The Wonderment

Unknowing & Control

I adore laboring under the illusion of control. It is, so very often a very comforting illusion. The only problem is that it is...well...illusory. How can I possibly actually know what happens next or be certain that I know what today will bring?

This is the time of year when I receive a lot of emails, phone calls, texts, and direct tweets asking me whether I am going to be at the annual meeting for Unitarian Universalists. My response is often greeted in return by a pause. Why? Because I answer: "I'm planning to be there. And, God willing, I will be there." I have my reservations, my block of time set aside, my plans made about attending the big meeting. But where or whither I go is yet to be revealed. Living in that awareness is a spiritual practice I've been cultivating lately, as I say goodbye to lots of illusions of expectations of what I'd be doing this spring. Bringing the practice of awareness of how much isn't in my control into my speech is challenging for me, and for some of the folks with whom I'm speaking. 

This yearning to be in control of what the day will bring, to know what happens next, isn't a modern invention. There's a wisdom tale, from the Jewish tradition, about a rabbi crossing the village square for morning prayers, as was his custom every day. One day, en route to prayer, the rabbi is violently stopped. "Where are you going?" asks his accuser. The rabbi replies, "I don't know." This answer, of course, infuriates the accuser, who spits out, "For twenty-five years you've crossed the green to pray. How can you really not know?! Don't be insolent with me!" The accuser drags the rabbi off to prison, and as the rabbi is about to go through the cell door, he says, "See, I didn't know."

I don't know what the day will bring. I can have plans. I can have dreams. I can have ideas. But any sense of assurance is an illusion. I don't know. What a frightening phrase!

Spiritual practices are not for helping ourselves live in greater control of our lives. What a strange sense of entitlement: that we should feel we can be in charge of the world, even our little corners of it. If someone is teaching you that, they're selling something based on illusion. Spiritual practices do help us live with and boat across the fearfulness, resentment, grief, and anger that arises from feeling a right to be in control and not being so.

The beginning of Reinhold Niebuhr's Serenity Prayer is so illusion-shaking because it cuts directly to the heart of that strange sense of entitlement. The prayer becomes a helpful spiritual practice to gather our courage, to acknowledge our limitations, to release what truly is beyond our abilities, and to live for and with the goodness that we already are. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

When I stop focusing my energy on the things I cannot change and channel that energy on the things I really can, I am freed to practice greater goodness and generosity in the world, and, oddly, to make more of a difference than I would otherwise. I am released from my fears of not being in control into living courageously and lovingly through what I can do, including being compassionate in my grief for losing some of these illusions.

This week, I invite you to something you can really control: you can practice discerning what you cannot change, finding courage for changing the things you can, and developing the wisdom to know the difference. You already have the heart of goodness. Let your light shine, even though it shines in a way you didn't expect or plan.

Our Fragile Web

Every time we see the spider’s web, we are reminded of the ways we are connected: with each other and with all of life. Spider's web are symbols of the promises we make to acknowledge these connections. Unitarian Universalists make their seventh vow in honor of this interdependent web of life, without which we would not exist. The trees rustle in the wind to remind us of our promises, this promise we make simply by being born: that we belong to this web of life, and simply by belonging we have responsibilities.

Did you know that the shape of the web that a spider weaves is determined by their genetic code? A little bit amiss and you end up with a dramatically different web, one that has missing pieces, big holes in them. For us, we’re more likely to learn how to hold to our promises – to spin our webs of connection – through our family systems. And for most of us, we struggle to spin the perfect web. For many of us, we’re aware there’s a hole in the web, a hole in the centre of our beings, that is yawning open with yearning and a hope that maybe this and maybe this and maybe this and maybe this and reaching out for that and demanding those and spinning, spinning, spinning frantically to cover that hole and patch it repair it and make it better. And we teach these practices to our children. And we learn these practices from our parents, and our friends, and our televisions and computers and workplaces and bulk mail and radio. Because today, many people are constructing these kinds of frantic webs with big holes that seem nearly impossible to fix.

Except we do have hope, hope through our whole beings responding to the calling of this web of life.

