Many times
the biggest help you can be
is to turn a listening ear towards another
to hear everything they have to say
no matter how troubling how painful how confusing
to give up for a while
being another judge, another critic, another fixer of troubles
to be a welcome to all of it
all of it
and in your seeing and hearing embrace
find out how healing
being witness can be
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[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwOcIxuNCBs[/embed]In our 'Turning Towards Life' conversation of Sunday, 6th May 2018, Lizzie and I talked about what to do with the pain we experience in life. What does it take, we wondered, for us to work with all the ways we got wounded (inevitably) in a way that can be a gift to others and not a source of further wounding? And what does it take to accept how little control we have over life (and how much we want!) in a way that's not a kind of giving up?We also explore what it is to be intimate with our own experience, and to take responsibility in a way that acknowledges that while we have very little power over many things, we still have enormous power to shape how we respond.The source is for our conversation is from the Jesuit writer and teacher Fr. Richard Rohr.
Transforming Our Pain
Pain teaches a most counterintuitive thing: we must go down before we even know what up is. In terms of the ego, most religions teach in some way that all must “die before they die.” Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to both destabilize and reveal our arrogance, our separateness, and our lack of compassion. I define suffering very simply as “whenever you are not in control.” Suffering is the most effective way whereby humans learn to trust, allow, and give up control to Another Source. I wish there were a different answer, but Jesus reveals on the cross both the path and the price of full transformation into the divine.When religion cannot find a meaning for human suffering, human beings far too often become cynical, bitter, negative, and blaming. Healthy religion, almost without realizing it, shows us what to do with our pain, with the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably give up on life and humanity. I am afraid there are bitter and blaming people everywhere, both inside and outside of the church. As they go through life, the hurts, disappointments, betrayals, abandonments, and the burden of their own sinfulness and brokenness all pile up, and they do not know how to deal with all this negativity. This is what we need to be “saved” from.If there isn’t some way to find some deeper meaning to our suffering, to find that God is somehow in it, and can even use it for good, we will normally close up and close down. The natural movement of the small self or ego is to protect itself so as not to be hurt again. Neuroscience now shows us that we attach to negativity “like Velcro” unless we intentionally develop another neural path like forgiveness or letting go”.Transforming Our Pain - by Richard Rohr (taken from the Centre for Action and Contemplation daily emails).https://cac.org/transforming-our-pain-2016-02-26/
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There are millions of books that you'll never read.Millions of films you'll never see.Places you'll never go to.People you'll never meet.Experiences you'll never have.Do you chase after what's unattainable with resentment and frustration, raging against life's limits? Or open in gratitude at life's richness?Here's George Steiner with a beautiful account of the move from fear to wonder on this very question, involving a fascinating story of the discovery and reburial of thousands of terracotta Chinese warriors.[youtube=http://youtu.be/Q1z3sMGYjNk]
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An unchangeable feature of life is that, at every moment, you find yourself inescapably in some situation or other - perhaps one that you did not choose.And however magnificent or terrible it is, you are, conclusively, just here, at this moment in the life that you are living.No manner of denial (and all the suffering that comes with it) can change that your life continues from this moment, this particular configuration, and not from another.And so acceptance of life - as opposed to fighting life - is not 'putting up with things' but responding fully from where you are. Not pretending to yourself or to others that you are somewhere else.Every situation, however glorious, however unwelcome, has its own possibilities. And you have precisely this hand to play in whatever way you can.Many paths lead from this place.Will you go to sleep to yourself, or step in to this, the one and only life you have?
