From the Public Page of my Private Journal 

The thought simply slipped from within the shadows of my mind . . .

 I think it is time to leave.

     Death.  We try as hard as we can to not think about it as though not thinking about it keeps it from knocking at our door.

    Of course, the specter from those shadows comes to the door of each of us at some point like it or not.

    Perhaps it is natural that at my age of 83 (now 90) I should find myself considering the shape of things to come.  Change comes at the blinking of an eye—whether it is ten minutes from now or ten years.  I am ready.

    There are things left undone.  How few of us truly wrap up loose ends in our lives before we change, before we move on to whatever awaits us at the turning of the page.  I have pledged to do as my mother had done, return as many things as she could to the people who had blessed her with them as gifts.  At her passing she was truly free of the burdens of things.  My pledge is so far unfulfilled, but I pledge to keep at it.

    I long ago developed my philosophy of afterlife reality.  I am satisfied that the beliefs I have come to are completely workable for me.  Those beliefs are shaped mainly by eastern religious philosophy.  For many years I have felt that so-called Christians had so diluted and polluted the teachings of Jesus as to make what is left bare threads of what his life truly represented.  Enough said about that.

    If I have regrets, and I do, they come from decisions made that were not so well thought out as I had believed.  Some of those decisions have caused harm to others.  Some, naturally, have benefited others as well as my own life.  I will stand judged not by some far off God, but by my own conscience, which I am certain may be harsher than a loving god would pronounce upon me.

    Not a day goes by that I do not give thanks for the life I have been blessed to live.  I consider myself most fortunate to have survived despite everything I have done to distract me from a course that might have been.  I may leave little trace of my presence this time around.  I will know, and I do, what I have accomplished.  I feel satisfied that I have contributed to the world in which I live, though few may ever know what that has been.

    Finally, I thank all of you who have walked, at least for a time, with me on the path.  You have given me more than you know, probably because I have failed to tell you so.  I tell you now with love and a grateful heart: Thank you!

    Comes also from the shadows of my mind the thought . . .

 Love never fails.

(Reposted from May 20, 2018)

 

Thoughts

I wish that I could write as I think I once did.  At least I believe I wrote moderately well. 

My heart has much to say, but the part of me that put words and phrases together, the brain, does not perform its task quite as fluently these days. 

For the most part, since it is my heart that desires to speak, it usually centers on some aspect of love.  That feels like an irony for me.  I have a very deep sense of love and caring, yet I realize that I often do not let it show by the way I act.  Indeed, I realize a selfishness in my love.  It is too often, somewhat unconsciously, directed toward my own interests.  How I care for others is not diminished, yet because my actions often fall short of adequate expression, I feel I am in fact leaving them alone and uncared for.

These thoughts tumbled from my heart just now as I was reading Maria Popova’s latest post in her newsletter, “Brain Pickings.” The article shared thoughts from poet/philosopher David Whyte about friendship, love and heartbreak. [1] While most of us tend to view these as separate feelings, he brings them together as one pathway in life. Heartbreak seems the most devastating of the three elements.  So much pain oozes from it for those immersed in it.

Ms. Popova introduces Whyte’s thoughts thusly:

“Stripped of the unnecessary negative judgments we impose upon it, heartbreak is simply a fathometer for the depth of our desire — for a person, for an accomplishment, for belonging to the world and its various strata of satisfaction. Whyte captures this elegantly:”

Realizing its inescapable nature, we can see heartbreak not as the end of the road or the cessation of hope but as the close embrace of the essence of what we have wanted or are about to lose.

[…]

Heartbreak asks us not to look for an alternative path, because there is no alternative path. It is an introduction to what we love and have loved, an inescapable and often beautiful question, something and someone that has been with us all along, asking us to be ready for the ultimate letting go.

It would seem that to love we are inviting heartbreak, this disappointment and frustration that comes when we feel unfulfilled, when we appear to lose what we once had.  How can we reconcile this apparent loss?  For me, my experience of loss is considering the “what ifs” of life.  What if I had only done this?  What if I had not acted this way? What if I had chosen differently? What if I loved regardless of eventual outcomes?

I have not yet answered the questions.  I am certain there are possible answers, solutions, ways to act.

What if I could write as I once did?

---

[1] https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/04/29/david-whyte-consolations-words/?mc_cid=1047338dc7&mc_eid=b032a5ca74

Living Without Feeling

As I read an email newsletter centered on powerful writings by authors daring to deal with life's most complex issues, I could not help but think how important feelings are to being fully alive. [1]

Among several topics in the current article was one focused upon Elizabeth Gilbert writing about “Love, Loss, and How to Move Through Grief As Grief Moves Through You."  Who has not experienced grief at some point in their life?  Sometimes, many of us find ourselves re-experiencing moments of grief over a loss that occurred a long time ago.  This happened for me as I read along.  I first thought about my daughter, Jennifer, and her loss of her mother almost two years ago.  The pain still runs deep for her due to the closeness of their relationship.  My thoughts turned to the passing of my mother, an experience that is as clear to me in this moment as it was in 2002.

My mind found itself considering what life must be like for those who appear to have no feelings, people who seem to coast along living in the moment without regard to a history of connections or a future of discovery.  Several people I know, as far as I can tell, would fit this description.  They are not bad people because they do not seem to feel things as I do.  Yet I feel they have a different type of loss, a life not quite as colorful as it might be.  Understand, I am not saying that sadness is required for us to have color in our lives.  It is, however, important to realize the strengths and character that are built by our ability to face loss in such a way as to allow moving through it with grace and depth of meaning.  In short, if we are feeling loss it is because whatever, whoever has been “lost” was and is important to us.

