Though the play time, travel, and relative freedom from schedules is over, the heat index tells us that summer is still with us. Children and youth have returned to school and family schedules are adjusting. My neighborhood’s morning schedule has changed as commuters remind themselves to watch for kids crossing streets and waiting on the bus.
The last season of my sabbatical (July 15-August 16) was filled with some travel, continuing education, and a bit of rest. But, before that June and July were a whirlwind of activity focused around the campers and volunteers of our summer camp program. This year campers and counselors learned how peace works in their lives and the communities in which they live and move. The summer season ended with Mission Camp Road Show which visited Texas City, TX to help with ongoing Hurricane Harvey recovery. Oklahomans uniquely understand the longterm work of recovering from a natural disaster. Learn more about what the group did and how they represented the “Oklahoma standard” by visiting the Region’s website.
During my last season of sabbatical I was reminded of the difference between listening to “get through” and listening “to hear”. That may sound odd, then again, it may resonate. You know, the difference between thinking of your next reply in a conversation versus listening and absorbing what you are hearing. Then, thoughtful pause, and reply. Listening is a skill.
When we begin to act by listening, the rest follows naturally. It’s not so easy, of course—it requires us to give up preconceived ideas, judgments, and desires in order to allow space to hear what is being said. True listening requires a deep respect and a genuine curiosity about situations as well as a willingness just to be there and share stories. Listening opens the space, allows us to hear what needs to be done in that moment. It also allows us to hear when it is better not to act, which is sometimes a hard message to receive.
All the technology that is a part of life these days, if you choose to use it or not, makes listening harder and a bit easier. Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook (just name dropping a few) give users the ability to share emotion and information, positive and negative as well as true or false, easier, faster, but does that mean we are listening to one another. Or, are we simply using the latest tech megaphone to shout, shout, shout about . . . (fill in the blank). How is your “FOMO” today? Do you have a fear of missing out? Is the idea of your favorite social media platform being offline a day or a week be a gift or does it induce your favorite unconscious stress activity? Listen to yourself. Listen to yourself for a day or a week. What themes are you hearing in the posts you share or actual words you say out loud?
Take a week where you don’t post, but listen to and through the words of people in the stream of your social media platforms. What thoughtfully challenges your assumptions? What is intended to play on your emotion? What affirms your humanity and that of others? I don’t think being counter-cultural means “drop out.” We can, like Jesus did, take time away to recalibrate and rediscover how to be “hard on issues and soft, compassionate on people.”(A phrase used at the Mediation Training that I attended sponsored by the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center. “Hard on issues and soft on people” has been lost in our culture.)
The tough part is disassembling the person from the issue.
Fade to black for an hour or ninety minutes if you can handle it. My sabbatical seasons began and ended the same way with time spent floating in silence and darkness at H2 Oasis. My first dip into sensory deprivation was during college. The psychology department needed volunteers to spend thirty minutes laying in 3 inches of water in total darkness with some monitors attached to your skull to read brainwaves. For my thirty minutes of silence, mild chill, and darkness I received five dollars. I exchanged my time and brainwaves for cash four times over a month. Partly for the novelty of the experience and partly because five dollars was good money for thirty minutes of work back then. Here in 2019, floating is much different than that first experience, but the net effect is similar. Alone with your thoughts, the sound of your heart beat, and your breathing. The mind will do anything to stay entertained. After a while it will allow me to fade to black. It’s not a reset. It is something else. It is hard to describe. Since I no longer practice meditation float time is an entry, possibly, back to that practice when I listen to and explore the koan given me in 1985. “Look into the mirror. See the hidden self. All things are one.”
Quiet the mind. Be comfortable with ambiguity. Strive to be consistent.
The matrix is a blender of over stimulation right now. Maybe it has always been that way. Of late, the blender has been switched from blend to crush. Y2K and the great tribulation didn’t happen. At least it didn’t happen as some predicted. Maybe I’ve been left behind and am not woke enough to know it. The world is living through a kind of tribulation right now as those that experience “left behind” by changing culture, economics, religion, and politics act up and act out all around the globe. The chaos of the turn of the 19th to the 20th century is repeating itself here in the 21st century at broadband speed. The industrial revolution has been shipped by multinational corporations to nations with a cheaper work force. The jobs that birthed and sustained the greatest generation and the baby boomers are not returning; and if they do, they will not support a 21st century lifestyle. The data, information, and technological revolution of our time has infused the cultural unrest of the 1960’s and 1970’s into the information super highway. Social media has made group think and tribal identity easier than ever and more unhealthy than ever. It matters not where you are on the political spectrum. How can one make sense of the chaos of the human matrix right now?
Marvel and DC Comics come to the big screen to fill the need. Anti-heroes and heroines make us laugh and cringe at our own culpability for allowing culture and community to digress so much.
Politicians draw on fear and “left behind” feelings in order to maintain the systems that maintain the status quo power, in power, and dismantle the systems that make the American dream, whatever that is, possible for everyone.
Some religious leaders have embraced their respective Empires and visions of Empire for some short-term and medium-term gains in public power and control. Here in America a subset of Christianity that proclaims to be a majority, but also persecuted somehow, has traded a moral compass and discipleship for an apocalyptic vision of salvation and owning as much of the judiciary system as possible. The version of Christianity that supports the current President of these United States, his bigotry and policies, is a danger to democracy and humanity. What does confession, penance, and grace look like in that situation?
A human migration based on economics, climate change, and unstable political systems is underway.
Populism led by the wealthy and some multinational corporations in order to keep the working poor, poor, and middle caste fighting for the crumbs of trickle down economics and feeding the feeling of superiority to “others.” “I’m (blank), but at least I’m not (blank).” “All Muslims are . . .” “All Christians are . . .” “America (fill in your nation state), love it or leave it.”
History teaches lessons and repeats until lessons are learned. American culture feels like a temporal loop. Maybe history repeats even when lessons are learned. The great experiment known as America is trying to grow out of early adolescence while much older Nations in Europe seem to be digressing toward ancient, racial and religious identity attitudes. The provocateurs of nationalism are leading the planet down a dangerous path. One that has been hiked many, many times.
There are movies that I think provide a frame of reference to our historical context. “The Sum of all Fears,” “Gangs of New York,” and “Blazing Saddles,” are three I’ve rewatched during my sabbatical seasons. I was surprised to learn that Richard Pryor co-wrote “Blazing Saddles” with Mel Brooks and others. Pryor was supposed to star in the film, but the studio would not insure him. Pryor encouraged Brooks to make the film anyway. An innovative, provocative comedy that allows for a look in the mirror dimly. I don’t think it can ever be remade and that’s a good thing. Some films are original and relevant no matter when they are made. No doubt there are books too. I’m digging through Huxley’s, Brave New World, because it was part of the thesis statement of the book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.
I don’t know how those that have been handed the matrix will change the programming and manage the chronic anxiety. Some citizens may simply become comfortably numb. I think the system hopes this will happen and plans for numbness to settle into life. There is plenty of TV and streaming entertainment right now to help one be comfortably numb. There is plenty of outrage entertainment to keep one comfortably numb. There is plenty of news entertainment to misdirect the public chasing eyeballs and clicks for dollars. Like any good misdirection, I wonder what is being taken from the public good?
E Pluribus Unum is being tested, again. I don’t know if it can be taken in plain sight, but it sure seems like that is happening. What does confession, penance, and grace look like in this situation?
Quiet the mind. Be comfortable with ambiguity. Strive to be consistent. As much as it depends on you, add light to life.
