Don’t expect Toronto to be like Paris

It is my day off and I have felt almost desperate for time alone since last week.  This need for respite has been building for a while and reached a crescendo this weekend.  For one, a talented woman who had been working in my department for a few months was terminated, let go, fired – how ever you want to say it, for no other reason than someone with power didn’t like her.  It was messy; it was unjust.  I was the guilty bystander watching it happen and with no way to stop it.  It sucked the energy out of me.

My heart is full too for friends – for the one who is in the throes of chemo for breast cancer, for another who struggles to get on her feet after a decade of domestic abuse, for more still who are oppressed by the dark stain of alcoholism – to name only some struggles swirling in my circle.

Pain too in my own life, my new constant companion.  “I co-exist with pain now,” I say to my friend as we filled our piping bags with bavarian cream at baking class.  Both of us wearing chefs hats and little ties around our necks, metal bowls and spatulas thick with batter, and my heart breaking.

This weekend I hosted a reunion, organized by my mother, of childhood neighbours and friends.  Before they arrived I found myself crumbling under the expected onslaught of happy memories that I knew would ram hard into the wall of loss.

My marriage only moments before the ringing of the door bell hanging on a precipice – dangling like a child held by the ankle by a lunatic parent over a balcony.

The weekend ending with the visit of a family who want to rent our house when we go away next year.  Three gorgeous children bundled up in homemade sweaters and little shoes enter our house- shy smiles from the older ones, wide-open grins from the three year old as he stuck his hand in Ollie’s food dish and popped a bit of cat food in his mouth before anyone could stop him.

“We miss Paris,” the elegant woman said as she sat on our couch while our husbands  looked at the garage, “but we don’t expect Toronto to be Paris.  We look out for what it is, not what it is not.” It sounded like a zen koan to me.

Before me sits the allure of a sabbatical.  By August 2011 I will be living in a small town in Holland working on the oral history interiviews of Henri Nouwen.  My proposal was approved unanimously by the Collegium of the college where I work.  Don will come with me using the unexpected inheritance from his mother.  We have been offered a house for free from Laurent Nouwen, Henri’s brother. “Have it,” he says “and don’t worry too much.”  Could I have designed something more perfect for myself if I had tried? All is being provided.  All is being opened up for me.

It is Divine Grace.  Holding me up like a cup on an ocean, never letting me go.  Pulling me forward, ever forward.

Yet even so, I jerk my head around and look back over my shoulder, my hands outstretched reaching for what has been so cruelly taken away.

Time. I can only count on time to bridge the gap between what lies ahead and what has been.  I will not go without Heiko.  He must come with me.  I have not found the way to do this yet.  But I will. I trust this.  It must be so, and when I do I will be the better for all of it.  The world will be better for it too.  It is not just for myself  that I must undertake this work; it is for all of us.  Just as your acts of courage are for me.

Gabrielle

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Attentive non-judgement

Good morning,

I have been thinking more about what I wrote yesterday (thank you Katie, Elisabeth and Catherine for nurturing this).  Perhaps what is not explicit in what I wrote is that by calling for each of us to be attentive to how we operate in the world I was not suggesting we get out a stick and judge ourselves for our lack of skill.  I am just a beginner here, but what I think we are called to do first is to just observe ourselves, to watch how an angry thought is born and how we deal with it.  Do we throw it outside ourselves and litter our home?  What happens to those around us? Do they respond in kind? What about feelings of self-rejection? What do these thoughts look like?  What happens to our bodies when we are in an interior battle of low self-esteem?  How does the world start to mirror our thoughts?  We start by being attentive and non-judgemental.

One of the inspirations for this meditation on being human began with a talk with my wise friend Sue.  We were talking over dinner and I said: “What is amazing is how transformation is only a second away.” I was thinking about how in some ways living in the Truth is always available to us.  It is just a matter of adjusting our posture.  “Are you kidding me?” she exclaimed loudly.  “It is not only not a second away it is a complicated, messy, really hard, and rarely long-lasting.  Relationships get in the way.”

I immediately knew she was right (though I am right too – at all times we are all loved and held by an eternal Presence, as Therese de Liseux wrote: All is well and all manner of things shall be well). But what of the thicket of living in the world? How can our lives be for good?  How can we be the peace the world so desperately needs?  For example, how do I respond to feelings of sadness that continue to pull me down?  How do I interact with Don when I feel this way?  My friend who I spoke to yesterday might ask “How do I tell my brother he can’t come to my house anymore if he is going to drink?” Can she do this in a way that leads to peace? Or will it lead to long-term alienation? Every thought, word, action we make we can ask the question: will it bring life or does it oppress it?

Freedom.  I think this is another sign of a fully realized human being. Each day we are faced with innumerable chances to act compulsively or to act with freedom from compulsions.  How much do our compulsions hold us back from full realization of our possibility?  For example, how does childhood trauma express itself in our capacity to love? How does perception of our identify (as created by others) affect our actions and thoughts?

And as we do this we must remember to be gentle with ourselves if we stumble or fail.  As Sue says: “It is not easy! It is not easy at all!”

Peace,

Gabrielle

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On Being Fully Human

I had a bit of a lightening bolt reading a book by Richard Rohr called The Eternal Now.  He quotes a familiar passage from Teilhard de Chardin: “We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.”  You have likely heard this before.  Rohr and de Chardin aren’t the only ones writing about this.  Jean Vanier, the Canadian humanitarian and founder of L’Arche (communities for the mentally handicapped), is now urgently talking/writing/thinking almost exclusively about the need for humanity to become fully human (he published a book called Becoming Human).

What each author is saying is it not the spiritual part that we as a species we are having trouble with – it is the being human part.  The spiritual side of ourselves is always there like supports or scaffolding – faith in this gives our lives hope – but we have been slow to learn (to master) the obstacles that obscure our true selves.  How can we individually and collectively  overcome fear and negativity? How to override our destructive compulsions, how to love well and deeply, how to forgive, how to be compassionate “with the least of these” and “the enemy”?  I am beginning to think that being born a human is like being seated in a huge machine with no operation manual.  It is tricky, arduous and potholed road we have to navigate in this life-time – no wonder we spin off into the ditch all the time!

This is eye opening for me because I have been focussing on being “spiritual” not being human.  I have been trying to catch the nuances of the invisible realm but this is not what Heiko’s life, illness and death are calling for.  It is calling me to become more fully human. Losing Heiko has opened my eyes to the depth and breadth of the eternal, and perhaps it is time to shift my gaze to the here and now.

The question now is how do I become fully human? What does a fully realized human look like/act like? Do I know any fully realized human beings?  What are the signs of a human being who has perfected the art/the science of existence? I do not want to squander this gift of life (as John O’Donohue, the Irish poet and philosopher writes so often – how utterly astonishing to even find ourselves here), or completely miss the opportunity to experience my true self because of unconscious and sputtering acts of the ego.

The signs of being fully human: capacity for joy, energy, equinimity, compassion, gratitude, patience, service, peacefulness – what else?  I think it is when our spiritual selves and our physical selves align or integrate and with this an explosion of power for good is generated, for peace, for deep connection, for belonging, for reconciliation.  Imagine if even half the people on the planet managed to perfect the operation of themselves!! Is this what Jesus meant to be fully human and fully divine?

Peace to you,

Gabrielle

 

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