Reflections On the Question: Is This What We Have Become?

 And Reflections On 

Who Are We Becoming?

My husband recently wrote on Facebook:
"How many times will we ask: 'Is this what we have become?' Now the U.S. has bullied countries like Ecuador, threatening them with withholding aid and military assistance, for sponsoring a proposal in the World Health Organization to support breast feeding. Yes, breast feeding. Why? Because of pressure from companies like Nestlé, who wants to sell formula, as they did in the past with multi-million dollar campaigns in third world countries to convince women that formula was better than breast milk. That campaign resulted in thousands of infant deaths because clean water for that formula was non existent. If you are not fucking outraged at all the ways we have been sold out to corporate greed, why?"

A Native American friend responded to Ron's post:
"That is a stupid question. Anyway, the US was ALWAYS this thing that is now being decried. Ask people of color and limited means. That middle class or mainstream plaint of 'is this what we have become?' is grating on my nerves anymore."

 

Deep bow of gratitude for both comments ― because both point into a place of ever deepening inquiry for us all, and especially for those of us who are not Black or Native or Hispanic or poor or in some way victims of generations of dehumanization, violence, and oppression.

 *****

In this ongoing process of shedding the layers of my ignorance and illusions, I feel as though I am constantly being thrown out of the nest ― that place where I'd once thought that things are so, only to find out that they aren't like that at all. I am still stunned by how upside down and backwards and 1984ish America the beautiful is. I was brought up having it drilled into me that we are "the land of the free and the home of the brave," and that our nation is exceptional, better than all others. My heart breaks with each new veil that is lifted, empowering me to get it in my bones that this was never so ― not as we were taught in school and not what millions have experienced throughout the centuries. Yes, there is beauty, there are ideals and values we profess, and there is the Divine presence in all. And there is also the shadow side of America that keeps arising again and again because collectively we as a nation have yet to recognize, own, heal, and transform the ways that, yes, we have been "exceptional" ― but these are the ways that our country has always been exceptionally brutal to marginalized and dehumanized people, to other beings and to the Earth, to the values we say we cherish.

Pema Chödrön wisely states, "To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man's-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again." And this is certainly what I have found to be true ― that staying open to beginner's mind, to humility and vulnerability, to curiosity and seeing with new eyes, to listening ever more deeply as a heart with ears, to greater healing and consciousness, and ultimately to connecting with the wisdom and compassion and beauty that has always been within us ― that all this and more are part of the life-death-rebirth process that we humans are asked to walk, as best we can, in our lifetimes. 

Is this easy? No. Again and again, I affirm that it is painful to be conscious in these times. It is. And, knowing both sides, what I have also learned is that there is no authentic comfort in staying "comfortably numb." There is no way to shut out pain and fear and loss and our individual or collective trauma without also shutting down our capacity for joy and laughter, for empathy and compassion, for gratitude and tenderness, for intimate and healthy relationships with family and friends and partners, and for kindness and wisdom and love. And if we are not embracing the healing and attending that is needed within our own minds, hearts, bodies, and souls, then we will remain limited in how it is that we can contribute to alleviating the suffering within our own loved ones and communities and in the larger world.

*****

All the symptoms of suffering and fear and violence that we are brave enough to see in ourselves and those we love and beyond certainly illuminate that we humans have much awakening and reckoning and reconciliation to do. 

What comes to me is now, in these times, the rest of us ― those who have not long been the victims of crushing racism, oppression, poverty, hatred, greed, guns, global warming, war, the devastation of our Earth Mother, etc. ― are getting tastes of the reality that many like my Native American friend has known all along. And we're being asked to face facts like that large corporate interests such as Nestlé are so addicted to greed that the death of babies does not matter AND the truth that "the U.S. was ALWAYS this thing that is now being decried." In a huge way, we're being asked to individually and collectively do the shadow work that has been avoided like the plague by so many of us since the earliest days of slavery and genocide of the First Peoples. Because if we don't, if we don't engage in this reckoning with reality, the cycles of suffering will continue unabated. And now that we're about to drive ourselves off the cliff and take most of the rest of the planet with us, we can wait no more.

