The Privacy of Intimate Feelings

Sunday, June 30, 2013 (07:40):

Today is the fifth day Bonnie has been in I.C.U. She is having some tubes taken out at this moment. I am supposing that this is a good thing. You just never know. She was sleeping at this time. That is a good sign too. We will wait patiently and hope for the best.

Now, I sit.

Her MD just let me know that he expects her kidney to recover full function in a couple of days. She is sleeping well and just had a feeding tube put in… that is a good thing because it means she will be eating solid foods soon. She’ll still be in I.C.U. a few more days.

I just want to put this out there. I do love and appreciate everyone’s concern but I have to say this.

Yesterday I went to a meeting in which everyone, with very good intentions, was asking me how Bonnie’s doing and almost insisting that I tell them what I’ve had to tell others what seemed a thousand times. I felt obligated to let them know but I really wanted to attend that meeting for peace of mind. Having to tell people over and over again what I thought was bad news was tiring. I sorta flipped out… just didn’t want to talk… wanted them all to simply let me be. I know that they care but, please, just let me know you care and don’t press me for information I haven’t offered. Phone calls are good but please be patient. I will try to answer the dozen or more messages you kindly left. Thank you, and I do appreciate your concern too.

This has been a valuable lesson about how I would like to treat other people. Treat them as I would like to be treated. Be patient and; if the worried-one, or grieving-one, chooses to volunteer information, just listen. The ones that did that said more to me than all the advice and well-wishing. I know that the intentions were from a good place but respect is so much more important than good intentions. To me, so much of it is about being compassion… empathy more so than sympathy.

I came to appreciate facebook because it puts some distance between those I wish to inform and it allows me the privacy of my more intimate feelings.

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The Faith of Estrangement

This morning I didn’t feel like praying and this is where the faith of estrangement kicks in. I pray out of pure habit because I feel in my heart that there is no one on the other end of my pleas that will answer me. This happens despite all the past experience where I have been humbled enough to surrender to the will of One greater than all of my troubles. It is a hard place to be it but it is in such times that the Heart of Compassion does a strange trick. A hope arises from the center of my being… not so much the kind of hope that believes my prayers will be answered exactly as I wish… rather, it is the kind of hope that tells me she will be alright… that we will get through this no matter what. So I sit or kneel regardless of how I feel or what I think. Doubt… rationality… does it really matter? All that disappears and I resign to it. I have, after all, lived and loved through one catastrophe after another… why not this one?

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Everything Changes

Friday, June 28, 2013:

Reflect on this: The realization of impermanence is paradoxically the only thing we can hold on to, perhaps our only lasting possession. It is like the sky, or the earth. No matter how much everything around us may change or collapse, they endure.

            Say we go through a shattering emotional crises… our whole world seems to be disintegrating… our husband or wife suddenly leaves us without warning. The earth is still there; the sky is still there. Of course, even the earth trembles now and again, just to remind us that we cannot take anything for granted…

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

It is another day at the I.C.U. and I’m headed up there now to see Bon Bon. I’m hoping she’ll be improved enough to be moved to a regular room. Really…

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Surgery

 I don’t have much to say this morning as my Bonnie is now in the O.R. the next 3 – 4 hours for a mitro-valve replacement or repair (i.e., open heart) surgery. She has been in good spirits and is brave. The surgeon has a good reputation and the treatment at Cottage Hospital is way above par compared to any other I’ve had experience with. She will be in intensive care until this evening but won’t be wanting to see anyone… probably even me.

            Surgery is one of those events in life that leaves our lives in the hands of a nearly complete stranger. We trust that the surgeon is good at his/her craft. We trust in that and surrender. Bonnie and I do appreciate your prayers today. May the healing hand of the Heart of Compassion pass over her heart today...

