One Man's Meat...

“No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.” - John Steinbeck (American Novelist)

This is so true in that I form opinions of others by virtue of my own self-perception, which is comprised of my perceptions of life, my individual moral and social codes and my overall cultural exposure. When I share my thoughts of someone else’s behavior whether it be a positive or a negative evaluation aren’t I merely sharing my opinion based on expectations derived from the above? What I know of someone else is so purely subjective. It is by this subjective process that I am tempted to label another’s behavior as good or bad, sane or crazy, brash or demur, overbearing or submissive, giving or self-centered and the list goes on.

When I deem someone else’s behavior as positive, it stands to reason that I see them as being in alignment with my own sense of self and my awareness of life. And, typically that is comfortable for me; they behave in a manner much like myself. But, when I deem someone else’s behavior as negative, their conduct is not in alignment with my perceptions and will most likely cause me to feel uneasy or afraid.

Now I am not saying that I must strive to make myself feel comfortable in all situations and with all types of human behavior. It is okay to know my limits of tolerance and set boundaries that will promote my own sense of well-being as it relates to my ability to remain functional. My point here is that for me learning not to label or judge is one of the toughest exercises brought to me. It takes me, myself and I out of the equation and allows all things and people to be as they are and to let others arrive at their own conclusion. And as the title suggests, I know all too well, that one man’s meat can be another man’s poison.

Say, did I ever tell you I don't like Caviar?

The Old Lady at Wal*Mart or OATS on the side

I was leaving Wal*Mart this morning and this little old, frail woman with several bags in her hands was standing by the exit asking people as they left if they were going downtown. As each one passed, they replied, "No, I'm not."

As I walked by her, my turn came to answer 'the' question. "Are you by chance going down town?" the old woman asked me.

I followed suit like all the ones before me, I recited the same words as if it were some required answer that would cause the exit doors to slide open. "No", I said and the doors parted and I was free to pass through into the daylight of the parking lot.

I headed for my car caught up in my own thoughts, “I hate my life” circled my mind like buzzards over a road kill. This seems to be the egocentrical place where I am currently stuck. As I neared my car, a new thought seared through my brain. I was so focused on hating my life that I wasn't paying attention to the activity going on in it. I had just been provided a moment of opportunity to do something different and I had turned it down. How dare I think I was unlike or somehow more deserving of some grand opportunity when I was no different than any of those passing the old woman each stuck in the tasks of their own agendas .

I loaded my groceries, started the car and head back up to Wal*Mart’s doors. She was still there. I watched for a moment as she undauntedly asked each one as they passed. “Excuse, me, are you going downtown?”

I walked up to her and asked her if she was looking for a ride. She grinned, “Yes, I am…and you know I am.” And beamed, “I’m a child of God and I can see so are you.”

“I know I am”, I repliedwith the ususal the banality that I am embarrassed to admit.

“Thank you Lord”, she grinned, “Bless you child. I want to tell you all about the Lord as we drive.”

“Oh, Lord” I thought and took her bags and said, “Well then, let’s be off”, wondering what the heck I got myself into. She seemed so frail and she shuffled to my car where I got her situated. I was going to put her bags in the rear but she wanted her bags on top of her. “I only get $625 a month and I don’t want to loose what the Lord gives me”, she informed me self-assuredly. She spoke with such expression.

On the way to her home, she told me how she used to be an RN and showed me her tattered nursing card, which she still carried in her wallet. I saw that her name was Margaret. She said, “Yes, Margaret Geist”, and pointed to her name on the card. I used to work at Ozark Medical Center for many years. She went on to tell that her husband used to be the sheriff but that he was passed away in “nineteen and eighty-three.” She said that one day she saw Jesus, he was on a ladder, and he told her, “Margaret, no one can hurt you now, you are married to me.”