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In just a month over 350 people have joined our new Turning Towards Life project on FaceBook. It's been thrilling to find a new way to talk about many of the concerns, ideas and possibilities that are still an inspiration for the On Living and Working blog, and I think it's likely that our conversations will in turn be the inspiration for more writing over the coming months.I was particularly touched by our latest conversation on Sunday morning, which took John Neméth's song 'Fuel for Your Fire' as its starting point. The question we wanted to address is both simple and central to many people - how can we have our difficulties be a source of life for us, rather than a reason to turn away in shame, fear, or avoidance?It's certainly a profound question for me. It's easy for me when I'm in some kind of trouble to imagine that I am somehow special, the only one experiencing life in this particularly challenging kind of way. And when I take on this relationship to my troubles what I notice most is my separateness from everyone and everything - as if I am uniquely cursed, isolated from others and from the possibilities of care and help.All of this, it turns out, is a profound misunderstanding. If anything, it's our troubles that show us how human we are, how essentially alike we are. None of us are free from disappointments, mistakes, changes to our circumstances both within and beyond our control. None of us is free from loss. And when we know this to be an essential truth of our human condition, perhaps we can give up self-pity and instead take on the dignifying work of contribution. This - that contribution is often the most dignified and life-giving path for working with our difficulties - has in recent months, and when I remember it, been such a blessing in my own life.We'd be really delighted if you'd join us in the 30 minute conversation below, which takes up all these themes and asks 'How can our troubles be part of the path?'.And if you'd like to join in with the growing community that's forming around this project, and the lively conversation that's taking part in the comments, you can do so here.[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkpF3C2kTz0[/embed]
Whatever we say we're most committed to, a great many of us live as if judgement were the primary human value, judging ourselves mercilessly and without respite. And, when we live in the stream of harsh judgement, no effort is enough, no achievement worth much, and our efforts to help seem to us nothing but disguised selfishness. In this relentless stream we find that the only way to bring ourselves to the world with the care and commitment we wish for is to fight an endless battle in which parts of ourselves - our essential goodness and our inner criticism - are pitched against one another.In a battle there's really never any time to rest. We live in state of vigilance, braced and ready for the blows that can come at any moment: for the offhand critical comment from a loved one or colleague, for the figures on our latest bank statement, for a tweet or instagram post that reminds us of all the ways we're falling short.And we find ourselves mounting all kinds of pre-emptive defence: doing our best to look good (which we'll do even at great emotional, spiritual or financial expense), tuning out from our lives with distractions (so as not to feel the difficulty we're in), shaming ourselves (to avoid the pain of being shamed in other ways) or deflating and collapsing (as if hiding from the world will save us).Perhaps the worst of all of this is the way we hide the very battle we're fighting, as if we are the only ones, as if nobody else has it this way. We become convinced that life has to be a battle. And that is our lot to live a life of inner harshness that only adds to whatever harshness and struggle we already experience in the world around us.Nearly all of us are doing this - whether we're teachers or CEOs, politicians or parents, artists or activists or accountants. And the more we live this way, the more exhausted we become, and the fewer of our gifts - the gifts we each have that the world needs from us - we get to bring.All the while that we're caught up in harsh self-judgement (which easily and also becomes harsh judgement of others) we've forgotten that judgement isn't the same as discernment, and that discernment only becomes possible when judgement is balanced by a stream of mercy. I say 'balanced' here, but it seems to me much more the case that true discernment (the kind that can be life-giving, truthful and contributory) only comes into being when judgement is thoroughly infused with mercy - when judgement and mercy pour into one another, illuminate one another, become a single river.And what is mercy? It's a commitment to not turning away. It's dignifying our anguish and confusion, the transience and unpredictability of our lives and the difficulties we've all had to face, and reaching for the essential goodness that is present in all of us. Mercy is indeed our turning towards life itself with a fiercely kind and loving embrace. It's a commitment to see the beauty in our very unfinishedness, to cherish and honour both our inevitable falling-short and our capacity to improve things.Most of us haven't practiced mercy towards ourselves with anything approaching the diligence with which we practice harsh self-judgement. But until mercy can become a serious part of our constellation of virtues, until we practice it as much as we long for it, we'll struggle with more difficulty than we're due and we'll doubtless bring more difficulty to others than we intend.
