A Word That's Soft and Gentle

for the past week, one of my wife's female relatives has been staying with my wife's sister and her husband.  this relative is older than my wife and her sister.  her life, to hear her tell it, has been a series of misfortunes, from her childhood growing up with an abusive father to her present situation with her terminally ill husband, who treats her abominably.  she has moved into a new home, which she helped select, and hates it because it is too small and lacks many of the amenities she would like to have.  she moved from a lovely home, which was custom built to her specifications, which she hated because of its location.  her daughter, an only child, talks her into decisions that are ostensibly for the best but which appear to be intended to enhance the value of the daughter's inheritance when her mother passes away.  when we are with her, all is doom and gloom.  life holds no joy for her and never has.  she has no friends, because no one is perfect enough for her.  those who try to befriend her are pushed away by her constant complaints and criticisms.

my wife and i feel sorry for her and wish that we could help her.  we know that any attempts to help will be rebuffed and that she will assign some selfish motive to our compassion.  when we try to carry on a conversation with her, our comments are cut short by an angry reply or seen as an opportunity for her to complain about her plight.  we can only wish her a happier life and refuse to allow her negativity to stop us from caring for her.  we've come to understand that her constant complaining and belittling of others is her way of coping with life and that she finds a certain joy in seeing her misfortunes, many caused by her own choices, as her lot.  she sees life as a card game, in which those around her always have the best hands, while she is the eternal loser.

we've all known people like this, people who walk around with a cloud over their heads, like the character in the old "li'l abner" comic strip.  such folks seem to enjoy the pain caused as they wound themselves over and over with the same arrows.  not content to suffer once because of an injury, they inflict the suffering over and over as they recount their "bad luck" repeatedly.  like my relative by marriage, they dwell on childhood traumas and fill themselves with hatred for those who caused those traumas.  they would rather complain about problems over and over than find solutions for them.

may we refuse to let the bitterness and anger of others cause us to feel bitter and angry.  may we summon up as much compassion as we can for those who delight in suffering and in complaining to us about their suffering.  may we see the harm we do to ourselves when we wound ourselves repeatedly with the same arrow.  may we not wallow in our own misery, pushing others away as we do so.  may we find joy in life rather than dwelling on the things that don't work out as we might wish.  shalom.  

Enjoy Yourself While You're Still in the Pink

i am under the weather now, recovering from a medical procedure.   i simply don't have the energy to write but hope to be back in the pink by next week.  until then may we all be filled with lovingkindness and compassion.  may we be well.  may we be peaceful and at ease.  may we be happy.  shalom.

Forgive, O Lord, Our Severing Ways

like many others, i tend to hold onto the past.  as i look around my home, i see many things that connect me to my forbears--my paternal grandfather's pocketwatch, furniture and decorative pieces from my parents' home, kitchen items that belonged to my maternal grandmother.  in our garage covered by an old bedspread, there sits a beautiful loveseat that was in my grandmother's living room.  i can't bear to part with it, even though we don't have room for it inside our home.  my first cousin who lives about four hours from us has agreed to take it, but we haven't had a chance to carry it to her.  without too much thought, i could list others belongings that have been passed down through our families.

just as we cling to objects from our past, we enshrine ideas and beliefs, not because they are right and true, but because we inherited them from those who have gone before.  my beloved grandparents appear in my mind as perfect, saintly individuals.  i know that they had flaws, just as we all do.  in my minds' eye, it is easy to overlook their faults and see idealized versions of them.  we do the same with historical figures.  we think of george washington as the boy who could not tell a lie and the symbolic father of our country.  we see thomas jefferson as a figure who embodied the noblest traits of american democracy.  for most of us, benjamin franklin was an astute statesman, a brilliant inventor, a daring experimenter, and a font of practical wisdom.  this is true of all these figures, but they, too, were imperfect.  because we have created unrealistic versions of them in our minds, learning of their faults seems all the more damning.

one of our great national shortcomings is our failure to recognize the past for what it is: a history filled with high ideals and the most profound cruelty.  as a child, i was taught a story of our country that is far from the truth.  we were told in school that robert e. lee, the leader of the confederate army, was a great man who chose family and his native state over country, that he led his soldiers to protect all that he held dear from destruction by the federal forces.  we were told that in the aftermath of the civil war, greedy northerners came to the former confederacy and took everything they could by causing the election of uneducated former slaves to state legislatures where they imposed high taxes on hardworking white southerners so they could take their lands.  all this was a way of disguising our collective guilt and that of our ancestors for the horror of slavery.

even the capture and enslavement of africans was disguised.  we were taught that, for the most part, slave owners were benevolent masters who provided nice housing for their slaves and who saw that these slaves were fed and well cared for.  we sang songs like "old black joe" and "carry me back to old virginny" that painted a picture of a bucolic south where happy slaves "labored so hard for old 'massa'."  our history books had us believe that these slaves were better off than they would have been as free people in africa, where they would have had to endure constant battle with other african clans and enslavement by their own people.  the sad truth is that many white southerners continue to believe these falsehoods.  they fear people of color and work to deprive them of equal treatment under the law and the right to vote.  as i write, predominantly white state legislatures are passing laws that disenfranchise black and hispanic voters.  laws are being put in place that make it illegal for schools to teach a true version of american history and to discuss past and current racism.

thus our great national sin is glossed over and those who were so cruelly treated continue to be deprived of their rights under our constituion.  may we admit our failure to live up to our ideals.   may we live as though all people are "created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights."  may we do what we can to make amends for our past failures.  may our compassion extend to all people.  shalom.

Take a Sad Song

the other morning when i awakened, i had an inexplicable feeling of deep sadness.  normally i'm an optimistic person.  i usually feel that, despite all the troubles in the world, good will triumph over evil, love over hate, generosity over greed.  yet from the moment i opened my eyes, it seemed that things were hopeless.  after the last election which gave democrats control of both the white house and congress, i thought that our country would make progress towards enacting an agenda that would help all americans.  that has not happened.  millions are being displaced and all that they have worked for is being destroyed by a needless war in ukraine.  state legislatures in many states are passing laws that harm women, gay and trans youth, and educators.  these same legislatures are restricting voting rights and drawing electoral maps intended to insure republican dominance at the state and national levels.  inflation has surged and taken a bite out of the income of the most vulnerable sectors of our population, and government seems all but powerless to curtail rising prices.  the supreme court seems poised to undo a woman's right to control her own body and has moved far to the right.

it appeared that everywhere i looked, there was little reason to feel good about the direction things were going in the world and in our country.   over the several days between then and now little has changed, but my feeling of despair has eased.  i'm still troubled by the events that were the reasons for my sadness, but my mood has gradually altered.  i now see that what is happening is not a permanent state of affairs.  the pendulum will swing back towards a more progressive mindset in the electorate of our country.  as the economy stabilizes, inflation will ease.  there are indications that the sanctions imposed on russia by western governments are having some effect on the russians' will to wage war against ukraine.  

i suppose the feeling of powerlessness for one individual like me to change the course of national and world events is natural.  now i realize that there are things i can do to make the world a better place, even though i can't affect major crises in the world.  i can vote for candidates that support progressive government policies and encourage others to do the same.  i can live in such a way that my kindness may make the world a better place in the hope that others will be moved to live kinder, more compassionate lives.  i can support causes that help the ukrainian people.  

may we realize our limitations and do what we can to make life better for ourselves and others in whatever ways we can.  may we be the pebble that creates ripples that carry far beyond our point of immediate impact.  may we love even when it seems that our love makes little difference in the grand scheme of things.  may we accept our feelings even when they are feelings of hopelessness and despair.  shalom.