season rather than going to the grocery store expecting to find fresh asparagus in November shipped in from Chile. We, and the Earth, would be far healthier and happier.

This belief in Not Enough Yet is something that spiritual teachers have been trying to help people get beyond for a very long time. The Tao te Ching teaches, “If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.” Jesus said, “Don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, or about your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

I think we’re missing the point, though, if we think all of this is about believing we don’t have enough yet. I think the real issue is that we believe we aren’t enough yet. Our drive to acquire more is often a coverup for our desire to be more. We haven’t yet accepted that the sheer miracle of our existence is enough in itself.

Let me put the question to you: How do you think you aren’t enough? Do you think you aren’t successful enough? Not popular enough? Not confident enough? Not smart enough? Not strong enough? Not talented enough? Not pretty enough? Not happy enough?

Or how about this: Not spiritual enough? Not enlightened enough? Not evolved enough yet?

Pause for just a moment, if you would, and really think about how you would complete the sentence, “I believe I’m not _______________ enough yet.”

Now, let’s set that aside for one moment while I ask you a few more questions.

Has it ever occurred to you that the cells in your body, yes, the cells in your optic nerves that are sending the images of these words to your brain, are made of material that originated in stars that went supernova and spewed their matter out into the cosmos billions of years ago?

Has it ever occurred to you that the water in your body—which makes up most of your material form—has been traveling the world for eons? It has flowed countless times through the Amazon jungle, fallen as snow on the Himalayas, been breathed out by redwoods on the California coast, poured down as rain on the Great Plains, drifted across the sky as thunderclouds, descended into the oceans’ deep?

Just for this moment, consider the places, experiences, substances, beings that the matter in your body has seen and been.

Or how about the DNA that right now is replicating itself in your cells, carrying information that is the creative masterpiece of millions of years of evolution?

And that’s just your physical body. We haven’t even gotten started on the miracle of your consciousness and that this physical matter that was generated in the stars can think and create and love and weep and laugh.

Do you understand that you are nothing less than the miracle of rivers and stars and eons of years now taking on human form that can breathe, dance, write poetry, cook a meal, read a blog?

The miraculous nature of our being was on my mind a few years ago when I was taking a day trip on a gorgeous spring day to Cape May, New Jersey. Come noontime I stopped at a restaurant to get some lunch and sat down on the sunny patio. When the waitress walked up I saw her in her essence—a child of the Universe in every way—and when she began reciting the specials for the day it was all I could do not to bust out laughing.

There was something so wonderfully comical about the moment, that this being in front of me who was living, walking, talking star dust was telling me about the Reuben sandwich and the soup du jour, completely unaware of the fact that she was the Universe in microcosm, a miracle beyond comprehension.

The same goes for you, of course. You are an expression of this Life, this Universe, this Reality that has been expanding and evolving for billions of years. There is no part of you that is not part of that most amazing whole. The sheer fact that you are is beyond amazing.

So. Tell me again. How is it that you’re not enough yet?

The Silent Tomb

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All I heard was silence.

Last week, in observance of Good Friday, I posted a blog titled The Cross Speaks, listening to the story of the tree that was destroyed in order to make a cross. This week, in observance of Easter, I considered writing one titled The Tomb Speaks. I found myself wondering what the empty tomb in the Christian resurrection story might have to say to us.

So I allowed myself to go there. In my imagination I entered a dark, empty chamber hewn out of the side of a hill. It was cool. I was alone. I sat down on the ground to listen for the words that the tomb might want to speak, but all I heard was silence. The silence was deep, and it was filled with wisdom that was beyond words. It’s wisdom was of a mystery, of an unfathomable transformation. It was not a chamber of endings, as we usually believe it to be, but a container for profound metamorphosis.

I realized then how hard we try to ward off the tomb’s silence with our trumpet voluntaries and fill its emptiness with our certainties and dogmas. But Mystery cannot be defined, its nature cannot be grasped.

This past Easter Sunday, I was taking an afternoon walk in the woods with some friends along Ridley Creek outside of Philadelphia, and towards the end of our walk I stopped for a moment, standing next to the creek as the brilliant late-day sunlight slanted through the trees. I soon found myself opening to that state of Oneness in which there is no barrier between myself and the All, between the “living” and the “dead”. I felt the presence of dear ones who have left this world — the familiar energy signatures of their love — and felt myself one with the trees, the creek, the birds, the sunlight reflecting off the water. The beauty of it moved me to tears.

It was a moment in which I perceived the mysterious truth that the empty tomb in its silence taught. In resurrection it isn’t death that is vanquished, for death is the natural culmination of life, but rather it is our fear of death, our misunderstanding of death that is overcome. This, I believe, is what the early Christians meant when they said that death had lost its sting.

May that incomprehensible Mystery that is beyond the reach of all our words hold you in its gentle, beautiful, silent truth.

