Honor

While listening to NPR last week, I heard a story about the Greensboro Four and the Woolworth Sit-In. It is an amazing event in our history, an incredibly important action in the fight for civil rights, and a great reminder as we face new aspects of inequality and issues of law in our country (e.g., equal marriage rights).

Apparently, the struggle to find some way to honor the actions of the Greensboro Four has been going on for quite some time, which led me to thinking about honor—personal honor and honoring others—and how that affects our experience individually and collectively.

Behaving honorably may be linked to the powerful words and concepts of many great thinkers and teachers:

• Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
• So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you... ~ Mathew 7:12
• This above all: To thine own self be true, for it must follow as dost the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. ~ Shakespeare
• Right Action aims at promoting moral, honourable and peaceful conduct. That we should also help others to lead a peaceful and honourable life in the right way. ~Walpola Rahula

It seems to me behaving honorably requires a commitment to the act of honoring ourselves and others. My first exposure to the concept of honor was probably via the Bible (something I heard in a Sunday school class no doubt... to which I was privy because I tagged along with one of my church-going friends just so I could see what it was all about).

"Honor thy mother and father."

So simple and yet, for so many of us, such a difficult and challenging process! Certainly, in my teenage years and even early adulthood, I fell quite short of this one time and again. Honor requires forgiveness, patience, and empathy... and I struggled to maintain these with my family for a long time.

It was only recently I realized how many grievances I carried with me... attached like superglued velcro to my narrative of done-wrong and poor-me and not-fair. I am more understanding, now that I am a parent, of how hard you are trying even when you make incredible mistakes or repeat a pattern you had sworn to disavow as soon as you had a child of your own.

I also have a clearer understanding of how counterproductive it is to bring past pains with you into the present. Eckhart Tolle provides wonderful reminders to be more honest with ourselves about our current state of pain in the moment. Are you in pain right now? Not do you remember pain, not have you ever experienced pain, not has anyone ever done something to hurt you. Are you in pain right now? Right now.

And so the act of honoring others requires greater honesty with ourselves, a greater abundance of patience, and an increased commitment to letting go of the past. It requires vigilance and returning again and again to fall short... and then try some more. Fall seven times. Stand up eight.

It also requires we honor ourselves... which, I am guessing, if we were all to be honest, is not always so easy to do. Truly honoring ourselves requires the same amount of commitment, forgiveness, and patience - coupled with self-esteem, stark honesty, and the ability to treat oneself with respect and love.

And if we cannot honor ourselves, how will we be able to honor others? And if we cannot honor others, how will we be able to honor ourselves?

The questions of equality and rights that arise so often in our society seem, to me, inextricably linked to the concept and practice of honor. If we cannot honor each human being - each other living being - as valuable, essential, and interconnected... our ability to behave honorably lessens significantly.

And so our character (as a person, as a society, as a world) suffers.

May you honor yourself and others today in a way that brings you greater peace and comfort. May you see yourself and everyone around you as purposeful, important, and divine.

Right Action

It has been a difficult week. Mild panicky feelings, nearly daily headaches, the kind of flashing in my eyes that is supposed to be normal now but never fails to make me feel nervous, strange tightness in my chest cropping up randomly, and a wonderfully painful cold sore that has erupted on my top lip.

A lot of this, I think, has been connected to an internal struggle I've been embroiled in relating to two separate and distinct parts of my life. It has been difficult to untie the tangled health issues, emotions, and stress-induced flotsam from my decision-making process and a continual and concerted effort to choose right action and make good choices.

This process of reflection and untangling has echoed back to some earlier thoughts regarding spiritual paths and the presence of responsibility within one's living.

Over the holidays, I had a very interested and unexpected conversation about religion with two old friends. The end result led me to thinking about the faiths I am most drawn to, and why. It also got me thinking about the purpose of faith and whether its presence in human life is a positive and/or necessary thing.

I miss Unitarian Universalism sometimes. I miss the humanist aspect and the opening, accepting viewpoint. I miss the plurality of spiritual exploration and the active and socially-minded nature of its core principles. Being a covenantal faith, rather than creedal, the basis of collective practice of said faith rests in the promises each person makes to themselves and others as to how they choose to behave in the world. So... one's beliefs are not as important as one's actions.

