A friend told me that in Greece when you say “Hello, how are you?” the response is ypoféroume (ipo fer me), which means in common speech, “We are fine.” But in reality its real translation is, “We are suffering.”
So today, those of us about to die (at some point in life) salute you with ypoféroume. My life is fabulous, and still I suffer. I have too many people close to me who are battling cancer. I am reading too many blogs/books about racism. I am earning in a year what I used to make in a month and though I feel free, living is not free (easy, yes, but not free).
The other night in the throes of two projects, I received a text from a friend’s fiancé asking me what I was doing. WORKING, I text back. He asked if I wanted to do something fun with my friend but I couldn’t tell her what it was, which was a burlesque dance class.
Oh, alright I said. Not too thrilled about leaving my desk.
My friend and I went to the class in the rain, we arrived with high heels in our hand. She still didn’t know what it was all about and I wasn’t quite sure either.
There was a substitute teacher and women who had obviously been in the class given their attitudes and attire. We moped in. The sub said that she was going to work on “walking” and then we began. She taught us how to walk angrily, seductively, sassy, serious and I was not having too much of it. I didn’t know if my friend was enjoying herself or not, but I was feeling put out, like I had just paid $10 for this, and that I wasn’t enthused. I felt the sub was just taking a cop out doing these walk exercises and I just didn’t feel a vibe for the whole occasion.
And then a switch flipped. I was doing the walk and supposed to stare into the eyes of my partner, who was a petite blonde with a smirky smile and as I approached her I thought, why not? Why not give into the moment? And so I did and my arms started swinging more naturally and my head started tilting more artfully and I actually found myself smiling.
And then we got to the end when each one of us had to get on stage by ourselves and do a performance to music the teacher would select individually. NOOOOO, my mind screamed. I will leave here, I won’t do it, I will not dance burlesque in front of these experienced dancers, or my friend who is a dancer, I simply will not do it. And then each one went – one a ballerina with long flowing legs and arms and imaginary gloves that went up to her arm pits, another who had an overarching love of her derriere and shimming it, and then it was counting down and it was me and my friend and I popped up and said I’d go. I didn’t want to follow my friend or anyone there as the last act. And so I asked for R&B – the sub didn’t have it – and so she played some New Orleans style jazz and I decided I was going to dance like a Baby Doll and I took huge strides, and moved my shoulders back and forth and I walked up and down that stage and ended with a shimmy shimmy shake eyes on eyes to my audience.
And I got a resounding applause.
Later, I was speaking to my friend and rehashing the denouement of the evening – the fear and fight to succumbing and indulging. She had made the same transition. We talked about how resistance to what is in the here and now is what causes the most pain, because once we both gave up our resistance, the fear drained away, and we passed a good time.
I have on my blackboard in my kitchen C.S. Lewis’ quote that says: “Hardship prepares ordinary people for extraordinary lives.” That quote has sustained me through some troubled times and has actually come to make me view suffering, my own and others, as not as bad or not to be feared as I had previously thought. It is definitely worth noting that those of us who live in New Orleans have come to know transformation through suffering – from our own worst possible scenario – many of us have lost homes, loved ones, material memories to the 2005 Federal Flood – and this collective suffering is still manifesting itself.
Someone was recently speaking to me about “the way of the cross” – a term I’m surprised to say I was unfamiliar with until now. The concept is that many people have found their way to God through suffering. And I have to admit my newfound spirituality came to me from that same form and reading the tomes of racial history lately has shown me how many African Americans have come to define religious as their first identity.
I do believe that suffering is universal and inevitable — it is at the core in the teaching of Buddha:
The Four Noble Truths comprise the essence of Buddha’s teachings, though they leave much left unexplained. They are the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. More simply put, suffering exists; it has a cause; it has an end; and it has a cause to bring about its end. The notion of suffering is not intended to convey a negative world view, but rather, a pragmatic perspective that deals with the world as it is, and attempts to rectify it. The concept of pleasure is not denied, but acknowledged as fleeting. Pursuit of pleasure can only continue what is ultimately an unquenchable thirst. The same logic belies an understanding of happiness. In the end, only aging, sickness, and death are certain and unavoidable.
But I am struck by the term the way of the cross because I had always (mis)understood that Christians believe the way of Jesus was he died for our sins and so therefore, he suffered so we wouldn’t have to – which is differently conceptually than the way of the cross or suffering to find God. Or maybe it’s not different and I just don’t know Christianity as well as I thought I did.
I read an interesting passage in the Power of Now this morning that I thought was very appropriate to the way I feel about my own spirituality and belief:
THERE ARE many accounts of people who say they have found God through their deep suffering, and there is the Christian expression “the way of the cross,” which I suppose points to the same thing. We are concerned with nothing else here.
