Category: Essays

A Mighty Woman With A Torch

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

“The New Colossus” was written by Emma Lazarus in 1883 as a fundraiser to pay for the base of the Statue of Liberty.  It was engraved on a plaque and mounted inside the lower level in 1903.  One line of the poem is readily recalled by most Americans:

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

But the entire poem is a mission statement, a declaration of purpose for our nation.  It begins:

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning.  And her name,

Mother of Exiles.”

The first line refers to the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  According to myth, it was a statue of a conquering warrior straddling the harbor which arriving ships had to pass under.  Just think Ancient Greek manspreading.

Lazarus contrasts this to the woman with the torch, this “mother of exiles,” who is putting out the welcome mat.  Re-reading these particular lines just a week after the Women’s March on Washington was especially poignant for me.

The poem continues:

” . . .  From her beacon hand

Glows worldwide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.”

Lazarus emphasizes the gentleness of the woman, the maternal nurturing waiting on the shores of this great democracy.  Her eyes are “mild,” yet they “command,” a paradoxical pair of characteristics evoking the quiet certainty of the divine feminine.

Then Lazarus hits the homerun:

“‘Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips.  “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Lazarus doesn’t just give us the message of the statue; she puts the words directly in the mouth of Lady Liberty.  The first-person declaration makes it even stronger, even more personal.  She tells whomever will listen that conquering heros can continue to re-tell their stories of past glories. She lives in the present, a present where people continue to strive to rise above the fate handed to them by those same conquering heros, nations too busy bragging of their greatness to care for the least of these.

She doesn’t ask for the best and the brightest.  She doesn’t apply a litmus test of intelligence or wealth or strength.  She asks for the marginalized and the hurting.  She asks for the reject and the refugee.  She asks for the victims.

We may not know the entire poem by heart, but we can still fulfill the mission.  Besides, we’re more and more aware all the time of how unwise it is to piss off a mighty woman.

Party of One, Your Table’s Ready

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment
(Photo: Members of Nashville in Harmony, an LGBT and Friends City Chorus, lead marchers in Nashville,TN, for the Women’s March on Washington, 01/21/2017.  This picture was on the front page of The Tennessean and also in The New York Times.)

So, yesterday there was this little march.  You might have heard about it.  Somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 bejillion women (and men) around the globe came together to stand for equality and diversity.  It was a beautiful thing.

I think it’s fair to say that most of the people who attended these marches were liberal and likely vote Democrat.  But, I know more than one Republican friend who was also in attendance, marching proudly, passionately convicted about women’s rights and the rights of all others as well.   What courage it must take in our current social climate to march in the midst of those with whom you politically disagree, but with whom you share a basic alignment of principles and core values.  (Side note: If you believe that it’s impossible for Republicans to care about Civil Rights or Women’s Rights or even LGBT Rights, then you might just be living in as solid a news silo as you likely accuse the “other side” of living in.)

I attend a church where a significant majority of congregants vote Democrat.  But, there are some Republicans in our midst.  These are people I respect and with whom I feel a strong spiritual kinship.  They are my tribe.

I’ve watched them sit quietly as statements are made from that place of assumption.  You know that place, the one where we believe that everyone who shares one similarity with us will also align with everything else we believe. It’s the place where white people feel empowered to tell a racist joke in front of other white people.  It’s the place where a co-worker tells a gay joke because surely they don’t know any of those people.  And it’s the place where Democrats and/or Republicans speak out regarding political issues with unbridled confidence and, often, smugness.  Because they assume ideological homogeneity, their tone naturally becomes self-righteous; unfortunately, what sounds like certainty to those who agree takes on the stench of pomposity to those who don’t.

These microaggressions happen constantly.  We’ve all engaged in them at some point or another, most of the time unknowingly.  It may not be a true sin of commission, but it’s not helping.  We have to at least admit, it’s not helping.

Perhaps you say, “Well, tough shit.  That’s the way of the world.”  Or perhaps you say, “I can’t tip-toe around on egg shells being constantly concerned about hurting someone’s feelings.”

Well, to the first, I say: We are the way of the world.  To the second, I say: You don’t have to if you stay focused on the principles and not the politics.

If we keep our eyes on the love and the equality and the justice, then following closely on their heels is the mercy and the forgiveness and the healing.  If we remain focused on the bigger picture, we can stop examining the other side’s every twitch and tic under a microscope of judgment.

And if we can do this, we’ll create a new kind of politics.  Politicians will begin to learn that it no longer works to divide us and to train us to demonize the other side.  Their tricks simply won’t work on us anymore, and we might just drain that big ole’ swamp after all.

But, let’s still march now and then, ’cause, you know, that was fun.

This Little Light of Mine

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

(Image: “The Energy Flow of Meditation,” by giorjoe.  Source: DeviantArt)

This post was supposed to be about politics.  I made a few notes over the past couple of days with the intention of writing about politics as our national religion.  One note said, “Until politics is no longer our religion, until our party is no longer our sect, we will continue to wage a holy bipartisan war with each other.”  I had several pithy comments rolling around in my brain about the altar call of biased media, the evangelical fervor of party leaders, and the heaven or hell choice each side paints the positions to be.  I was chewing on a truly remarkable idea about the crucifixion of conscience while a herd of Pontius Pilates washed their hands and a gang of Judases counted their money.  It promised to be a jeremiad of legendary proportions.

And then I went to church.

Today we installed the new leadership council at Unity of Music City.  Fifteen people (fourteen of them women) stood on stage holding a candle and singing, “I am a light in this world.”  It was a moving and transformative experience.  Describing it cannot do it justice, for what was most profound was the energy in that moment.  Our entire spiritual community is focused on being a force for good in this new year, and I was privileged and humbled to be standing shoulder to shoulder with those who would hold the sacred space for that vision to become action.

