A day that was not supposed to happen

"Do not be content with showing friendship in words alone. Let your heart burn with loving kindness for all who may cross your path." Abdu'l-Baha, Paris Talks, pp. 15-16

Today did not go at all how I had envisioned, and I am feeling grateful that it didn't. You know how sometimes things do not happen the way you had hoped, but because the things you had hoped would happen did not, a space opened for what you were intended to do? Well that was my Christmas eve. I was supposed to be spending most of my day with a close friend. We were going to go out for Thai food, and then go sit in a coffee shop with our books and read. It was to be epically lazy, filled with laughter and coziness. At a quarter to eleven, when my friend called, I was all ready to go with my coat on and hat and scarf ready by the front door. She was calling to say she was running late by an hour. I took off my coat, made tea, and sat and had a conversation with my mother in the kitchen while I waited. About an hour later my phone rang again. My friend apologized profusely, but she had just found out that her aunt in India had passed away, and was going to have to call her family instead of coming into town. I have to admit I was a little disappointed. Most of my friends are out of town for the holidays, and I had a feeling that the few friends that are in town were already busy--I called around, but I was right -- everyone who was in town was busy doing their own thing today.

The Universal House of Justice, the international administrative body for the Baha'i community writes letters to the Baha'i world on a regular basis. Some of these are longer than others. The letters bring Baha'is all over the world up to date on what is happening, where we are headed as a global community, and what learning has been taking places around the world. On December 12th the House of Justice released a new letter. A copy of the letter has been sitting on my bedside table for a number of days now. I have skimmed it, but have been wanting to sit down and really read and reflect on its contents. With the unexpected time this afternoon I made myself a cup of tea, settled into my nest with pillows and a blanket, and immersed myself in the letter for a couple of hours, taking notes in the margins and underlining points that seemed especially poignant. When I finished the letter I was feeling really excited about the ways in which the Baha'i community is bringing about positive change all over the world, and excited for what lies ahead, and the ways that I can participate in community development at the local level.

Shortly after I finished reading the letter the phone rang. It was my dear friend Rafael from Arizona who was calling me from her parents' farm in Prescott, where she is spending her Christmas break from he PhD program. Rafael and I had a lovely chat, caught up on the latest in each others' lives, and wished each other safe travels -- she is headed to spend the southern summer with her boyfriend in Chile, and I am headed to PEI, Canada for a short visit.

I hung up the phone from my conversation with Rafael, and immediately received a text message from my friend Mariela. She and her husband David have a tradition of collecting winter clothes -- scarves, hats, gloves, sweaters/sweatshirts and coats, making care packages, and distributing the packages to homeless people around the city. She was calling to say that David was not feeling all that well tonight, and would I be interested in joining her. I texted back immediately that *of course* I was interested, and before I knew it she was ringing my doorbell, her car stocked not only with warm clothing, but with hot chocolate and individually wrapped home-baked cookies (I'm telling you--the woman rocks). We loaded into the car and took off, driving along as slow as we could in search of homeless people throughout the city. When we would spot someone we would pull over, roll down a window, and ask if they would be interested in a care package, some hot chocolate and a cookie. We meandered around the city, leaping out of the car and handing out clothing, hot chocolate and cookies to some very grateful folks. One woman, after receiving her hot chocolate and cookie, looked and me and said: "can I have a hug?" I was rather shocked by her question, and a little uncertain, but I said "sure," and leaned in and embraced her. She latched onto me, started crying and repeating "I've missed you so much" over and over, and wouldn't let go. Standing on the sidewalk hugging this woman whose every earthly possession was in a pile behind her both terrified and moved me deeply. I tried to pull away a couple of times, but she kept holding on, so I finally gave in a just stood there holding her. Finally she released her hold on me enough for me to pull back. She looked up at me and said "thank you so much." I stood there on the sidewalk feeling a little shaken, but more than being shaken, I was deeply saddened by the fact that this woman quite obviously is suffering from mental illness, and that she also has obviously lost someone that she loved very much. I also felt saddened by the fact that she quite clearly is rarely spoken to or touched by anyone, and that she both needs to give love to and receive love from other human beings, and this is not happening--at least not as often as it should be. 

Mariela and I made a few last stops as the evening turned into night, and the shadows grew much longer, and people became much harder to see. We looked for lumps on the sidewalk-- lumps that could have been heaps of garbage. It shook me to my core to realize that often we had to literally get out of the car and walk up to a dark pile on the pavement before we knew whether it was a person or garbage. What kind of a community do we live in, in which people are allowed to become so degraded that they become indistinguishable from garbage at a distance? It is obvious that we as individuals and as a community are failing to put the quote at the beginning of this blog post into practice when a man or woman is allowed to lie on the pavement in a heap covered in dirt, cold and hungry, when just behind them Christmas trees glow in windows and families eat delicious meals and share warmth, laughter and love.

