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The Continued Relevance of Compassion

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This has been quite a week.

I made the choice to leave ADF. I handed over the Fellowship to an amazing person, Kristin McFarland. I left home for Los Angeles to meet Cher and write songs with a bunch of starry-eyed kids.

It’s been surreal.

Then, at the end of the week, after rushing to put together the most meaningful Solstice piece I could for HuffPost Religion, I got hit with a damning comment and it all fell to pieces. One little comment was all it took to make me feel small, and profoundly vulnerable.

I’d just written these words:

“I hold up to the sun the challenges I face in my own life; my uncertainty, my doubt, my fear, my insecurity, my righteousness, my judgment, and my shame. All those parts of me which have remained unexamined, undesired or unwanted, I hold them up to the sun.”

Then, almost immediately after the post went life, these words appeared:

 HuffPost Comment

I read this comment and I nearly forgot about the sun altogether, and the Solstice, and my sense of centeredness. All of those challenges I wrote about were staring me straight in the face, and I had a choice to make.

Was I going to offer this up to the sun, to the gods of my heart, or to that magnanimous mystery that a friend of mine calls the Is-ness? Was I going to allow this be transformed?

Nope.

I didn’t do that.

I turned to Facebook.

I asked my friends to flag this comment as abusive in order that it be taken down by the HuffPost comment police. They complied, and the comment was removed.

But I think I might have missed an opportunity here.

This voice, spouting this ALL CAPS ANGER in my direction, could have served as a teacher for me, if I’d have given her the chance. Not a teacher of theology, or of religion, or of the “real”, “right” way of doing things; no, a teacher in how to practice compassion toward even the most mean-spirited person.

I had a chance to practice what it feels like to stand in my center, to remember who I am, and to respond with kindness.

But I didn’t do that.

Broken Glass

I’m not mad at myself for tattling on this commenter. Being mad wouldn’t serve much good. I just recognize that I have some more work to do. It’s easy to practice your kindness-speak on an audience of comrades. People thrust forward their Likes and RT’s, and you get to feeling pretty good about yourself.

The real test on whether your message is legit comes when you’re forced to stand before someone who doesn’t give a damn about you.

What then? Who will you be in that moment?

I keep coming back to this sense that forgiveness is important. Crucial. I hear this voice in my head that says,

“Forgive yourself. Just forgive yourself.”

Funny that it isn’t saying to forgive the other person, isn’t it?

Forgiving myself allowed me to forgive her. Once forgiveness starts, it spreads. Now I’m no longer angry at bazooms22. I don’t feel affected anymore.

I remember where my center is.

Then, unexpectedly, a feeling of gratitude starts bubbling up.

I’m kind of glad this person was an asshole. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to respond like a child, because it reminded me of the ways in which I am still very much a child. The fear, insecurity, and shame that exists in me is the same that exists in her, too. She held up a mirror and said, this is what fear looks like.

I felt the fear, then I let it move me to action, initiating a series of events which led me back around to around center.

It was a gift, really.

Sometimes we get lifted up and celebrated, and I don’t think those are the times when we are offered the greatest lessons. It’s when we’re humbled by the world that we are reminded of the things that really matter:

Our own capacity to forgive.

The meaning of fortitude of spirit.

The continued relevance of compassion.

 

About Breakups

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Puzzle Piece Heart

Photo by Horia Varlan

The thing about breakups is that you’re never really out of each other’s life. It’s an illusion to think that you can just sever ties (if that’s what you were hoping for) and then… Poof! No more connection.

It never happens like that.

When I made the decision, and then the subsequent announcement that I was leaving ADF and handing over the work of the Fellowship, I knew well and good that this wasn’t (nor did I want it to be) a clear, clean break. It was the beginning of a transition; one that may have begun a little suddenly and unexpectedly, but still simply a movement from one thing to another.

I’m not quite sure what I’m moving to in my own life. I don’t suppose it’s time to know that yet. But I do know that there are several people within ADF who, as I write this post, are working to make the transition go smoothly for the solitaries of the Fellowship. A priest is writing a new liturgy, a priest-in-training is considering the role of Organizer, and a number of thoughtful, considerate people have stepped forward to offer their talents to the cause.

This thing is going to live on.

And my work with the Fellowship will continue until the transition is complete. There are file folders, user-names and passwords that will need to be given to someone else. I’ve got document templates and drafts, all of which will have to be passed over, too. Perhaps most importantly, I’ve got to let go of that sense of ownership or authorship.

This was never mine, the Fellowship. It was never a thing to be possessed. It was an idea; a new way of thinking about service to solitaries. And the idea is out there now. It lives. And, with an inspired group of people behind it, it will grow in new and unexpected ways.

Last night I wrote what I think might be my last post on the SDF website. I needed to speak directly to the solitaries of the Fellowship and put this transition into a broader context — one that felt relevant to me, but that also might inspire them into reflection about their own lives.

I wrote,

Our religious lives may revolve around a liturgical calendar (the cycle of the seasons, the Wheel of the Year), but my experience has shown me that matters of the spirit and matters of the heart do not happen in a patterned, convenient fashion. They happen abruptly, and they demand that we readjust our thinking in the spur of the moment. In the process of doing so, while we try to reclaim our sense of balance as the ground still tremors beneath our feet, we do the real work of a spiritual life.

We experience a good and meaningful labor.

So, my charge to all of you — all of you who have shown up to speak or who have shown up in silence — is to continue your own good and meaningful labor in my absence. Take the tools which have been provided to you and fashion something relevant for your solitary observance of the Solstice. Or, use these words to get you started:

My heart is forged of good metal.
My spirit strong, unbroken.
I lift my hands and celebrate
This season of good labor.

May all my work be done with love;
Love for myself and for my kin,
And for my Kindred, known to me
Inside my heart and in the world.

This is the day of breaking forth
Into the future, arms outstretched.
I greet Unfolding Mystery
Rejoicing in this life I live!

I cannot begin to explain how grateful I am to have had the opportunity, again and again, to contextualize my own life in this way, season after season, for the benefit of a broader community. I had no idea it would be so meaningful to serve, or that baring one’s soul could act, in and of itself, as a kind of service.

It isn’t always pretty, what goes on inside of us. It isn’t always virtuous, or noble, or respectable, or admirable. But if it’s honest, it’s worth something.

It’s worth a lot.

It’s worth living for.