You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear

we are in the midst of another presidential race in this country.  we watch as donald trump blusters through his rallies and court appearances, spewing venom and encouraging his followers to hate as he hates.  it is easy to sit on my moral high horse and look down with contempt on him and his supporters.  that is not what a follower of jesus and of the buddha should be doing.  each day i say, "may i develop the perfect understanding, may i be filled with lovingkindness and compassion," then i refuse to have those qualities for some people.

this morning, i'm thinking about how to develop understanding, lovingkindness, and compassion for donald trump and those who support him.  i want to see them as human beings with whom i have more in common than i admit.  i want to be accepting of them without embracing their ideology, to love them even when they seem to be filled with anger and hatred.  i have no right to pat myself on the back for my virtues when my heart is filled with contempt for them.

i need to consider what may have happened in the lives of those who are so filled with anger toward others, to seek to understand how they have come to embrace this bitterness and sense of victimhood.  as the song from the musical, "the king and i," says, "before you are six or seven or eight, you've got to be taught to hate all the people your relatives hate."  the prejudices and bigotry that has come to expression in the maga crowd are inherited from past generations.  only the will to look at the world differently can change these vile patterns.

may we turn from those inherited ways of thinking and seeing others.  may we have compassion and love rather than hatred and condemnation.  may we see the humanity in all those around us, even those who do not see our humanity.  shalom.

In the Sweet By and By

a friend of ours passed away a few days ago.  she had been ill for about a year and was to have a couple of surgeries that might have enabled her to live longer.  before the operations could take place, she had a hemorrhage that brought her life to an end.  my wife and i attended her funeral service in a local funeral home.  she was well-loved in the community, as indicated by the large number who were present.

the minister who officiated at the funeral spoke of the example she had set for others, of her great love for her family, and of her years of teaching young children in church.  the main thrust of his remarks was the "rightness" of her beliefs that would enable her to spend an eternity in heaven where she would be reunited with her husband and other loved ones.  he urged any of those present who had not made a "decision for jesus" to make such a commitment, lest they miss out on heaven.

i left the funeral home troubled by what he had said.  i wanted to hear him tell us how her dedication to the teachings of jesus had made her the beloved person that she was.  i can't share his certainty in what comes after this life ends.  no one can know what happens after death except to know that the person who has died ceases to exist as we know them.  we don't follow jesus out of a selfish desire to live in an eternal heaven after we die.  we follow him because his teachings compel us to live a meaningful life of service to others.

may we live life in the now, not in a pie-in-sky hope of heaven.  may we love, not because doing so will give us a key to paradise, but because it is the best way to live.  may we live the best life we can each moment without worrying about whether we've adopted the right beliefs to get us into heaven. shalom.

Now I Need a Place

yesterday, my wife and i embarked on an outing that we had been looking forward to all week.  as we left, i was excited about the prospect of a day out with my wife.  as we drove toward our destination, i began to feel depressed and lethargic.  this feeling persisted all day long, and i couldn't account for it.  my wife, who was driving, decided along the way to forego our first stop because of the timing.  that was the stop i had been looking forward to most.  at first i was angry and started to tell her how disappointed i was but decided to keep my feelings to myself.

as the day went on, we were both somewhat let down by our trip.  items we had planned to purchase weren't available.  our lunch took an interminable time to arrive.  the day was exhausting, and as we drove home we both expressed our sense of frustration that the trip had not been all we had hoped it would be.  the days leading up to the trip were busy, and perhaps we were just exhausted from all that had gone before.  perhaps we had such high expectations for our outing that we were saddened by the day's inability to live up to them.  

this is a pattern that happens with some frequency in each of our lives.  we build up expectations and are saddened when reality is something different.  when this happens, we shouldn't feel guilty about our disappointment, but instead recognize that this is part of being human.  everything can't always go as we would wish.  there's nothing wrong with feeling angry or sad when things go awry.  what we have to do is accept our humanity and learn from these misadventures, turning disappointment into gratitude.

may we accept our humanness.  may we be grateful when things don't go as we would wish.  may we recognize and embrace our emotions, even those that are negative.  may each experience be an opportunity to grow and learn.  shalom.

To Be Sheltered and Safe

why do we wound ourselves over and over with the same arrows?  why can't we let go of our anger and our self-inflicted punishments?  we tell ourselves that we are learning from our mistakes but, in reality, we're giving our minds the power to keep us in a constant state of agitation.  i remember my anger with our former president and my persistent attention to anti-trump commentators on television.  there was nothing i could do to stop trump from holding his hatred-filled rallies or sending out tweets filled with invective and lies.  yet i was perpetually angry that such a person exists and that so many people have become his devotees.  what good did i accomplish with my anger?  trump continues on his destructive path and his loyal followers continue to proclaim what they see as his greatness.

