Day 23 Lenten Meditation: Freedom

I highly doubt the person at the Unitarian Universalist Church who created these daily meditations counted on COVID-19 and social isolation. For the sake of our fellow humans, we have forsaken our freedom to congregate in groups and socialize in mass events. Freedom, it seems, is defined by not having it.

In these days, we realize that freedom has a cost. Those who speak about the military say “Freedom is not always free”. What they’re missing is that freedom is never free. Freedom to congregate in the days of Novel Coronavirus means the virus will spread faster. Freedom of choice at the supermarket leaves us bewildered. And freedom to choose weapons that can kill tens of people in minutes costs society many more innocent lives.

If we have freedom, we have responsibility to others. A free market economy requires corporate responsibility to customers and workers, which doesn’t always happen, thus the need for laws. The freedom to bear arms requires responsibility to keep those guns from the hands of children, which sadly fails too many times. We do not handle our freedoms well.

I hadn’t expected this to be such a somber reflection. We usually talk about freedom in lofty terms in the US, leaving the costs of freedom on the shoulders of soldiers who fight for American interests. But we all have a responsibility to make decisions for the whole about how much freedom we should allow.

Day 22 Lenten Meditation: Remorse

Remorse: Deep regret or guilt for a wrong committed. This is what the dictionary tells me. I look at this definition, and I realize that remorse isn’t the garden-variety guilt we get from sneaking cookies into the movie theatre or taking the last parking lot. Regret exists in the context of having committed some wrong.

Remorse, as the definition says, is also deep. No twinge of guilt for picking up the last roll of toilet paper on the shelf. Remorse drops us to our knees. It is heart-rending.

Remorse is necessary. It exists to spur us into action, into remediation, into restitution. It exists to bring us back into community, as we were meant to be.

Remorse is vital to our lives.

Day 21 Lenten Meditation: Wind

This is not so much a meditation but a cautionary tale about wanting to wield strength indiscriminately:

Anna raised her arms, stretched out her fingers. The slightest breeze tickled her fingertips and rustled her cloud of fine, frizzy blonde hair. She remembered what the old woman had told her at the market as Anna clutched the basket full of potatoes and leeks. “Your family were weather talents for the Crown way back when,” the woman asked, regarding her with opaque eyes. “The talent died out, or so they say. Nobody knows why.”

Anna reached toward the words, feeling them sing in her chest. Talent, she thought. I could be a talent. Something different, something more. More than the youngest child of a farmer in a small village running errands for her beleaguered mother. Anna ran away from the old woman without bidding her farewell.

She had run straight for the forest with the basket, avoiding her mother, avoiding her house. It was not hers to be the child of a farmer. She knew, she knew in her heart that there was a name for her difference and her destiny now.

And so, she stood in the deepest part of the forest. She imagined the breeze tickling her fingers as she froze in that uncomfortable position, arms outstretched. Minutes later, she felt it – the breeze increased, stirring the leaves around her, making them whisper.

Was it her? She concentrated harder. When she squinted, she could see the invisible currents eddying around her, her own chilling microclimate she was insensate to. She wove the currents, warp and woof, as she had many days at her mother’s loom. This, this was her destiny, to call the winds up for the King, to live in court, to leave behind her existence on the farm.

The breeze became a torrent of air, tangling her hair and snapping branches. Her vision drilled down to individual particles she could not name. She stirred those particles like a pot on the stove, watching them whirl.

This is mine! She felt the triumphant surge of her heart. Mine and only mine, to smite anyone who would gainsay me!

Her heart felt lighter than air.

Anna’s mother noted her child’s absence as the wind howled. She feared for her daughter, the unbiddable one.

Then she heard the voice in the wind: Mine and only mine, and she thought of her family stories of talent and consequence.

In the morning, Anna’s father found Anna standing upright in the woods, devoid of life. When he touched her shoulder, however, she crumbled into dust as if all its substance had dissolved into air.

He brought the tidings back to his wife with a handful of the dust that had been Anna. His wife merely nodded; she had heard the tales of her family’s wind talent and its price.

Day 20 Lenten Meditation: Change

Right now, the buzzword is “social distancing” in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. We didn’t know how ingrained our habits were — going shopping, going to classes, meeting with friends — until we were advised not to do them.