In this article Joan Didion was quoted as saying, “Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be." Gilbert reflects on the death of her partner, Rayya Elias . . . the love of her life.

“Grief… happens upon you, it’s bigger than you. There is a humility that you have to step into, where you surrender to being moved through the landscape of grief by grief itself. And it has its own timeframe, it has its own itinerary with you, it has its own power over you, and it will come when it comes. And when it comes, it’s a bow-down. It’s a carve-out. And it comes when it wants to, and it carves you out — it comes in the middle of the night, comes in the middle of the day, comes in the middle of a meeting, comes in the middle of a meal. It arrives — it’s this tremendously forceful arrival and it cannot be resisted without you suffering more… The posture that you take is you hit your knees in absolute humility and you let it rock you until it is done with you. And it will be done with you, eventually. And when it is done, it will leave. But to stiffen, to resist, and to fight it is to hurt yourself.”

When my father passed in 1981 the news arrived by telephone while my son and daughter and I were having dinner with a friend in Denver.  Loss comes in its own time.  There really is no being ready for it.  Perhaps that reason above all is why it is so important that we allow ourselves to be feeling individuals.  Feeling allows us to be resilient and able to bend in the winds of stress and change.

Gilbert continues, 

“There’s this tremendous psychological and spiritual challenge to relax in the awesome power of it until it has gone through you. Grief is a full-body experience. It takes over your entire body — it’s not a disease of the mind. It’s something that impacts you at the physical level… I feel that it has a tremendous relationship to love: First of all, as they say, it’s the price you pay for love. But, secondly, in the moments of my life when I have fallen in love, I have just as little power over it as I do in grief. There are certain things that happen to you as a human being that you cannot control or command, that will come to you at really inconvenient times, and where you have to bow in the human humility to the fact that there’s something running through you that’s bigger than you.”

Finally, a thought about people who may consider it a weakness to express feelings.  Dads used to teach their sons, “Men don’t cry.”  Hopefully, that is not being taught any longer.  Our emotions are not always accompanied by tears, but when they are, it may be that extra step we allow ourselves that frees us to relax into a more satisfying understanding of the love that embraces what appears to be lost.  Living without feeling is not really living at all.

I am always glad to receive my Sunday digest of “Brain Pickings,” edited by Maria Popova.  Each week there is something to take me more deeply into my understanding of self.  Check it out after reading the footnoted post. [2]

---

[1] https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/10/17/elizabeth-gilbert-ted-podcast-love-loss/?mc_cid=a95d120d89&mc_eid=b032a5ca74

[2] https://www.brainpickings.org

On Mothers And More

I have not written an article for my LifeCentering blog for some time now.  In fact, on several occasions I have felt I should write one indicating it was the “last word.”  Obviously, the last word has not been written—yet.

I am writing this on Mothers’ Day 2016, and my heart is filled with the emotions of memories of my Mom.  She made her transition one month short of her 100^th birthday in 2002.  However, it is not simply memories of her that sparked this article.

For many, memories of our loved ones who have gone beyond our physical site are often tinged with thoughts of things we might have done differently regarding our interactions.  Sadly, these retrospectives can tend to leave us feeling we did not do enough, or that “unfinished” business should have been taken care of before they left.

Today, I find myself thinking of current situations in the lives of others I know for whom I am aware there is “unfinished” business that it would be well to take care of while it is still possible to do so.  Back in November 2014 I wrote an article detailing how I had waited too long to make amends to my sister for a misunderstanding that we had. See the article here:

http://lifecentering.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2014-12-19T15:00:00-08:00&max-results=5

It is often very difficult, especially after much time has passed, to make amends to someone we may have offended or hurt in some manner.  Let me assure you the difficulty one faces when the amends are NOT made in time is much worse to deal with emotionally.  There is a good reason Twelve Step Support groups emphasize the importance of making amends (Step Nine).  It is the step that offers an opportunity to become resolved about past actions that have been hurtful or limiting in some way to others.  When we move toward reconciliation we are saying, “My life is not fully in order as long as I have not forgiven others or asked forgiveness from them.”  Further, it brings us clearly face to face with what stands in the way of our healing and happiness.  Our action in making amends is what is important.  What the person to whom we offer our amends does is not our business.  Our business is taking care of OUR actions and freeing ourselves of the burden of regret and perhaps even shame.

So, on this Mothers’ Day I hope all of us who are reminiscing about our mothers will use the time to celebrate all they have done for us.  And should there happen to be some bit of unfinished business in the relationship, now is the time to do what you can to resolve it.  Free yourself and your mother (or whomever else may need it) from anything that stands in the way of healing.  Bless you, Mother!

Comforting Peace

It seems to me there are an unusually high number of people in transition right now.   I have noticed in posts to Facebook by my friends, or friends of friends, of loved ones in the process of moving on in life’s adventure.  Of course, the news is full of the almost daily deaths due to gun violence, much of it hitting closer to home than we ever imagined it would.

This challenges us in many ways.  We all know that the time will come for each of us.  Some of us are prepared to “be there” for our loved ones as they move closer to the time of parting from us physically.  Somehow we have found the love and strength to abide in the “peace that passes understanding.”  Still, it is never really easy to voice our final farewell.

When a tragedy of some sort comes unexpectedly, we are seldom ready.  At times such as that instinct often takes over and we are numbed to the tasks at hand that we must attend to.  We are enabled to move through the experience deciding, acting, and comforting others as necessary.  When the immediacy of the need passes, we may fall into our own quiet oblivion while we find our personal healing and renewal.  Perhaps these words from a man who was my mentor and my friend will encourage and strengthen you in your time of need as it has me many times.