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Before I get Busy

We went to the beach to see the rising of the Super Moon. We stood in awe as it rose above the sea. Within minutes I pulled out a camera to take a picture but, since the camera was unfamiliar to me, I couldn't find the settings in the dark to catch the image properly. I did snap a couple of shots but I eventually gave up and simply held Bonnie’s head close to my chest. It was a moment in time that couldn't be caught on camera. I think now about it and remember the many times in places that I had a camera… took a shot… and moved on as though I had experienced the place or event. The truth is that, most of the time, I look at old pictures of places and people in my past and they don’t hold anything for me if I didn't stop and appreciate them in the now as I took them. However, I have found that I am able to stop and pause to give each moment… each person I make contact with… more than a snap-shot. I can do that with an open heart and mind if I take a few precious moments before I get busy today to take a few deep breaths and be here in the now.

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Let God Play

But does that trust require that we be blind to other people’s motives or, indeed, to our own? Not at all; this would be folly. Most certainly, we should assess the capacity for harm as well as the capability for good in every person that we would trust. Such a private inventory can reveal the degree of confidence we should extend in any given situation.

As Bill Sees It, p.144

Daily Reflections

 

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Whenever we’d see someone acting up a friend used to make me laugh by coyly commenting, “There goes God again.” At another time she would have said, “Let God play on a rainy day.” It is one of those Namaste principles in action causing me to see the god in other people. This can be a particularly disturbing notion if our ideal of God within us is as perfect as mathematical certainty. I've heard it said that, when a Navajo rug is woven, a stitch is dropped in humility so as to not mock the perfection of the Creator. The rug loses no value because of this flaw. Truthfully, it has value because of the flaw. If I drop a stitch now and then the fabric of my life doesn't entirely unravel. I once looked hard for any reason to doubt... if I found one defect of character; or, more often than not, a defect I didn't like, I’d completely dismiss the person or idea. This comes from taking life too seriously and expecting everyone to act rationally; at least, according to my logic. Most of the time, in fact, my logic has a dropped stitch somewhere. It is this image of perfection I try to project that leaves me secretly feeling like a hypocrite because I come nowhere near my ideal of perfection. This is as suffocating to the spirit as locking a child indoors on a rainy day. In other words… I am better off if I just watch God play regardless of the weather.

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Forgiveness

Imagine vividly a situation where you have acted badly, one about which you feel guilty, and about which you wince to even think of it.

Then, as you breathe in, accept total responsibility for you actions in that particular situation, without in any way trying to justify your behavior. Acknowledge exactly what you have done wrong, and wholeheartedly ask for forgiveness. Now, as you breathe out, send out reconciliation, forgiveness, healing, and understanding.

So you breathe in blame, and breathe out the undoing of harm, you breathe in responsibility, breathe out healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

This exercise is particularly powerful and may give you the courage to see the person whom you have wronged, and the strength and willingness to talk to him or her directly and actually ask for forgiveness from the depths of your heart.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

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The forgiveness principle is the most powerful meditation principle to practice I know of. It is powerful because I know I have neither the willingness nor the courage to humble myself in such a manner but, time and time again, I have been relieved of the burden of guilt by simply breathing it in and breathing forgiveness out. I now have a situation that requires of me to let go of an ages’ old resentment. Yet, I can’t. Even to think of it roils old passions. I have been forgiven and forgave years ago; but, Father’s Day brought it all up once more the past two years. I can’t ask forgiveness and I can’t forgive.

         I can’t stand myself for feeling this way and I also feel like such a hypocrite when I sit to meditate or when I try to express anything along spiritual lines. The situation is such that even to try to ask forgiveness face to face would appear to be stalking and there are laws against that.

So I breathe it in… the responsibility for my part… no blame or justifications… and breathe out healing, forgiveness, understanding, and recognize that I don’t even want reconciliation at this point. I just want the suffering to go away... to stop.

            The message I get from this sitting is a simple one: “Walk through it… the Heart of Compassion is always with you through the valley and shadow of death.”

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