Our discomfort is palpable, mingled with the fear of the unknown contagion. The hesitation when we think for a moment of our habits, then realize that we’ve had to change the way we look at our everyday routine.

Change, even anticipated change, hits us this way: discomfort, disorientation. A feeling like walking in the wrong direction, like we are uneasy in our own bodies. Fear of the unknown.

Because of this, we often avoid change. We avoid the messages that we need to change, such as in this COVID-19 pandemic, we avoid making beneficial changes because the status quo is so comfortable.

How do we make change easier? Information — the more we can penetrate the unknown, the more we know what the change will create. An analysis of pros/cons or risk/benefits for each option, change or no change.

We need to choose change by testing that it is the best option, whether it reduces harm or increases good.

Day 19 Lenten Meditation: Resistance

In movies, we root for the resistance, the underdogs who fight unjust systems — Star Wars, for one shining example; The Matrix, V for Vendetta, The Help, Hidden Figures, Remember the Titans, Erin Brockovich, for others.

It’s a popular trope, yet we do not often resist the unjust powers over our own lives. We lament, we grouse, we vent, but do we resist? Resistance requires us to stand up to the power, whether overtly or covertly, and that means to step into potential danger.

There are many understandable reasons why we do not resist. First, because we don’t perceive ourselves in enough potential harm to take the risk. Second, because there are people in our lives we want to protect. Third, we’re just plain tired and it just can’t get any worse, can it?

It most certainly can get worse. Think of Nazi Germany and any parallels to the current state of America. I will not say we’ve become complacent, yet the Democrats squabble over their candidates and the Republicans believe that Trump is their best choice in the primaries. Yet we do not move.)

Resistance, in my opinion, needs to be non-violent as long as possible, so I’m not going to advocate the Star Wars solution until or unless we’re facing destruction from star destroyers.

It can be protest, which may accomplish something if enough people do it for long enough. I think about protests in Poland, which have prevented some authoritarian actions there.
It can be subverting the paradigm — I think about the Norwegians in WWII and their use of humor against the Nazis, destroying their morale: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/during-the-nazi-occupation-of-norway-humor-was-the-secret-weapon
It can be refusal to take action, but this must be clearly because the action is wrong and not because the person doesn’t want to do it. And the action has to be clearly wrong. Civil disobedience is my favorite example: occupying buildings and other public spaces, risking arrest to protest war, violence, disruption of rights, and corporate irresponsibility.
It can be social media, which is the resistance I see the most in America. The issue, though, is the swell of resistance is pitted against conspiracy theories, Russian bots, and other misinformation. We must prove our assertions with truth, even when accurate information seems useless — the truth will out.
It can’t be offensive — which encompasses everything from riots to mailing dangerous materials to bomb threats to violence. Resorting to violence makes the resister look like an extremist, which means they’ve lost.
It can’t have worse consequences than what the resister is fighting. I think about people who refuse to vote if their presidential candidate isn’t nominated. By inaction, they may be choosing the greater of two evils.

There will always be injustice toward people. So resist injustice, even if the injustice is not aimed toward you.

Day 18 Lenten Meditation: Music

A long time ago, a friend told me, “I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in music. Music is a force holding together the universe.”

Even to this day, I can’t say he was wrong. The music of the spheres in the greatness of the universe, a lullaby sung by a mother, the communal experience of a mosh pit or a church service, the sad song on the playlist — all have the sense of the divine in them.

We turn to music for celebration, for comfort, for commemoration, for unity. We praise, we seduce, we tease, we shout for joy, we share our humanity, we lament — all through music. To quote my friend Greg again, “Music is a force holding together the universe.”

Day 17 Lenten Meditation: Doubt

I thought Doubting Thomas was the most reasonable person in the Bible. I don’t know if I believe the story went as written; so many hands have messed the Bible up. I guess I’m like Thomas.

He had very understandable questions in the aftermath of Jesus’ resurrection. It was a violation of natural rules, observed for millennia, and he pointed this out. In a more educated time, he could have gone to college and become an academic. He had the right to question, and in that, he represents all of us.

We live with doubt, and for good reason. Because of doubt, we avoid the false cures of snake oil salesmen and the too-good-to-be-true promises of scammers. Doubt is a potent defense mechanism.

