Month: March 2016

Offer a counterpoint of love

/ Lanae / Leave a comment

I had some different post ideas in mind, but the Brussels events reminded me of something I wrote (and shared on Facebook) back in November after the Paris attacks. It feels right to resurrect that post along with its accompanying poem, and share it again below in its entirety, as it seems sadly and unfortunately relevant all over again … it seems that all I might really need to do differently is to substitute “Brussels” for “Paris.”

My heart hurts. My soul sighs.

Let the people of Brussels say, we are not afraid. Let the people of Europe say, we are not afraid. Let the people of the world say, we are not afraid. No, let us not be afraid.

Let us lift our hearts in love; let us not be bowed by fear.

Where there is hatred, let us sow love … not sow in fear, but in love. Offer to acts of violence not violence in return, whether in actions, in words, in thoughts, or in judgments, but offer to acts of violence instead acts of love, compassion, prayer, meditation. Offer a counterpoint of love!

There is nothing soft, simplistic, or passive in such a response. Rather, it seems one of the most radical, profound, and powerful – even bold and daring! – ways to oppose the extremism, violence, prejudice, intolerance, hate – and apathy – present in our world. One of the most radical, profound, and powerful ways to face and to answer fear, to face and to answer anger – whether it is our own, that of others around us, or even of a broader societal nature.

To offer a counterpoint of love is to offer something radically transformative to yourself, to others, to the world. To be a counterpoint of love is to be a radically transformative presence in your family, your community, the world.

To offer, and to be, a counterpoint of love is something significant, even sacred …

I ask you – what does that mean to you? How could you offer, or be, that counterpoint of love? For yourself, your family, your community, your world; for those who suffer … and for those who act in violence and cause the suffering also?

*******

I wrote this poem several weeks ago, to help myself deal with a deep fear I was experiencing at the time, related to a challenging personal experience. It somehow feels right to share it now, because it also expresses thoughts of my heart regarding the fear, suffering, violence, hate, and anger that seems as though it is filling up our world right now.

The people of Paris say, We are not afraid. No, let us not be afraid. Let us be neither afraid of fear, nor ruled by it! Let us remember that belovedness is greater than fear, and even in the midst of fear, of sorrow, suffering, let us respond to those things with love, with the grace of equanimity. Respond to a suffering, broken world in love, respond to those things in others with love, and respond to those things in ourselves with love.

Reacting with fear opens the door to further suffering and violence. Responding with love opens the door to grace and healing and hope, as well as a truer, more effective justice.

No matter how relentless and ruthless the evil and the violence may be, or how achingly burdensome the sorrow and the suffering, remember that these things are impermanent. But, as my heart and soul have learned, one thing is permanent: love, belovedness.

As hard as it may seem to hold in heart and mind next to all the knowledge of suffering and evil that exists, much goodness is also present in the world, because much love is present in the world, if we but lift our eyes up to see it!

Let Belovedness triumph over fear!

******
belovedness

I said to fear, my fear
Come in, come here
sit beside me, sit with me
in silence let us sit
together
I said to fear,
You are my friend
I accept you
I accept your presence
here
I hear you, honor you
I love you
I said to fear
But remember this,
you must remember this
if you wish to walk
with me:
I am beloved
and so are you
We will sit
we will walk
we will live
in belovedness
Because belovedness
is greater than fear
is greater
than you and I
together
Because we belong
to belovedness
Because all belongs
to belovedness,
to belovedness
we belong
We belong to one another
in belovedness
Let us step out of the boat
and walk upon the living water
of the spirit
of belovedness
Let us walk and live and be
In belovedness
be living, believing, be loving, beloved

 

The idea of happiness

/ Lanae / Leave a comment

Instead of ending with questions, as I sometimes like to do, I’ll begin with them this time!

What is your idea of happiness? What is your idea of what will create happiness for you; what are your conditions of happiness?

How do you envision or define happiness?

Happiness may mean something a bit different to each of us; each of us may have our own idea(s) of happiness, a set of conditions attached to it. ‘If I have this …,’ ‘if I am that …’

But I wonder if perhaps sometimes, whatever our idea of happiness is, if that is itself the very thing that stands in the way of knowing and living in happiness?