There is work to be done: dramatically reducing carbon emissions, harvesting the plastic from our oceans, developing simpler lifestyles, shifting to renewable sustainable energy sources, shifting every aspect of our ways of life to support the greater life and health of the planet. So much earnestness required. So much labor: my inner critic almost cracks a smile at all the labor required. To make any long work possible, I find it necessary to make sure I'm connecting as much as possible with wonder and joy. Some of this comes in sharing the work, in sharing laughter and delighted discoveries, in the good effort and the work well down, in the community restoration that occurs as part of nurturing this interdependence. Even more of that spiritual renewal comes through truly reveling in the wonders of the day: sunlight or cloud formation, dragonflies and native bees, fragrant blossoms and pure water.  Contemplating the marvelous interconnectedness of this life, how can we not pause in awe and, hearts overflowing with gratitude, rebuild this web in health and beauty?

Butterfly Journeys

One day -- a beautiful, drowsy warm, fragrant with blossoms, air filling with butterflies kind of day -- so a Taoist tale goes, a great teacher fell asleep and dreamed he was a beautiful butterfly. He went from flower to flower. He stretched his wings. He floated through the shafts of sunlight and shadow. He glowed when the light shone through his wings. He drank delicate nectar. He felt so free, so beautiful, so wonderful. But then he woke up, finding himself once again a human teacher, wondering he was really a butterfly dreaming of being human, or a human dreaming of being a butterfly.

All of our lives, we have the capacity to be on a transformational journey. A lot of life, we're eating leaves, leaves, leaves. Nom, nom, nom. Munch, munch, munch. Some of life, we're wrapped deep in a chrysalis, growing, changing, until that chrysalis is uncomfortable, restricted. Then we burst forth, discover our wings, drink nectar, and dance. Indeed, throughout our lives, we might go through such a transformation repeatedly.

We may be on a transformational journey, but along that journey, most of us will face adversity – short periods, long periods, individually and collectively. War, addiction, disease, poverty, hunger, thirst, climate change – add to your own list – there’s so many sources of true and tremendous suffering. And yet we continue to endure.

We continue, knowing that all this adversity is wrong, because we are basically good. We lean toward the good. We have the capacity to increase goodness. Transforming wrongness to goodness is the internal norm we are born knowing.  We are basically good – all evidence of adversity and suffering to the contrary. As Desmond Tutu quips, “If wrong was the norm, it wouldn’t be news.”[1]

Transformation in the midst of adversity is not easy but it is natural, inherent to our being here, now. We are all endowed with the capacity to love, the capacity for goodness, the capacity for softening our hardened hearts and spirits and sharing acceptance, forgiveness, and love. We can cultivate these practices and become better at them, transforming our selves and our corner of the world in the process. We do not have to remain locked away in a tiny cell of fear, anger, resentment, sorrow, weariness, bitterness, rejection, or loneliness. No one will be able to unlock this cell for you except yourself, because the door isn’t really locked. It might not have been used in a while. But you are beautiful and worthy, loving and loveable, good and gracious, just by being born. The rest of it is your life’s work.

We are already loved and loveable, already have inherent worth and dignity, already have purpose, simply by being born. Awfulness in our lives does not change that purpose, that worthiness, or that loveability. Awfulness only calls us to live more fully in making the world a better place.

Sometimes, though,  in the midst of all that awfulness, we want to give into the critic, to the awfulness of the situation, to the adversity. We’re tired. We’re weary. We’re sad. We’re afraid. We’re angry. We’re empty. And there’s just more awfulness. How do we navigate this stinking slough of yuck?

Remembering and accepting the essential goodness each of us has and is and that this world has and is, is the beginning of the transformational process. This week, practice acceptance of your inherent goodness and work on experiencing the inherent goodness of others. Note where you’re having trouble with the practice. Observe when it is easy. Take some time to sit wondering about transforming the difficult and what that will take for you. 

You are already loved and loveable, accepted and acceptable. Take heart, you matter.

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[1] Desmond Tutu & Mpho Tutu. (2010) Made for Goodness And Why This Makes All The Difference. Edited by Douglas C. Abrams. NY: HarperOne: 5.