I Am There

By James Dillet Freeman

Poet Laureate Of Unity

Do you need me?

I am there.

You cannot see Me, yet I am the light you see by.

You cannot hear Me, yet I speak through your voice.

You cannot feel Me, yet I am the power at work in your hands.

I am at work, though you do not understand My ways.

I am, at work, though you do not recognize my works.

I am not strange visions.  I am not mysteries.

Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me as I am, and then, but as a feeling and a faith.

Yet I am there. Yet I hear. Yet I answer.

When you need Me, I am there.

Even if you deny Me, I am there.

Even when you feel most alone, I am there.

Even in your fears, I am there.

Even in your pain, I am there.

I am there when you pray and when you do not pray.

I am in you, and you are in Me.

Only in you mind can you feel separate from Me, for only in your mind are the mists of “yours” and “mine.”

Yet only with your mind can you know Me and experience Me.

Empty your heart of empty fears.

When you get yourself out of the way, I am there.

You can of yourself do nothing, but I can do all.

And I am in all.

Though you may not see the good, good is there, for I am there.

I am there because I have to be, because I am.

Only in Me does the world have meaning; only out of Me does the world take form; only because of Me does the world go forward.

I am the law on which the movement of the stars and the growth of living cells are founded.

I am the love that is the law’s fulfilling.

I am assurance.

I am peace.

I am oneness.

I am the law that you can live by.

I am the love that you can cling to.

I am your assurance.

I am your peace.

I am one with you.

I am.

Though you fail to find Me, I do not fail you.

Though your faith in Me is unsure, My faith in you never wavers, because I know you because I love you.

Beloved, I am there.

(A copy of “I Am There” is now on the moon . . .carried

there on the Apollo XV voyage by Astronaut James B. Irvin,

and left on the moon for future space voyagers)

Tiny Beautiful Things, Revisited

As I was reviewing “hits” on my LifeCentering blog this morning, I noticed an article I posted in July 2012 had been visited by a reader  The article was my response to a book by Cheryl Strayed.   After looking at the post I decided to repost it, especially since Cheryl Strayed’s book, Wild: Lost and Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, was being made into a movie.  Reese Witherspoon is cast as Cheryl.  Some of you may be following her Facebook page and know the details.  https://www.facebook.com/CherylStrayed.Author

I found my comments from that post are still important to me today.  Maybe you will find the review helpful as well.

Tiny Beautiful Things

 

I know that some of you don’t really care about what I have read or why or how it affected me.  But some of you do.  It is to you that I write to let you know I just finished, Tiny Beautiful Things, by Cheryl (Dear Sugar) Strayed.  My previous article on this blog was primarily about the author’s book, Wild: From Lost To Found On the Pacific Crest Trail.  Dear Sugar was an advice column written by the author, who had remained anonymous until recently.  I read about her book, Wild, in our local paper and it was in that review that she “outed” herself as the person who had been writing the advice on love and life column for The Rumpus.net. 

Now why in the world would I, a retired person living alone, care at all about advice on love and life?  Actually, when I started reading the book, it was not because it consisted of many of the advice letters she had received and answered.  It was because of how impressed I was with her writing in general.  Since I consider myself a writer as well, I am interested in how other authors develop their ideas.  I knew from reading Wild that I would probably like her latest work.

In a way I was not surprised by the fact that her “advice” on love and life hit a resonant chord for me in so many ways.  I have had my share of love and life experiences and feel I learned something about myself in each of them.  However, I discovered new ways of looking at love and life, especially as I thought of the people I have loved and do love.  I never really felt I deserved to be loved.  Expectations about what could be or should be the way love works were never quite that way for me because of that lack of deserving.  I spent much of my time with a therapist trying to better understand the ways in which I really did deserve to be loved and to how love others.  I wish I could say I have finished that part of my learning experience.  I have not.

I still am unable to articulate what love is all about.  I know though that in the pages of this book I constantly gained insights that I strongly felt were representative of my needs and ways in which I could have done better in relationships and hopefully can apply from here on out to my friends and loved ones.  There is always something to learn.  Life is never finished and we should not delude ourselves into thinking that we have arrived at some exact point of conclusion (on any subject).

One very personal event in my life was touched upon in this book.  Some years ago I shared with my son something that I had felt about our relationship.  I told him that I felt he was my teacher.  How I stated that at the time is probably not how I actually felt it, but it was the clearest way I could say it at the time. Here in this book I gained a further insight to what I tried to convey to my son then.  Dear Sugar, in her response to “Living Dead Dad” said:

More will be revealed.  Your son hasn’t yet taught you everything he has to teach you.  He taught you how to love like you’ve never loved before.  He taught you how to suffer like you’ve never suffered before.  Perhaps the next thing he has to teach you is acceptance.  And the thing after that, forgiveness.

Love is such a powerful thing.  It will teach you whether you like it or not and whether you are ready or not.  What it will teach you is personal in every case.  Whether we will accept the potential lesson and move with it is up to each of us.  I will tell you this, you do not have to have all the answers about love and life in order to love and live!  Just do it for god’s sake!  Do it as best you can.  Love everyone and every experience that comes your way.  You will never regret having loved.  If you feel regret for having loved someone who did not love you back as you hoped, maybe there is another way to love that person without your expectation of the way it should be.  I don’t know how it will be for you, but I know each of us must keep loving and finding new ways to express love.  Otherwise, we are not truly living.

