The Importance of Story

I’ve been reading the book Storycatcher by Christina Baldwin. It has reminded me gain how important our stories are.

Our Stories Determine How We See the World
Things happen to all of us, but how we describe those things to ourselves determines how we feel about our lives. Do I describe myself as a victim, thus short-circuiting my power to better my life? Do I see myself as a survivor? Do I see myself as an overcomer? The story I tell myself about my past to a large extent determines how I view myself, and what I think about myself.

Our Stories Connect Us to the Past
If I know the stories of my ancestors, it helps mark my place in the world. One of my great-grandfathers came the U.S. from Germany in the earlier part of the 20th century. One of my grandfathers was a blacksmith. The other was a Methodist preacher turned carpet layer. Knowing these and other stories of family history gives me a place in the world. I can notice how my brother looks like my grandfather, and how one sister is a lot like my grandmother. All this gives me roots from which I can launch myself into my own life.

Our Stories Have Authenticity
You and I may see the world very differently. Our religious convictions, our political parties, our backgrounds, our socioeconomic classes may be totally at odds. So may a hundred other things about us. If I tell you the doctrine of my particular brand of spirituality, or why I think you should be a liberal or a conservative, you can simply shut me out. But if I tell you my story, how and why I came to believe the way I do, what things signify to me, and how a particular point of view has meaning for me, you are much more likely to listen. And I’m much more likely to hear you when you tell me your own personal story.

In the Quaker tradition, we like to ask questions to help us think things through. We call them queries. So let me leave you with three sets of queries.

1) What story do you tell yourself about what has happened to you in the past? How does that affect your life now? Is there a way to reframe your story to make it more positive? (For instance, instead of calling yourself a victim of something bad, call yourself a survivor.)

2) How does the story of your family’s past affect your current life? Do you need to go to relatives and find out more about your roots? Do you need to reframe the story?

3) Think about the relation between your own experience/story, and the more institutional stories in your life. How can you share your story in a personal way without resorting to dogmatism? Is there someone you need to share your story with?

Decisions

I’ve been thinking about decisions in the last couple of days, particularly those decisions that change the course of a life. Granted, every decision we make creates a new path, but whether I have toast or cereal for breakfast won’t make much difference in the long run. I’m thinking of decisions that cause real change.

I was a nursing major in college for a short time. It seemed like a nice service-oriented profession and required a strong science background. I was good in science, but I didn’t feel that good about my major. I made a decision to take a career interest test. It showed me my interest in nursing was practically nil, but that I loved languages. I then made the decision to switch colleges and switch my major to Greek with a double minor of Bible and linguistics. I was a much happier person and planned to be a Bible translator with Wycliffe. But to join them, I had to pay off my college bills. To make money, I made the decision to take a job in a library. That decision changed the direction of my life. I fell in love with the job, got my Masters of Library Science and became a professional librarian. Then one of my friends from the library moved to Portland, Oregon from Rochester, New York. I made the decision to visit her and fell instantly in love with the Pacific Northwest. I’ve live her for more than 25 years now. Decision after decision after decision changed my life in ways I never dreamed of.

So here’s my point. We make decisions every minute of every day. Only a very few make a real difference, but it’s not always easy to tell which those will be. I was only looking for a little adventure when I visited my friend, but I found a life.

What decisions face you right now or in the near future? Take a risk; step out; follow your heart, and it may lead you into a great adventure – or a new life.

Harrassment in the Workplace

I’m writing this at a mandatory sexual harassment meeting. Frankly, I feel harassed by this whole thing. Not only was I given no choice about whether or not to attend, but also I was given no choice as to which session to go to.

Is there sexual harassment in the workplace? Yes. I know that first hand – not from the job I have now, thankfully. When I was in high school and before college, I worked in a plastics molding plant. The supervisor told us dirty jokes, and harassed women, though not as badly as could have been. (They also paid men more for the same job, and only offered health care to men.) At the time I was too naïve to realize this was reportable behavior. Besides, back then the complaints probably wouldn’t have gone anywhere.

Things are different now. I haven’t seen sexual harassment in years. It may be because I work more in white collar jobs now. I know from what I hear on the bus that women are still treated badly by boyfriends and husbands, and the men brush it off.

