You Have Choice

I've been thinking a lot lately about choices. About how often we limit our own sense of choicefulness. 

"I have to..." "I need to..." "I must..." "I can't..." "I had no other choice but to..." You get the picture. 

I've done this. I still do this at times, sometimes consciously, sometimes not. As I think about this theme, I'm increasingly aware that these have to-need to-must-can't things we say are a myth. We always have choice. The circumstances that we're making choices in may not be realities we've created. The options we see before us may not align with our desires, but we do get to choose. And maybe we even get to choose an option that's not presented to us. 

About a year ago I got into a long email battle with American Airlines about compensation for a 6-hour flight delay due to mechanical issues. I stated what I felt was fair compensation for the time lost. The customer service rep made a meager offer in return. I restated my same desire. The rep upped his offer, but it still wasn't close to what I had asked for. I restated my desire. He gave me two options. I said I'd like both. After another back and forth, he consented. It took a lot of time and energy. I had both to give. 

In the grand scheme of things, getting that compensation did not affect my day-to-day life. But it reminded me that I don't have to settle for what's offered to me if it doesn't feel right. My minor success with American Airlines makes me think of what's possible when the stakes are higher, when the powers I'm facing are more daunting, and when I'm not the only one raising my voice.

I say we have choice with the awareness that there are many factors that can limit our sense of choice.  Poverty and where we fit into economic systems may limit our sense of choice. Finite resources of time and energy may limit our sense of choice. Power systems and the people in them that view and treat my actions as a white, cisgender, straight woman differently than they do the same actions by a Black woman, Latinx man, LGBTQ person, transgender person, etc. may limit our sense of choice. Those same systems are the ones telling us that we have to-need to-must-can’t do X, Y, or Z to the point that we’ve internalized the message and keep ourselves "in line" even when it doesn't serve us to do so. 

What if we choose not to believe in those limits?

What if we embrace a sense of choicefulness?

What if, instead of “I have to…”, we try on “I am allowed to…” or “I get to…” or “I choose to…” when we talk about things that align with our values, even if they’re hard or tiring (the things parents do for children, adults do for aging parents, activists do for causes)? It feels very different in our bodies to say “I have to…” rather than “I am allowed to…” or “I get to…” or “I am choosing to…”

What if, when presented with A and B, both of which seem like terrible options, we request C? And when we’re told “no,” we ask for C again or ask for D or demand E until we find a strategy that meets our needs and aligns with our values, or at least begins to do so. What if, when all this back and forth exhausts us, we ask for help? We may not get it, but what if we do? Or what if we choose to rest so we can come back and keep trying?  

We have choice.   

Maybe this idea is really scary. I know it is for me sometimes. But feeling choiceless doesn’t feel too great either. I’d rather lean into a space where I’m scared and embracing choice than one in which I feel helpless and hand my fate to others who may not have my best interest, or the best interest of people I care about, at heart.

We have choice. We don’t have control over the outcome of our choices, but we do have choice.

I invite you to bring more consciousness to your choices. Your yeses and nos.

See how it feels. Let me know.

I may be writing about this topic again, because a bazillion (it’s a real word, I checked Miriam-Webster) other thoughts about this topic are racing through my mind, but I’m choosing to leave them for another day. 

You Don't Have to Set Yourself on Fire

These thoughts aren't polished, but they are sincere... from Love’s refining fire in my last post to this…

A few years ago I received the mug in the attached picture. It was before I had deeply engaged with Compassionate Communication, before I had even heard of The Artist's Way, before I had an awareness of how committed I was to serving the needs of others to the detriment of meeting my own. Somehow over many years, I had given up my sense of play. I wasn't listening to music very much. I had internalized that because there was suffering in the world, enjoying life...ever... was ignoring the suffering in the world and, therefore, not acceptable. My life appeared big in many ways because I was doing human rights work in Palestine for weeks to months each year and I was doing good work otherwise, but I wasn't very happy. I rarely allowed myself to be happy because in my mind it would be a betrayal to people who were carrying most of the weight of systemic oppressions. My willful commitment misery was going to save the world. 