Cheryl Strayed pulled absolutely no punches in her advice.  She hit so hard it must have felt like literally being hit in the stomach for some of those who wrote to her.  It certainly knotted my stomach more than once. But, and this is a big but, she never attempted to belittle the writers no matter how apparently stupid, unforgiving or judgmental their attitude may have been.  And she always caressed softly with her words the tender spots they exposed so that each person could be receptive enough to fully consider the possibilities within their particular challenge.

I wish I could be as clear and caring and direct with love in my writing as Sugar is.  Maybe it is because I am a retired person living alone that this writer has come into my life.  I certainly feel uplifted and blessed by having her work in my library and in my consciousness.  Maybe you would like her too.

Rearranging Life

 

I was in the process of rearranging the furniture in my second bedroom/office (yes, already after so soon getting settled!), and in the process, spilled contents of my letter trays where I kept correspondence, bills and other items not ready for filing.  It was then I realized an additional reason why I had begun this rearranging. Here is what I discovered.

In going through the correspondence folder I came across several greeting cards I had received in the past and had wanted to save.  I also found a number of photos (grand children); articles I had saved and some pictures I had saved from years ago that had been placed under the glass top to my office desk.  I managed to sort these various items out and saved most all of them again.

It was lunchtime when I got through with the arranging and after lunch I sat down to read.  While I was reading I found myself thinking back to the greeting cards I had discovered.  There was a get well card from members of my Ageless Conditioning class following my heart surgery several years ago.  There was a Christmas card from my good friends from back in the Whole Life Learning Center days in Colorado, the Ebrights, telling me of Jack’s hip replacement surgery done on my birthday and telling me I was an inspiration to him.  Finally, there were Father’s Day cards from family members.

I realized how valuable the sentiments shared in the cards were to me.  A couple of years ago I had gone through my files that contained years of cards from close friends and loved ones.  I had cards from my son and daughter that went back to the time they first were able to scribble their names.  These were so precious and re-reading them reminded me of the love that transcends everything.  As difficult as it was I had to let the cards go, but before I did, I scanned many of them into my computer.

I guess the point of all this is that if or when we begin to take our loved ones and friends for granted, it is wonderful to have those greeting cards to look at again.  It true that some connections remain stronger than some others.  Never the less the special people whose paths have joined with us from time to time leave marks on our consciousness forever.  To be reminded of our shared caring can strengthen our resolve to continue to care, to love and to respect each other more deeply.

So, it was a fruitful morning for me.  Once again my “re-arranging” brought clearer insight about important relationships. 

Your Happiness Is Your Job!

I recently was able to purchase a manufactured home in a small Oregon town heavy on farms, orchards, open space and light on traffic (and traffic lights!).  I had lived in an apartment since retiring from Safeco Life and Investments in 2003 and selling my mobile home in the Seattle Metro area and moving back to Oregon.  I didn’t fully realize until I was actually moved into my new home and began to get settled how totally happy I was.  I suppose much of the feeling came simply from a new environment and new experiences.  However, the longer I am here, the more I realize how many factors there are in one’s life that lead to happiness or the lack of it.

Primarily, of course, our happiness depends on our attitude about life.  Our attitude can be influenced by many things:  friends, relatives, social interaction, money, power, culture, ideals, spiritual activity, environment, and on and on.  What influences we accept as contributing factors in how we live most certainly results in the quality of life we have.  I believe that due to our inherent social nature we enjoy sharing our lives with others who are important to us in some way.  When we feel good and enjoy life, we like to share those feelings with friends and family.  Conversely, when we are in the dumps we may tend to share those feelings with others as well.  If we are lucky, our friends and family may rise to the occasion to be supportive and help us through the current challenges.  Sometimes, not so much!

One of the things I have always done when I was not clear about what I should do about some issue, I rearrange my furniture.  Many times I rearranged the furniture in the office where I was working if there was a particularly difficult issue that needed to be resolved.  I have done the same in my home from time to time.  It just seemed that rearranging the way things were outwardly gave me a new arrangement in my thinking and feeling that would lead to resolving the concern.

It is a major rearrangement when we make a physical move from one home to another.  I won’t go into the potentials of moves that constitute a “running from” some situation.  That is another story for another time.  What I am interested in is a move that truly comes about because one has begun an inner rearrangement of priorities and interests.  I had been feeling the urge to make a move, literally, for about a year.  I dabbled at looking at manufactured homes.  It was interesting that I never actually went in any!  Driving by was my way of flirting with the notion of a move.  I shared my process with only one other person.

Then I received a notice of a rent increase coming up at my apartment.  The rent on my storage locker had already gone up.  That was the catalyst that produced a serious consideration of the pros/cons of purchasing a home.  I had seen a listing of a home in Dallas, Oregon and decided to drive down for a look.  To make a long story short, I turned out to be looking at the wrong listing.  The mobile park was large and consisted of two separate, but connected parts.  As I was driving through the adjacent park, thinking the one I was originally looking for was not what I wanted, I stopped to pick up a flyer for one of the homes.  As I was getting ready to get back in my truck, I saw a lady come up the street waving her hands.  She said, “Do you want to look inside?”  I paused in surprise, then, said, “Yes. I would.”  It was exactly the home I wanted.

I quickly contacted the sales agent and arranged for a meeting.  I offered considerably less than the seller was asking, even after it had been reduced in price.  I also was asking the seller to take half the offer in a note for three years. The agent’s jaw dropped when I told him what my offer was, but he dutifully submitted it to the seller, who now lives in Arizona.  A few days later I got the word, “Start packing.  Your offer was accepted.”  Not even a counter offer.

