Absolute Madness and Waking Up

There are those whose path to awakening, to enlightenment comes through the quietude of meditation. There are others who get to their nirvana by "blowing the mind" through artificial means. Finally there are the practitioners of mind-bending word crafting: the Werner Erhards who can scream you into an "ah-hah", or the Deepak Chopra's or Eckhard Tolle's who can lull you into the same place.

I discontinued my lifelong passion for wine and all things alcohol three years ago and have discovered from time to time what drove me to push down my anxieties into numbness. This particular Christmas shopping season has been my occasion for dropping into the madness of so many years' suffering.

Friday (the 21st) I pushed myself out of the ice-covered driveway and into the rain/sleet/snow to begin a shopping sprint (spree lite) that would allow me to participate in the annual ritual of Christmas giving. After fingering fake designer handbags, sniffing body creams with scents whose names may have been dreamed up on absinthe, I collapsed with my saran wrap thin shopping bags into an empty bench with another lukewarm coffee and let my body feel the pain of the day, the week, the season.

This is what I wouldn't let myself feel in my drinking days---the tightness starting in the center of my back and encircling round my ribcage to the front center ribs. I could feel it Friday and I have felt it on and off for the past three days. There is one thing I have learned on the pathway to waking up: this too shall pass.

And so tomorrow is Christmas day and then the day after is Christmas passed and past. I have delved once again into my (and our collective) absolute madness and awakened just a tiny bit to see it as a play, as theatre. Come January 1st I will be out of the cuckoo's nest and into the next annual marker of another year. But this quiet awakening, brief as it has been, is worth it.

End of Year Introspection

It's a dangerous proposition to noodle around in deep internal psychological terrain during an already stressful season. Like right NOW. Nonetheless it's the perfect time of year to take full account of one's past year.

I'm not talking about New Year's resolutions; I mean tying up loose ends, crossing off unfinished items that have lost their significance by lack of interest or a strong enough vision to fire up desire to get it done no matter what. Last Saturday I organized a small group of professional colleagues and we did a guided meditation, some writing, and some releasing of lingering pain that had its primary tendrils in our heads.

It turned out to be a good way to kick off a string of completion activity: redesigning a budget for my son to pull himself out of struggling from paycheck to paycheck; declaring the tiny room I called the meditation room a storage room, since that is what it has become for the almost three years I've lived here and rightfully so; signing off on my website redesign and a new brochure to relaunch my wedding brand for the 2008 wedding season. It feels good and that's what counts. It feels better than receiving presents: giving oneself the gift of "moving on" is a liberation. This is not ,as I said earlier, new year's resolutions; what's done is done and 2007 marks the end of some unfulfilled intentions as well as the successful conclusion of others. Either way it's a fresh beginning to the next number of good intentions. Moving on happens with us or without us. I like to stay in motion.

Welcome resistance

The only thing worse than getting stuck in your own mud (I don't wanna! I don't wanna!) is getting buried in it, resisting it, running from it, hating it, "dissing" it. Resistance, be it writer's block, calling up someone who may reject us, getting all our warm weather clothes put away and cold weather gear out to allow ourselves to face late November's cold, is a solid fact of being human.

Given the time of day, the time of the year or any kind of mood visitation, I will hate everything I love and love many things I think I hate. Running from resistance is like running away from your nose. It can't be done. Resistance is there; you use it without thinking about it and if you just allow it to be there, it won't dominate your life and you'll move on to a "flow" that you wouldn't have otherwise.

Resistance arises and begs to be noticed, embraced as an entity to be used for its own unique purpose, and then to disappear. It is a natural outcome of fear and needs to be treated as such. It's OK to take the time to let it in and not to treat resistance as the ENEMY! And even if it were the ENEMY, it can be negotiated with. "I'll admit you to the table as long as you respectfully watch me step out of my shell, my fear, my dread of the unknown." In short, pay respect to resistance and it will respect you. Resistance is the clay of character, the substance which we can mold to strengthen our resolve, so as not to succumb to inertia or entropy. Whatever we think we want, resistance will teach us how to get there, but we must first be teachable.

Be cool; be smart

On October 31st at my beloved university I was robbed of my handbag and of course its contents: debit card, credit cards, driver's license and social security card. I also lost my university office door key and my university ID. At least we can change the lock. No, I wasn't mugged; this was just a careless leaving of my handbag in a room that appeared to be safe. NOT!

The bottom line is this: my good friend Heidi, who once had her car stolen and her apartment ransacked in Manhattan, all in the space of under two years, calls thefts like these paying the "vermin tax"---the high cost of living in urban areas, in melting pots, in cities whose socioeconomics vary from A to Z in any given neighborhood.Sooner or later there will be something to remind you you're not in Kansas anymore. Perhaps this seemed more true in the 1980s when she suffered her losses and the drug epidemic in New York City left everyday people on the street extremely vulnerable.

For me, the vermin tax is very like the IRS. Be careful, or the things you forget to remember will be summoned one day in an audit.

We all live every day with risk. I frankly hate the thought of my identity being stolen, far more than the inconvenience of canceling credit cards and getting my cash back for the $2000 heist the thief got to by cracking my pin number at the ATM within twenty minutes of the theft. But my bigger question is that of character: What can I do with this now? I can take a stand to not be afraid, to not look over my shoulder, to not draw conclusions of stereotype about the possible thief or thieves. I can commit to keeping my mind open in my wordlview: the universe is far more benevolent than malevolent. All that any of us can glean from adversity is its lessons, most importantly without blame in any direction.

Of course, I didn't need to carry around my social security number, but I did. End of story. We have laws in place against thievery, but robberies like this one are too commonplace and too numerous in big cities to ever be solved. End of story. I still have my life, my heart and my optimism. That's a prize no one can steal.

Looking for Heaven in All the Wrong Places

It's been awhile since I've posted and I have no excuses, except I've been busy, busy, busy, chasing obligations and following through on tasks. Admittedly, I do have to earn a living still, and jobs, work, require both effort and attention. And I've done OK with all that, but what does it mean in the end?

