Me, Me, Me

 “Live for something higher, bigger and better than you.” 
Is what a tea tag says. I saw it on facebook.
I felt convicted. Why? 
I spent much of this day at work buried deep in a book, then my laptop, researching, learning, applying to "scholarships". Trying to apply everything to my life, trying to find things that will benefit ME, because after all, I'm worried about how I will afford college this fall and where I will find housing and get a job. Legitimate concerns, but I use SO MUCH of my time thinking, worrying, plotting about this. 

What about the 6billion other people on this planet? Or just simply my co-workers, my parents, the people I pass by today? Could I take a freaking minute to engage with them instead of feeling like they're infringing on 'my' valuable time?

That starts, I guess with putting this computer down for the day. 

To Be or Not To Be: that is the power of my choice

You know those silent, imaginary arguments you have in your head? I do that a lot. I just caught myself doing that right now. Who was I 'talking to' this time? I think some hypothetical co-worker. And I was arguing something silly: the term I would use if I was in a relationship (and I was using it in the argument as if I *was* in one), and "they" had a problem with that. I caught myself with this thought: wow, these arguments contain so many falsities...What I'm arguing *for* isn't a reality (I'm not even in a relationship), and who I'm arguing *with* isn't a reality, and I wouldn't want to be so abrasive in reality...and I looked around me. Look how quite it is! See your present circumstance? Quiet. The sun is dawning. Someone's unloading a truck next door. Someone's taking a shower downstairs. Listen. THIS is your present reality. JUST. BREATHE. Be. Here. 

Discrimination

Currently Reading:
"The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michaelle Alexander

Things I've learned in the Introduction: 

- In 1972, fewer than 350,000 people were being held in prisons and jails nationwide, compared with more than 2 million people today. This magnum rate increase is directly correlated with the "War on Drugs".

- The War on Drugs began at a time when illegal drug use was on the decline.

-A few years after the drug war was declared, crack began to spread rapidly in the poor black neighborhoods of Los Angeles and later emerged in cities across the country.

- The CIA admitted in 1998 that guerrilla armies it actively supported in Nicaragua were smuggling illegal drugs into the US; they also admitted to blocking law enforcement efforts to investigate illegal drug networks that were helping to fund its covert war in Nicaragua. 

- The National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals issued a recommendation in 1973, that "no new institutions for adults should be build and existing institutions for juveniles should be closed" because they found that "the prison, the reformatory and the jail have achieved only a shocking recored of failure. There is overwhelming evidence that these institutions create crime rather than prevent it." 

- Once you're labeled a felon--employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity,denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and excision from jury service are legal.


My Conclusions so far: 
1.) Wow. Who made these policies? Obviously our mindsets and policies need a dramatic change. And if the policies don't change, the representatives need to. 
2.) I need to start involving myself in politics, going to town meetings, voting and such…….(ek!)
3.) The substances and activities our towns, states, and country legalizes and taboos is baffling…

Trials

Two of my good friends' mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. This woman's sister recently died from cancer a hemisphere away. Her father died recently, too. How scary for this woman and her family, faced with life and death uncertainty.

A dear friend of mine in prison is getting out either in 50 days or next April, or anywhere in between. He's in a dormitory setting, and has absolutely zero time alone to his thoughts. Being cooped up with life's more inconsiderate people is challenging. The uncertainty of his release date is straining. He longs to be out, but that's when the real challenge begins: how to find a job that will not reject him because of labels, how to recover his finances and relationships from past poor choices, how to resist temptation in the face of despairing circumstance. 

A friend can't get a job, because he doesn't have a vehicle, and he can't get a vehicle without money. Do you know how challenging this is for a man who was in prison for 14 years for armed robbery? A man who lived a gang life selling and doing drugs? He wants to live an honest, reputable life. What chances does he have? The only big encouragement he's had recently is getting an apartment through housing authority--his first space to himself ever--we rejoice! The comfort and joy of this chance has me rethinking my prejudice against governmental assistance…

These stories could go on and on. We all have our strains, our obstacles, our fears. 

Dear Jesus, my heart groans! There's pain, sympathy, frustration, and inexplicable more welling up. You know all things. All we have to offer is our tears and petty "strength". This world is broken, WE are broken. Come fill us with your life, your hope, your wisdom. Renew our strength, renew our hope. Open our eyes to the blessings around us.  

God, there is nothing I can do for you. But I will let you do amazing things for me, in me, through me. Give me your spirit, give me your blessing, give me your power, give me your patience and compassion, give me your strength, give me your comfort. And you know, Lord, when I say 'me', I'm saying it for each one of us. Lord Jesus, come. 

---

"APPROACH EACH NEW DAY with desire to find Me. Before you get out of bed, I have already been working to prepare the path that will get you through this day. There are hidden treasures strategically placed along the way. Some of the treasures are trials, designed to shake you free from earth-shackles. Others are blessings that reveal My presence: sunshine, flowers, birds, friendships, answered prayer. I have not abandoned this sin-wracked world; I am still richly present in it.

Search for deep treasure as you go through this day. You will find Me all along the way."

 (Jesus Calling by Sarah Young)

Echos

I stand among you as one who offers a small message of hope, that first, there are always people who dare to seek on the margin of society, who are not dependent on social acceptance, not dependent on social routine, and prefer a kind of free-floating existence under a state of risk. And among these people, if they are faithful to their own calling, to their own vocation, and to their own message from God, communication on the deepest level is possible. And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. So what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.

(Thomas Merton, spoken November 1968)

Defining Contimplation

Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that Source. It knows the Source, obscurely, inexplicably, but with a certitude that goes beyond reason and beyond simple faith..It is a more profound depth of faith, a knowledge too deep to be grasped in images, in words, or even in clear concepts.

(p47, Choosing to Love the World by Thomas Merton)

Beginning

Currently Reading: 

• Choosing to Love the World by Thomas Merton
• One Song: A New Illuminated Rumi by Michael Green 

Daily Devotionals:

• Shorter Christian Prayer
• Jesus Calling by Sarah Young
• On Track Devotions: May-August by Pilgrimage Educational Resources

A dear friend encouraged me to write a poem reflecting Rumi's style. Here's my attempt: 

You ask for wisdom
but what you seek
has already been said.
This 'knowing' you desire
is everywhere.
Don't be blind
don't ask for what you already have,
Look,
Count your blessings.

Here's another: 

Caught in the cloud of Mind,
I easily forget
every good thing.

Being contemplative is so easily mocked and misunderstood. 

And to tell you the truth, being contemplative doesn't (automatically) get me what I want, either. 

What I want: to feel accepted, to be at peace, to be a presence of comfortable peace for others. Too often I come across as aloof. Often I feel conflict and negativity, too, reactively springing up from the noise and drama of other people's lives. 

But I think Quietness is an important pursuit. I think Stillness is an amiable goal. I think listening and observing--my surroundings, my body, my mind--is healthy and so missed in our culture today. So, I will pursue this way of living despite the mocking and misunderstanding. Why be less because of 'your' misery? And who says 'you're' miserable, anyway? It's time to stop assuming, and start knowing.