There were many “co-incidental” factors to the whole process, but to mention one is the fact that I had been living in Greenway Square Apartments.  This home was located in Greenway Mobile Park.  The similarity was not lost on me.

Now, to get to the “Your Happiness is Your Job” part, I wanted to share my good fortune with others.  The result from others was varied, primarily supportive from the ones joining in my happiness.  One person in particular found it necessary to dump on my choice of making such a move.  Seems an inter-personal issue made the person think my action was somehow directed at offending him.  Go figure!  I was taken aback and frankly, it took me awhile to determine not to let any dissenter decide my happiness.  Some folks just can’t stand to see others happy when they are not.

I have had more happiness and interest in life in the last six weeks than I have had in the last five years!  In response to the dissent, I am reminded of the words of Edwin Markham:

He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him In!

From the poem " Outwitted”

To fully enjoy my happiness, it is necessary for me to express the ability to include others in a loving embrace.  What the other person does with that love is up to him/her.

Saying Yes When I Mean No

 

It seems so much easier to just say “Yes” to someone or some thing than to risk disappointing or upsetting that person.  But when we really mean “No,” and still say “Yes,” everyone ultimately ends up disappointed and we, especially, feel we have broken some cardinal rule by not going along.  Subsequently, we may develop feelings of guilt.

Much of the confusion that arises when we develop a habit of not responding in a manner that reflects our honest desire is due to the sets of expectations we hold in mind.  We have certain expectations of ourselves, sometimes without realizing we do.  We expect to be a good person, to respect others, to want to be there for them.  Failing, in our mind, to honor these expectations can make us feel unworthy or can lead us to fear we will not be loved.

It is also true that others have expectations that may or may not be obvious to them or to us as we interact with them.  Without saying so clearly a person may harbor an expectation that we will take some action or perform some act that they think they need us to do for them.  It is clear how the unspoken expectation can lead to disappointment and perhaps even more serious frustration that damages the relationship.

In The Book of Awakening the author, Mark Nepo, writes of this conflict:

And how many times, once trained in self-sacrifice, do we have the opposite conversation with ourselves; our passion for life saying yes, yes, yes, and our practical guardedness saying, don’t be foolish, be realistic, don’t leave yourself unprotected.  But long enough on the journey, and we come to realize an even deeper aspect of all this:  that those who truly love us will never knowingly ask us to be other than we are.

The unwavering truth is that when we agree to any demand, request, or condition that is contrary to our soul’s nature, the cost is that precious life force is drained off our core.  Despite the seeming rewards of compliance, our souls grow weary by engaging in activities that are inherently against their nature.

He also mentioned how he realized his first marriage was a case of saying yes when he meant no.  Especially when we are young, having been brought up to think and act in a certain way, we may confuse doing the “right” thing for someone else with the “wrong” thing for ourselves.  Until we recognize the need to be true to ourselves, we will fail at being true to others.  More importantly, we will fail to find the happiness and fulfillment that we seek.

Then there is the whole issue of doing things we believe will earn the love of someone important in our lives.  Love does not exist because you do or do not do something for that person.  Our love for someone cannot depend upon them changing to more closely reflect our expectations for them.  Either we love freely because we love, or there is something else going on in the relationship.

To do something someone else, a family member or friend, wants us to do when we honestly feel it is not something we want to do, can leave us feeling that we will lose their love or acceptance.  This is a strong inhibitor that can prevent us from clearly communicating why we choose to not comply. 

Expectations are often dressed up as “should.”  It is almost an absolute rule of thumb that the minute the word “should” is attached to a request or an action, we must step back and clearly consider the more subtle elements of such a request or action.  Are we doing it only because we were taught that we “should” do it?  Each of us must ask and answer this question for ourselves, but it awaits our consideration.

Most of us are familiar with the words of John Lydgate and adapted by Lincoln: 

You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

Expectations and shoulds are part of the problem that comes of saying yes when you really mean no.  Say what you mean and mean what you say!  This may not prevent every problem we have in our relationships or in our goals in life, but it will certainly free us from many of them.

Tiny Beautiful Things

I know that some of you don’t really care about what I have read or why or how it affected me.  But some of you do.  It is to you that I write to let you know I just finished, Tiny Beautiful Things, by Cheryl (Dear Sugar) Strayed.  My previous article on this blog was primarily about the author’s book, Wild: From Lost To Found On the Pacific Crest Trail.  Dear Sugar was an advice column written by the author, who had remained anonymous until recently.  I read about her book, Wild, in our local paper and it was in that review that she “outed” herself as the person who had been writing the advice on love and life column for The Rumpus.net. 

Now why in the world would I, a retired person living alone, care at all about advice on love and life?  Actually, when I started reading the book, it was not because it consisted of many of the advice letters she had received and answered.  It was because of how impressed I was with her writing in general.  Since I consider myself a writer as well, I am interested in how other authors develop their ideas.  I knew from reading Wild that I would probably like her latest work.

In a way I was not surprised by the fact that her “advice” on love and life hit a resonant chord for me in so many ways.  I have had my share of love and life experiences and feel I learned something about myself in each of them.  However, I discovered new ways of looking at love and life, especially as I thought of the people I have loved and do love.  I never really felt I deserved to be loved.  Expectations about what could be or should be the way love works were never quite that way for me because of that lack of deserving.  I spent much of my time with a therapist trying to better understand the ways in which I really did deserve to be loved and to how love others.  I wish I could say I have finished that part of my learning experience.  I have not.