I looked into her face in hopes of reading some painful history there but there was nothing but an impish old countenance full of joy. She asked me if she could sing for me and of course I told her yes, and then wondered why such a request would cause little pangs of discomfort to arise within me. She pointed me the way to her HUD apartment building all the way singing songs of praise that she said the Lord had given her to write. Each time she would get a word wrong, like a child, she would stop and start the song over.

When we arrived I helped her into the building by taking her hand and walking with her. By this time, she was reciting prophecies out of the book of Zechariah and as we passed persons who were obviously staff, they rolled their eyes and giggled at her. I helped her into her one room apartment and set her bags on her table. I commented on how clean and tidy her place was. “We can be dirt poor, but we’re never too dirt poor to be clean”, she quipped.

She said, “You know they’ve been trying to evict me for praising the Lord.” I let her continue. “But the evil one can’t get me. He came just the other day with the housing authority, and I invited him in for coffee.” She explained how she banished him. “In the name of Jesus, I banish thee from here to leave without harm.” These words seem to spring forth from her whole body. And then, in utter excitement she told me that the housing authority made a phone call and announced, “Lady, we can’t touch you with a ten-foot pole!” And this frail, shuffling lady, started jumping up and down and clapping like a school girl.

I told her I had to go but she insisted on showing me one last thing. It was a photo of George and Laura Bush, which was sitting next to her chair. The photo was signed, “Thank you Margaret Geist for your service overseas. Laura & George Bush.” I feel bad for not asking what that specifically meant because I was genuinely curious about her. But by the time I set the picture down she was telling me about the man in the yellow raincoat, wearing white gloves who had brought her home last time. He had a yellow hat on and she could see the white hair underneath. He had told her that love shall bring peace and that God shall work his good into all things. She said, “ I wanted him to look at that picture but when I turned around he had just vanished...poof.” And then she pointed to the chair sitting next to the table with the picture. It had a throw on it with angels and in the weave it had written, ‘For me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.’ Margaret explained that the man in the yellow coat was an angel and he had left that there. She insisted that the throw hadn't been there before he came. She had never seen it before and on $625 a month, she couldn't afford such a thing.

“Everyone thinks the man in the yellow coat didn’t exist, but how can I describe him if I never saw him?", she argued. I’ve seen him here and there since…a yellow raincoat and white gloves. "He’s an angel of the Lord, you know, and he watches over me. You’ll see him too if you still your heart and look for him. You are a child of God.”

There it was again…stilling my heart. Seems to be my life’s main topic at present. ‘Be still, be present in the moment and know that I am God.’ Okay, Lord, in that moment I stopped and chose to step out of my egocentrical life and dared to do something different and You speak to me through an eccentric lady…it is almost uncomfortable.

At any rate, I bid Margaret farewell, and shut the door behind me. As I walked down the hall, I could hear her voice booming from behind her closed door pronouncing, “Praise Jesus, Praise God, Praise all the things He does for us, Praise Jesus…” I couldn’t help but smile, they have their hands full that’s for sure, I wondered what will happen to her.

I passed back through the lobby and one of the staff members asked, “Do you know her?”

“No”, I replied.

“Then why did you pick her up?”, she asked as if it really befuddled her.

“Because it just seemed like the thing to do at the time. I answered and then grinned; “I can see you all have your hands full with her.”

To that she laughed. “But”, she inquired with a more serious look, “Would you ever pick her up again?”

“Yeah, I think so”, and I walked to my car and headed home.

We're not there yet - Oh metropolitan areas...

This is what I my heart bleeds for...

A few months ago while in the veterinarian's office one of the vets who around my age came in ranting about Oprah. I asked why he didn't like Oprah fully expecting it to be some of her liberal platforms ... But he quite frankly told me it was because she was black. Wisdom told me to keep my mouth shut but my astonishment must have shown on my face as he immediately started reflecting out loud about how he has thought he had out grown this way of KKK mind set but he guessed he hadn't. Now just for reference, here we have an educated man who was raised around West Plains, who has fought alongside of blacks while serving his country in Vietnam. What struck me at the time was NOT the fact that he was so prejudiced but his, what seemed to me, reckless and blatant honesty about such a subject.