I think this is a problem that will never really go away. If we ever managed to get women seen as equals, then there would be others – gays, people of color, of different religions, etc. A sad but true fact of human nature.

One thing I just thought about is disability. For instance, the bus is set up to handle those with disabilities, but the bus schedule does not really allow the extra time it takes to load and unload wheelchairs. We usually make connections if there is only one person, but if two – which is rare, but happens from time to time – then we are likely to miss the next bus at the transfer point. Is that harassment? No, since it doesn’t affect the disabled person. What it does do though, is to make riding the bus less welcoming for all of us. I want to make clear that this is not the fault of the handicapped people. It is the inflexibility of the bus schedule that’s to blame.

One curious thing the presenter said is that harassment must occur in the areas of protected speech/action, such as sex, disability, religion, race, gender, etc. General harassment is not covered. As he said, it’s not against the law to be a jerk. I find this odd, as I’ve seen much more of that sort of thing than actual sexual harassment. In the workplace, people instinctively know who is the “weakest link” and can be harassed – can be complained about, made fun of, etc. And we also know those whom we cannot say anything about, no matter what they do or how they act. So why isn’t acting like a jerk harassment? And for that matter, why isn’t gossip harassment? I find that deadening, whether it’s about a coworker or the latest celebrity in trouble.

Oh, well, the meeting is nearly over, so I’ll bring this to a close.

Jesus Christ, Superstar

This weekend I watched the movie Jesus Christ, Superstar. I don’t think I had ever seen the movie before, though I loved the sound track when I was a teenager. I mean I loved it, playing it over and over and singing along with abandon.

The movie is pretty dated by this time. It’s from the hippy days – maybe even into disco – and looked it. Still, I could handle that – I’m an old hippy myself.

<- Me in the 1960s.

What bothered me was the attitude.  Both Jesus and Judas were treated as little more than puppets, acting out parts assigned to them by the puppet-master, God. Both were portrayed as confused and wondering where it all went wrong. Worse, God as puppet-master was presented as sadistic, playing games with people’s lives; and since there was no resurrection in the movie, for no particular purpose at all. People were left grief-stricken, confused, and hopeless. How sad!

The only person with any real adult humanity was Pilate who tried over and over to free Jesus, but got no help from either the prisoner or those who accused him. This is, of course, just the opposite of what we read in the gospels, where the sole puppet-like figure is Pilate, manipulated by the religious leaders to do what they wanted. The only choices he had were to condemn Jesus or to throw away his career over an unknown Galilean – for a Roman, no real choice at all.

It’s a relief that in the Bible, Peter, Mary Magdalene, and the other disciples were not left bereft. The risen Christ brought them joy, hope, and an incredible new purpose in life. Could Christianity have risen from the dispirited bunch of followers in the movie? Not likely. I’m so glad the reality was different

Imagination of God

There’s a lovely quote in Beauty: the Invisible Embrace by John O’Donohue that goes like this: “It is puzzling that in the Western world we have concentrated on the divine intellect and the divine will. Yet the breathtaking flow of difference in the world suggests the beauty of the Divine Imagination which we have utterly neglected.” (p. 140)

John O’Donohue was an Irish poet and philosopher who wrote about the spiritual life form a Celtic viewpoint. He emphasized the beauty and mystery of God and creation, rather than rules and regulations.

For anyone who does any kind of creative work – and that is most of us – we know that the created thing is first observed in our imagination. Whether writing a piece of prose or poetry, composing a piece of music, contemplating making a picture or sculpture, devising a new dance, new crocheting project, a meal for the family, a piece of furniture – whatever we are making, we see or hear it in our imagination first.

John O’Donohue pictures the world as existing in God’s imagination before things came into being – not just at the very beginning of all things, but constantly, every minute. I find it a wonderfully comforting thought that I existed in God’s imagination before I was born. Not only that, but all the exciting things I might become are already in God’s mind, even if I do not clearly see them in my own just yet.

Does this seem an odd way to look at God? Consider this: in Genesis 1, the Bible says we are created in God’s image. What is the sole characteristic of God we know at that early point? Only that God is creative. Is it any wonder that we humans who bear the divine image are also bursting with creativity?

