Sunday, March 27, 2011

Eat Lots of Jam!

When I was growing up, my family used to bring us to my godmothers' lake house.  At the lake house we would go water skiing, water tubing, and have intimate family-talk.  This is where I learned how to be in community.  I don't know if other families did this, but we would actually sit down in the evenings and face each other.  We would talk about our feelings, our experiences, and our troubles and joys.  We would listen to each other, support each other, and learn from each other.  Yet, we were usually always gathered into couples.  My mother with my father, my godmother with her partner, and other couples who'd come and go.  I always felt lonely around the dinner table--wishing I could have a partner of my own.  Somehow it seemed that I wasn't complete, or that I wasn't able to participate fully in this family/community without a lover of my own. 

Well, sense then I have realized that this conclusion is simply an artifact of my naive childhood. 

We are taught not simply that straight relationships are what's right (in all the straight songs, and all the straight movies, and all the straight TV shows).  We are also taught that we are not complete unless there is another with whom to share our lives. We sometimes impute our inward-dissatisfaction onto an external situation.  I am feeling empty because I don't have "X, Y, and Z."  So now I'll buy this new phone, this new computer, and hope relentlessly that my next boyfriend will be able to save me.  But he can't!  He won't.  You are the only one who can save you (and/or your inner-Jesus, if your beliefs take you in that direction).

If my recent breakup has brought me any gifts at all, it is to show me that I don't need someone else to make me complete or happy.  I am already complete, and realizing this means that I can create my own joy with or without a partner to share it.  

Of course it's never quite that simple because we all need connection, intimacy, love, and sex.  But getting these needs met (or unmet) still doesn't add (or take away) my own sense of worth.  I am not more or less a human being when these needs are or aren't getting met.  This is a very important distinction to be made.   

And so then, I write my own crudely rendered lyrics in the vein of all the songs I’ve heard in which the star-struck performers sing to their as-yet-to-be-discovered one:

I don’t need you;
I don’t need you;
I don’t need you.

And my happiness
is NOT contingent upon your
brooding attraction.

You will not keep me
from owning my
independent beauty;
by being a stupid distraction.

My own sweetness;
my own bright, dimpled smile;
my sexy legs and studly chest—   
You are second to my love
for myself,
at best.  

I don’t need you;
I don’t need you;
I don’t need you.

If you think you can have me,
then you have already lost me—
because I am not something you can own,
nor am I something you can loan,
I just want to be boned.

I just want to share in your story,
and let you share in mine,
and drink up your satisfying
stare, like real fine wine.

Maybe we can go walking
together on Sundays, and
laugh at each other on Tuesdays,
and tomorrow we’ll find that
all we can do sometimes…

…is keep from balking,
at how beautiful you are.

But you’ll never complete me,
you’ll never replace my
own sense of worth and
my own impulses:
to pleasure
to connection
and to meaningful work.

I won’t need you;
I won’t need you;
I won’t need you.

To do anything at all,
but simply to be who you are.
Because I am already complete.
So for as long as we can,
let’s just love each other,
and get it on,
and make a family,
and eat lots of jam.  

Monday, March 7, 2011

This is an awesome blog!

http://stillwatersrefuge.blogspot.com/2011/03/living-monastic-life-in-material-world.html
http://www.joannamacy.net/engaged-buddhism/225-learning-to-see-each-other.html

The above linked webpage offers a wonderful way of building community by attempting to cultivate the "Four Abodes of the Buddha, which are loving-kindness, compassion, joy in the joy of others, and equanimity."

I wonder some days whether Contemporary Liberal Quakers need to develop new techniques (perhaps syncretically borrowed from other traditions) to build their own community.

Friday, March 4, 2011

WHAT ABOUT YOUR GIFTS?

I have wandered the earth wondering what it is about me, that has caused consistent grumbling. I cannot recall a period when I was not initiating controversy somehow. In part it is likely due to the manner in which I have been known to attempt to push the limits of communities--to take up the minority opinion and make it mine (whether before I had particularly identified with whatever apparent issue). Perhaps this is due to some kind of neurosis--some underlying need to get attention or approval from others because I do not like what I see "in the mirror." Hell! In my acknowledgement of this as a possibility, it is likely the case that some part of how I have behaved relates to it.

However, I can also recall feeling simultaneously flabbergasted and deeply, compassionately sad when watching America's Home Videos. Flabbergasted out of utter incomprehension as to how it could be that people found others getting hurt FUNNY. Sad for the one's whose lives if even for seconds opened to them the possibility of suffering. It sounds cliché when I repeat it back, as if I were reporting from Buddhist handbooks some kitschy wisdom. See, but there is an actual feeling of which I speak. It is some strange mix of fascination and grief. It is deep inside my chest, yet incorporating elements of my stomach and sternum. In any case, these feelings have led me to tend to "root for the underdog" so to speak.

