Prayer and the charging rhino

I've made notes for half a dozen posts -- probably more.  I might even write a couple of them one day.  But this will be quick.

I saw this article the other day:  http://www.independent.com/news/2014/sep/24/pray-tell-hocus-pocus-happy-thoughts/

And so I wrote the author a fan e-mail:
__________

Dear Ms. Roshell,

First, I'm sorry that someone you loved had to go through a Year of Intolerable Shit.  I'm sorry that in the end nothing worked.  You don't need some idiot stranger to tell you how bad it is for all that to happen, but I recognize that it's really, really bad.

All that, though, is a prologue to saying, Thank you for your article "The Hocus Pocus of Happy Thoughts."  In the midst of Intolerable Shit you say something important about prayer, and you say it well.

Or rather, you say two different things – and that is part of what makes your article so good.  On the one hand, yes, there is the side of the discussion that involves a certain kind of … let's call it metaphysical reasoning, which gets murkier the closer you look at it for exactly the reasons you identify.  What good does prayer do?  Isn't it even a little insulting?  Or is there an angle you can choose from which it doesn't look so bad after all?  And so on …. 

It is true that a lot of ink has been spilled by a lot of people trying to answer these questions, and it's no surprise that some of those writers say interesting things of their own.  Fine, whatever – you're not trying to write a treatise or cover the literature.  That's not the point right now.  And the theoretical objections you make are sound ones that have to be answered by anybody who encourages others to pray.

What is particularly good about your article is that you also recognize the emotional side of the question which is more or less impervious to metaphysical quibbling – the side that recognizes "This may make no sense, but I'm hurting too much to care."  The side that says, finally, "I could do nothing more, and it felt like a betrayal to do anything less."  That's exactly right and perfectly said.  I can't read it without tearing up … just a bit.

There's a puzzle here.  It's important but I don't pretend to understand it.  Thank you for an article that is open to the puzzle, accepts it for what it is, and doesn't try to force it into some tidy, Procrustean solution.

I'm still really sorry that nothing worked.

 

Best regards,

Hosea Tanatu

Volunteer

That was fun!

 

It's Sunday night and I just got home from a two-hour stint at a local charity.  I had called up and offered to volunteer one evening a week, and tonight was my first night.

 

More precisely, it is a home-style setting where the homeless and terminally ill can come to die.  It was originally set up back in the 1980's to serve those dying from HIV; but as that diagnosis became more manageable and less often lethal, they expanded their charter to other conditions that kill people.  I'm not quite sure the exact parameters, but I think they may include old age on that list, if there's reason to believe you have only a few more weeks.

 

How could this be fun?  Well, they create a home-like environment because it is more comfortable for the guests.  That means, among other things, serving dinner around a common table every night at 6:00.  And they ask for volunteers to help with dinner: preparing it, serving it, eating it (because that means joining the guests communally in a cheerful way), and then cleaning up afterwards.

 

I read about them a few weeks ago in the local paper; then I looked them up online; and when I got to the part where they ask for volunteers to help with dinner, I thought, "Hell, I can do that!"

 

Because of course, in many ways this call is perfect for me.  If I were going to volunteer to do anything, what could be better?  You already know how strongly I believe in what you could call "the spirituality of the dinner table" – heaven knows I wrote enough about it when Wife and I and the boys all lived together.  The kitchen and the dining room are as close as anything to my natural habitat.  And these days, with the boys both back in school, I have no-one else to cook or clean up for.  So it seems like an obvious match.

 

Or at any rate, it's an obvious match given the premise that I'm going to volunteer to do something charitable.  Why am I doing that?

 

It's hard for me to be sure.  But for a while now I've been trying to map out a new life for myself.  A year ago I spent a lot of time going to artistic events – theater, music, receptions, lectures – and it was fun but I found myself getting tired and wanting to sit home quietly more and more.  So yes, I wanted more art to be part of my life but it couldn't make up the whole of it.  Then there was meditation, which yes I am still doing most every day; but some people make the dharma their whole lives, and I don't really feel myself wanting to do that either.  There was the relationship with Debbie; but that's over and I don't want another romantic relationship right now.  What then?  Well actually I have been thinking about volunteering at something in the background all this while.  I don't suppose I can give a strong reason Why except … hell, why not?  If I can do some good without doing harm, and maybe get off my ass and out into the world once in a while, isn't that a win all around?  Also, I kept seeing that people I love and admire – Debbie and my relatives out of state, to name a few – have a lot more social involvement than I do and it seems to be a good thing.  But it was hard for me to put any kind of shape on this inchoate imagining.  There are a lot of charities out there, and I didn't have a strong prior commitment to one over another.  Some people might use this as a trigger to launch themselves into the world of non-profits, talking to everyone they know in order to learn a lot more … but those would be people who are nowhere near as shy as I am, not to mention a good bit less lazy.