I have lived above Missouri's Highway 70 all my life. Although Missouri was a mix of pro-slave and anti-slave up to the end of the civil war, to me Hwy 70 is the state's imaginary Mason-Dixon line dividing northern mentality with its way of life that includes everyting from dress to its cuisine and coloquialisms from the southern part of the state with its lifestyle. A northerner might feel the same prejudice toward blacks as this vet but in 2008 would never voice it publicly especially to a person they hardly knew. The people in the northern part of the state seem, for the most part, to have advanced to accept today's social more on the subject of race. While the incident left me thinking, it was an isolated incident and so I filed it under 'interesting social aspects of a vet in southern Missouri' in my brain.

Yesterday, that file was opened again. A contracted worker, another younger southern Missouri/Arkansas homegrown, was here. We got on the subject of McCain/Palin. He seemed to be able to articulate intelligently about the ticket's platform and so it was no time at all before my husband and I settled into a comfortable converstion with him on the subject. What ensued surprised me.

He at first began to compare the differences in the republican and democratic platforms but sublty it shifted and I found myself mentally taking a walk down a old road somewhere else in time. He summed up the pros and cons of the two parties by saying that if the Democrats concern is that Palin is just one step away from being President, the Republicans should really be concerned about Biden's preparedness to lead because he WILL be president in a short time if Obama is elected.

Not understanding the brashness behind his statement, I inquired, "Why is that?"

"Obama is going to be offed." , he replied. "You don't think they are having their meetings right now, planning?"

I asked who, thinking only that there is a big chasm on issues between liberals and conservatives in this country, non of which, in my mind was fueled by race...oh, how naive I am.

"Why the Klan" he said.

There is was again...'The Klan'. What seemed to be an obsolete and dated icon was brought to my attention again.

He told me of his childhood in Zinc, Arkansas...not too far from West Plains. If a black family tried to move into the area, they were burned out (a tactic I have come to understand is still used over and over down here for a variety of reasons not just racial). He said that if they didn't leave they were popped off...after all they were just ni_ _ers. Now we're talking the late 1970's and early 80's. His voice did not carry the tones of anger or contempt but rather a benign tone like one might speak of ridding their fields of some noxious weed. There seems to be an unstable element of votality where there is an absence of shame.

"No, Obama won't last long if he's elected." he repeated.

I know there is a awful chance any public figure can be assassinated. But in 2008, my mind was having a hard time making sense of what this man was saying so matter-of-factly and nonchalantly. It was like I had stepped into a time machine. It seemed so surreal that I didn't feel anything but confusion.

I told him the story of the veterinarian's office and my roots in northern Missouri. I shared with him that my astonishment was the openness about black prejudice that people have down here...and added, "Who knows who they are talking to...I mean, I could be black for all you know." Thinking that in these times the anyone's uppermost concern would be not to inadvertently run rough shod over somebody's ethnic background. What a sheltered ding-dong I am.

This man raised his eyebrows and his eyes got as round as saucers but what I read in them was not horror that he might have misspoken but rather a surprise, a seed of suspicion. My husband saw this too and only half kiddingly chastised me later, "Geez, why did you say that? We'll probably get burned out now..."

We live in a very different place...and there are things that are very real and alive I've never been exposed to... and that frightens me on a new level.

I fear for Obama and his family...in such a new way. This concerns me more than Palin's daughter's pregnacy or any other trivial scandal.

Retract and Regroup

August 25th I posted the following. "The 2008 election consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. "

I am having to rethink that quote.

A few months ago I read an article on what makes Obama and McCain tick. The writer used their hobbies as an illustration as to how they operate. Obama loves golf and the opportunities on the golf course to network and build relationships. McCain loves to gamble, and enjoys strategizing, and calculating to make winning situations.