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What struck me most at Sunday's Yom Hashoah ceremony was the way in which each of the survivors who spoke had committed themselves to life.One woman, who'd entered Auschwitz as a teenager, had dedicated herself in adulthood to teaching young people about the dangers that come with ignorance of one another. Now nearing her 90s, she was fiery and warm and loving and energetic. It was clear how passionately and completely she'd taken up both living and being of service to a life much bigger than her own.Another speaker described how being exemplars of love and kindness had become central for her parents during the time after the genocide, when they'd chosen to raise a new family in the long shadow of those dark years, still unable to speak of their shattering personal experiences and their grief at the deportation and murder of their two-year old daughter.A dear friend of mine told me recently that the artist Roman Halter, himself a survivor, used to say to her how important it is to trust life - to turn towards life's goodness and not lose ourselves in self-doubt and worry.And Etty Hillesum, who wrote diaries first from her home in the Netherlands during the early years of the oppression and, later, from Westerbork transit camp (the holding camp for Dutch Jews on their way to Auschwitz, where she was murdered in 1943) wrote from the camp about her sense that 'that one day we shall be building a whole new world. Against every new outrage and every fresh horror, we shall put up one more piece of love and goodness, drawing strength from within ourselves. We may suffer, but we must not succumb.'I write all of this in no judgement of the countless millions who lived and died in those times - and in other horrors - and were irreparably broken by the experience. Which of us could be sure we'd be any different? But I'm struck by our responsibility in the light of all this, and how easily we can confuse ourselves about the times we are living in. This moment in the early 21st century is full of uncertainty and many dangers, yes. But however bad we fear things are, and however frightened we get about it, we can and must learn from those who found in themselves a way to live, and to turn towards life, in the midst of the most unimaginable horror and its aftermath.That they were able to plant flowers that grew from the darkness leaves us, who right now live in not nearly such dark times, with the responsibility to find a way to do the same.
At every moment in life, you can choose whether to be a blessing or a curse to others.How you open the door to her when she comes come, how you reach across for him when you wake, how you speak when you order your coffee, how you move through a crowded train, how you are with a crying child, how you put out the bins.How you answer the phone, how you begin a meeting with your pressured and anxious team, how you write the next email, how you announce your intentions, how you respond when you're hurt, how you listen to the request of a lost stranger.The capacity to bless will have its seeds in your capacity to bless yourself, which always means welcoming yourself and what you're experiencing rather than denying it, raging against it, or judging yourself for it.Will you turn towards that of you which loves without dismissing, or denigrating, or criticising it for its impracticality?Will you turn towards your fear and acknowledge how afraid you are with dignity, rather than pretending it isn't true?Many of the curses in the world arise from our denying our own very basic, vulnerable, mysterious, confusing humanity. Much of that comes from being afraid and pretending that we're not - a curse upon ourselves which curses others as we go. And many blessings come from the discovery that this one, brief, precious life simply won't go exactly how we want it.Of course, it's rarely as simple as just 'deciding' to bless as we go. Too much of us has been shaped by years of habit for that. But the good news is that the capacity to bless - which is given to all of us - grows with practice. And that you can start today.
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This morning, after swimming, I overhear a conversation between two men who are sitting by the water. One has lost his sunglasses on an earlier swim and is quite distressed.'They were expensive. Armani.' he says. 'I paid a lot of money for them. And they are the third pair I've lost this summer'.He is too agitated to be present with his friend who, after some minutes of listening, says 'You seem really shaken up by this, too shaken up even to really be interested that I'm here with you. You're saying the same thing, over and over again. But,' and here he pauses, 'tell me something. Did you enjoy having them? Did they bring you pleasure? Because although you've now lost them, for a while you did have them too'.For a while, you did have them.And at that moment it occurs to me that this is true for everything, and for all of us. We wail and fret about what we lose, and rightly, because our loss is so often a source of suffering for us. But we will all lose our sunglasses, eventually, just as we will lose all our possessions, our friendships, our bodies, and everything we know.And because losing is terrible and difficult to bear, we can spend our lives fretting about what's yet to lose, and clinging madly to it, or becoming consumed with longing or remorse for what we've lost.And all the while forgetting that, for a time, we did have all of this, and missing the wonder that there is anything at all - sunglasses, friendships, work, life - worth having enough that its loss matters to us in the first place.
As we encounter each of life's difficulties, we get to choose:Consider ourselves cursed or mistreated, as if we are owed freedom from hurt, pain or confusion. As if life owes us happiness. As if we are meant to be in control of everything. This is, essentially, a fight against life as it is.Or draw on difficulty as part of life's path, an opportunity to turn more deeply into life rather than away from it.And while, with each successive difficulty or joy, we find that we understand life's movement less and less, perhaps this way we learn to live it more and more.
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[after Jules Renard - "As I grow to understand life less and less, I learn to live it more and more"]