The other faith or spiritual pursuit I feel most strongly drawn toward at present is Buddhism. This is neither convenantal nor creedal, and practitioners would most likely tell you it is more a philosophy than a religion; yet, much like UUism and similarly covenantal faiths, one of the core foundations of Buddhism lies in the choices you make about your behavior and actions in the world. Buddhism teaches the responsibility for improvement, evolution, spiritual enlightenment, etc. rests with you. There is no outside force that will bring salvation or comfort or wisdom... there is no other to relieve suffering. Rather, you are responsible for your own suffering and you are the sole source of power enabled to end it.

My daughter has begun asking questions about death, what comes after death, and the stuff that souls are made of. It's new territory, and I want to honestly convey my beliefs about such matters while leaving things open enough she feels empowered to make her own decisions and choose her own path of belief.

As with so many other aspects of motherhood, her questions elicit a new kind of learning and relearning for me. I cannot make assumptions about who I am, what I believe, or what I know if I am to respond honestly and in the moment. She requires a level of authenticity and self-knowing within which I cannot hide or be lazy or claim ignorance. Which is quite a gift, in the end.

Within all this rumination, I have sought to make several important decisions that affect not only myself, but others as well. Sometimes it is difficult to balance selfless and selfish aspects of oneself, while remaining as truthful as possible, as present at possible. Human interaction so often includes emotions we cannot control, and so we are left to ponder the rightness of our actions, the genuineness of our words, and the effect our choices make upon others - all balanced together delicately like a very precious paper house.

Whether from within our without, I do believe life is communicating with us all the time. Our bodies are telling us something. Our feelings are telling us something. The words and actions of others are telling us something. Life sends us little missives with which we may redirect our fates continually.

In my case, it's the chest pains and eye strain and cold sore and pinched heart. Your language - your message - may come in different forms. The tricky part (the important part) is to figure out what it means and act accordingly... to apply your faith, your compass, your way of knowing the world and courageously setting forth on the best course you can manage for today.

May you catch the messages your life is offering. May you choose the direction best suited to your happy and healthy growth.

Compassion

There are people, places, and things in our lives for whom we willingly do all we can with kindness and love. Maybe it's an organization you work for. Maybe it's your dog. Maybe your child, parent, friend, or partner.

For most of us, our compassion flows freely and easily with a select group of priorities in our lives. Sacrifice comes willingly; selflessness is not even labeled as such - it feels so natural.

Today it is my daughter, sicker than she has been so far in her brief life and desperately craving care, love, and strength. No question, no hesitation; she gets all I have. I wait (and write) in her small moments of sleeping, hoping for better news with the next thermometer read.

These easy acts of compassion are important, I believe, because they offer greater insight into our capacity to love something in the absence (or at least forgetting) of self. There is no longer separation between "me" and the object of my compassion because I am already such a decided part of it, and vice versa.

So, these loves of ours provide windows into the majesty of our souls. Becoming mindful of the compassionate acts, words, and thoughts we commit without hesitation provides occasion to look more honestly at the opportunities we miss or ignore.

I happened upon Speaking of Faith this weekend, and caught an interview with Karen Armstrong, who has dedicated her life to the study of spirituality and religion in multiple forms. Many of her ideas gibe with others I've encountered lately:

• The concept of right action as a conscious choice and form of ethical behavior and moral comportment more linked to the person we decide to be than a religious concept of God or specific dogma.
• The overriding concept among a multitude of faiths (monotheistic, creedal, covenantal, fundamentalist, philosophic, etc.) uniting each, which boils down to how we treat one another and make our way through the world.

These ideas led her to create the Charter for Compassion, which is a stunning concept and uplifting and inspiring project. It unites people of all faiths, mindsets, and beliefs to commit to loving action and greater empathy. Just imagine, if we could all commit to this level of compassion in all aspects of our lives: no cruelty, no violence, no conscious infliction of pain upon another... any other. What might we accomplish?

Compassion has the potential to unite us all. It has the power to change the world - and not in a Pollyanna-ish, pie-in-the-sky kind of way. I mean really change it... on small and large levels. Someone lets you into merging traffic; someone holds the door for you because your hands are full; someone tells you they believe in you and gives you hope in a dark time; someone holds your hand in the hospital before surgery, providing an anchor in a storm of crisis; someone says something kind in the midst of your mourning and it allows you to push forward one more time.

Compassion for ourselves, compassion for others. It indelibly alters our world experience and worldview in a way that is positive and productive. Bound to authenticity, honesty, kindness, and empathy - it is the opposite of control, the antithesis of judgment, and the impossibility of hatred.

May you hold another in your heart today and treat them with compassion. May you honor yourself with love and kindness. And may the objects of your compassion increase daily.