 

And so it sat with my imagining that maybe volunteering would be A Good Thing To Do, but having no idea nor motivation for how to do it … until I saw a website asking for people to help with dinner.  And I figured, If ever there were going to be a volunteer opportunity specifically written for me – this is it.  Time to pick up the phone.

 

So I called them on Friday.  They called me back today (Sunday) saying that they have volunteers during the week but they have nobody on Saturdays and they have someone who shows up only intermittently on Sundays.  They also try to schedule volunteers for only one day a week.  So I asked them to put me down for Saturdays, but how about if I came over this evening to get a look round and maybe pitch in?  Sounds great.  See you then.

 

So I did.  They started me with simple stuff: set the table, take out the trash.  Then they had me de-bone a turkey (left over from some previous dinner) … which was great until I was nearly done and cut my finger.  It wouldn't stop bleeding, so finally the cook put an antibiotic cream on it and wrapped it in a couple of hefty bandages.  Then he put me to sorting pinto beans, where I couldn't hurt myself.

 

There were only two guests at dinner (plus one who ate in her room), along with the two residential assistants and me.  The conversation turned to cooking, so I told a couple of funny stories at my own expense about failed experiments I had tried in the kitchen.  It was pleasant all around.  After we ate, the residential assistants wouldn't let me wash dishes because the water would make my bandages come off; so I cleared the table and put things away; then before I could leave one of them filled a bag with organic produce that had been donated to the house, sending me home with a week's worth of vegetables.  As I left, they thanked me for helping out … which I still can't understand because I don't think I did all that much, and I got out of it far more than I contributed: a lovely kitchen to work in, a better dinner than I would have made for myself, pleasant people to talk with, and a bunch of free produce.  Shouldn't I be the one thanking them?  Yes, I think so.  And I did.  I'm also looking forward to next Saturday.

 

 

Hosea and D's soundtrack: a meme

Almost five years ago -- dear God, was it really five years ago? -- I posted a "soundtrack" of my life with Wife, as part of a meme started by Kyra Edwards.  And even at the time, I kind of wondered, "What about after Wife?"  But I didn't really have the perspective to answer that question.

Then a couple weeks ago, just before the boys went off to their various schools, I was watching a movie with them and suddenly it became crystal-clear to me what has to have been my soundtrack with D.  I don't know about Debbie yet, ... but for D it is totally obvious.

First, as before, let me start off quoting a paragraph of rules:

The Rules:
Write a post about the soundtrack of your life. Please include somewhere in the body of the meme "This was started by Kyra (last refuge of the lonely housewife)"... I want to google to see how far and wide this meme travels.

And the song?  Well maybe there could have been several, but one overshadowed the whole relationship ... had to, in many ways.  I just had to back up before I had the perspective to see it.

It's "Mrs. Robinson".

Not that I was a virgin when we got together, of course.  But in many ways I felt naive, and like the junior partner.  Many times she was clearly frustrated with my not understanding the basic logistical necessities of our affair.  (Much like Mrs. Robinson asking Benjamin, "Did you get us a room?")  And when I had trouble making up a lie to cover this or that she had no patience with me whatsoever; she assumed that my saying I "couldn't" tell this or that lie meant I didn't want to.  She demanded a lot of my attention and was brusque or dismissive if she didn't get it.  I don't know ... somehow it just seemed right.

__________

Mrs. Robinson

And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know, wo wo wo
God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray, hey hey hey
Hey hey hey

We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files
We’d like to help you learn to help yourself
Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes
Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home

And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know, wo wo wo
God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray, hey hey hey
Hey hey hey

Hide it in a hiding place where no one ever goes
Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes
It’s a little secret, just the Robinsons’ affair
Most of all, you’ve got to hide it from the kids

Coo coo ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know, wo wo wo
God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray, hey hey hey
Hey hey hey

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
Going to the candidates’ depate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you’ve got to choose
Every way you look at it you lose

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you, wo wo wo
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson
‘Joltin Joe’ has left and gone away, hey hey hey
Hey hey hey

Making friends with difficult emotions?

Last night was my first night back at the UU Sangha after five weeks away.  It was pleasant to see everyone again, and to feel myself getting back into a routine.  My mind was kind of chattery when I got there, but the very familiarity of the place and ritual was settling.