And I wonder if perhaps a deeper happiness is found instead by letting go of ideas of happiness we’re attached to, letting go of what we think our happiness should be, so that it can be what it is. So that we can be awake to it in us, awake to our seeds of happiness, awake to ways of watering those seeds.

What if the truth of happiness is that it’s not a passing sensation, a fleeting mood, but that it’s a way of being, a state of being? A deeply rooted inner state of well-being, a self-compassionate well-being … whatever outward conditions or other emotional challenges may be present.

As a mindfulness saying I keep in mind goes … “my happiness depends on my mental attitude, not on external conditions … looking within, I am aware I have enough conditions to be happy right now.”

Some conditional ideas of happiness might even be in the way we think we ‘should’ be inside, though, a striving for a ‘perfect’ mental/emotional state of being …

Such as, ‘I should always be positive;’ ‘I shouldn’t have or express many dark, negative, or intense emotions;’ ‘I should be serene and even-keeled!’ At least, these are ideas of happiness I noticed in myself … I even remember a dear friend calling me out on it once! I was struggling with the fact that I was struggling with some intense, uncomfortable feelings and she said, “Part of it is that you think you should always be happy!”

Then I saw that, yes, I did … and yes, I was judging myself for being unhappy right then, for what I perceived as a failure of mindfulness and equanimity within myself. Shaming myself for what seemed a return to an unhappy, less balanced way of being …

Having learned about mindfulness, I had the notion I should struggle less with intense emotion, not have to wrestle all night for the blessing of peace, so to speak. Actually, this idea itself was acting as a barrier to my happiness … a more authentic, if imperfect, happiness!

But happiness is an inclusive way of being, also accepting moments of unhappiness or intense emotions that come as normal and not to be shunned or judged as ‘wrong’ or ‘flawed,’ somehow sins against happiness. Suffering, sadness, guilt, grief, loneliness, anger, anxiety, embarrassment, envy … all common threads in the tapestry of human emotional experience.

Sometimes, an idea of happiness may be that it’s found in the absence of painful or intense emotions. But happiness rests in a peace with their presence, when they’re present, knowing that pain or suffering in whatever form is not the sum of our existence, the absolute Truth of our being.

Happiness is noticing what else is present at the moment, here and now. What of grace is there also present to touch?

Is it realistic to expect that happiness means sailing a calm, calm sea without waves? No waves, just deep, still water … and only sunshine, no clouds? What is a realistic, mindful vision of happiness?

I love a metaphor I learned from Thich Nhat Hanh … waves are a part of the water, but not the sum of it, not the whole of the ocean. Waves are a part of the nature of water, of the ocean, but not the whole of its nature. When there are waves, the water is still water. And even when there are waves of water on the surface, or storms, deep below the water remains still.

So it is with the difficult emotions. They are the waves that come, but they are not the whole of our nature, our being. They are only a part of us, of who we are. And in the deeps, can still be the stillness … a stillness that gives us strength to be with, even in, the waves … and to know they shall never overflow us.

Happiness, or equanimity, also means understanding and accepting that many waves do come, because it is the nature of things that they come, but they are not the sum of the water, of the ocean … of us.

Happiness is holding onto self-compassion even when feeling tossed upon or carried by those waves, knowing that they aren’t the whole truth, they don’t represent the absolute nature of reality … that is, Love, which is always present.

And so, I have begun learning to let go of the idea of happiness as one long, flowing all-encompassing state of perfect peace or joy that fills every moment.

Instead, I am learning to let my happiness be in knowing Love, in remembering that I am beloved and can live in the way of belovedness, and in reminding myself to listen for the echoes of belovedness. To find stillness, even within painful emotions, and listen for the echoes of belovedness in them.

What, then, is your happiness?

**** I was going to leave you with a photo captioned with the quote, Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness … but it wouldn’t work, so I will just leave you with the quote itself! 🙂 ****

 

The gift of imperfection: an authentic offering

/ Lanae / Leave a comment

Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.