I think I just realized the depth of that article when McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his running mate. He quietly calculated his next move in his campaign. I don't think anyone was expecting such a brilliant move. Besides the obvious that she is a woman, which is certainly a check move on this board, she is the epitome of a composure, wit, bravery, forthrightness, intelligence, and hometown American values...

If this is the way McCain strategizes and the astuteness of his moves, then this is the man I would want to lead in these conflicted times.

A thriving life means following your passions and dreams. But, as we so well know, life is a journey of ups and downs, of ons and offs, backwards and forwards whether physical, financial, or emotional. Developing relationships where sharing the ups as well as the downs of life with others who are supportive, and encouraging is the hallmark of a balanced life. One of the key ingredients for being supportive is empathy.

Empathy is, of course, the ability or the willingness to experience pain or distress from someone else's point of view. Most people learn the basics of empathy in childhood (from our parents nurturing us when we're in distress). Some people just have not been equipped with that skill because they themselves never experienced it growing up or they have buried their ability to be empathetic over the years in our now culture that focuses on self, accumulation of things, and a let's avoid anything unpleasant attitude over thoughtful reflection. Or possibly, empathy isn't in their life's tool bag because by feeling another's hurts is to feel their own, a scary prospect to many.

Not feeling heard or understood lends to a sense of aloneness. Empathy, I believe, is life's connective tissue. It’s why we cry at the movies or the theatre. It’s the ability to tell our story safely…share with each other what it is like to be imperfect humans. Even if you feel a friend, your husband, or family member is totally wrong about how they are perceiving their dilemma, if you try to see that problem from their point of view, and allowing them to be who they are right then (I am not talking abusive situations), you'll be able to get through that conflict without smoldering in the corner or ending the relationship. But, sometimes that is easier to write on paper than to practice if you’ve never done it before, don’t know how to do it or are afraid of doing it.

After many years of counseling, I have found these are the keys to developing empathy. Instead of telling people what they ought to do, or becoming tyrannically optimistic, offer sympathy, inquire about feelings, and then validate those feelings. Comments and inquiries such as, “Gosh, that’s terrible”, or “I can see why that hurt you”, is offering comfort to the other person, it is validating them as human, even if you yourself can't feel or understand what they're going through. These very simple responses make a person feel understood, and connected to humankind.

Most importantly, when they disclose their feelings in response to your comments, just listen, don’t give them your opinion or advice. Let them work through their thoughts and emotions…it’s their process not yours to caretake or control by issuing them a fix-it manual. Unempathetic responses such as "It could be worse"; "Why don’t you just … ", “Why worry about that?”, “The reason you are feeling this way is because…” , “You know what your problem it?”, "It's a shame you got yourself into...", or “You’re just too sensitive…”, might appear to you to be kind and aimed at soothing or helpful, but no matter how well-intentioned, these remarks are a rejection, a denial, of what the other person is going through. "They are code for “Don't confront me with things that are unpleasant”, “Don't bother me with your pain.” or worse, “You are really a dope”.

Developing empathy will sometimes require setting ‘self’ aside along with its opinions and rationalizations. No matter how valid or accurate you feel your opinions are sometimes they are better kept to yourself if maintaining a close relationship is your hope. The catch twenty-two to all of this is that often times hurts accumulate because you’ve never been told you have been hurtful. How fair is that...But, that is because the final insult of being treated with a lack of empathy is that the hurt person usually won’t complain right away. They move off to lick their wound. The hurt person sees that any complaint as to your lack of support might be construed as a whining, pathetic plea for sympathy, which might (and most probably) incur more remarks thrust at their character and which will cause more eroding of their sense of well-being; and so, the relationship is rutpured.

And so here we sit…pondering life’s struggles.

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment.
With this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action. " -Shakespeare

Mainstream Christians, A Vehicle For Arrogance? …My innermost thoughts made public…

Mainstream Christians, most generally protestants, don’t seem to have gotten much further in spirituality than the Jewish Pharisees who Jesus so scorned. Their lives are dedicated to buildings they call ‘my church’ and a group of people they again call ‘my church’. They gather as pockets of Elitist groups scattered in a community, each smelling a little different, preaching the salvation of Christ but portraying pictures of judgment and condemnation…their disposition arrogant…their agenda their own need for self gratification, and corporate glorification.