I did not grow up in a place that had homeless people. There just weren't any, or if there were I never saw them. When I first encountered homeless people in North America I was shocked and terrified. Fear is what I felt most. It is a fear that I have carried with me ever since. I smile and greet most homeless people that I pass on the street, but I hold a deep hope as I do so that they will not speak to me, or harm me. I find the erratic behaviour of many homeless people--caused by drug or alcohol abuse and/or mental health issues--to be scary. I am not sure why. I have a close friend in Arizona who was always deeply kind to homeless people we would pass on the street. She would always stop to speak with them, and show them some affection. I always wished I could be more like her-- less fearful of what I did not know or could not understand, and more open to allowing love and kindness to fill the space ordinarily filled by fear. 

When Mariela invited me to join her today my immediate internal response was "no way! I can't do that!" The reason for this reaction was my own fear. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized that this was an opportunity to not only help a friend and bring some joy into the lives of people who lead very hard lives, but also a chance to confront and start overcoming my own prejudices and fears, because how can I ever love someone if I fear them? The answer was clear: I can't. Being afraid of someone is a barrier to love--one that we can rationalize, but a barrier nonetheless.

I came home tonight feeling really thankful for the opportunity to overcome my own fears and just get out there and give to others. Yes we did encounter a couple of men this evening whose aggressive behaviour made me feel fear, but out of the more than 24 people we handed care packages, hot chocolate and cookies to, only two made me uncomfortable. All the rest were kind, gentle, and grateful for our care packages. Some of them told us a little about what it was like to live on the street. Some talked about loneliness. Some told us that the care package was the best thing that has happened to them in a while, and that maybe things were starting to look up.

The day did not go as I had planned, but I learned many important lessons tonight about unity and love. I am hoping that next time I pass someone who is homeless I can look them in the eye, smile, and give them my love without looking away or crossing the street out of discomfort or fear. It is hard to confront my own fears and prejudices head-on, recognize them honestly for what they are, and then keep moving forward anyway. But if I want to live in a community characterized by love and kindness, I do not see any other option. My community is a reflection of who I am, who you are, who all our friends and family are. If we want a community characterized by love we must show love --to everyone, not just those we find it easy to love.

How about you, friends? Have you come up against the limitations of your own fears lately? How did you confront and overcome your limitations?

Willing to Not Know

This last week I made a big decision. I decided that I am going to give myself a chance to write. This is no small feat, having been unemployed for going on nine months now. There are things I want to do: like attend friends’ weddings; travel to Iceland, Central and South America, China, and Japan; go out to delicious, colourful meals with friends and family; yoga classes. The list is endless, and it all costs money which I am not, in this precise moment, actually earning.

Talking to close friends over the last few weeks, it seems like we all come to places in life where, although at some level we know with absolute certainty that this is just a finite low period in our lives, we ask ourselves where we are headed? What are we intended to do with our lives? What purpose do our lives have? Ultimately all of these questions lead me to the question: how is my life of value to the world?

I don’t know about you, but I know when I am in a space where these questions are spinning in my head and unsettled in my heart, the silent answer that I never give voice to because I generally would rather people not know is “none.” It’s not that I actually think that I am not of value as a member of the human race. It’s just that for brief windows of time I seem to be momentarily unable to see the larger picture – how this valley fits into the mountain range of life.

I was reading a book this past week. It is called My Grandfather’s Blessings. It is written by Rachel Naomi Remen, who is a physician with a remarkable gift for looking through whatever might be momentarily obscuring a person’s innate spiritual truth and identifying and nurturing the gems that lie hidden within that individual’s soul. Fortunately, in addition to working with individuals, Rachel is also a master story-teller, and she recognizes the power of sharing the stories of the many miraculous lives that have rubbed up against her own over the years with the rest of us. You know how when you meet a truly remarkable person, and their story inspires you to push onwards on your own journey? Well her book is infused with story after story of inspiring lives lived with integrity, passion and courage.

I had lunch yesterday with one of my best friends. Like most of my friends, who want to see me happy and feeling like a valuable member of society again, she was asking if I had found work yet. I explained to her that I was trying to give myself a chance to explore my writing as a career. She suggested I get a part time job to supplement my income while I do this. She also explained that if I told someone in India or China that I was taking time to figure out what I wanted to dedicate my life’s energies to – to explore work that is a natural expression of who I am instead of pouring my energy into work that fits the mould of what others would deem acceptable or successful for a woman with my background and abilities – that they would shake their head and say I must be a spoiled brat. I was shocked. Not that someone would think this way, because I recognize that for those who are just trying to put food on the table for their families, following your heart is usually not a priority. I was shocked that she would share this with me because she had been told this by an elderly woman in China as a young woman when she was trying to figure out her own path in life. But I think that I was most shocked because her comment gave voice to a silent question that hangs over my head every day: what right do I have to follow my heart and find work that I love when so many people around me are struggling? And what makes me think that I will have anything of value to say that people will actually want to read?