I'm exhausted, and it's not for not getting enough sleep. Heaven is not in the everyday grind of work, either its successes or failures or all things in between, but in the everyday opportunity to rise above the fray and remember why we're here. We're here to honor (and maybe even enjoy) the space of living itself, the awesome view from the perch of existence to simply solve problems, smooth over breakdowns, finish what we started and then STOP to BREATHE.

It's breathing that shows up as a challenge these days. I can actually feel myself gasping for breath. But every once in awhile when I stop and let myself do just that - BREATHE- I'm a different person, an aware person, not looking for heaven in the gritty details, but in the air itself. I love the opportunty and it's with me, and you, every day, all the time.

Religion and Politics

There's a reason why we learned to never bring up these two topics in polite conversation. There was even a time in the last century when we learned the importance of polite. But that seems like a century ago.

Politics are often revealed in issues, in the stands we take about taxes or war. And university classrooms are notorious for opening up such discussions. I have a student who sits right in the first row every class. He's from Dallas and his parents are wealthy enough to have flown him home twice from Boston for two day family visits in the first six weeks of school. He was speaking up against taxes in an inadvertant reference I inadvertantly must have made in class, revealing my own liberal leanings. Ooops! It was right in my face.

This seems to beg the question: are religion and politics a subject we can casually brooch in a university setting, even when the discipline is in the liberal arts, but not specific to any religion or politic viewpoint? Or should we tread lightly, so as not to end up in the mire of unwanted argument? At a few local universities here in Boston, there are conservative student groups who are taking their complaints public against liberal leaning professors. I suppose this means we should rmember what our mothers and dads taught us: these subjects don't mix. It's time to run a more polite classroom. Or it's time to forget the importance of polite.

Character Development

Remember when you suffered a loss as a child, or your boyfriend spurned you as an adolescent? Your parents or other well-meaning people consoled you with: suffering builds character. If this is true, what does it mean?

It's not suffering that builds character, but squaring with reality. And the facing of truth brings up the discomfort of turning away from denial, which sometimes includes extraordinary discomfort, if not excruciating pain.

OK. So why is squaring with reality and facing down denial so damned difficult? Character development is a messy business, and reality is not transparent most of the time. It can take years to see the writing on the wall. This blind-spot shows up in all the currect foreclosures for people who bought in to the fantasy that they would always be able to make their mortgage payments, even after getting a sub-prime loan. I understand these fantasies, but who among those losing their homes (read dreams, dignity, security) is sitting there happy to have a stepping stone to character? What value does this behemoth "character" offer?

Wisdom. Unless we completely throw in the towel, there's always another day, always another chance. We construct a fine picture of how life should look (often too much like a Morning in America campaign ad) and we come to believe that's reality. Then a crisis hits and we come to see what really counts. The fine art of building character, the end of which is wisdom, and the invitation to which is wisdom in action, is to see the mini-crises while they're happening, to read the tea leaves that offer us a thousand tiny warnings to pay heed, to wake up. I bet your mother never said it that way.

A Thousand Tiny Cuts

I'm showing my university composition students the film, CRASH, winner of three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, in 2005. The film brilliantly cuts from scene to scene with tiny scenarios depicting biases too numerous to list here. This movie is full of equal opportunity slights, slams, epithets and worse. It takes the subject of diversity and shows a thousand sides, slips, cuts and injuries until the viewer can't help but see some part of himself among the various characters.

Diversity is not dead, but alive and well and operating continuously beneath the surface of our lives. And we'd better pay heed.

A colleague of mine recently dug himself into a hole that may eventually bury one of his client relationships. He runs a small educational learning business that subcontracts training to various constituencies within corporations. One such workshop he offers is an ESL (English as a second language) speech improvement course to people who identify themselves as less than secure in command of spoken English.

He visited another class offered for a current client, and proceeded to probe the Asian members on how long they had been in this country, as if that would in any way indicate their need (or desire) for speech improvement. One of the women took him on, asking him why he needed to know such a thing. The whole room froze. His simple request for information became an intrusion into privacy as well as an insult to the Asians present, indicating that since they were not native English speakers, they must have a problem.

He knows he made a mistake, but my colleague actually set himself up for something worse: now the woman who challenged him plans to go to HR and complain. He won't lose the current contract, but he may not get another, at least not from this client.

What does this all mean, and how does this relate to Crash? Beware of assumptions about people; we make them all the time and to our peril. Crash held a mirror up to Everyman: and that's you and I. My husband is 75, not retired, an avid reader, author and wage earner.He met a local politician in a nearby park who, not knowing anything about my husband, suggested he visit the senior center down the street since they had great Bingo opportunities. My husband instantly disliked this man and in the recent election voted against him. Why? It's a thousand tiny cuts that can make or break our success or happiness. We must all be aware.

Behind the wheel

it's time to come clean. Although I hear almost daily stories about driving in Boston traffic, and episodes of mini-road rage, I must admit I'm one of the pack myself.

Yesterday I drove my son to his job downtown and there was a woman in front of me meandering through the maze of construction on one of our main thoroughfares. The usual two lanes were down to one, but her speed at twelve miles an hour meant missing green lights street after street. It wasn't until my 26 year old son, always freely outspoken, admonished me for tailgating that I realized what I was doing. Tailgating is nasty in my book. But, but, but..... all I was doing was pushing her along a little, reminding her that there were other drivers on the road with places to go, sometimes on deadline.

So I gave up, let go, and gave her room. Shortly she turned left off the boulevard, perhaps having searched for an opening and finally found one. (Or was she escaping the annoying tailgater right behind her?). Boston is a city full of tourists and other visitors, and it's sometimes hard even for the natives to finagel around construction, much less all the rotaries and one way streets.

I believe we can find almost every opportunity for character development every day we're right behind the wheel. When the speed of life is not the point, but the quality of every moment, it's crystal clear. Nowhere is there a better place to experience this exercise than out there on the road.

Another day

What's in a day?

A day is a perfect microcosm of an entire lifetime. We awaken out of a dream and into the light. We stir, we move, sometimes slowly, sometimes all too quickly into activity, into preparation for the day's events.

However our work day is configured, at some point we gear up for meeting demands, challenges, tasks. Stopping every few hours for fuel, we move on, forge ahead, chipping away at one activity after another, ostensibly leading toward some purpose, often undefined, or simply long forgotten.