Does that statement seem far from the truth for you? Then your life is filled with too much activity. Step back; take time; make friends with your soul – and watch the creativity flow.

Love, Honor, Compassion

In my book But I Tell You, Jesus Introduces a Better Way to Live, I translated the Greek word agape as “honor,” to get away from the confusion that the normal English translation of “love” creates.

This is legitimate because the first century – particularly the Greco-Roman world – was an honor culture. You honored your peers and your superiors by how you treated them, and didn’t bother to honor those beneath you or foreigners. To show contempt was a serious business if done to a peer or superior.

Matthew Fox in The Coming of the Cosmic Christ - a thought-provoking book if the very idea of feminine theology doesn’t make you cringe – translates it as “compassion.” By this he doesn’t mean “pity,” as we so often think of the word, but the older, more accurate meaning of “feeling with,” that is, learning to understand another’s thoughts, feelings, dreams – and pain.

I chose “honor” because it was the best way at the time I could understand this concept. But I find now that I like compassion even better.

Listen to how that well-known verse John 3:16 sounds using this new understanding: “God showed his compassion for the world by sending his only son…” Or how about I Corinthians 13:1: “I may speak in the languages of humans and angels. But if I don’t practice compassion, I am a loud gong or a clashing cymbal.”

Pity and sympathy can be of the ego – I can stand at a distance and feel either of those without lifting a finger to help. But true compassion requires that I listen to the other so that I may understand what is needful at the moment.

Jesus told us to love – to have compassion for – our enemies. When we listen to others at the place of their humanity, hatred will melt away of its own accord.

Quakers are taught to “look for that of God in everyone.” That seems like a good way for this compassion to start.

(By the way, you can order my book at this URL: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1594980101/karensquoteoftheA/. End of commercial!)

Choices, Part 3

In my last two entries, I talked about the difference between choice and selection, and how too much selection can actually make life harder for us. My premise for this third and last – for now anyway – entry is that true choice has nothing to do with selection.

Here’s what I mean by true choice. I wake up in the morning and have to go to work, even though I would rather stay home and write.

Well, no.

I don’t have to go to work. I choose to go to work because I want to get paid, and I don’t want to get fired. That’s just my first choice of the day. I don’t include what to have for breakfast or what to wear, because for most of us those are selections – picking one among many.

The next significant choice we make is how we are going to face the day. Will we choose to be happy? Many people believe that circumstances cause happiness or unhappiness, but that is a fallacy for normal day-to-day life. Abraham Lincoln said, “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” He was right.

We choose how we are going to relate to today’s challenges. Will we choose the victim role? Or will we refuse to do that and meet challenges as ways to help us grow?

We also choose how aware we will be. Do we drift through life with our minds somewhere else? De we relive the past, stewing over what can’t be changed? Do we worry about a future that’s not yet here? Or, as many spiritual traditions teach us, do we choose rather to live in the present, noticing what is happening around us and rejoice in that?

Do we choose to grouse and complain or do we take the time to show gratitude for what we have? Do we choose to gossip about those around us – or the latest celebrity – or do we choose to look for the good in those we meet? Do we choose to eat what’s good for us? Do we choose to reduce the amount of natural resources we use?

True choice involves decisions that affect our quality of life, and not ours alone, but those around us, and sometimes even those who share this planet with us.

By the way, if you are interested in quotations about choice, you might want to go to:
http://www.quotelady.com/choices.html

Choices, part 2

Choices, Part 2

In America, we have a huge selection of things to choose among.

When we walk into the grocery story to buy bread, we are faced with an aisle full. Not only are there a dozen or more different brands, but we can select white, wheat, Italian, French, sourdough, oatmeal, seven grain, etc. The bread can come in the form of rolls, buns, round loaves, rectangle loaves, sliced bread, loaves we slice ourselves and on and on.

Want to buy peanut butter for your bread? We have Jif, Skippy, Peter Pan and other national brands, in addition to the store brand. You may opt for the more natural Adams, or shop at a store that has a machine to grind peanuts for you.