These are the people who use the word church countless times in their conversations. “I go to church”, “… at my church”, "Oh, I have to go to church...", “You ought to go to church...”, “I was at my church...”, “Well, in my church”… that word 'church' seems to be a panacea for everything. It’s their badge for the world to see … it is a symbol of where they are mentally, it is their crutch that carries them limping through their life…they use the word ‘church’ like the angry, misguided and hurt use the word the 'F' word in every sentence… it is the panacea for thier hurt. It is their badge for the world to see…it says this is who I am mentally...it is a crutch that carries them limping through their life. It seems insane but they are both the same…their egos are screaming for the world to notice them. The former out of a need to be seen as and feel like they are upstanding and good, and the latter out of the need show their pain … both are egocentrical in nature.

Mainstream Christians generally play at spirituality, busily sawing through the air with their gestures of service. Boasting of church services, church programs, food baskets, and mission trips and for what? So they can go to bed at night their egos satiated, for now they certainly must be good in the eyes of God? Yes, just like the Jewish Pharisees, going to church and complying with all the conventions of the Christain Religion will lend to a sense of well-being. It is human nature to feel good about oneself when engaged in something meaningful and the church ideal feeds that sense of security that 'all is well with my soul'. Yes, when going about church service, it lends people a sense of their own worth and one has attained the highest status when deemed a 'good Christian' by peers. Don’t misunderstand, it is good to do things that are beneficial but that in itself is spiritual emptiness, it is spiritual counterfeit.

And to these people, I can envision Christ saying, “You’ve got it all wrong, this is not what I meant. You are so focused on your need to feel good about yourselves and creating a public image for display, you are so busy listening to yourselves and your empty teachings that you can’t hear or experience God.”

Sadly, the church is still the sham it was … it is a haven for power and arrogance…and all who don’t practice the rituals and conventions of church going, and who don’t saw through the air with church sponsored programs, baskets or mission trips are held with suspicion or worse dismissed altogether. They are blind to those who quietly live seeking the will of God, serving the needs to which they are directed without public notice or serving in ways that have no grand platform.

When the going gets tough and the rubber hits the road when you feel you’ve been wronged or you have wronged another do you, are you able, will you be able to follow the teachings of Christ or do you follow your ego? Do you want to set yourself aside in order to resolve a conflict or a hurt? Do you want to accept not understanding another way of thinking without judgment? Do you want to look for God in everything…even what you perceive as ugly or evil or doctrinally incorrect? Do you want to embrace the teachings of grace? Then seize each present moment as though you were Christ. Don't be so busy as not to notice what seems most insignificant. Look at the cashier, the waitress, the stranger you just passed. Look at them as human to human not at what function they are performing. Accept delays in plans, destroyed agendas as opportunities with God...don't talk, just listen and watch. Be brave enough to encourage resolution where there is conflict. Be open to listening where there's a difference of opinion - you may hear the voice of God. Resist condemnation when another doesn't fit your expectations for condemnation breeds contempt and destruction. Grace encourages healing. Be that smile of encouragement, that healing touch, that moment of acknowledgment, not that nail sticking out of a board.

For you who wants to take inventory and be aware of your personal shortcomings you have as a human without fear or blaming, for you who want to be brave enough to look in the mirror and admit to the pain and suffering your human ego has created, for you that want to look into yourself and confess to your part in a situation which has caused suffering, for you who want to be willing to lay down your ego for the sake of another, and for you who wants to understand that God is bigger than what you learned in Sunday School, that God is more than what is stated in your church's doctrine, that God can't be defined by what anyone ever learned in seminary, and operates in ways that your mind cannot conceive, here is the gate to the kingdom of God. Walk through, therein lies your spirituality.