At day's end we unwind, let go of the higher pitched energy of the day. And when the engine is fully drained we return to the dream. We let it all go.

Why does it feel, at least for the first few moments upon awakening, like we have a second chance to start over, to make things right? Each day is a new story, a new opportunity to create a new reality. Of course, there are residuals from yesterday, but they are not solid; they're fluid and far more malleable than we usually allow. Today is a life.

Missing in Action

Sunday's Boston Globe (9/16/07) had a terrific front page Ideas Section article on the loss of human purpose as taught in universities today. It boils down to this: the humanities has been hamstrung since the 1960s from teaching the classics (the Western Canon) and has allowed all issues of spiritual significance to become coopted by religion.

There is no bigger question to ask or to seek the answers to than the issues of why are we here. But philosophy is fading and other humanities courses teach a narrower view of life and its myriad problems.

It finally comes down to this: is religion and its practice and beliefs the only way to be spiritual? If the answer is no, how do we get to a spiritual well-being without studying the bigger questions through voices and viewpoints other than those possessed by the religions?

voice from the past

I played a steaming audio interview today of James Baldwin (The Fire Next Time, and much more) in a 1979 tape from Berkeley, CA. There's so much in it, but what struck me particularly was his comment that the only way to live was to love everyone you meet, not to love Amercians as a group, but individual people (Americans certainly included), or in short, everyone you meet.

I'm going to play the audio again tomorrow morning, so I'll post a longer piece tomorrow afternoon on his extraordinary words.

resumes

Since this blog site has that word in the title, it may be time to address what is a heavenly resume. It's a resume to get you (and me) into heaven.

Now this presupposes there are jobs in heaven and then it assumes heaven will include "work", which is just what Adam and Even were condemned to endure on earth, having eaten that apple. Remember, they had to put on clothes and get to work. But this then presupposes jobs in heaven, where I imagine the use of this resume to be only about gaining admittance.

But suppose there were jobs waiting for us in heaven: what would they be? After all, the very least a job provides is a little respite from boredom (we won't need money to hold body and soul together). I see the need for Traffic Directors; after all, there are inevitably zillions of souls flying around up there. Road rage dies hard. Of course, if these TDs don't do a perfect job, we'll need Wing Repairers, like fine craftspersons from the Middle Ages, these renowned artists will refashion a broken wing, restoring it to its original lustre. But what happens in the meantime? There will have to be a heavenly version of Physical Therapists, health care providers who help us maneuver our celestial enterprise until we are Wing-Abled again.

What jobs do you think might be waiting for us?

I AM

The other day while waiting in the beauty parlor, I opened a copy of one of those women's magazines and fell upon a quickie interview with Deepak Chopra. I had to get past the overwhelmingly good photo of Chopra, looking like he'd had a good facelift and is working out at whatever gyms are available to him in his busy lecture schedule.

The interview, I repeat a quickie and by default somewhat superficial, suprised me in its simple wisdom. The question was about stress and ways to access peace and quiet. His answer was to take a moment to stop what you're doing, and inhale slowly with the word: I. Then exhale slowly with the word: AM.

Wow. "I am" is also a way to disidentify with the labels and language that get us caught up in our heads and then subsequently in emotional inner turmoil. I've practiced this for a few weeks and it helps. Try it.

Practice

Last night a friend called from the O'Hare Airport. On her way back from a business trip, she was delayed another 90 minutes. She was exhausted, bored and frustrated. After all, with the newly rescheduled flight, she would get home after 1 AM, and her plans for an early start on Saturday were crumbling.

This scenario is so familiar. I would have coached her on how this is an opportunity to practice "presence": be where you are when you're there; there's no place else to go. But instead I listened, just listened. I realized her time delayed in the airport was not different from my time delayed in driving through Boston traffic. I have for so long been on automatic in traffic (I pride myself on how well I maneuver through jams, bragging how I learned from New York taxi drivers), I forget that my cleverness often fails when there are no spaces to fill, just gridlock.

How much time (life) I have wasted sitting in traffic fuming, grinding away my peaceful inner self for something over which I had no control. Every once in awhile, I remember to practice. It's gift to accept time on its own terms; it's pure pleasure to stay alive and well through these moments of frustration. I'm on my way to the bank: I want to practice if there's a long line. Peace brothers and sisters.

Whose G*d?

It's so hard for me to let G*d in.

When my childhood image of a sometimes benevolent old man with a long white beard, the one I cherished, honored and obeyed, invades my mind, I recoil. Who wants an old bag as a burden to carry, especially since this old man is not always benevolent?

At age ten, I told my father I believed G*d was everywhere. I still today struggle with that. I don't believe it anymore; I feel G*d's presence often in my direct experience. The experience, however, is not easy to describe, for it has no direct image of an outsider intervening in any positive or negative direction. In other words, it's content free. It's just a presence that tells me I'm connected to something larger than my fears, doubts, joys, wonders, thoughts, history. Most importantly, it is a presence that gives me a degree of confidence that is accessible and filled with peace, even in difficult circumstances.

If this G*d is so accessible to me, this same G*d must be accessible to all. This is where experience trumps belief. None of us can own that which cannot be owned.

Labor Day

Today is another wonderful American holiday. It has special meaning for a variety of reasons typical to our way of life in an open society. Children return to school tomorrow or the day after. Colleges restart the full academic year. The Jewish holidays are soon; autumn is right around the corner. Light is changing and the weather is cooling, at least at night.

But with all these markers, there is something about this day unique unto itself. The real meaning of holiday is holy day, so today we make holy and offer a tribute to labor. How do we best celebrate, make holy, labor? If you're like me, you have some work to do today, even if you don't go to the office (all schools and most businesses are closed), but that doesn't mean the business of home and family aren't right in front of you and me and in need of attention.

Suggestion: use today to focus a quiet and open attention to all your work. What does that mean? When you finish a task, stop, pause, inhale, exhale before you move on to the next task. Put a space between activities to remind yourself you're alive and active, but not "caught up". And then, notice the peace still left in you at the end of the day. That's my plan. I'll report back tomorrow.

Beginner's Mind

I like to think of myself as knowledgeable and professional, but that's really just my PR.