I still am unable to articulate what love is all about.  I know though that in the pages of this book I constantly gained insights that I strongly felt were representative of my needs and ways in which I could have done better in relationships and hopefully can apply from here on out to my friends and loved ones.  There is always something to learn.  Life is never finished and we should not delude ourselves into thinking that we have arrived at some exact point of conclusion (on any subject).

One very personal event in my life was touched upon in this book.  Some years ago I shared with my son something that I had felt about our relationship.  I told him that I felt he was my teacher.  How I stated that at the time is probably not how I actually felt it, but it was the clearest way I could say it at the time. Here in this book I gained a further insight to what I tried to convey to my son then.  Dear Sugar, in her response to “Living Dead Dad” said:

More will be revealed.  Your son hasn’t yet taught you everything he has to teach you.  He taught you how to love like you’ve never loved before.  He taught you how to suffer like you’ve never suffered before.  Perhaps the next thing he has to teach you is acceptance.  And the thing after that, forgiveness.

Love is such a powerful thing.  It will teach you whether you like it or not and whether you are ready or not.  What it will teach you is personal in every case.  Whether we will accept the potential lesson and move with it is up to each of us.  I will tell you this, you do not have to have all the answers about love and life in order to love and live!  Just do it for god’s sake!  Do it as best you can.  Love everyone and every experience that comes your way.  You will never regret having loved.  If you feel regret for having loved someone who did not love you back as you hoped, maybe there is another way to love that person without your expectation of the way it should be.  I don’t know how it will be for you, but I know each of us must keep loving and finding new ways to express love.  Otherwise, we are not truly living.

Cheryl Strayed pulled absolutely no punches in her advice.  She hit so hard it must have felt like literally being hit in the stomach for some of those who wrote to her.  It certainly knotted my stomach more than once. But, and this is a big but, she never attempted to belittle the writers no matter how apparently stupid, unforgiving or judgmental their attitude may have been.  And she always caressed softly with her words the tender spots they exposed so that each person could be receptive enough to fully consider the possibilities within their particular challenge.

I wish I could be as clear and caring and direct with love in my writing as Sugar is.  Maybe it is because I am a retired person living alone that this writer has come into my life.  I certainly feel uplifted and blessed by having her work in my library and in my consciousness.  Maybe you would like her too.

A Postscript Regarding Our Opportunity To Love Once Again

After writing this piece we all experienced the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado where 70 persons were shot and 12 died while attending the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises.  There is no way to deal with this horrible experience except to reach deep within our souls and find the strength of love that reaches out to enfold the families, friends and rescuers who need all the support we can give.  It is not a time to rant, rave or judge the aspects of this event.  Ultimately, there will be much discussion about many things that right now do not deserve our attention.  What is needed now is LOVE.  Love in your own way.  Surround Aurora with the light of your loving care and concern.  The members of this community will need our support for months to come, some even longer.  Love those who gave their lives to protect others whom they loved.  Love those who remain knowing the cost of that love.  LOVE!

Running With Wild Women!

Okay, okay, so it’s just a catchy title that I hope will interest you enough to read on a bit.  However, this is about what some would consider as wild women!

In recent years I have read several books that especially interested me.  Both were written by, for and/or about women.  The first book was Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD (Ballantine Books).  It is about the myths and stories of the wild woman archetype and was so interesting to me that I have probably at least 50 pages flagged and I made copious notes that practically amounted to another book.  In its over 500 pages I gained wonderful insights to the feminine nature and the quest for meaning and empowerment.  This was important to me because I have felt the strong feminine in myself through the years.  Sometimes it expresses as the tender, loving nature that is so nurturing in its expression.  Other times what I experience is the intuitive and mystical aspect that so symbolizes women to me.

The other book that I just finished is Wild: From Lost to Found On the Pacific Crest Trail, by Cheryl Strayed (Knopf).  This book is also about finding one’s self, particularly as a woman.  This local Portland author set out alone to hike the Pacific Crest Trail which she describes as, “A world that measures two feet wide by 2663 miles long,” stretching from the Mexican border on the south to Canada on the north.

Her almost unbelievable journey would test the endurance and resolve of the hardiest of trekkers.  While I could imagine making such a journey, reality quickly sets in with the realization that even in my most fit years I could never have made it.  But what is interesting to me is that I could vicariously identify with the author almost step by step.  Even though the story is largely about a woman finding her strength in a world of men, it is also about anyone’s journey into self.  It is about moments in life that include highs and lows.  It is about relationships.  It is about doing things that detract from who we really are but with the redeeming actions that put the lessons in their proper place within the life journey as a whole.  Finally, it is about empowerment whether you are a woman or man seeking the self.

With the turning of the pages each describing some particular challenge along the path, I would think of people I know who I felt could also identify with this journey, or who I think would at least enjoy the accomplishments recorded day by day.  Maybe these thoughts are representative of the old saying that if you find yourself wishing some other person in your life could know this, it is really you that needs the experience.  I can accept that, but still, there are people I know and love that I wish could share this journey, perhaps with the realization that we are on that journey together. 

So often, particularly in close relationships, things begin to be taken for granted.  In that period something is lost in those relationships because expectations begin to diverge almost unnoticed until you find yourself on a different path all together.  The author volitionally chose the most difficult path one could imagine.  On that path she found herself.  She discovered the roots and development of her relationships, particularly with her mother and siblings, but also with others in her life.