There is, however, a point where doubt is counter-productive. What if good research tells you that the doubt is unfounded? What if there’s more true benefit than risk? What if doubt is keeping you from a richer human experience?

We need doubt. We need to know when to let go of doubt.

Day 16 Lenten Meditation: Wisdom

Note: I apologize for missing two days of meditation: I was at a cabin retreating from life for a little while. It didn’t have reliable internet so I didn’t post. I did, however, meditate a lot.

Today’s meditation is about wisdom. Wisdom is not just knowledge, it’s knowledge put into play in the context of the wider world behind it. Knowledge is knowing the facts; wisdom is knowing how to use the facts. Wisdom is the knowledge that comes from experience and learning from experience, and is flexible enough to take everything into account.

Some people say wisdom comes from age, but there are many old fools out there that prove the lie. Some of those fools, unfortunately, are in the government and think themselves very wise. However, knowledge is knowing how to build a nuclear bomb; wisdom is never building it in the first place.

Wisdom doesn’t always follow the status quo; it forges new paths to promote the well-being of human beings all over the world as well as the earth and nature itself. Wisdom requires us to use our knowledge in new ways, evolving with the needs of creation.

Wisdom is what will save us; knowledge is not enough.

Day 13 Lenten Meditation: Dance

If I don’t dance, nobody gets hurt.

It’s true. I’m preternaturally clumsy. I once broke my foot dancing. In Renaissance garb, so I looked twice as impressive in the emergency room. I could just as easily broken my partner’s foot as we took a full gallop down two lines of dancers. Renaissance dancing wasn’t very demanding, even, and I broke my foot.

I’m sure the person who wrote these meditations meant this in a spiritual sense, but this is not my metaphor. To me, “dance” means “spend three months in a cast”.

I’m kidding, sort of. I’m also the person who wrote the lyrics to the following song:

To dance naked in this pool of light
is all the moment requires of me —
eyes closed, as if I were alone
but I know you are there almost
almost close enough to touch,
almost close enough to feel
My hand reaches out to touch your face
and touches air — I am not close enough
I am not close enough

In dreams I dare to touch your face
we dare to look into each other’s eyes
Dreams become connection, become real
In dreams I dare to touch your face
we dare to look into each other’s eyes
Dreams become connection, become real
I am not close enough
I am not close enough

Last night I woke up from a terrible dream
I was standing lonely in the wilderness
with no one close enough to hear
but I knew you were there almost
almost close enough to touch,
almost close enough to feel
My hand reaches out to touch your face
and touches air — You were not close enough
You were not close enough

In dreams I dare to touch your face
we dare to look into each other’s eyes
Dreams become connection, become real
In dreams I dare to touch your face
we dare to look into each other’s eyes
Dreams become connection, become real
I am not close enough
I am not close enough

I shed my clothes to dance in light
alone, spinning wildly into sky
my hand reaches out to touch your face
and touches air, and touches life
almost close enough to touch
almost close enough to feel
my hand reaches out to touch your face
I touch your hand and we are close enough
and we are close enough

In dreams I dare to touch your face
we dare to look into each other’s eyes
Dreams become connection, become real
In dreams I dare to touch your face
we dare to look into each other’s eyes
Dreams become connection, become real
And we are close enough

Day 12 Lenten Meditation: Inclusion

It is easy to avoid those who make you uncomfortable. Those of a different culture, those who act differently, those who speak differently. It’s easy, but it’s not fair. Or kind. Or right.

It’s easy to ostracize those who are different. Those with disabilities, those of a different color, those who are too smart or not smart enough. It’s easy, but it’s not fair. Or kind. Or right.

Inclusion is difficult. In a classroom, it means having children with disabilities, especially those that get in the way of learning, in the same classroom as other children, working with aides who help them work around their disabilities. In the workplace, it means teaching the majority how to treat the minority with the same courtesy one treats their acquaintances. In everyday life, it means cultural competence and the ability to see the world through the other’s eyes. All of these require effort, discomfort, and honesty to oneself.

Inclusion is necessary. Humans evolved because of their ability to adapt. They evolved from genetic difference that led to more adaptation. We evolved socially with differences among people. We only adapt when there is difference — different attitudes, different experiences. We must include others for the sake of our own future.

And because it’s fair, kind, and right.