I have a nagging suspicion that I am not the first writer to ask myself if I really have anything to say that has not already been said, and said better than I could ever say it. Still, part of what makes the illusion of being in an endless valley of uncertainty so hard, is that when you are in it, it feels like you are there alone, and that you are the only person ever to confront your own purpose in life in this way.

Thankfully, we all have friends who are more than happy to shatter the illusion that nobody else has ever wondered what their purpose in life is. And we have books that share the stories and dreams of other people, who just like you and I, went through periods where they were standing on a cliff trying to decide whether it would be better to remain on the cliff enjoying the view that they knew was certain or to leap off into the unknown, hoping that the act of faith they were taking by leaping would induce wings to grow in the place where none had existed before. As Ruth Naomi Remen says, “sometimes someone dreams a dream for us all.”

People ask me whether I think there is a market for what I have to say. I feel myself getting defensive, and then I realize that it is a valid question coming from a society where we are taught over and over that only certain forms of expression are valuable. When I look back through my still relatively short life, there is not one person I have come into contact with who has not had something of value to share, and more often than not those friends and acquaintances who have not inspired me in some specific way are simply those who I have not listened to. If I gave them my time and my focus, I feel quite certain they would have stories that would move me, inspire me, make me feel something that I did not feel before.

One of the stories that moved me in Rachel Naomi Remen’s book is about an epiphany she had once while walking through a labyrinth. Last fall a friend of mine did a one-day workshop on the life of the soul. She had us all drive out to a beautiful remote area on the north shore of Prince Edward Island. The beach was endless and open, the waves were crashing on the shore, white and frothy, the water itself the colour of grey pearls. The air was salty. Behind the beach were tall sand dunes and behind them a scrubland of wild rosehip bushes covered in ruby coloured rosehips. Behind the bushes was a stand of evergreen trees through which wove an intricate network of walking paths. My friend explained to everyone present that we were going to walk silently through the forest in a sort of walking meditation. Our walk would end at a labyrinth made of shells collected from the beach. We would stand silently around the labyrinth and then slowly and silently walk it, leaving a space of a few minutes between us so that while we were having a collective experience in that we were doing it together, we were also very much on an individual journey with plenty of space for personal thoughts, prayer and reflection. 

I have to admit that I had my uncertainties about it when she explained what we were going to do. I had not expected any such activity when I agreed to attend her workshop. But I decided to open myself to the moment, and found it to be a deep and profoundly moving experience. 

My own experience made Rachel Naomi Remen’s insights more profound. She explains that when you walk into a labyrinth, you seem to be headed right towards the centre, when in reality you are as far from the centre as you could possibly be. And that right before you reach the centre, you are actually walking near the outermost edge of the labyrinth. Her epiphany was that although many times in life it had seemed that she was headed in what seemed to be a random direction, perhaps every step had in fact been very purposefully headed toward the centre. Perhaps, she says, the times that seem to be meaningless or wasteful only seem random because she is still on her path, and that one day, when she is at the centre point, looking outwards, she will realize that the perspective afforded by being at the end of life might completely alter the value and meaning of every one of her life’s experiences.

I was talking to a friend on the phone today back in Canada who also feels as though she is walking through a valley right now. She was with me when I walked that labyrinth back on Prince Edward Island so I shared Rachel Naomi Remen’s story with her. She told me that it resonated with her, and reminded her of something her mother had shared with her once: “Be completely present in whatever moment you are living, and enjoy that moment.” She explained that it was easier to do this when her kids were young and at home. That she enjoyed being a mother. But presence is harder for her now that her kids are married and living on the opposite side of the world. We agreed that presence always seems easier in the past than it is in the present. She and I are in different places in life, but our dream of finding joy, purpose and acceptance in the present moment is shared.

Some of us are better at giving ourselves permission to pursue and succeed at what we love. For some of us, giving ourselves permission to follow our hearts takes practice. Rachel Naomi Remen says that “wisdom comes most easily to those who have the courage to embrace life without judgement and are willing to not know, sometimes for a long time.”

Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. In California the leaves are still green, the cool breeze blowing through the oaks the only sign that we are finally moving into fall. I woke up this morning grasping for something to move me into this day, and am ending it feeling grateful for many friends that enrich my life. Friends that question, reflect, remind me to laugh and look to the natural world for wonder and awe and healing. And friends that believe in me when I am in a valley. I am also thankful for words and letters. For the gift of writing. And for the recognition that I am one of those who is going to have to learn how to give myself permission to pursue my dreams. And to succeed.