These lines are from Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem”, and when I came across them recently, they felt like a gift to me. A gift that I’ve been working on unwrapping and opening … and want to share with you, just as it is, unpolished, straight from my heart to you!

I have heard the last line quoted often before – There’s a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in – without ever hearing the whole song. But when I was listening to it, it was these words Forget your perfect offering that resonated most deeply with me.

What is it saying? It may say something different to each one of us, something different to you than to me, but what it said to me was, Be authentic, be your imperfectly real self. Not who you think you’re supposed to be, but who you are. Who you are right now, including what you believe to be your brokenness, what is your brokenness. What you think, or know, are the cracks in you.

It’s saying, Forget striving for your perfect offering and remember your imperfect offering. Remember that your imperfect offering is beautiful, it is enough; it is enough because it is what you have right now, here and now, in this moment. See where the light gets in your offering and makes it beautiful, perfectly, beautifully authentic. Imperfectly perfect, perfectly imperfect.

It’s saying … forget perfection. Forget striving for it. Yes, give of the best that you have, the best that you are … but don’t then judge it as ‘less than,’ ‘not good enough,’ or ‘flawed’. As if ‘flawed’ is an ugly, irredeemable, unholy thing. Except that it isn’t … oh, it isn’t. Not in the light of belovedness, it isn’t!

And like a popular Christian song goes ‘Beautiful, the mess we are/The honest cries of breaking hearts, are better than a Hallelujah sometimes.’ It’s the honesty and the authenticity that’s so beautiful, the real rawness, the raw realness. No pretending. No pretending that there isn’t brokenness, breaking places in our hearts and lives. But acknowledging them, offering them up in vulnerable, beautiful openness. Then, oh, the grace that bountifully blesses such an offering … and what remains imperfect about it, then?

Authenticity and honesty make the imperfection into something perfect …. the imperfect offering becomes a whole offering, even a holy offering.

Our brokenness, our imperfections can be things of holiness, places where the light gets into us … places where the light flows out of us and shines all the more perfectly!

The gift of our imperfections is that they can be a gift to others; a gift of light and grace. They can be the places where we have the most to offer, the most light to give. The places wherein we seem the most beautiful to others, where we are the most beautiful to others!

Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.

Ring that bell! The cracked bell that can still ring, and ring resoundingly!

Ring that bell! The cracked bell that can still ring … ring resoundingly with belovedness. A cracked bell can still echo belovedness, and perhaps all the more richly and perfectly because of its imperfection.

Ring that cracked bell … embrace your imperfections. Know the gift of them, share the gift in them. It’s where your life echoes with belovedness; it’s where the light gets in and where it is most luminous.

Your authentic offering is truly your ‘perfect’ offering! It is where you are most you, where you are most beautiful, where you are enough.

 

Restorative Justice, Part 2: Circles of Relationship

/ Lanae / Leave a comment

Restorative justice, in both its distilled and its universal sense, is about relationships, and living is about relationships. Restorative justice as a way of life is about how we live in relationships, a mindful way of living in relationship, remembering interconnectedness and inter-being even in midst of suffering. Seeking to rebuild, renew, redeem, and restore relationships where there has been conflict, pain, wrong-doing, and crime, things that have wounded or broken the relationship.

While this restorative view of justice sees crime and wrong-doing as a violation of relationships, retributive justice instead sees it as a violation of laws, and the state, or society. While retributive justice sees these violations as creating guilt, restorative justice sees them as creating obligations. Retributive justice determines blame and enforces punishment, pain and suffering in return for pain and suffering as the way to restore the broken balance …

But how does retribution and punishment truly restore a broken balance? Does punishment teach accountability, or let the wrong-doer experience the impact or depth of how the ones they hurt were affected? Punishment may teach shame, but does it teach repentance?

Does punishment teach how to make right the heart … does it offer belovedness, a belovedness that perhaps the wrong-doer has not known and so carries untended the suffering of this unknowing?