The Cross Speaks

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Not long ago I was thriving on a hill in Galilee. My roots reached deep into the rocky soil.  Sunlight shone upon my leaves, the wind danced though my branches.  In the winter, rain fell cool upon my body, seeping into the soil of my thirsty roots. I drank gladly of that living water.

I witnessed the dawn of each day. At night I reached up to the Moon in her silent cycles, and the slow swirling of stars.

My body shuddered when the thunder cracked. I stood naked in the raging storm—bending with the tempest so as not to break—and when it passed I held the birds, singing in my branches.

I knew the breath of life.

But then they came for me.  Not with swords, but axes, and I was silent, like a lamb led to the slaughter.

Half of my body is still there on that distant hill, decaying in the soil of Galilee.  The other half they dragged here for their tortuous display.

The emperor isn’t satisfied with what he already has. He wants more land, more wealth, more power. Lives have to be sacrificed.

Golgotha they call it. Place of the skull. As if it were only humans whose broken bodies hang here.

Entire forests of my kin are destroyed because humans are never content with what they have, with what they are.  You would call it genocide if the victims looked like you.

I have a question for you.  Why are you dissatisfied?  Why is nothing ever enough for you?  Why are you always striving for more?

Can you not stop for once in your anxious striving and just let yourselves be still? Can you not feel yourselves rooted in the Earth? Can you not let the miracle of the sunlight, the rain, the soil, the song of the birds and the dance of the wind be enough for you?

Do you not understand that your task on this Earth is to witness its magnificence, to delight in the wonder of existence, to be the I Am-ness—the awake presence that marvels at the unfolding of life?

You are living in a falsehood, believing your destiny is separate from my own life.  I am the other one sacrificed on this windswept hill, and I suppose that has never even occurred to you.

You seem to believe you can destroy us and not destroy yourselves as well. But consider this: the man’s blood that even now is seeping into my grain carries the oxygen once breathed out by my leaves.  Are you so blind?

The one you call Jesus tried to show you what power truly is—not domination and violence, but healing, acceptance, compassion, Life.  He wanted you to see that you don’t need riches because you are already enough.  The way the birds of the air are enough and the lilies of the field are enough.

But you remained asleep in your dream of separateness and striving, and now the Earth is hanging on the cross of your empires and your egos.

We are weary, so weary.  We cannot endure your illusion much longer. It is right that you have sung “Hosanna,” for it means “save us.”

I implore you to sing it again from your heart. Sing it for yourselves. Sing it for all of us.

Sing it for me.

Hoodies, Menorahs and Rainbow Flags

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Have you ever experienced the power of solidarity?

Since the news about the senseless murder of Trayvon Martin has erupted into our collective consciousness, several people of all races and genders have taken to wearing hoodies as a symbolic act of solidarity with young black men who are violently attacked and even killed simply because of their gender and race. Although the donning of hoodies will not make racism go away overnight, and in fact will do little to address the insidious forms systemic racism can take, I see it as a meaningful gesture if it is an authentic expression that people are not willing to stand by and allow minority groups to continue to be the target of ruthless attacks.

Solidarity as a means of nonviolent resistance goes way back. Jesus’ table solidarity with the marginalized people in his society — eating with tax collectors and “sinners” (those too poor to participate in their religion’s sacrificial requirements) — was one of the things that led to his crucifixion. Gandhi, although a well-educated lawyer who could have lived a life of comfort and privilege, chose instead to practice solidarity with the poor and untouchables of India, living a life of simplicity, wearing a loincloth, and ultimately paying with his life for his stance of solidarity with the Muslim minority in what had become a divided India. Julia Butterfly practiced solidarity when she lived for more than two years 180 feet off the ground in the branches of Luna, a 1500 year old giant redwood tree, to save the redwood forest from being clear cut. And, of course, there is the story about King Christian X and the people of Denmark foiling the Nazis’ attempts to round up the Jews in their country by collectively wearing the Star of David.

The latter example, by the way, never happened. Not in a literal sense that is. Neither the Danish Jews nor the Danish King ever wore the Star of David, but even though the story isn’t factually true, it is metaphorically true in that most of the Jews in Denmark were spared because the majority of Danes protected them, demonstrating that when enough people practice nonviolent solidarity, oppressive forces become powerless.

The story about King Christian, even though not factual, helped stem anti-Semitic violence in Billings, Montana in 1993 when a white supremacist threw a cinder block through the window of a Jewish family that was displaying a menorah during Chanukah. Margaret McDonald, executive director of the Montana Association of Churches, was inspired by the story of King Christian and launched a movement that resulted in thousands of non-Jewish residents of Billings displaying menorahs in their windows in defense of their Jewish neighbors. For a while the bigotry intensified. White supremacist vandals broke windows and threatened some of the people who had taken up the cause, but in the end the violence and intimidation ceased.