In our Dharma study, we are still reading Pema Chödrön's book, How to Meditate; and she has a remark at the end of chapter 13 that I really don't understand.  She writes:

If you don't reject [your] emotions, they actually become your friends.  They become your support.  Your rage becomes your support for stabilizing, for returning the mind to its natural, open state.  Emotions become your support for being fully awake and present, for being conscious rather than unconscious, for being present rather than distracted.  That which has been an ogre in your life has the ability to just sweep you away – or it can become your actual friend, your support.  It's a whole different way of living, a whole different way of looking at the same old stuff.

Say what?

I commented during our discussion that I flat-out did not understand this.  Afterwards, the Sangha leader said she wasn't completely sure she did either, but she had just an inkling of what it might be about.  When her daughter was little she was very sick for a long time with something … I'm not clear what.  Anyway it put her in terrible pain for a long time, so that she refused all food.  Only this went on long enough that her mother – now our Sangha leader – had to feed her something to keep her alive.  Well, she said, she went through all sorts of terrible emotions up and down while her daughter suffered through these fits.  And of course the emotional turmoil accomplished nothing.  But very gradually she found that there would be a certain point where there was a break in her daughter's suffering, and that she (the mother) could use this break to feed her.  How could she identify this break?  By using her own emotions as a barometer, so she could feel when her daughter had hit such-and-such a point.

And suddenly I thought of the times that Wife would rage for hours on end, when her mental illnesses would pull her clear away from any kind of common reality.  (I don't mean that she was ever psychotic … just that her neuroses got so bad that she might as well have been, for all the connection that her speech had with the world the rest of us live in.)  The thing is that sometimes I could talk her through this state to a more stable place, usually to a level of calm that would allow her to take her medications and go to bed.  (And after a long sleep she'd be better in the morning.)  I couldn't always do it.  I never got cocky about it – never thought it was mechanical, or a sure thing.  I always felt it was a little bit of a miracle when it worked.  But I got to where it did work, more often than not.  And I couldn't begin to say how I did it, except that I just paid total attention to her – her words, her gestures, her feelings – and looked for every little angle that I could use to edge her toward more solid ground.  I entered into the world of her emotions almost completely, forgetting whatever else was going on and letting the pain and fear wash over me … just so long as I could look around and get my bearings, to see where we were.

I'm describing this all in metaphor, and I don't know how else to describe it.  I don't know how to tell someone else to do what I did.  If I had tried to talk to myself two decades earlier, through some kind of time machine, I couldn't have said what to do.  But I think that somehow, maybe just a little bit, it's the kind of thing our Sangha leader was telling me about.  I only wonder if either of us has a real clue what  Pema Chödrön meant.  Oh well, maybe ….

Baking

I'm baking a pie for dinner.  The recipe was for a double-crusted pizza (making the dough from scratch) but I couldn't be bothered with all that so I got two frozen pie shells from the store and put the filling between those.  At that it took a long time to get the filling prepared, and it's been a hot day.  So here I sit in my apartment with the windows open and the door open, sweat dripping off my forehead and chest, waiting for the pie to be done and hoping I didn't get the filling too liquid. 

 

I spent most of the day at work adding to the online community I offered to build there.  Right now I have added only two community members – myself and one woman who works for me.  We were talking about content today (I think I've got her signed up for at least three wiki entries to start) and she said, "It looks pretty lonely and depressing that we are the only two members of the community."  But I explained, "No, not at all. I haven't publicized it yet, and when it's ready there are some people I am going to add without even asking their consent. But I want to have some content here before doing so."  Still, I'm guessing we'll go live some time this week.

 

You know, in the end even Ella Price doesn't keep writing in her journal every single day.  Just regularly.

 

Or, as one character says in "The Big Chill", "Did you know that rationalizations are more important than sex? It's true! Have you ever tried to get through a week without a rationalization?"

 

Just checked the pie.  I was going to let it bake another fifteen minutes, but that crust looks about as brown as it ought to get, so I've pulled it out and am letting it cool.  I guess in a few minutes I'll know if it was too soon.

 

Later.

 

 

 

 

Retaking the LIFE survey

I posted yesterday about taking this online survey which is supposed to tell you something about your personality.  Well this morning I had the idea ... It's all very well (and kind of interesting) to see what it tells me about what my personality is right now, but suppose I had answered not with what is true today (how long ago did you last do this or that?) but with what I want the answers to be.  If I were to live the way I imagine I'd like to, what would I say?

I tried that, and the results were astonishingly close.  I won't copy all the text over again, but just give you the scores on each of four axes.  I have no idea what these results mean.  Probably nothing, of course ....

Axis	am now	want to be	maximum
suburbanite	4	5	13
cultured	8	7	13
slacker	3	2	13
preppie	5	3	12

"Reality" on the Patio ....

I just posted a new article over on the Patio with the pretentious title of: What is "reality"?

I hope it doesn't come off sounding quite as self-important as the title does.