Last night I did my work (the kind with a public audience) and my husband was there. The last time he saw my work was several months ago and people were heaping praise on me. This time there were technical difficulties and some of my performance was not as smooth as usual. There were no major mistakes, just a matter of degree's difference, but still the kind that makes a leap from great back down to good.

I puzzled over it and looked for excuses and explanations of what happened. I overdid it; I didn't test the microphone enough, and blah, blah, blah. The truth in fact eludes me. I did my best and everything I could think of and it just wasn't my most impressive. End of story.

Bottom line, I love my work and it seems to love me back. In zen mind, there is just what is and everything else is just a story added on top. The technical things are easy to fix next time, but the second guessing is counter-productive. With beginner's mind, the next time out will be fresh and as if for the first time ever. I'll remember that.

I'm Right; You're Wrong

I learned the crucial details of what this is and what it causes in human misery a long time ago. It has never been easy to move away from the I'm right/ you're wrong thinking or behavior patterns.

In his most recent book, Eckhart Tolle refers to the "pointers" to truth. This is a statement addressing the idea that there is no absolute truth, at least as far as any human being could fully come to know. G*d, or a Being greater than we are, is the Absolute Truth. But the ego thinks in absolutes and this fuels a false sense of security. Sometimes our closely held beliefs trap us and render us inflexible, making us forget that what we are grasping may be strangling us in the process.

This brings us to the right/wrong dynamic. We come into an us versus them quagmire. At its worst, marriages fall apart, friendships become strained for years, if not forever. Forgiveness, compassion, acceptance are farthest from our minds. It takes daily practice to stay aware of the right/wrong inner mind. Self-forgiveness is a good place to start. Calling a driver who cuts me off an idiot (just in my own mind) gains me nothing but a superior attitude and unnecessary anger.So what! Big deal! It comes up so automatically, all I can do is forgive myself, call it an impersonal mistake and move on.

This is a big topic. I'll return to it again soon. Peace for today and happy September.

Heaven on Earth: two views

I used to think heaven on earth was in those rare and glorious moments when the elements of perfection lined up, when the circumstances were favorable and I was truly in the right place at the right time. Some call this: the moment that "fits my pictures".

This false notion of heaven on earth is as authentic as a movie posing as real life. In fact, I've heard people say that a perfect moment felt like being in a movie watching oneself enjoy the "scene". And the next description is that it is/was too good to be true.

It is too good to be true. Heaven can be felt, sensed or experienced only when we are fully in the moment--any moment--no matter the circumstance or even the emotional setting. I had a conversation with a good friend last night and it had moments of discomfort. She told me things about myself that were less than favorable, but she was right. Her thoughts were close enough to the truth that I knew this was good for me, something I needed to hear and that would make me grow, if I could hear it. I was in heaven. I could hear something and not defend myself.

We can practice the entry to heaven. It's here all the time, every day, every moment. It doesn't have to fit any picture. Whatever is in front of us is the picture of heaven if we're "there". Peace.

Other Practices

One of the suggestions Eckhart Tolle made was to deliberately pull back the eager ego (my inelegant interpretation of his elegant words). What he meant was to look for opportunities to hold back from being "right", clever, to shine or to evoke admiration.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a woman who is concerned about a mutual friend who has cancer. I noticed how eager I was to let her know I had visited this woman, taken her prepared foods and driven her to hospital appointments. I definitely would have revealed all this in the past. But why did she need to know that? Telling her would have been taking credit and I could see this in the moment, so I held it back. It felt better to let the gift of caring stand solely on its own merits and let myself withdraw from a need for "strokes" from my friend on the phone.

This is practice in following spirit over ego, and I'm so happy to discover such a simple but empowering practice. Thanks to Tolle, once again.

Checking In

Yes, it was work, but I made it through a day watching the inner conversation. Frankly, it was not that hard, but next week when my schedule gets busy, the inner voice will be much more active. And there's a good point. Is this inner voice more active when there's more outside activity?

It seems so. There's simply more agitation possible among large groups of people and fairly continuous interaction. There's also more inner anxiety possible when we meet up with people who have a history of annoying us or when we anticipate situations which have been traditionally stressful. How do we prepare for these? Daily practice in stillness and breathing and even morning meditation can help, but mostly it can't be prepared for: the moment happens and we're there or we're not. I have found the best way to keep still and peaceful is a form of forgiveness, mostly self-forgiveness. I set a goal of remaining present and then forgive myself every time I catch my attention wandering (this is quite often). This continuous forgiveness of myself and others is a door openner to peace.

I'm already forgiving myself for the irrritation of meeting with colleagues next week for a training day that I have found in the past to be mostly useless. This is progress and who knows, it might even be different this time?

Keep On Keeping On

One thing that surprises me is that a lifetime of spiritual practice does "sink in". In my awareness of the inner critic, the little voice that tells me it's not quite right or it's good but not good enough, I forget that there are practices, imperfect as they are, that can be resurrected and utlized for spiritual well-being.

I can't overstate the importance of noticing the inner critic, the little niggling voice-over that has an almost constant comment on ourselves and everyone else in the world.

Some years ago I attended the School of Practical Philosophy in New York City. Included in the weekly lessons were practical suggestions to practice between classes. One of these was to watch the inner voice and avoid criticism of ourselves or others. I liked watching the voice, but criticism was hard to manage. I was confused between an honest evaluation of behavior or circumstances and the extra label (gossip, often) that overlays what unfolds in our lives. For example, you could watch a person making an unsafe illegal U turn and think it's a bad choice. That's a clear statement. But adding to it: drivers just do anything they want; people are in a race to their own funeral; I don't do things like that, etc. Now it becomes a distraction and a way to make ourselves right and another wrong. This extra inner conversation is a tough challenge for me.

But that's my job today. I'll report on my progress tomorrow.

Early Morning

Over the years practitioners of yoga and meditation have told me that dawn and early morning hours are ideal for practice. This morning I awoke t 6:15 and let myself get up for good. I did a few yoga poses and sat for maybe five minutes in a watchful breathing meditation.

This was good. Except for the inner criticism that it wasn't enough. I have always done not enough meditation or yoga. I thanked the inner critic and let it go. It's just the ego wanting to tell me I failed. What did I fail? My good intention? I didn't set a time limit on this practice; I just jumped in. I stopped when I stopped and it was good.