I was in turn inspired by the example of the people of Billings when we had a similar experience in our neighborhood in 1999. In that case it was a gay man who was being singled out. The rainbow flag he had flying outside his home was repeatedly ripped down by college students who lived in the area who were also taunting him with homophobic slurs. When he told me what was going on, I asked our landlady if we could fly a rainbow flag outside our apartment as well. She took the idea to the neighborhood association and soon there were dozens of rainbow flags hanging outside homes in our neighborhood, and the homophobic attacks subsided.

Practicing solidarity is always uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous because we place ourselves alongside those being targeted, coming to understand more deeply the fear, discrimination and hatred that many have to deal with on a daily basis.  That’s why a white man walking down the street wearing a hoodie isn’t really doing much to challenge racist attitudes, but if he’s wearing a hoodie walking alongside a black man wearing a hoodie and they’re walking through a gated community, well, that’s another story.

All bigots and oppressive systems depend first and foremost on one thing: that people in the majority group who are not being targeted will sit quietly by while others are. The whole system of oppression expects that people will put their own safety first rather than risking their well being to ally themselves with the oppressed. When enough people in the majority group are willing to stand alongside those who are being singled out, however, the cycles of violence grind to a halt.

Solidarity gains its power because at its heart it erodes the fundamental belief that underlies all bigotry and oppression: that separateness is real. In that sense, practicing solidarity is a profoundly spiritual act because it overtly enacts the underlying truth that all life originates from and is an expression of the same Source.

Yet if we believe that the only goal of nonviolent solidarity is to protect the vulnerable we miss what is perhaps the most potent potential outcome: the healing of the bigot. The bigot is someone who is trapped in the illusion of separateness. When faced with acts of solidarity, his worldview is challenged and sometimes even overturned. This is why, if solidarity is to be effective, it must be nonviolent, for to engage in violence against the oppressor is to buy into the same falsehood that he himself is caught in, that of otherness.

The word solidarity itself conveys the essential reality that in the end we cannot be divided along lines of race, gender, class, orientation, or any other category because these divisions are simply the product of our minds’ illusion.  Solidarity is based in the knowing that when one of us bleeds, we all bleed.

Just Sow

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By not attaching to results we help release abundance.

Many years ago, when I was living in the Andes of Ecuador as a Peace Corps Volunteer, one day I was accompanying a Quichua farmer as he went out to  sow barley. When we got to his field high up on a hillside, he loaded the barley seed into a metal canister he had that had a crank on the side with a mechanism that flung the seed out in all directions.  After he’d loaded up the canister, he started walking along the edge of his field, turning the crank as he walked. The seed went everywhere, some of it far beyond the edges of the field, into the weeds and the rocks and the road, and my first thought was, “Oh no! He’s wasting seed!” But he didn’t seem to care about that.  He just kept walking deliberately, back and forth across his field, letting the barley fly where it would, interested only in letting a good bit of it land in the fertile soil where it would be able to root in and grow.

Watching him work, I was reminded of one of Jesus’ teachings. He once told a parable about a sower who went out to sow seed. Some of the seed fell onto the path where it was eaten by birds, some fell on rocky soil, and some on weed-infested soil, none of which, obviously, bore any fruit. But some of the seed fell on fertile soil and produced a bumper crop.

I had always heard the parable interpreted in its traditional — rather judgmental — way, as an analogy for different types of people, some of whom are receptive to divine wisdom and some who aren’t. But watching the Quichua farmer sow his seed that day, I came to realize that Jesus was probably making a point about the sower as much as about the soil, encouraging people to live their lives as the sower sows the seed, casting their gifts out into the world with abandon and not being preoccupied with the outcome.

The term non-attachment has found its way into the mainstream, usually within Buddhist contexts although it was at the heart of Jesus’ teaching as well, and this parable of his makes me wonder how often we hold back on sharing our gifts because we are overly attached to the results. Oftentimes, if we aren’t entirely sure our gifts will be well received or will bear fruit we may not share them at all, and in our attempts to direct and control the outcome of our efforts, we end up withholding the best of ourselves.

It can be discouraging, after all, when you offer something and it comes to naught; it can make you want to hold back the next time around. But Jesus’ parable and the lesson of my Quichua friend encourage me to offer what I have anyway, knowing it’s not my place to try to dictate the outcome of my efforts or try to control onto what sort of soil they might land.

It isn’t always discouragement, though, that gets in the way of us sharing ourselves freely.  Sometimes our withholding comes out of a scarcity mentality.  We can fall into the trap of believing that if we “squander” our gifts in unreceptive environments, we’ll somehow deplete our supply.  That isn’t possible of course, because, unlike the farmer whose seed is in fact finite, our innate gifts flow from an abundant, infinite Source, so the more we let them flow, the more they flow.

Letting go of results can be tremendously liberating, and over time I’ve come to see that the only way the Universe can unleash abundance in and through my life is for me to live like the sower, releasing all my attachment to the outcome.  The only thing that’s asked of me is that I just sow.