What to do? How to wake up more deeply? How to nourish our capacity for love and compassion and lessen our fear and sense of separation? How do we strengthen the inherent wisdom of our hearts and minds? How do we grow in an ongoing way in our openness to vulnerability, curiosity, intimacy, and conscious connection and understanding of others? How do we expand our circle of caring beyond the familiar to ultimately embrace all of life? And how do we nourish our greater awareness of whatever it is that we can do, however large or small, to alleviate the suffering within ourselves and others? There are so many questions that can be helpful to ask.

And there is, of course, no one answer. What I have experienced is that many of the great teachers and healers, courageous truth-tellers and visionaries, poets and artists, authors and activists, and deeply loving beings and wisdom-keepers simply point the way for us to discover the deeper truths and wisdom and sacredness that we hold within ourselves. In this way, we become empowered with the consciousness, compassion, wisdom, and love to increasingly contribute to the healing rather than the harm of our beautiful troubled world.

 *****

I am moved to end with quotes from a few among many who have helped me in some way to see and feel, to know and remember, to heal and transform and awaken...

     Thích Nhất Hạnh ― "What do we most need to do to save our world? What we most need to do is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth crying."
     Rumi ― "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." 
     Joanna Macy ― "The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe." 
     Clarissa Pinkola Estés ― "The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door."
     Albert Einstein ― "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
     Howard Zinn ― "War itself is the enemy of the human race."
     Pema Chödrön ― "We don’t set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people’s hearts."  
     Fred Rogers ― “We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say 'It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.' Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.”
     Black Elk ― "The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us."
     Michael Meade ― "Each person is a story that the Soul of the World wants to tell to itself."
     Martin Luther King, Jr.― "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere... A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."  
     Howard Zinn ― "There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."
     Alice Walker ― "There is no graceful way to carry hatred."
     Carl Jung ― "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."
     Eleanor Roosevelt ― "Action creates its own courage and courage is as contagious as fear. You must do the thing you think you cannot do." 
     Chief Seattle ― "Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect."
     The Dalai Lama ― "My religion is very simple ― my religion is kindness." 
     Fred Rogers ― “There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.”
     The Buddha ―"All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?"
     Chief Joseph ― "The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it."
     Thomas Paine ― "The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."
     George Orwell ― "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth is revolutionary."
     Howard Zinn ― "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
     Emma Goldman ― "The most violent element in society is ignorance."
     Pema Chödrön ― "War and peace start in the human heart - and whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications."
     Martin Luther King, Jr. ― "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." 
     Archbishop Desmond Tutu ― "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."
     Paulo Freire ― "Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
     David Korten ― "To create a world in which life can flourish and prosper we must replace the values and institutions of capitalism with values and institutions that honor life, serve life's needs, and restore money to its proper role as servant. I believe we are in fact being called to take a step to a new level of species consciousness and function."
     Riane Eisler ― "In our time, when high technology guided by values such as conquest, exploitation, and domination threaten our very survival, we need economics driven by an ethos of caring. We need a caring revolution."
     The Dalai Lama ― "Peace is not just the absence of violence but the manifestation of human compassion." 
     James Baldwin ― "Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced."
     Mohandas Gandhi ― "We must become the change we seek in the world."
     Stephen Levine ― "The more we love, the more real we become."
     Rumi ― "Our greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our heart."
     I.COR.13:4-6 ― "Love is patient and kind... love is not jealous, or conceited, or proud, or provoked. Love does not keep a record of wrongs... it is not happy with evil, but is pleased with the truth. Love never gives up... It's faith, hope, and patience never fail." 

Who are among those who have informed, inspired, and supported you on your journey? What quotes might you hold near and dear to your heart?

***** 

As Matthew Fox states, there are many wells and one great River. May we each deepen into whatever path it is that nourishes our hearts and minds and souls and who we most wholly are. And may we support one another along the way. We are all connected, all related, all family.

May we be at peace.

May our hearts remain open.

May we know the beauty of our true nature.

May we be healed.

With warmest blessings,

Molly