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.
About Me
- elly jackson
- Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- I am a Boston, Massachusetts-based Wedding Officiant and Celebrant; I also do free-lance writing, editing, teaching and coaching writers.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, October 5, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, September 28, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, September 24, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
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?
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?
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