Her story telling about the trek is richly enhanced by her flashbacks along the way to events in her life.  Most of these flashbacks involve her mother who died before her 50^th birthday and the difficulty of reconciling her loss with feelings of “unfinished business.”  She also tells us of her drug experiences, her sometimes reckless sexual adventures, her marriage and the divorce that framed another part of the reason for her trek.  While much of her journey is done very much alone, there are others she meets along the way.  As she describes these meetings, some challenging or threatening, you see how she is able to weave them into the unfolding understanding of her self. 

It was a deeply emotional experience for the author, and for me as her reader.  She mentioned at one point in the journey how she would not let herself cry.  It was also true that there was often not enough moisture in her body to provide tears.  When she finally reached the Bridge of the Gods that crossed the Columbia River at Cascade Locks and after she allowed herself the pleasure of an ice cream cone that left her with only 20 cents to her name, she cried.  They were tears of exhilaration, not those of exhaustion.  She had accomplished what she had set out to do.  She had begun not knowing for sure why, but ending it knowing who she was and totally empowered as one of those special wild women!

Damn! It Has Happened Again

In the years I have been writing I probably have had one hundred first lines pop into my head.  Maybe two lines.  On rare occasions a whole concept emerges.

It happens like this.  I am sitting watching the news or a favorite TV show or reading a book.  Something triggers a thought and I know I have to write that down.  But first, I have to finish whatever it is I am doing.  Then it happens.  The first line is either gone or the story that was supposed to follow it doesn’t materialize as I hoped it would.

Well, here I am again with a first line.  No, I’m sorry.  That first line disappeared and I am stuck with the one you see at the head of this article. Damn!  It has happened again.  This time, however, I decided to go ahead and see if starting to write would reproduce the “creative” urge that first struck my consciousness just a short while ago.

What follows may turn out to be the ramblings of an aging person who cannot string even a few words together into a meaningful sentence, or if I am lucky, I may actually tell you what is on my mind.  Let’s see what happens next.

Every story has a beginning, a middle and an ending.  Without those three elements it is unlikely that what is written or told will make much sense.

Here is a beginning.

What I am generally feeling when the urge to write strikes is a connection or a lack of connection where I feel one should exist.  It may be about a person, an idea or an experience.  It surges up within me as strong emotions that are difficult describe, but clearly understood within my being.  I think one of the articles I have written in the past that most closely approximates those feelings was after I had watched the annual Kennedy Honors Program in 2006.  I wrote about the experience in my book, Moments.  After hearing the story of each of the honorees, I had almost indescribable feelings of love flood my whole being.  I felt a closeness, not only to the characterization of those being honored, but to my family members and friends whom I have loved through the years and the experiences we shared.  The connection was beyond my ability to put into words as clearly as I felt it.

For some, love is easy to understand.  It is something that is just there.  No explanations are needed and no qualifications are required.  Love is!  For others love may represent the toughest of times.  It may surround a loss of some kind.  It may seem unrequited, unfulfilled.  And for yet others there may be the tragedy of being so bound to another person that unbelievable abuse is tolerated until one somehow breaks free.  I know that not everyone will see these as examples of love, but for the person so involved at that particular time with their particular state of being, that may be all they know.

Here is the middle.

I have experienced many levels of love and loss.  I know I am not the only one who has. They have produced impressions on the slate of my soul that are like the certificates of accomplishment of a job well done or the scars of some abuse.  In all honesty I have to admit to recognizing the scars of some form of abuse, mostly those I have been responsible for inflicting, more than any supposed certificates of merit.  There are heavy emotions associated with those events.  I am sure the depth of the emotions has much to do with the fact that the experiences behind them are unresolved, unfinished.  What else could be the reason that they surface so emphatically that they sometimes bring tears to my eyes when they happen? 

I can hear someone out there saying, “For heaven’s sake, man, get a life!  Get over it.”  I hear you.  I know some of the many ways in which one could bind together these unraveled ends of life events and “get over it.”  After all, I have spent most of my life dealing with, exploring, using and enjoying a philosophy of life that seemed to bring results that satisfied.  Then the story line was interrupted and I have not yet been able to reconstruct the point at which the fabric of my life began to unravel.  So the healing has not come forth.  Worse than that, there are times I really don’t care.

This is where the ending should occur.

This is where I should be telling you how I worked everything out and remembered what was so important in the first place.  At the beginning of this article I said,  “I decided to go ahead and see if starting to write would reproduce the ‘creative’ urge that first struck my consciousness just a short while ago.”  Well, I never quite got back to where I thought I wanted to go.  The emotional content seemed to evaporate like a wisp of smoke.   Sometimes life is like that.  You think you are heading toward point A and somewhere along the path you change directions and are heading for point B without knowing if that is really where you intended or wanted to go.  There is a point C in the offing.  If I choose to head there, will it be where I hoped to go? 

As you may note, I have not succeeded in explaining, at least to my satisfaction, the emergence of the “connecting/disconnecting” emotions.  Such events will continue to come, I am certain, and I will continue to experience and attempt to understand them.  When the opening sentence, or paragraph, presents itself I will offer it an opportunity to take fuller form.  In the meantime . . .

Passive Aggressive Behavior

Growing up in a home where I seldom witnessed the expression of anger, I was taught by example and more directly that a person should not express negativity.  “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” was the household mantra.  Seems to make sense to a fresh young mind that has not yet been filled with the countless choices for responding to the behavior of others not brought up under the same set of rules.  I was taught that a person should use reason in arguments rather than emotion.  Again, that seemed a sensible alternative to getting the living daylights beat out of me by the neighborhood bully.  “Turn the other cheek” definitely did not work out too well for me!