Strictly speaking, they did not find God through their suffering because suffering implies resistance. They found God through surrender, through total acceptance of what is, into which they were forced by their intense suffering. They must have realized, on some level, that their pain was self-created. [emphasis added]
How do you equate surrender with finding God? Since resistance is inseparable from the mind, relinquishment of resistance – surrender – is the end of the mind as your master, the impostor pretending to be “you,” the false god. All judgment and all negativity dissolve. The realm of Being, which had been obscured by the mind, then opens up. Suddenly, a great stillness arises within you, an unfathomable sense of peace. And within that peace, there is great joy. And within that joy, there is love. And at the innermost core, there is the sacred, the immeasurable, That which cannot be named.
I don’t call it finding God because how can you find that which was never lost, the very life that you are? The word God is limiting, not only because of thousands of years of misperception and misuse, but also because it implies an entity other than you. God is Being, itself – not a being. There can be no subject-object relationship here, no duality, no you and God. God-realization is the most natural thing there is. The amazing and incomprehensible fact is not that you can become conscious of God, but that you are not conscious of God. [emphasis added]
The way of the cross is the old way to enlightenment and, until recently, it was the only way. But don’t dismiss it or underestimate its efficacy. It still works.
The way of the cross is a complete reversal. It means that the worst thing in your life, your cross, turns into the best thing that ever happened to you, by forcing you into surrender, into “death,” forcing you to become as nothing, to become as God – because God, too, is no-thing.
At this time, as far as the unconscious majority of humans are concerned, the way of the cross is still the only way. They will only awaken through further suffering, and enlightenment as a collective phenomenon will be predictably preceded by vast upheavals. This process reflects the workings of certain universal laws that govern the growth of consciousness and thus was foreseen by some seers.
It is described, among other places, in the Book of Revelation or Apocalypse, though cloaked in obscure and sometimes impenetrable symbology. This suffering is inflicted not by God, but by humans on themselves and on each other, as well as by certain defensive measures that the Earth, which is a living, intelligent organism, is going to take to protect herself from the onslaught of human madness.
However, there are a growing number of humans alive today whose consciousness is sufficiently evolved not to need any more suffering before the realization of enlightenment. You may be one of them.
Enlightenment through suffering – the way of the cross – means to be forced into the kingdom of heaven kicking and screaming. You finally surrender because you can’t stand the pain anymore, but the pain could go on for a long time until this happens. Enlightenment consciously chosen means to relinquish your attachment to past and future and to make the Now the main focus of your life. It means choosing to dwell in the state of presence rather than in time. It means saying yes to what is. [emphasis added]
You then don’t need pain anymore. How much more time do you think you will need before you are able to say, “I will create no more pain, no more suffering”? How much more pain do you need before you can make that choice? If you think that you need more time, you will get more time – and more pain. Time and pain are inseparable.
So it is not as if you have to suffer to come to a place of freedom from suffering, it’s that you have to stop resisting suffering to get to the point where you can say “whatyagonnado?” and mean it.
I know I said the words once, twice, and three, and four times, and even here live:
But I lied them.
Now when I say whatyagonnado – it has meaning, it has depth, it is profound, it is the way.
I spoke with a furloughed government employee yesterday who said that last time this happened – with Gingrich and Clinton – that salaries were actually restored to furloughed employees. Really? I said, somewhat vexed that now with the debt crisis we would be paying for an extended vacation of government employees. It’s not that I don’t sympathize with them not getting a paycheck but since I work for myself, and I never got to even take an evacacation for the 2005 Federal Flood, much less for Gustav or even Isaac, I’m loathe to have my tax dollars paying for untold government employees getting their yardwork done.
So I propose all of the furloughed employees use their time off to do the handiwork that those of us still in the trenches do not have time for – call your Congress person, call the Senate, call the President, write letters, march, protest and tell these politicians you think it shows a lack of emotional maturity for them to stop the government from functioning while they cannot come to an agreement. Tell them that we all deserve universal health care. Tell them that we are sick of this country being run by a privileged, mostly male, mostly white, elite who thinks it is okay to build their wealth on our backs and then give us nothing in return.
I moved down the street from First Grace, a church that brought together a white and black congregation after the 2005 Federal Flood and has the best marquee in town.
I’ve been isolated in my head too much lately and I desire community. When I started working at Off the Record in 1999, I met people I admired and enjoyed and they made work seem like a nonstop party. Then some of those people left, some were changed by money and success, and some remained dear but grew distant.
I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve been through a lot of changes in my life in the last decade and with those changes I’ve seen in myself the ability to give up on people and situations that no longer fit my evolution, but in the wake of all that has been left behind and the reframing of what is, I’ve wanted to once again work, think, and play with people that nourish and nurture as well as challenge me and feed my soul.