More important than how long I meditated was the recognition of the inner critic. That is the purpose of the meditation to begin with. This time I cannot fail at meditation. It is available all day long, even in tiny thirty second increments. I plan to use this today as an entry into peace. And namaste to you!

Eckhart Tolle

I just spent three days doing an R & R (Rest & Relaxation) at Kripalu Yoga Center in Lenox, MA. To say it was divine is to get it right. Yoga practice gets you back to your body, to its subtle messages, even to the sound of your heartbeat, and most importantly to the awareness of your own breathing. I have a peace within that is vastly different from a normal feeling of rest after a short vacation.

While there, I finished another Eckhart Tolle book. Once again, I am back to the heart of what matters--being here alive in the now. Once again I am reminded that there is no past or future, except in the mind, which is not the now, but an overlay of inner conversation commenting on life as it unfolds.

I wish I could say I'm a better person for this, but that's a lie. I just woke up to see more of my crazy ego running amok. I fight the "now" all the time. I have a chattering mind that thinks it's keeping me good company, but in fact only leads me to distraction. On the drive back to Boston, I became aware of how much of the trip went by without my noticing.

But Tolle reminds us that the awareness itself is key, not getting it "right" by being awake all the time. Most empowering was the message that when ego takes over and wants undue attention, it just isn't personal. This helped me forgive myself for inner criticism of people, a useless and self-damaging occupation. There's more, but I'll take it up later. Bye for now.

Letting Go

I cannot speak with much certainty about physical pain, but I feel that with emotional pain patience wins every time. A balanced life seems to include just enough of doing the next right thing and then letting go of expectation for the consequences. Outcomes are not always predictable, though the temptation is high to believe that we can get the outcome we want just because we had the courage to do what was right. Would that it were that simple.

Is this what it means to expect our reward in heaven? I dont think so. There is an inherent grace in knowing within our own minds that we did what we had to do and that the next right thing is letting go. It is this letting go that actualizes our character. Expectations held onto tightly only suggest a manipulation of our circumstances, a way of playing God. This leads eventually to disappointment and cynicism.

Letting go and letting G*d is a slogan in the 12 step programs. It seems to work for anybody.

Religion as a Social Necessity

Rabbi Kushnar says in his book, Living a Life That Matters, that people are drawn to join religious congregations because they would rather pray and worship with other people than in the privacy of their own homes. This implies that the social connection to other people plays an important role in practicing religion.

His assertion is true, but it speaks for all social groups, and there are people who so eschew orthodoxy that they feel closer to a strong sense of worship without a group identity to contend with.

One group that replaces a religious social group are the various iterations of twelve step programs. The meetings are centered on a spiritual awakening following the daily reprieve from alcohol or drugs. The faithful following of so many people in AA speaks precisely to Rabbi Kushnar's point. They make and keep friends among other AAs, and they have a mutual understanding based on the principles practiced as the AA way of life.

So the social aspect has to grab people who have very similar interests in their spiritual philosophy; otherwise the fear of "group think" or cultism will arise.

Gone Fishin

I'm out on a boat today through Monday (20th), so I'll probably only write in a notebook, not electronically. Send me messages (please) so that when I get back, I can feel there's a reader out there!!

Quitting Isn't Failure

With all the talk about how America can't quit Iraq, since we have never "lost" a war (forgetful of the last quagmire in Viet Nam), we can reflect on when quitting is just quitting, when it's being realistic, or when it's simply moving on from beating a dead horse.

I had dinner last night with a lovely young woman who asked about my career. I relayed how I quit acting in New York some years ago, after unsuccessful attempts at getting paid work. She was sympathetic, wanting to encourage me almost, to not give up, to go back now and try again, as if she could inspire my younger self. Our time together was too short to describe the ensuing successful years, how that decision didn't hurt me but led to other wonderful doors opening.

But it's a useful exercise to take a hard look at whether or not our past quitting was true failure. Once you're over 40, you probably have some palpable failures in your bag of experience: a failed marriage, a promising career you walked away from, a college degree you made no use of, an investment you avoided out of fear that would have made a nest egg for early and luxurious retirement. There are thousands of these failures, but should they stick in the craw as such?

It takes courage to look directly at our own lives and reconcile the "holes", to embrace the undone perfection we idealized for ourselves. But this is the story of being human. Bring it to the surface, put it in perspective and move on. Last night I realized how that "failure" to achieve an acting career sounded to me--shallow and not worth mentioning. I thank my young friend.

Rabbi Kushner

Finally, I'm reading one of his books. Living A Life That Matters is a wonderful short book, easy to read. Given he's a Rabbi, he's scholarly in the Old Testament and his story telling helps to make otherwise dense material crystal clear. Kushner deals with complex issues of conscience and the need to be good versus the need to succeed (knowing we matter). He shows us the grey area where the choices are hard and the still small voice of conscience is too easily suppressed. And he gives a wide berth to us all in this regard.

"Only morally sensitive people struggle with the gap between who they are and who they know they ought to be." (page 42. )This sentence alone speaks right to the heart of the book I'm writing. We all have a gap; if we were to honestly size it up, write it down and view the big picture, where are our personal gaps and is there a will to begin (or continue) to gnaw away at the hard shell of compromise we've developed, living with a conscience on the one hand and a need to survive on the other?

I'll probably finish this in 24 hours. Stay tuned. His work is inspiring.

Self-Care

For those of us who are lifelong people pleasers, there comes a time when burn-out occurs or the cup spilleth over into empty and broken heartship. People pleasing is not service (seva) to another deserving human; it is actually avoiding self-care or eschewing the pain of serving oneself.

Why on earth is serving oneself painful? As children we hear often that we are selfish. As adults we don't actually remember the events where this label occurred, but we internalize the word and decide in a general fashion that to gain respect and praise we won't be selfish.

What we avoid learning is that in the process of service we have not only the right but the OBLIGATION to make our choices of service to others from the viewpoint of win-win. In short, I can and will do this for you because it stretches me, and teaches me to open myself to another. It serves you because you have a legitimate need. I want to be of service because I can and therefore I will. No sacrifice necessary.

This is a huge and complex subject and I'm scratching the surface here. Look for more on this in my book.

