Sunday, September 30, 2012

Saturday night bonfire. Sitting with my husband and kids, and kids' friends ( as two of my three kids have entered their teen years the number of children in my house at any one time is at least in the double digits) enjoying the relative quiet.









My youngest has devised an ingenious way to roast multiple marshmallows by placing them on a large flat rock she has placed in the ashes. How on earth could this kid have lost the science fair?









My husband has the Orioles game on the radio and we're in agreement that this is just about the best way to listen to the game.






Linus the dog is not a big fan of the flames but is so overwhelmed with love for us he endures in order to be near us.


Normally I might have simply floated through this time, enjoying the moments together. Tonight I consciously absorbed a bit of this imperfect perfection.
 

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Here Comes the Judgement

I was not in a good mood this morning and I couldn't find the cause. After all, everything is going quite well these days. I tried to relieve my foul mood by listing all that was fine in my world:

- My big toe, which I sprained trying to close up the chicken coop in the rain, was feeling better.
- Turns out, my 10 year old has the beginnings of a breast, not a heart-stopping breast lump (this may sound silly, but it was only on one side and it threw me!)
- I was paid by a client. Financial ruin is staved off for yet another month.
- We're having steak for dinner (see item 3, above). And the kids have yet to find the mint chocolate chip ice cream.

I brought up my bad mood with a friend of mine. As we relived my morning, the cause of my mood became apparent.

It was all about judgement. My judgement of others. Earlier that day, while sipping my coffee and trolling the Net, I had read a rather self-congratulatory post from someone on Facebook (not unusual- "self-congratulatory" and "FB post" are usually redundant terms). The post reminded me of some behavior the postee was engaging in that didn't seem kosher to me. I read the post once, then twice more, each time with increasing feelings of judgement. My coffee, at first so delicious, seemed a bit bitter.

I was unaware when I turned off my computer that I had given birth to a bouncing baby bad mood, quickly developing as it munched steadily on the diet of negative energy I was providing.

Trying to get in the car I dropped my keys, then hit my head on the car door. Boom, my mood entered elementary school. On my short commute to my office, I was cut off twice. Welcome to the tween years.

I believe it was when I realized the computer had eaten an unsaved document that I had slaved over for 30 minutes that my mood zoomed straight through senior prom and graduated as a fully formed negative element, completely taking over my brain.

Speaking with my friend, I recognized that a simple facebook post had ruined my morning.  This realization was followed by the more sobering thought- I was responsible for the ruination of my morning, not the facebook post.

By judging someone else, I only affected my own behavior. My judgement reflected on me, not the person to whom it was directed.

Dr. Paul Richard, a reknown Professor at the Center for Critical Thinking, explained this paradigm when he succintly stated,

"All judgement is self-judgement."

A simple but profound thought. Not only was my judgement of another affecting my mood, it was also a reflection of inadequacies within myself. Yikes.

A simple judgement, a quick snap of a few neurons, had caused a foul mood that lasted hours, AND was really an expression of my own negative traits.

One judgement call had resulted in so much havoc. I can be pretty judgemental at times. I shudder to think how much energy I've wasted in my life. Energy I could have used in a positive way to change unwanted behavior traits in myself.

I was grateful to my friend for helping me see the genesis of my own behavior. I used this knowledge to sit for a few minutes, quietly letting the lesson sink in. I thought about how my judgement call was actually about me. I was aware that this lesson is one that I have learned previously, and will likely need to re-learn in the future. But for the first time I was able to accept this knowledge passively without beating myself up about it. I mentally apologized to myself and to my Facebook friend for demeaning us both. My bad mood seemed to lessen. I felt like I had room in my head to think more clearly.

The rest of the day was much easier all around. I was able to handle my kids' usual craziness without batting an eye. In fact, I actually felt a surprising rush of love as I watched them proclaim their undying hatred for each other one minute, then share hysterical laughter the next minute while watching a YouTube video.

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."  Thanks, Mother Teresa.



Monday, September 24, 2012

Brothers

Last night my husband and I, along with two good friends, attended the Avett Brothers concert in Baltimore. The show was fantastic, more than two hours long and full of incredible energy.



At times the energy became physical, the pulse of the bass notes pushing against us in waves as they exited the speakers nearby. The Avett brothers are a unique mix of bluegrass, folk, rock and other genres that come together to produce a sound that is, at its best, heartbreakingly beautiful.

As I expected, the biggest moments in the show were the simplest- those in which the brothers performed acoustically, using only their seemlessly linked voices and a guitar to fill every empty space in the venue. The crowd became silent and this silence formed an integral part of the music. Incredible.

It's apparent that the brothers are part of a tight knit family as evidenced by the references concerning the importance of family in their songs.  In particular, one song conveyed a meaning so personal that I almost felt as if I was channeling their mother. I was so touched. God, I'm old.

To experience intense and intimate family love while standing among hundreds of perfect strangers is an opportunity to be savored. Thank you, Avett Brothers.

"I wonder which brother is better
Which one our parents loved the most
I sure did get in lots of trouble
They seemed to let the other go
A tear fell from my father's eye
I wondered what my dad would say
He said, "I love you and I'm proud of you both,
In so many different ways."
...
Always remember there was nothing worth sharing
Like the love that let us share our name
Always remember there was nothing worth sharing
Like the love that let us share our name."
                                                                        The Avett Brothers


Saturday, September 22, 2012

Small Blue Thing

My son and his friend are on Hour Two of an epic Jim Gaffigan search on YouTube while I sit here trying to ignore them and put to keyboard my first written thoughts on the imperfection of life and the perfect presence of the infinite.

But I can't. Because Jim Gaffigan is funny. Especially when he's riffing on religion.

Therein lies the rub for me. I have always had a deep interest in the question of Why. However, I have found that the more difficult question to discern is of Who, or furthermore, of What. And the possibility of an absence of Who, the nonexistence of What.

After all, "Why?" can simply be answered "Why not?".

But Who. That's a toughy.

To explain the unexplainable is a difficult task. Yahweh, God, the Divine, Godhead, Brahma, El, Mother Nature, we humans like to use language to conceptualize something that is not available to the usual five senses.

Monotheism, multitheism, animism, atheism...That's a lot of isms.

I was raised Roman Catholic and have a strong connection with many of the practices, traditions and beliefs of this community. In my younger years, I used this faith as a jumping off point to explore other communities connecting with the Other. I've explored Unitarianism. I've had the great honor of taking part in Jewish Saders and Muslim Ramadans. I've practiced yoga for years. I tinkered with Atheism.

Through it all, I always found my greatest joy wasn't experienced during large outward expressions of faith in the Divine. Instead, deepest joy always seems to be found in the smaller, more internal moments. Prayer after Communion, Shavasana at the end of a yoga practice, meditation during a Unitarian service, these are places where I've connected with the self, or soul, or Other.

To me, God is not hugely infinite. God is endlessly small. When I see a mountain I may think of God, but it is in the realization of the amount of sand, rock and dirt that make up this mountain that I feel the Divine.

With this blog, I hope to access the endlessly small. For the next year, I will try each day to find a new place withn myself, to identify small joys and recognize flaws within my soul.  Within imperfect moments I hope to find perfection.

For I don't think the Devil is in the details. I am.

God is a small, blue thing. Perfectly round and found within. If I bother to look, I'll see I'm perfectly reflected.

Today I am
A small blue thing
Like a marble
Or an eye

With my knees against my mouth
I am perfectly round
I am watching you

I am cold against your skin
You are perfectly reflected
I am lost inside your pocket.

                                               Suzanne Vega