The church on the corner, First Grace, has intrigued me, but what would I, a Jew be doing in a church, I ask you? Well, the synagogues in this town are old school and don’t have much ALEPH about them, as in what Rodger Kamenetz writes about in the Jew in the Lotus – ALEPH is about Jewish renewal and about embracing spirituality not just doctrine.
I was speaking to another mother about this and she said that she wishes she could find that temple too but when she went to First Grace all she found was too much Jesus.
For the first 50 years of my life, Jesus was not at my table, but now I listen and find myself open to many aspects of spirituality that I would never have considered in the past. That doesn’t mean I want to go to church though, no more than it means I want to be davening in a temple.
My best Sunday mornings have been spent on my bike riding to the lakefront or at the Zen Center down the street meditating and participating in the dharma talks afterwards. I don’t ever feel as if it is too much Buddha, but then again I never mistake Buddha for God.
I walked Heidi into City Park this morning just as the rain started falling and there in that space, with the raindrops bouncing off the dark waters of the lagoon, where two swans bent their long graceful necks to preen their feathers, I found God once again and my place of worship.
Last night, I had turned off Luther – the mini series on BBC that I’m trying to catch up on so I can see the current third season – because as it usually does, this episode began with disturbing violence. I finished my New York Times, and went to bed reading the Inward Revolution, which I started a few days ago. I closed my eyes in the silence of my empty house (Tin was sleeping at Tatjana’s) and I felt discomfort with the quiet.
I spent the next thirty minutes slaying dragons – much like Tin had done in school this week as they are re-enacting the story of Michael and his slaying of the dragon to teach early childhood kids about battling their own dark demons as the light fades from our days.
There in City Park, as the demons receded, I found a fortune cookie fortune that someone had dropped on the ground: “Do you see difficulty behind every opportunity, or opportunity behind every difficulty?”
Quick – answer that question – I knew my answer without any hesitation. I see opportunity.
I continued to walk through my spiritual landscape with rain drops falling on my hairless head – as I approached the bustling intersection, I noticed women running and to and fro getting out of the rain, protecting their hair, and I smiled.
This morning, I asked someone to partner with me on my new venture and the answer was a resounding yes. I don’t know what would be too much Jesus or not enough in my life, but I do know that finding what fits your individual life, your own soul’s needs, and letting that in to feed your spirit is what every devout person seeks.
I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. ~John Muir, 1913
My maiden name is Namer, which means Tiger in English. It’s a Sephardic name. So when people tell me I’m strong, I have to remember where my roots are – I’m a tiger by birth.
I’m coming down off a weekend in the life of the mother of a four and a half year old – we started with a playdate in Destrehan – stopped first at the grocery to pick up balloons but Tin changed his mind and asked if we could bring donuts instead – so we got a dozen hot glazed donuts and Tin held them the whole way there sort of in disbelief that he had twelve fresh donuts in his hot little hands.
Destrehan segued into Tin’s first soccer game, where he put on shin guards and grabbed his soccer ball and went to join the team after he finally let go of my hand. He kept coming back to the bandstand for water and telling me how hard he was playing out there and asking me, “Are you watching me?”
Afterwards, we ran to the Community Bookstore for their 30th anniversary celebration and picked up Twelve Years a Slave, which I hope I can read before seeing the film, and then we came home to crash.
We woke this morning to another playdate with a friend who is Tin’s equal in energy and range and his mother is my equal in age and disbelief.
Once we cleaned up that mess, we were off to see Tin’s first movie in a real life movie theater – which was Planes – and it was less crazy than I had feared and we actually had a fun time. Similar to when he saw the piñata on his 4th birthday and thought it was his present, he thought the commercials, not even the previews, were the movie and he said, “This movie is good!”
As well, he couldn’t believe his good fortune to have not only popcorn and a Sprite but also some M&M’s – he kept looking for the catch. There was none – sometimes you just have to be bad to the bone to feel good to the core. And (ahem) obviously, I’m not a Tiger Mom.
The downside to this child-centric weekend is that when we were headed over to his other house this afternoon for our weekly transition, he got sad, told me he was sad, which made me sad – but instead of trying to fix it or say anything to assuage the sadness we were both feeling, I kept quiet and we just sat there with our sadness – the upside is that he shook it off a few minutes later – once again proving himself to be resilient and adaptive – good skills to have in his adulthood.
I do believe he is going to be okay – it’s always us adults I worry about more than the kids.
I’ve been walking around the bayou these days with Heidi – a dog is always a great motivator for taking long walks. The bayou has been beautiful as of late, the weather one to two degrees north of Africa hot and the sky blue and filled with puffy clouds as if it were summer. We head from our new house down the neutral ground and hit the mouth of the bayou where there seems to be a lot of activity – one neighbor has added a pool, one house is going up on the old funeral home lot, the two empty lots that were sold are still vacant but are neatly mowed – all in all it’s as if we never moved away.