Feeling Better vs. Feeling Good

If life were all about feeling good as long and as often as possible, we'd have it easy. There's no question that when the operating instruction is to make yourself feel good, the focus is on oneself first and always. Just keep looking out for number one.

Feeling good, really good, happens when the stars are all aligned and we encounter brief moments of victory, sometimes the weighty presence of a positive---we just got a raise and we can now take a real vacation, or the simple absence of a negative---it's Saturday and the phone isn't ringing and we can sleep in.

But in the gray area of character and ethics and clean living, we often have to settle for feeling better (about ourselves) over feeling good (about the whole situation). Sometimes righting a wrong means moving oneself into a clear conscience, but leaving another person hurt or confused, angry or even violent.

There is wisdom to the advice of "choose your battles", but sooner or later when someone close to us pushes the issue too close to the edge of the cliff, the right thing to do is to let that person fall over and feel the bruises and break the bones. If it's someone important to us, it hurts us as well as them. We feel better, but we don't feel good.

That's what character development is: the gray choices we have to make throughout our lives. We may spend most of our days not feeling so good. But we can sleep at night.

Writing About Character

The worst thing in writing about character is that the mirror is turned back around on myself. I have to reflect on my own behavior all the time, every day, and who wants to? I would as soon throw the nit picky stuff under the rug and MOVE ON! Why put the bothersome issues under a microscope?

There's only one answer: put them into the visible realm because they already exist in a repressed area where they will arise over and over until we take a good hard look and engage them face to face. It's now or later, and later may be harder or inconvenient. And of course, later may never come (now that solves the problem).

I dont like to fight with people, especially those I ordinarily trust and love, but walking away and letting a friend get by with murder is a poor second choice. My fear of the confrontation is the fight she'll give back---her need to make me into someone who has aggrieved her (I apparently did). What I can't agree to is being in the wrong for what her complaint is---I did something reasonable and she is hyper sensitive. My grievance is with her accusations and then her hanging up on me (I wasn't arguing).

It comes down to this: I can't walk away, I can't avoid her (a foolish passive aggressive tactic). I have to stand up for myself and risk losing a friendship I feel is getting weaker by the week. And for me it comes down to character. It's lonely to develop a backbone. People leave; they cry; they whine. They even sue you! (Not my fear here). But there it is. It's now or later. And now is all I've got.

Forgiveness

One of the toughest issues of developing character is forgiveness. I have seen extraordinary grace in the face of unthinkable suffering and marveled at the heroic greatness of soul to forgive another of wrongdoing.

Sometimes this forgiveness is not saying OK: you can walk away with a clear conscience just because I forgave you. Consequences are necessary for all of us as a lesson . Without consequences, a clear conscience is not clear enough for learning the next right thing to do.

But who benefits from forgiveness? As many have acknowledged, it's often the one who forgives, more than the one who is forgiven. Why? It is in the act of forgiveness that the aggrieved party can have a shred of hope to move on, to keep the channels of love and trust open to others. This certainly does not mean to forget. And it does not mean to abrogate the need to press for consequences, for responsibility and sometimes on a broad scale to seek for changes in the law.

I have a friend who stopped speaking to her brother after he refused to help her dying parents over several years of declining health. He left her completely alone holding the bag. But she forgave this brother; he has a son growing up without her influence and friendship and she knew the boy didn't need to suffer from his father and aunt's broken bond. She is happier and her nephew knows her loving hand.

These are extremely tough decisions, but when thought through completely, give back much more than they take away.

What Does G*d Care About?

The central issue in looking at our final reckoning is this: is G*d liberal in reviewing our life or is He conservative? Is G*d a fundamentalist at the gates of heaven, or does He take a loose interpretation of our character, our deeds, our best intentions?

It seems the framework for reckoning then come down to our own conscience. But how can we trust such a wily self-serving little devil, the little voice inside our head that sets the red, yellow and green lights for the continuous, noisy traffic that passes through all day and night? How many times have you said, or heard someone else say ingenuously :"I can live with that decision", knowing full well that that admission often includes traces of anguish and remorse.

This reckoning is with us daily, most often not critical enough to bother our conscious mind, but it's there nonetheless.

However we orient ourselves to G*d is not just a whimsy. I for one must feel connected to something fundamentally sound to get through a day with ease. My conscience is a hound dog and will not let go. I don't always act on this gnawing, but I can't deny it's there. A conflicted conscience holds me back from a "flow" day, a day of peace and ease. Strange things happen on those kinds of days: I forget my keys, spill my cereal, race through yellow traffic lights, blank out names of familiar people.

"Alas, conscience doth make cowards of us all." Hamlet.

Alas, conscience doth make flubbadubs of us all. If the "instrument" of conscience is tuned, it will make itself felt with the annoying stridency of a violin in need of attention. Pay heed.

The Making of Character

It takes a lifetime to build a complete character, but some think it's all done by the time you leave junior high. This is only true in terms of predictable habits and early life patterns. If it's never too late to have a happy childhood, it's never to late to redeem a character flaw.

BUT, it takes practice, it takes repetition to make the new character habit stick, to achieve a turnaround in an habitual behavior pattern.

I have a lifelong tendency to be laid back and forgiving. My character asset is that I have a long fuse; I'm not so thin-skinned that I'm easily offended. That said, there are people in my life who deserve to be reckoned with and I habitually let them slide, far more than they deserve or is good for them. How do I break this habit?

The first thing is that I recognize the problem I and want to face it. I make no excuses for it. I know the good side of this trait, but that's not enough. The same asset in one situaion is a liability in another circumstance. I also know that this trait is not a bottomless well of forgiveness. Somewhere deep inside I have a tally and it's adding up. Somewhere there's a cauldron boiling and the lid will blow with the right provocation.

Finally I look for opportunities to break this habit in simple ways: I speak up when it's easy but I wouldn't have done it without pushing myself. That way, every time the opportunity presents itself, and it might be harder, at least I know I can do it. How do I know? I did it once; I can do it again. What do you do?

What is Heaven?

What is heaven? A place without a body, without worry, without traffic, and most importantly, without the fear of death, even death’s remotest possibility. It’s an ideal place to be able to say about death: “been there; done that”.