Fast forward to now.  I am still aware that there is suffering in the world. I am also aware that if I want to maintain a long-term commitment to alleviating suffering and working toward collective liberation, I must, must, must tend to my own needs for play, expression, relaxation, community, and more. My own liberation... I now know that tending to my needs will, in fact, give me the energy I need to address the suffering in the world that I find so deeply troubling. Tending to my needs with others doing the same is an act of co-creation, even if only for a few hours, of the kind of world we want to live in- one built on foundations of mutual care, joy, acceptance, play, safety, and more.

I am learning also that I am allowed to meet my own needs, even if doing so may not meet someone else's needs.

I am not required to set myself on fire to keep others warm.

This feels huge. I am allowed to say no. I am allowed to honor my own clearly stated boundaries. I am allowed to interrupt dynamics that are pulling more from me than they are giving. Doing these things allows me to give more joyful and energized yeses to work that calls me and that serves the well-being of the world. Sometimes my work feels small, sometimes it feels large. Either way, I am learning to trust that both the effects of the work and a more balanced approach to it ripple out. 

At the moment I'm about halfway through The Artist's Way with 3 groups, halfway through leading a Compassionate Communication class, and I'm taking a class for women entrepreneurs. These things both energize and tire me, but it's the good kind of tired. To fill myself up, I've been taking a drawing class- play! Learning! I am also taking a drumming class- more play! Expression! CommUnity!

My life is full with these and a few smaller things, and it is also more balanced than it was when I received the mug. I can thank both my study and practice of Compassionate Communication and my several times through The Artist's Way for this move toward balance and boundaries. This is a work in progress. I am a work in progress.

I am grateful that the only fire I experience regularly now comes from burning candles and using sage or palo santo for cleansing and ritual (which also bring more balance to my life).

I sincerely hope that you are literally and figuratively fire-free, that you have balance and boundaries that nourish you in whatever ways you most need. This Valentine's week, I hope that you find warmth not from self-sacrifice that burns you up, but from giving profound love and care to yourself and those who are dear to you and from receiving and accepting the love that is offered you. 

Love's Refining Fire: Reflections on the Presentation of Jesus and the Border

The following is the homily I shared this morning:

The Presentation of Jesus (February 2, 2020)

Malachi 3:1-4; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40

In today’s Gospel reading, we hear that when Mary and Joseph took Jesus to Jerusalem to present him at the Temple, Simeon, guided by the Holy Spirit, took the month-old Jesus from Mary and Joseph’s arms. Holding Jesus, he praised God and declared that he was holding in his hands salvation, “a light of revelation,” the Messiah. I wonder what it was like for Simeon to hold the embodiment of Love. Did he feel giddy? Maybe. He was an old man, who had been told by the Holy Spirit that he wouldn’t die until he saw the Messiah. When he met Jesus, he proclaimed that now he could die in peace. There is no mention whether Simeon told anyone about his encounter.

We also hear about Anna, an 84-year-old prophet, who had spent most of her life worshipping, fasting, and praying in the Temple. She also recognized Love present in this tiny babe. Unlike Simeon, Anna didn’t simply rest in the joy of her witness, but instead spread the news to any who would listen. Anna is one of many women who spread the good news of Jesus.

I want to be like both Simeon and Anna. Like Simeon, I hope I recognize when I am in the presence of the Divine. I actually think this happens in every moment, but I often don’t notice. And like Anna, I hope that when I do recognize the presence of the Divine, I share the experience, spreading joy, hope, and love.

As I’ve read and re-read these stories, my mind keeps wandering to the U.S.-Mexico border. I remember the families seeking asylum that I met while doing human rights accompaniment in September on the Mexico side; they were waiting to present themselves to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. They had made many sacrifices, leaving their homes and journeying from Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras, or other parts of Mexico. Everyone I met was hopeful that officers would recognize their circumstances and allow them into the U.S., perhaps giving them a chance for purification, like Mary and Joseph sought at the Temple, and a place where they could find new life.