Meanwhile, in my new neighborhood there is a ton of activity – there are three dumpsters lining the street – the steel is up on the new school, the house across the street that was being renovated is almost done, a new fence has been put up in back of the house directly across from me – this house is going to be added to the India House’s hostal inventory.
Heidi and I have a routine we’ve established, we walk from here down to the bayou and cross the Magnolia Bridge then make our way into City Park where the Big Lake path is well used and the path beyond is starting to be frequented by more serious walkers and runners.
And then there’s us – we are not exactly fast walking and not exactly moseying – we’re sort of gliding.
We keep running into friends from one end to the other that often results in long pauses to our walks, which I don’t mind, it’s nice to catch up with everyone, but there are days when I’m seeking solitude and that seems to be hard to come by on the bayou.
Yesterday, I was gliding along feeling the sunshine instead of cowering from it, and I thought about all the ways and back that I’m blessed beyond belief. I have walked this bayou under such incredible states of mind – from 2003 until now, from the tumult of being torn between two lovers to the utter despair of losing my mother, I have traversed a well worn path in my heart one side joy and one side sorrow. And I thought about each of the incidents that gave rise to each as I walked almost as if the last eight years of my life were passing in front of me.
Here I am, I said to myself almost in surprise, I am still standing – remarkable.
I thought about the trials and tribulations that had me going around in circles and how meaningless each of them seem now – it fed into my pithy adage machine that spits out all these great feel goods sayings – this one says this too shall pass.
As I walked along the grass, nicely mowed, there were fish jumping out of the water – plop plop plop. I closed my eyes and continued to walk forward and I felt the gentle wind at my back.
There are many stories we tell ourselves about ourselves – you should have, you could have, why did you, why didn’t you – but the best stories are the ones we tell ourselves about finding happiness against all odds.
I was speaking to a friend today at the grocery store, he said to me during his darkest moments of bipolar-induced schizophrenia and about to lose his over two-decade career, he called out to God and said, “I’m Joe, God, not Job. Joe. Not Job.”
I had just told him that God must be bored with me again, dangling lightning between my eyes, just seeing if I would snap.
So I say, “I’m Rachel, God, not Job. Rachel. Not Job.”
Another friend quotes a Randy Newman lyric to me – “Lord, if you won’t take care of us/Won’t you please please let us be?” And I hear Etta James’ rendition in my mind of God’s Song:
God’s Song
Cain slew Abel Seth knew not why
For if the children of Israel were to multiply
Why must any of the children die?
So he asked the Lord
And the Lord said:
“Man means nothing he means less to me
than the lowiliest cactus flower
or the humblest yucca tree
he chases round this desert
cause he thinks that’s where i’ll be
that’s why i love mankind
I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee
from the squalor and the filth and the misery
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me
That’s why i love mankind”
The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said “Lord the plague is on the world
Lord no man is free
The temples that we built to you
Have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won’t take care of us
Won’t you please please let us be?”
And the Lord said
And the Lord said
“I burn down your cities–how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You must all be crazy to put your faith in me
That’s why i love mankind
You really need me
That’s why i love mankind”
This morning, I meditated and tried to still my thoughts. Tin woke from a sound sleep and began his moaning about going to school. He asked: What day is it?
Mom: It’s Hump Day.
Tin: I don’t want to go to school on Hump Day!
Mom: Know what happens on Hump Day?
Tin: What?
Mom: Well, who has a hump?
Tin: A camel.
Mom: Right, so we’re on a camel, riding on its hump and we’re in the desert and what do we see?
Tin: Sand.
Mom: [wow] Right, so are riding in the sand and there are dunes of sand everywhere and we come upon an oasis and what kind of tree do we see?
Tin: Palm. Palm trees.
Mom: [wow] Right, and we see a cool spring and we stop to drink and see other animals, what are they?
Tin: Horses.
Mom: Right, so we get off the camel and notice that its hump has gotten all mushy and soft and deflated. What makes the hump hard?
Tin: Water.
Mom: [wow] Yes and food because the hump stores fat and water. Now, let’s get ready for school.
Tin: I want to go to the sand.
It’s called diversion. Don’t focus on the moaning about yet another school day, but on something that is far more fun, more lively, more creative. It worked on a 4.5 year old who was able to call forth images that he learned not yesterday, but a year ago in a book, and so if it works for him. It could work for you.
You don’t need God in a can, you need to flip the thought script.
I can’t, it won’t, what if? – well no, not quite – try this instead: I am and then fill in the blanks.
Manifest your destiny.
Try this one: I am God in a can.