But we use the word heaven differently in a variety of contexts: a heavenly stress-free vacation, a heavenly taste of chocolate, a heavenly view of the mountains. What on earth (no pun intended) do we mean by this version of heaven, and do the childhood visions of angels, clouds and other ephemeral accoutrements connect to our versions of heaven on earth?

Heaven is sometimes the word used when people describe a peak experience, a moment when time stands still and all the forces of the universe are aligned with your own unique moment of deepest appreciation. The body is there but bears no particular weight of burden; the worry is so sublimated that you may have been just born; traffic is farthest from your mind, and death holds no sway. One could be thinking: If death happens right now, my life will not have been in vain.

Talk to me. What is heaven for you? Both versions.

Conversations with God

Only recently have I begun to read some of Neale Walsh's opuses on this subject.

In principle, I agree fully with his original premise--if we're quiet and listen to the whispers of our innate "good" conscience. we might discover G*d is talking to us, telling us the best advice, steering us away from stupid errors and warning us against foolish choices.

I wish it were that simple. I think we hear mostly what we want to hear, and it's extraordinarily difficult to separate good advice from bad when listening to the still, small voice of conscience. But what choice do we have? If we turn to the clearest rules of religion, starting with the Ten Commandments, how do we choose to interpret what we've learned? The wisest will tell us, live not from what you've been told, but from what you know directly in your experience.

This has been my own unfolding. I had to learn to trust my native conscience and give up the thinking of my childhood, some of which lingered into my third half of life. I have other, trustworthy signals: I get a pain over my left shoulder when my conscience is stimulated. Some people I know develop a form of sinus headache.

So today I'll hang out with doing my best and watching my shoulder. How does conscience work for you?

A Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory

In the world of Alcoholics Anonymous, and in fact in all the affiliated twelve step programs, there's a process called the fourth step inventory. It is a written and then shared document executed in private, but sometimes with the help of a sponsor, a trusted other alcoholic, who guides and coaches one to complete the inventory.

The purpose of the fourth step is to come clean about one's character defects. And the ultimate purpose of this process is simply to come clean and then to stay sober. The long-term effects of a stronger character are obvious as a boost to sobriety.

Given all 12 steps, most alcoholics (or anyone involved in a 12 step program) will tell you the fourth step is the hardest. Why? The descriptive words hint at the challenge--- searching and fearless. It means to be completely honest, without excuses or cover ups, without cutting corners on our behaviors. This fourth step has appealed to many groups, far afield from alcoholism.

You can never know too much about yourself. The more you know where you've shortchanged others as well as yourself, the more opportunity for a better life you have from this moment on. And what else is there?

Daily Self-Discipline

One recent discovery: if you want to establish a good habit and "grow" a skill or finish a project, make yourself do it every day, even if it's for a short time or it's only a brief act. This is obvious for exercisers who now know that getting a daily active regime is wise and keeps the habit alive, as it keeps the appetite open for more, more, more.

But this is also true for writers, job-seekers, and bloggers, especially true for bloggers.

It is not easy to blog daily. As much as we're tempted to drift into thinking this is just a personal journal, there's no getting around the fact that it's public, meaning anyone at any time could find you. What if that finder is someone you want to be found by? Can't happen without the daily entry.

Why daily? Somehow as a reader of news, I find yesterday's news DEAD. Where are you right now; who are you today?

And finally for writers, whose job is to churn it out, one piece of rhetorical insight at a time until there's something good on the page, daily is mandatory. So get going. Write it and publish it.

The Inflated Power of Blogging

Today is a departure from the usual.

I confess: I am an avid blog reader, an occasional commenter, as well as a writer. I use this space, not only for some shameless self-promotion, but also as a way of developing serious thinking and praying for serious dialogue on topics and issues dear to me.

That said, there's something fantastical about writing for a public audience as vast as the multi-millions who connect daily to the web. If only in one's mind (certainly in my case) it feels good and portends a certain sense of journalistic responsibility to commit daily to sending out material open for discussion. On the other hand, blogging can also be a mindless dump of flip and ill-considered opinioning.

On thing for sure---the mere thought of potential lively, invigorating dialogue with like minds is extraordinary. Some of the "reader" comments on The Daily Dish (Andrew Sullivan"s award-winning blog) fully illuminate the original author's words, and he is fortunate to have such a spectacularly intelligent readership willing to participate in his particular public forum.

People of my own humble origins can only hope for such a platform and the credentials to climb up there. Time will tell.

Why Was I Born?

This title comes from an old song from Show Boat, a great musical made into a movie in the early 1950s.

Maggie, the show boat character, then lists several questions--why am I living, what do I get, what am I giving (good rhymes)---and the conclusion is that she was born to love you (him).

I think about this question. What am I doing with my one precious life; what am I supposed to be doing? It's ungodly late to invent another wheel (and not interesting enough to capture my attention). I've had my children and still maintain the first and stable marriage. What's important enough now to pay attention to? Eating healthy food, keeping the house straight, earning enough money to pay the rent , the food, the car and the housekeeping are all no-brainers. What about the rest of my precious time? And what did I miss during those years when raising my children was all I thought about and obsessed over?

Why was I born? To love you and to love myself enough to know what love is? And then what is it to love? The wisest have told me it's about giving to life, about saying yes to the daily challenges of riding the waves of circumstance and making the best possible choices in a world of paradox that put me into the flow of the wider human river.

This takes me back to Show Boat--Can't Help Lovin Dat Man---fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. I gotta love one man till I die. Strange---is it all about using this marriage as a mirror into being fully human? I don't know. It's exhausting to consider.

Moral authority

Some have asked me if my new book will be a compendium of moral platitudes that people will have to digest and use to analyze their behaviors. Good grief, NO!

Moral platitudes have been the direct and irrevocable downfall of televangelists, senators and all kinds of preachers and teachers. I just can't go there.

The Last Best Resume on Earth is, if nothing else, a moral reckoning of one's own. Since G*d already has seen everything, there's no hiding, no subterfuge, no clandestine cover-ups with which to fool your Maker. It's the NAKED truth. Like in the film Defending Your Life, it would be interesting to review the days and hours of your time on earth (up to now) and see how you would use this time if it were over as a defense to move on. The metaphor is useful, if not fantastical. What (or how) would you and I plead to continue here on earth if everything up till now were under scrutiny? How might the priorities change?