In order to protect migrants, human right accompaniers didn’t take pictures of their faces.

I think in particular of a little girl named Zoad- a round-faced, thin little Black girl, about 4 years old, with burn scars on her shoulder and neck. Zoad radiated light, much like I imagine the infant Jesus did in the Temple. I met Zoad on a Saturday morning, when she confidently and trustingly approached me and asked my name. The morning I met this open-hearted child, I also met her mother, who had been beaten the night before by the man they’d been travelling with. Over the next few days, I watched as Zoad’s big eyes turned with concern toward her sometimes crying, one-black-eyed, bandaged-eyebrow mother. Whether Zoad was watching her mother, talking to me, gently encouraging other children to play, or coaching them through puzzle-working, Zoad glowed. This bright and resilient child shone so brightly, despite what she witnessed happen to her mother, despite whatever she experienced before and during the journey from Honduras. She was, for me, “a light of revelation.”

In the Gospel Simeon recognized Jesus’ light and also stated that he would be “the downfall and rise of many.” Pondering how pure Love can lead to someone’s downfall, I am reminded of people who don’t see radiance, resilience, and love when they look at migrant children like Zoad, but rather feel fear and perceive threat, just as some feared and felt threatened by Jesus. In closing themselves off, they deny themselves the possibility of the refining, purifying fire of Love that Malachi describes. When people voice their anger, their masked fear, we see the “secret thoughts of many laid bare.” Their rejection leads not only to personal, but collective downfall.

At the same time there are people like Anna, who see Zoad’s and other migrants’ light and share it by telling their stories. They enter the fire of refining Love, “enabl[ing] them[selves] to make offerings to God in righteousness.” Purified by Love, they meet buses coming from McAllen, TX, make bags of food to ease the journey for migrants, organize legal clinics, collect diapers, rice and beans, offer hospitality and a safe place of respite, make calls to state and federal officials, risk arrest and go to jail because, even in jail, they are free to live in Love. Their love raises us.

Then my thoughts return to those whose fear enslaves them to the point of rejecting Jesus, in the being of Zoad and so many other Black and Brown bodies. I am deeply disturbed by the destructive actions that are carried out as a result of cold fear. As I am able, I speak out and take action to reduce harm while also working to change the systems that promote and support fear-based destruction. At the same time, I will not condemn people acting from their fear. In all truth, sometimes I’m one of them, though my fear may manifest in different ways.

I am learning that my condemnation of people is not helpful. I strive to remember that within them, even if not apparent to me, is the same divine light as the one I saw in Zoad, the one Simeon recognized in an infant child in the Temple. My condemnation does not heal, but only further alienates and harms; it takes us farther from the refining fire of Love, not closer.

When I find myself angry at what I see, I return to questions one of my Nonviolent Communication teachers offered: How much pain would I have to be in to cause that level of harm to others? How alienated would I have to be from my own divine nature and that of others, to act in such a destructive way? Answering these questions doesn’t change my acts of protest, but it does change my center of gravity when I do them, moving from head to heart to the core of my being. Those questions are Love’s refining fire that burns away my anger to uncover the grief that moves me to compassion: more vulnerable, more connecting, slower to move than the fuel of my anger. Slower and more deliberate.

This purifying might allow me to approach the revealed “secret thoughts”- my own and those of others- with greater care, so that I can attempt to call in rather than call out. This purifying might help me to follow Jesus instead of succumbing to anger that tempts me to act from a place that is less than Love. I use the word “might” deliberately. I say these things with the full knowledge that I forget them as easily as I say them now…when I am hurt or tired or angry or hungry or hangry. And I want to do better. I want to practice holding Love so close, as Simeon did Jesus, so often, that it becomes second nature, my default, so that while I’m alive I can proclaim the good news through my words and actions like Anna and, when it is my time, like Simeon, I will be able to die in peace.