And I have at times done a shoddy job in getting my point of view across--preferring to make people angry rather than to make progress. Nonviolent demonstrations and protests are nice, but only when they are geared toward making a point. When they are just cathartic, we might as well be dancing naked at a drum-circle bonfire in the middle of the woods. That would be more fun. It is a lesson I have learned the hard way.

Buddhists (to reference them legitimately now) have a concept that differentiates between truth that is said in a way that makes it heard and truth that is said in a way that closes ears. The goal is to express truth in a way that (even if it is hard to hear) is heard in the first place. It is the way one opens others to enlightenment. The Buddha is said to have known exactly what to say to others so that they could become enlightened. If you are interested in reading more go to: http://www.amazon.com/Seeking-Heart-Wisdom-Meditation-Shambhala/dp/157062805X/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1299366524&sr=8-12.

After years of living and dieing with the underdog, and being "shutdown" so to speak by numerous others for my supposedly radical ideas and approaches, I had begun to lose myself. I had begun to acquiesce. When you haven't figured out how to take care of yourself, to deal with your inner-psychological issues, and to keep your own pain in front of you, then it is easy to think of your work either as lost or as embattled. The earlier leads to despair, and the latter to bitterness. It seems that there is a third way to think of one's work--that is: the thing which brings one meaning and purpose. When one's work becomes that which makes one cry and also that which makes one laugh, then this is your work! It is something you do for no other more fundamental reason than because it is what you wake up in the morning excited about! It is who you are--something you do whether or not it is what "brings in the bacon."

The challenge in life is that many of us do not have jobs that touch on this kind of passion. And many of us do not even know what brings us passion because we are stuck thinking of them in terms of jobs, rather than in terms of the limitless measures by which life offers its precious time-trapped gifts.

There are two nice passages in the Bible about gifts:

We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. (Romans 12: 6-8)

AND

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another the interpretation of tongues. (1 Corinthians 12: 7-10)

What other gifts are possible to have? The gift of athleticism, song, poetry, insight, deep love and appreciation for beauty, etc? These are things that can be cultivated and developed into life's work without once formally entering into office space (although they can be guides for how one goes about doing whatever is one's profession).

I thought that I was more an elder than a minister in the Quaker faith, but I have realized now that in all the times I have been pushed away and reacted against I have acquiesced, sensing that I am better for everyone if I keep quiet. I am realizing now that this is just false! I am less an elder and more a minister--a vocal minister. Now, how does this ministry take form in my life? It is a question next to be answered.

Remember, what you have to say matters! You are not devoid of gifts, but yours may not become apparent in the most expected, traditional ways.

For now,
Zachary

Planet Fitness

I was in Planet Fitness (http://www.planetfitness.com/). This is where I work out. I am NOT the kind of guy who lugs around his masculinity like a badge or a face-tattoo. Certainly it's a way of being--a tragic manifestation of the manner in which all men find their subjectivities bound in one way another.

I was lifting my dumbbells--and after finishing a set (my last set of the day), I dropped the dumbbells onto the floor. They made a clunking sound. Apparently, when you "clunk" you break a rule. It's not just a maintenance rule: that somehow the screws come loose in the dumbbells if you drop them too much. Mind you, I maybe dropped them a couple of inches from the ground. I was tired, man! And I was satisfied with myself for having finished this set. It was my last set of the day, and I was ready to go home. I had seen plenty of others do this kind of thing.

All of a sudden I heard a siren, and I thought to myself: "Is that a fire alarm? Should I be preparing myself to exit the building?"

No. It was not a fire alarm. Indeed, a man with more muscles then me, my brother and father put together approached me. He looked tough--perhaps the kind of guy who works out two hours a day.

I said to him, "You didn't just make THAT noise because of me did you?"

He said, "Yes I did, sir."

"You did?"

"Yes."

Then, the man stared. Was it contempt that I noticed shining forth through his no-nonsense noncholesterol complexion?

"You are not supposed to clunk your weights."

"Clunk? What is that?"

"When you received your tour--"

"I didn't receive a tour--"

"Well do you see the sign right there?" He pointed to a sign I have seen and read many times--although never assuming that I might be beeped in front of all to notice. It read like a dictionary definition: those who grunt and clunk weights are show-offs and "judgers."

Apparently Planet Fitness was serious when they coined their slogan "judgment free zone." In case anyone was unsure--it's not just something they say to get your money.