Are broken relationships restored? Is the harm and pain caused by the wrongdoer healed by this? Is the wound within the wrongdoer that caused them to do wrong considered or treated, or is it perhaps deepened and widened, leading to possibility of further suffering and wrong-doing …

In contrast, restorative justice asks some simple and important relational questions: Who has been harmed? What are their needs? To whom do these obligations belong?

What are some of these obligations? Repentance, restitution, responsibility, accountability.

There is a debt to be paid, yes, but not so much a debt to the state or to society, as a debt to the specific relationships broken, the people directly harmed. Of course, the ripples of conflict or pain may spread into wider circles of relationship … but addressing and mending them in the smaller circles may save them from widening in wounding ways. Instead, healing can ripple outward …

Both retributive and restorative justice approaches acknowledge the necessity of consequences for the wrong-doing. However, instead of promoting punishment, restorative justice promotes discipline. Instead of an authoritarian response, it offers an authoritative, corrective response. It encourages the principles of compassion and non-violence, values of respect, responsibility, accountability, an ethics that puts the deeper needs – psychological, emotional, spiritual – of all those involved first.

In restorative justice is the understanding that retributive or punitive practices may often fail to meet those deeper needs. Sometimes, these practices may instead water seeds of injustice or oppression; sometimes, they may place heavy yokes upon all involved – individual, community, society.

Retribution does not necessarily lead to restitution or restoration, nor does it unequivocally seem to encourage soul-deep repentance or offer reconnection, and all of these beautiful things surely seem to belong to a true, rich, merciful justice.

I cannot hear very well echoes of belovedness in retributive or punitive ideas of justice … but I can hear them resounding in the principles and practices of restorative justice!

Restorative justice invites a new sort of relationship between those who have suffered and those who have caused it, between wrong-doers and their community, between wrong-doers and society, a relationship wherein the healing of repentance has opportunity to arise. Echoes of belovedness sounding forth in justice, a justice that neither discriminates nor judges wrong-doers unworthy of healing and help, of restoration and reconnection to the circle of community.

It is an invitation into a circle of conversation, an intentional dialogue. Within this circle, those who have done wrong or injustice, who have caused suffering, have the opportunity to see the impact of their words and their action. Within this circle of conversation can be present an invitation to healing of broken relationships with self, community, the Creator.

An invitation for belovedness to come into the heart of the circle and heal …

A healing of the circle of relationships, with self and Creator. A healing of the circle of community. Restoring the wholeness of the circle as much as possible … instead of the circle remaining broken, the brokenness can be named, known, addressed, healed to whatever depth it can be healed.

Restorative justice gives individuals who’ve been caused suffering the opportunity to voice their pain, to voice it to the one who caused the suffering, and to be heard about what might help make things right. It gives the one who has caused the suffering the opportunity to voice their pain, their shame and sorrow over the suffering caused. Together, they can come to see each other’s suffering. Simply sitting with someone and allowing them to express their sorrow and shame can be a healing experience; this is a practice of deep listening, listening with belovedness, watering seeds of peace, forgiveness, healing grace.

It may not be an easy thing to come into such a circle and it must be facilitated with great care, skill, grace … but what value there is in opening up the possibility of reconciliation, reconnection!

In the circle of relationship is healing; the circle of relationship is healing. Restorative justice can help heal a cycle of suffering … keep the circle of healing whole, open and inclusive of all wounded souls.

****************

I have emphasized here the circle of relationship/community, and restoration of the brokenness in this circle, as key to a restorative justice. It’s not just about criminal justice approaches but also about everyday living, how we believe and be-love. I feel it as a matter of justice also to acknowledge that many specific restorative justice models used in North America now are grounded in a First Nations understanding of the circles of life and relationship, of community and justice. The circle is a beautiful and meaningful symbol of life and creation, of relationship, in many cultures, globally. It is surely beautiful and meaningful to me!

I’d like to leave you with these takeaway questions to consider (and even to discuss your thoughts with others – or me! 🙂 ).

How can you perhaps view the criminal justice system now and those caught in it from a different perspective? What does the concept of a circle (circles) of relationship mean to you, and how would you apply it to a way of living restoratively, doing justice?