Something to think about.

Character Referencing

You see it all the time: "references available upon request". This is a combination of both professional and personal names, emails and phone numbers of the trusted "others" who will back up our credentials, assuring the potential employer we are who we say we are.

The personal names have different expectations from the work-related names. These are the people who know us after hours; these are those who know our troubles and our joys, the friends who've been through thick and thin with us.

Believe it or not, employers do contact these friends. What we don't actually know is what they say about us, but we assume it's good.

The character resume is, for some purposes, a short, second page accompanying the "work" resume that covers the subtler issues an employer might wish to learn about us: our genuineness, our respect for authority, our innate ability to behave with humility,our uncompromising willingness to admit mistakes and clean them up, our courage to take risks.

A time-saver? What if your references let themselves be quoted as going on record vouching for your character? It's a way to open a conversation about your character that could be helpful to both you and the employer.

Defending Your Life

Remember the 1995 film starring Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep? It was a fun parody of what might happen in that intersticial space between death and the NEXT LIFE.

Brooks dies on his birthday when he inadvertantly hits a bus head-on; Streep hits her head on the patio of a swimming pool, falls in and drowns, a strange way to meet her Maker since she considers herself a good swimmer. They meet up and fall in love in Judgment City, the pit stop for reckoning with one's life by petitioning before two judges, with a prosecutor and a defense lawyer.

Brooks' "trial" ends in his having to go back to earth (another reincarnation) because the prosecutor proves he lived a life full of fear and missed opportunities. Streep ascends to something better (we never know what this is) because her life was filled with courageous, selfless acts. But in the end (happy of course because boy gets girl) Brooks risks everything for Streep when she's assigned to another "realm" without him and he almost gets hit by several buses pursuing her, determied to never let her go.

So is conquering fear at the heart of developing character and the subsequent ticket to redemption? Is Albert Brooks right?

A Character Resume?

Why on earth would anyone want to write such a document? Isn't it easier to just wait till judgment day and make( plead) the case? After all, many of the best jobs happen over a cocktail somewhere and there's interest sparked and VOILA! Richard Bolles has never believed in resumes (What Color Is Your Parachute?).

I don't know. I think you're going to be interested. My brain is a little lazy today, so this is the lonely, skinny post. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

How I Got Interested

I've been interested since I was three in "saving my soul". As a cradle Catholic, I was taught very early about sin and its consequences. I learned to take confession at age six, and mastered the typical lies that got me through for a few years without embarrrassing myself to a priest: I disobeyed my parents and gossiped about my classmates, standard issue misdemeanors.

As an adult, leaving formal religion behind and studying world religions and ritual, I began to see we all worried about the same things and we all knew the bottom line: if you don't love your neighbor as yourself, you might not be as happy as the neighbor who does.

And try as I might, I could never escape from conscience--an innate pressure that sent the cues to knowing the right thing to do, if not the courage for acting on that knowledge.

I had a long career (and still practice it but with less intensity) as a career coach/resume writer, and over the years I formed strong views of what people were really writing about in the job campaign: sometimes exaggerations of their accomplishments, and often unnecesaary modesty about the best their skills could produce. It finally occurred to me that writing about our character traits, about those aspects of ourselves, could be an interesting and healing way to take a long look at our inner value to ourselves, as projected to our inner picture of God.

So came about the birth of The Last Best Resume. It is meant to be ongoing and upggraded, just like an ordinary employment resume. I'll keep you posted as it develops. Maybe, dear reader, you may want to write one for my book.

Compartmentalizing

Most of us think of ourselves as decent people, governed by conscience in our daily affairs.

In fact we have a little wall of self-protection, which allows us do the "right thing" most of the time, UNTIL we feel wronged or until we see we can get by with something no one will notice or care about.

My close friend won't allow herself to surf the web looking for a new job while still at her current one. She says it's unethical. But she will claim to be the age of a "senior" at the local movie theatre--she's actually 6 years shy of 65--to save $3 on admission. She even fought with the ticket seller, dramatizing resentment at being told she looked younger, feigning insult to injury.

This is compartmentalizing. It's what is known as situational ethics. Perhaps there's room here to draw a larger vision, a bigger picture of what makes for true character. If we are inconsistent about where we draw the line on character, do we need to rethink those lines to get to heaven? And most importantly, if we define heaven as something peaceful to be attained here on earth, is there any way to get these little perpetrations clearly front and center and corrected to achieve a certain life force that's truly empowering?

I conclude the universe is fair. The simple white lie has a cost to each of us. My friend is not poor, but she is obsessed about money, about saving where she can, like many of us. But what will this crazy lie cost her? At least we know this much. I was there and I noticed. Her character status was reduced in my eyes. Is this a cost to her? Of course. Compartmentalizing is our individual way of prevaricating with the truth, of selling out a precious part of ourselves for nothing worthwhile.

Compartmentalizing got Bill Clinton in big trouble. Where is our version of self-righteous self-interest tripping us up?

Getting Into Heaven

Remember the film Defending Your Life, the funny and sometimes touching Albert Brooks/Meryl Streep film of about ten years or so ago? Well, what if you couldn't enter heaven without a resume (prior to your arrival in Judgment City, or for those of you who haven't seen the film, prior to negotiating your way past St. Peter)?

I'm authoring a book on examining your character, putting your basic personal self (the real you) under the microscope to see how well you would hold up if you (God forbid!) suddenly died today. Or tomorrow, or sometime soon. It doesn't matter. What are you doing about developing your characer? Aside from your well-flossed teeth, your loyal spouse or your trophy date(s) and your Harvard degree, how do you show up in the privacy of your own conscience? How would those closest to you describe the REAL you---in the privacy of their own conscience?

I can help you identify what you need to repair, refine, remake, redo and otherwise, recycle your worst habits, your most egregious sins, so that when you meet your MAKER, or the emissaries your MAKER uses to protect Himself, you will have a document---a truthful, no BS one--- unlike your actual job resume, that will get you past the endless reincarantions you'd just as soon avoid.

Read my book: The Last, Best Resume: the heavenly resume to get you into heaven. Due out June 2008.