i think, too, of a close friend who had become upset with the church he attends and with its pastor.  every time we got together, he wanted to talk about the latest offense the pastor had committed and to restate all the ways the church caused him to be distressed.  his wife kept telling him to look for positive aspects to his relationship with their church.  my wife and i asked him why he continued to put himself through such torment when there were other churches around that wouldn't affect him in this way.  no solution offered to him would assuage his anger until he finally realized that he couldn't change the way things were at his church.  he either had to accept them and follow his wife's advice or stay angry, since he was unwilling to quit attending this church because of his wife's loyalty to it, even though she agreed with most of his criticisms.  fortunately for him, he was able to let go of his anger and frustration and move on from this fixation with something he couldn't change.

this is a pattern that we often follow.  rather than realizing that our anger changes nothing, we persist in it.  may we stop our minds from filling us with anger.  may we rationally consider our options and choose one that does not cause us to suffer.  may we be at peace with ourselves and with others.  shalom.

 

Isn't She Lovely

a few months ago, we went to dinner with my son and his partner.  We could see excitement in their faces when they walked into the restaurant.  after they were seated at our table and we had exchanged the usual pleasantries, they said they had something to tell us.  we were mystified by their obvious elation, and we were completely bowled over when they said they were expecting a baby.  our son is in his mid-forties and his partner is in her late thirties, and we had given up on the idea of ever having a grandchild.   we were thrilled, of course, and the two of them were clearly overjoyed with the prospect of being parents.

the pregnancy has gone smoothly.  they have gone to birthing classes together and moved into another house that was better suited to housing their small family.  they've spent the last few weeks redoing the house and setting up a beautiful nursery.  they've collected all the necessary equipment, furnishings, and clothing for the baby.  today, we're going over to the town where they live for a baby shower being given by two of their friends and will get to meet the happy mother's parents and see their new home in person.  

there is something about the realization that you are a part of the miracle of creation that can't be duplicated by any other experience.  i can remember the overwhelming joy that my wife and i experienced when we learned that we were becoming parents.  may each of us know the thrill of unconditional love for another being.  may we marvel at the continuum of bringing new life into the world.  may we be filled with gratitude as we recognize our part in the miracle of birth.  shalom.

Wish You Were Here

i was awakened this morning with a dream fresh in my mind.  in it, i was saying goodbye to some former teachers and expressing my appreciation to them.  these were not teachers who had been a part of my life.  they were characters who were unknown to me, and i couldn't understand where these folks had come from or why they had emerged in my dream.  in my state of being barely awake, i also wondered what the dream's meaning was.  

as i thought about it, all i could figure out was that my mind was reminding me that i had never expressed my gratitude to many who had played important roles in my life as i grew up.  i remembered my piano teacher with whom i studied for eleven years.  once i graduated from high school, i never returned to see her and express my appreciation for all she had taught me.  i thought of many of my friends with whom i lost contact over the years and for whom i still have a deep affection.  i felt guilty for failing to convey my gratitude to so many people who are valued by me.

then, i reminded myself that this is the way of life.  there are so many whose lives i have touched who no longer stay in contact with me and who have never thanked me for the help i gave them.  it's not because they are ungrateful, but it is impossible to maintain all our relationships from the past and carry on with our lives.  we repay the beneficial influence of others by paying forward the gifts they have given us.  as much as we would like to continue relationships with all those who played important roles in our lives, we have our responsibilities and relationships to maintain in the present.  we can continue to feel gratitude for the past, but we can't let it weigh us down when the present is all we are able to deal with.

may we take time to remember those who have been good influences in our lives and express our gratitude to them as time allows.  may we repay past helpers by following their example in the present.  may we not weigh ourselves down with guilt for that which cannot be helped.  may we correct past failings when it is possible to do so.  shalom.

The World's Fierce Winds

as i was meditating a few days ago, my mind dredged up an incident from over thirty years ago when i made a foolish, embarrassing mistake.  i began to berate myself for this long-ago lapse of judgment, and then i caught myself.  another voice inside me told me that what was in the past needed to stay there, that i mustn't continue to punish myself for something that i could not change.  i told myself to focus on the present and to let the past go.  i realized that my mind was not my friend at that moment.

this sort of thing happens so often.  as i was driving through town listening to the radio shortly after this realization, a commentator said much the same thing.  he said, "we remember the bad things that happen to us and often forget the good, even though the good far outweighs the bad," or words to that effect.  how true this is!  our minds constantly seek to control us rather than the other way around.  this is why we must train our minds to serve us rather than to punish us.  

meditation can sometimes be a curse, because the mind has the opportunity to bring up bad things from the past, interrupting our calm stillness, as it seeks to assert control over us.  we must remind ourselves that our minds are not who we are in the depth of our being.  the focus on our breath takes us away from the tyrant that is our mind, drawing us to our true selves, thus allowing our true nature to take control of the mind.

may we rein in our minds when they do us harm or bring out the worst in us.  may we learn from our mistakes with gratitude for the lessons they teach us without their arrows repeatedly wounding us.  may we have confidence in the breath, rather than in the mind.  may we experience true peace.  shalom.