I was, quite frankly, riding a little high.  I came home from church and checked the mail I had ignored since earlier in the week.  Inside was a present from some good friends, and they don’t yet know how perfect it was.  As I was walking into my apartment, I received a text message.  It was from my decades-long BFF who I don’t really see anymore and who I rarely talk to, but I know is always there.  The text said, “Just wanted you to know I was thinking of you.  Love you.”

Then I meditated.

Now I’m baking an apple pie.

Do I really need to close the circle of logic for you here?  I have absolutely no energy for a discussion of politics.  Not even a detached, enlightened one where I play at being observer and not participant.  Not even a theoretical one.  Not even a funny one.

In churches and schools and clubs and organizations and movements and NGO’s and various other tribes the land over, people pick up the mantle of leadership and love and duty and calling every single day.  In any given moment, a significant army are devoting themselves to be a force for good.   Those are the people I want to talk about.

Let me make one thing clear — this isn’t about burying heads in the sand and ignoring reality.  Being a force for good means you are ready to stand and march and advocate.  But I know that I know that I know that attention is the fertilizer of reality.  What we focus on grows.

So I’m not writing about politics.  I’m writing about love and intention.

There is another note I have in my journal.  My good friend and minister, Denise Yeargin, shared this with us this morning in church.  “No matter how dark an experience might be, I look up and experience the light.”

I have the choice.  I choose the light.

Duck, Duck, Duck, Zen

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

My good friend and sherpa-guru, Denise, recently reminded me of the spiral quality of the spiritual path.  The idea is that the journey is not a straight line or even a chaotic one; it’s a purposeful and patterned returning and returning and returning to constant themes throughout our lives, each time seeing them from a higher place.

This might show up in our emotional work in this way: We visit a therapist in our 20’s to work through a particular emotional pain.  We journal and scream and talk and cry it all out until we feel a release.  It’s gone!  We’re light and happy and free.  Life is beautiful.  Until a year later when the same old shit pops up again.  It might seem we wasted all of that time, energy, and money.  But if we’re really aware, we recognize that we’re seeing the old pain from a slightly different perspective.  We’re a floor up in our spirit, but we’ve circled back around to the same side of the building.

The spiritual journey follows a similar stairway to heaven, and I’ve gone round and round.  I’ve learned to recognize different levels (“fifth floor: ladies lingerie, peace of mind”).  An early level is one I call:

Practice-Practice-Practice-Forget About It

Actually, there are at least two preceding levels: Practice-Forget-Forget-Forget, and Practice-Forget-Practice-Forget.  But, we can talk about all three together.

The practice is our spiritual work.  It looks different for each of us.  My practice is meditation, yoga, engagement with my spiritual community, reading, walks in nature, and general mindfulness.  Some people practice with prayer, church/synagogue/temple, playing tic-tac-toe.  Literally ANYTHING can be part of a practice if you have imbued it with that energy.

Early on the journey, I had really great intentions.  (Pause for delayed laughter.) I knew what called to me, but I hadn’t quite found the groove.  I worked at it.  Boy, did I work at it.  And I would forget it, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months, and at least a time or two for years.  It took getting beyond those levels to really see how important the forget-about-it times were.  Those were the incubation periods.

Then came the next level:

Practice-Practice-Practice-Wander In The Wilderness

Until we completely purge our inner victim, we’re destined to periodically wail into the heavens, “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?” This is done with a flourish of great drama.  This is the level on which we find ourselves saying things like “But I’ve been doing my work; really I have.  Why does God let this HAPPEN?” (Wail, moan, general gnashing of teeth.)

This, too, is an important time.  I believe Jesus may have been on this spiral when he spent his 40 days in the desert.  It’s the level where we wrestle with angels . . . and devils.  At times, we threaten to scrap it all and live our entire lives in happy hour at the beach.  We are tempted to buy happiness by giving up the hope of joy.

The most important moments of transformation happen here.  We make a decision: keep climbing or jump over the rail.  What we don’t realize is that jumping over the rail only puts us back into a forget-about-it state.  We WILL be back.  We can’t un-know what has been revealed to us.

Eventually we reach a new landing:

Practice-Practice-Practice-Practice

We’ve achieved consistency.  We walk our talk.  Life still presents challenges, but these are much rarer, and we tend to view them from a place of detachment.  This doesn’t mean we don’t care; in fact, we have learned compassion at levels we’ve never known before.  We just don’t internalize pain so readily.

This is a beautiful level.  It can also be exhausting.  The practice brings peace, but in those 3:00 a.m. moments when no one is watching and we’ve dared to be really honest with ourselves, we still sometimes wonder, “What’s the point?  IS there a point?  Is something supposed to HAPPEN? Is this IT?”

And then magic happens.  It happens because of our practice.  It happens in spite of our practice.  It happens most often in those 3:00 a.m. moments of heart-opening honesty.

The magic doesn’t have a level.  It dances around the spiral like pixie-dust and star stuff.  It waits until we’re ready.  And then it teaches us the next step:

Practice-Practice-Practice-Surrender

Every great religion teaches it.  Every great master has done it.  Every enlightened being lives it.

How do we know God?  How do we align with Divine Mind?  How do we step into the One-Ness?  We. Stop. Practicing.  At least for a moment.  We stop everything.  We release.  We let go.

We surrender.

Much like the early levels, I’m sure there are some additional levels here, and perhaps the place of true bliss is one of surrender-surrender-surrender-surrender.

Maybe there is even something after that.  I’ll let you know.  I’m still climbing.