As I grew older and more observant of what went on around me, I recognized that the anger in my home had simply been visibly suppressed for the most part.  It was still there and there were occasions where I did witness angry verbal exchanges.  Fortunately, there was no physical abuse in my home among any of the family members that I knew of.  Sadly, many families with anger issues cannot make that claim.  I learned by anecdote that my brother was subject to some corporal punishment.  He was the first born and arrived at a time of severe economic stress to young parents probably ill fitted for marriage.  (This is a conclusion I came to as an adult long after my parents ended their twenty-five plus years of marriage.)

So, here I am today, a person who almost without exception refuses to fight with others.  In some cases that even means “I don’t want to talk about it.”  This behavior is considered passive-aggressive.   Those who DO like to fight because that is how they learned to get their anger out of their physical bodies have applied that label to me on occasion.  I don’t like labels especially when they are used in a dismissive manner.  To me that is no better than assumed passive-aggressive behavior.  I literally wilt and become immobilized by hateful verbal attacks.  When faced with such behavior, I find that I have not developed the proper tools to engage in successful resolution.  I tend to withdraw and try to gather some more positive sense of myself.  I have discovered this only make the other person even angrier!  It is a “lose/lose” situation.

It isn’t that I have not attempted to learn how to “fight fairly” when confronted with verbal attacks, often directed at me as a person rather than at my perceived behavior.  I have come to an “interim” conclusion that I cannot effectively communicate with someone playing by a different set of rules.  If rage is what was learned, then rage tends to become the manner by which differences are confronted.  To those of us brought up under rules of non-aggressive behavior, we will lose every time unless we learn how to engage others in some middle ground of agreement.

I wish I could tell you that my long years of experience in working with others who had many types of problems has taught me how to better handle my own.  Of course, I have learned many positive ways of dealing with my issues, but I have not yet learned to effectively deal with the rage of others directed toward me.  I can only say that I am glad such cases are very few and far between.

You may have noticed the absence of any mention of the part love plays in resolving issues between persons.  That is partly due to the fact that it is a subject worthy of its own essay.  That said, love is an all-important part of any process of resolution.  Without love there can be no recognition of the intrinsic value of the other human being with whom there is some inharmony.  It is through the eyes of love that we see through the discord to the real person who is currently feeling hurt or unloved.  That is the starting point, I believe, for wanting to work things out, to want peace and good will.  There may be things no two people will agree on, but that does not mean love has to be absent from the relationship.

Finally, as to the subject of passive-aggressive behavior, my research has shown that few people can escape this label at some point in their lives.  So much for the “label.”  Time to get on about developing patience, forgiveness, acceptance and love, all of which are necessary for harmony to exist.

Does Love Conquer All?

The Bible is filled with the notion that love abides with us and comforts us in all circumstances.  Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (I Cor. 13) is one of the most treasured treatises on the subject.  Used in countless wedding ceremonies, the couple is encouraged to believe that no matter what may come up within their relationship, Love never fails. (Verse 8)  In his letter to the Romans Paul assures us that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8:38,39).

Even with these assurances most of us, at one time or another, feel desperately unloved, uncared for and alone.  Families are the first line of support for most of us.  Our closest friends often provide a back up when it is difficult to find that support at home.  Of course we expect to be there for our loved ones and friends when they need someone to remind them that they are loved.  And we hope they will be there for us.  However, there are still times we will feel there is no one, no way, to recover from whatever it is that causes us to feel helpless or devoid of love.

The darkness that surrounds us at those times of despair is no less frightening and overwhelming than what the disciples of Jesus surely felt on that awesome Friday at his crucifixion.  Can you imagine the sense of loss they were feeling?  Even though He assured them, I am with you always, (Mat. 28:20) they could only see the loss.  Three days later, early in the morning, the sun shone in a new sky as Mary and others approached the tomb where they fully expected to find the body of Jesus. He was not in the tomb.  Now their despair was even deeper.  They could not even prepare his body for burial.  Then Mary turned and saw a person she assumed was the gardener.  It was Jesus!  They could not fully understand what was happening but within their hearts they somehow knew that all was well.

This story we celebrate at Easter is, among other things, the story of the absolute power of love to transcend loss and grief, despair and loneliness.  It is the story of hope and reassurance that regardless of appearances love abides, love transcends all limitation. This is, of course, a religious story.  It is one that has parallels in every major religion.  This might lead us to consider that the principle embedded within the story is something more than myth or legend.  Perhaps if we can find a way to believe there are answers, we will find them.  One thing seems certain to me.  Having even a remote hope is better than the downward cycle of despair that comes from not believing in the ultimate power of love.

I have been in that emotional, personal wasteland.  I have felt that deep despair that would seem to indicate there is no way out of the gloom.  It isn’t a pretty picture, is it?   I am so fortunate to have dear friends who, when all else failed, were there to assure me that I would get through those times.  These friends offered a variety of possibilities, mostly from their own experience in overcoming, but sometimes simply out of their own sense of also being alone.  Together we moved forward on the path. 

If you are feeling down right now, if you feel unloved and overwhelmed and alone, let me offer to be there for you.  I believe in the power of love to lift you, to change the path you are on that seems to be leading nowhere.  Let me assure you that even though fear may seem impossible to overcome, love never fails.  I love you!  The love within me is from an unconquerable Source and I give it all to you.  Take it into your heart.  You are not alone.  Even if you do not know me, even if you just happened to somehow find this blog article, there are no coincidences.  You are here because you are ready to experience the transforming power of love.  Be well, my friends!  Be well!

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers. nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God . . .

Romans 8:38, 39