What about jelly? Or jam? Or preserves? What flavor do you want? Do you want seeds or not? Do you buy the kind that is only fruit or opt for the less expensive store brand?

This is madness!

My friend Shari, who is an anthropologist, tells me that in Norway, shoppers can choose regular or decaffeinated coffee. Period. One comes in one color bag, and the other in a different color. To many this lack of choice may seem like a strait jacket, but the Norwegians prefer it that way.

Consider this – if we didn’t spend so much time deciding on all manner of really inconsequential things, maybe we would have more time to spend on the really big choices, like life partner, or following our dreams – we might even have the time to sit down, listen to our hearts, and realize what our dreams are. And we might have the energy to do more in the evening than simply veg out in front of the TV.

Let’s put the unimportant in its place and begin to live our lives.

Choices

I’ve been thinking a lot about choice lately. Choice is one of those slippery concepts.

Sometimes we get it confused with the similar word, selection. Those who want to sell us things, present us with a selection. That is, they have chosen which products to sell, and we can then select from among them. People who manufacture items choose what they will make. Then we can select which we will buy. The only real choices we have most of the time are who to buy from (and even then there may be so little difference as to make the choice meaningless) or not to buy at all.

My library, as most now days, has an online library system. We did have a choice as to vendor, limited by what we could afford, I imagine, but now we have to take what the vendor gives us. In thirty seconds I could name half a dozen improvements and changes to the acquisition s subsystem, which I use in my day job.  For most of the things that would make my life easier, we don’t even get a selection, or if we do, we select what is best for our patrons, not worker bees like me. That’s not a complaint, by the way. It is right that we choose what works well for our patrons.

I do best when I have choices. I’m much happier when I can arrange my own work area and set my own agenda for what I get done any particular day. However, I am beginning to realize that all I really have are selections from a small group of tasks. In addition t that, time is controlled very strictly. I can work only a certain number of hours a day, and a certain number of hours a week. There is some, but very little, flexibility in when and where I work. It’s been growing gradually clearer to me that the only real choice I may have, maybe whether to continue to work there or not. I’m thinking hard about where my path will lead after I get my new book finished. I’m not quite sure how this is going to work out just yet.

Being Unpredictable

My library just got in a CD of the Smothers Brothers. For those of you too young to remember, Tom and Dick were a folksong/comedy duo in the 1960s and 1970s. Dick was the straight man, and Tom was the one bringing in the wackiness. I was a big fan when I was younger, and it was good to hear their brand of silliness again.

On one track, Dick was singing “I Talk to the Trees” from Paint Your Wagon. The song goes, “I talk to the trees, but they never listen to me. I talk to the stars but they never hear me.” Tom usually breaks in shortly thereafter, remarking what a silly song it is. After all, why would anyone expect a tree to answer? “Hi stage,” he ends up saying. “You used to be a tree, right?”

There were two tracks of this song on the CD. On the second one, Dick got a few bars in, hesitated, and then said to Tom, “You didn’t come in.” Tom protested that he wasn’t supposed to come in. Dick replied, “I know, but you always interrupt me. Five years we’ve been doing this song, and you always interrupt me. I never finish the song.” Tom’s reaction? A laugh and “My brother never learned the whole song!”

I’ve been thinking about being too predictable, too reliable lately. With responsibilities at work, responsibilities at church, and the writing I do, I have to keep a fairly strict schedule. But I’m starting to feel that I am becoming stuck in the rut of my to-do list. I’m becoming just a little too predicable. I’m not sure I want to be known as dependable old Karen – at least not so much so that everybody takes for granted that I will always be there, always say yes, always do what’s expected. I want to stop being Dick, and be Tom instead – unpredictable and silly, free from my rut, at least for a little while.

Since I consider chocolate one of the four major food groups, let me close with a synopsis of another of the Smothers Brothers routines.

Tom sings, “I fell into a vat of chocolate. I just fell into a vat of chocolate.” Dick sings back, “What did you do when you fell into the chocolate?” After a little more banter back and forth, Tom declares, “I yelled fire when I fell into the chocolate.” “Why did you yell fire? There was no fire.” “I yelled fire because no one would save me if I yelled ‘Chocolate!‘”

May your life be filled with just the right amount of silliness.