Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Living with grace...

There is nothing more beautiful than the struggle of hard work come to fruition. Whether you are striving to lose 100 pounds, afford a new car, circumnavigate the globe in a hot-air balloon, or earn your PhD, your goals are no more and no less important than the guy on the bus next to you just trying to stay sober for the next 30 minutes. We have no idea what wars are being waged in the hearts of the people around us.

Take a moment to look around you. The people you're surrounded by? They are all you have in this moment. Are you going to judge them? Love them for who they are? Cringe at the mess you see in their lives? What do you think they see when they look at you? That whole thing about not judging others unless you're willing to be judged by the same standards...it's really good advice.

Be forgiving in the judgments you dole out, whether you speak them aloud of not. If there is grace in your thinking, there will be grace in your doing. And when you do things a little more softly you make the world a little bit better of a place. And couldn't we all use that?

There is little shame in being understanding, and much in being far too rigid.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Grace, pride, community, and love...

Grace.

I don't give myself enough grace. I certainly don't give anyone else the grace they deserve.

Why is that, I wonder? Why do I, and so many that I know, treat grace as though it's a limited commodity? Grace isn't a "here today gone tomorrow" thing...it's an attitude. A disposition. To be a person of grace is to be willing to swallow your own pride and put yourself in the other persons shoes and say "how would I like to be treated here?" Often times the way we would like to be treated in any given moment is far different from how we want to react with our own sense of righteous anger.

But how righteous is it really? I mean...if someone jumps ahead of us in a queue, offends us with some slight, or ruffles our feathers with some inane behavior, what sort of injury have they really done to us? Prickled our pride? Pride is an idea, a concept...There is no organ where pride is housed other than in the abstract concept of the 'mind'. If someone injures our pride, it's not as though they shanked us in the kidney.

So I return to my original question...why am I so unwilling to offer myself grace, and even more unwilling to extend it to others? How is that helping me build community? How is that helping me instill a sense of belonging and of worth in others? How does that spread my message of love?

Where to start, then? How to give grace. Well...I suppose it starts with loving myself as I want to be loved. Unconditionally.

That's hard. The problem with unconditional love? We are programmed with so many conditions. It's part of being human. But really, if I don't love my self with such a grand, graceful, permeating love, how can I ever expect anyone else to? What right do I have to claim such love if I can't give it?

So it is my will and my stated intention to learn to love myself for all the awesome bits and all the not so awesome bits. And I will also strive to love others more as I love myself...I often claim unifying powers of the philosophy of ubuntu (I am what I am because of who we all are), but now it's time to truly live those words.

Grace begets compassion, compassion begets understanding, and understanding begets community.

Live love, breathe love, be love; this is the only way.


Monday, October 24, 2011

The scales are tipping...

Recently, as some of you know, things have been shifting and changing in my life.  I suppose that's not a big news flash...anyone who is doing any authentic living goes through ebbs and flows of change; it just seems like right now change is hard to track and easy to be overwhelmed by.

As I find myself further removed from Cambodia, I find myself mourning what I left there more and more.  In and for both productive and non-productive reasons.  I miss my family there.  I miss my friends.  I miss the simplicity and the reliability of life being absolutely absurd to the point of disbelief (as odd as it sounds, yes I miss it).  I miss the openness I felt with my entire community.  I miss the shared sense of responsibility and expectations.  I miss the willingness of people to help without expectation  of return.

So it's come to the point where missing those things is not just enough.  I can't continually pine after things that once were...it's time for me to start rebuilding them here, with new people.  New family.  New friends.  I'm operating under the assumption here, that "if you build it, they will come."

This begs the question, how does one go about the business of building such an integrated community?  Good question.  It definitely starts with relationships...and that's about as far as I've gotten on the formula so far.  But I've started throwing in little bits and pieces of things here and there that, I believe, are helping me become a more well rounded, well versed human being.  For instance, I've started hanging out with, and helping out, a group in my community called Transition Snoqualmie Valley.  Their focus is to address things like the economic crisis, climate change and oil dependency with local means.  They're really into permaculture and sustainable, responsible agriculture, they're really into community engagement and social responsibility, and they're really smart people.  I'm enjoying getting to know them.

I'm also working my butt of to get another promotion at work.  Where I am is not where I want to be.  I've identified a place where I think I could make some significant improvements, and I'm doing whatever I can to find myself in that place.  It's slow going, because there is a timeline (a very poorly thought out one, but a timeline nonetheless) in place that I have to.  It's an exercise of changing the system from within the system, I suppose.

I'm also growing much more intentional about my relationships.  I don't want people in my life that aren't willing to invest in me as much as I do in them.  I want people who are doing their level best to let their yes mean yes and no mean no.  I want people who operate with integrity AND a sense of adventure...socially and romantically.  I am not willing to settle for left overs when I work REALLY hard to cook up some quality offerings.  There must be balance.  I need more balance.

That's where I am...I feel unbalanced. I feel out of control in some areas and very tightly clamped down in others.  I want stability.

I need stability.

Monday, March 14, 2011

It's been a while...

Well....a lot has happened since I last posted, so I figured I should maybe catch everyone (anyone?) up that may still be reading.

It's been six months since my return from Cambodia, and I'm still not happy to be here. I feel very much like my dream was ripped away from me. Having said that, I do need to make things clear:

I have a job that I love, and am doing very well in.
I am in love, and I get to see my love. Often.
I have fantastic friends that support me unconditionally.

But I still feel like I belong in Cambodia.

I think it has been hard, obviously, for having to leave unexpectedly. But also because since I've returned, I haven't been able to get in contact with my host family through phone or email. I've tried and tried, and nothing goes through. I worry about them so much...and the love I have for them is so intense and so deep that not being able to talk to them is painful.

I also very much dislike the current state of our country (who doesn't?). I do feel that we are on the edge of a very important precipice in history, and things will either get much worse or much better--there are some of us that are working to make it better, but it seems like the people who should be leading the way (my generation) have given over to apathy, and that scares me.

Is it good that I am home? Certainly. Otherwise, I'd likely be dead now. This next phase of my life, though, is totally undefined and that scares the living daylights out of me. For decades my entire focus was getting into the Peace Corps and becoming a PCV. Now that I've done that, I need to find a pinnacle goal. And those don't come easy! I'm persistent, though, and I will find something that I am just as passionate about, and I will, eventually, achieve that goal.

In the meantime, though, I will continue to work the job I love, and grow this love I have.