elainegrey | (no subject)

Yesterday morning i called my sister and parents. My sister was both furious and sad about the death of Alice, my parents' dog, worried about leaving her children in my parents' care in some months when she plans to travel, distraught over what she could tell her children. My father wrestled with guilt all night and found his way to experiencing forgiveness, but still in pain. My mother was all stoic and locked up.

I went to Meeting and meditated on the solstice, on my association with the season to the "gift of courage." I'm pretty sure when i assigned correspondences in meditation fifteen years ago or so, that i didn't have much more than a poetic intuition about the divine gifts i chose to focus on. Certainly hasn't been from a rigorous theology. But if i spend ten years with each -- grace, courage, support, and wisdom -- that's not a bad investment for forty years. Previously, i had been thinking there would be, there could be, some gift of fire in my heart for me to do, to DO something. Yesterday, it seemed that the most vital element of that gift of courage is the courage to continue to risk and love despite the pain it can bring.

I think i found a frame for understanding the crucifixion as a spiritual lesson (for me a historical and political event), as part of the paradox of destruction-creation, a way to go through that which breaks our hearts and come back to joy. Nonetheless, i feel more led by meditation on fire and the transition of energy from nuclear events in the sun, photosynthesis, to consumption of plants by fire or digestion, and so through he food chain, the necessary destruction that translates to creation. In such abstract chains of dependency and interdependency, it seems easy to me to find the fundamental nature is that of transformation, creation-destruction combined, both sides.

I know my distrust of messages that praise suffering. I believe they can promote dysfunctional behavior and prolong injustice. I find rankings of experience of suffering distasteful. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," doesn't always seem to be a truth, and certainly doesn't seem helpful.

I flash to more bad news of a extended family member, stepson of my Dad's mother, who experienced a horrific accident in the past few months. My Dad only told me the story yesterday, to share the weight he'd been carrying. I don't think we'd ever heard much about these step siblings. This accident didn't kill Dad's stepbrother, but it isn't ennobling either.

With those caveats in mind, i think again of creation-destruction, of transformation, and try to tease out the complexity from the simplistic platitudes. The reality is that of creation-destruction, and you can name that reality suffering. And then there is this mystery of life and awareness (which one is unlikely to seriously assign to protons and neutrons), experiencing the creation-destruction.

Whether or not there's a moral dimension to the source of the suffering, i think there's an opportunity to accept this gift of courage. In a less mystical frame, perhaps it's better described as practicing resiliency. I would guess that it's like many other aspects of inner life: we can be intentional and practice resiliency, we can develop capacity, we can discover reserves by surprise, we can be depleted and need a long time to respond. (I find myself think about trauma and neuroscience studies.)

For me, i suppose, framing my focus as accepting the gift of courage from the Divine is a way of coaching myself to stretch my resiliency. Perhaps it's like Dumbo's magic feather, a talisman to help me reach my full capacity. The gift though, even of the feather, is a gift.

A post apocalyptic short story i listened to recently, http://escapepod.org/2010/12/23/ep272-christmas-wedding/, addresses this issue of courage -- resiliency -- in a beautiful way. Given your choice of apocalyptic tragedy, if you survive, move on to joy.

After Meeting, i heard from Christine that my brother's wife had miscarried, and that my brother was burying his son Jonah yesterday.

I would have been there for him, but i wonder if he wants to protect his Muslim family from mistakes made by those of us who do not practice.

Instead, Christine and i drove Josie the Jeep to the city and picked up my aunt and her husband, and we bounced around the city and the Marin Headlands, showing them the beauty of the landscape. It was very pleasant and delightful to see family after this week.

I'm not ready for the work week. Laundry! Vacuuming! Oh, whatever.