Worldwide Stew

Go to Your Room

I suspect my Mom wasn’t the only parent who responded to her children’s loud disagreements and fighting by telling us to go to our rooms.

It was good advice. When we get caught up in fight (part of the fight, flight, faint network), the chemicals coursing through our bodies want to defend ourselves from fear of shame, embarrassment, and , occasionally, physical injury.

Often, the most mindful way of navigating our fear, anger, and doubt is to separate ourselves from the circumstances. This is especially true if we can learn to be aware of arousal. Awareness can be our Earkly Warning System! It gives us space to rewrite the story we’re telling ourselves. Usually, that’s the problem: the story that’s taken residence in our mind. They’re taking advantage of us. They don’t value my feelings. They always treat me this way.

And then they came for me

Pastor Martin Niemöller did what many Christians did when they saw the Third Reich systematically remove the rights of selected populations. Group by group, Hitler and his hinchmen took away the rights 1) of the press, 2) of educational institutions and their professors, 3) of races, 4) the mentally ill, 5) of dissidents, and of other groups.

Like all good religious people, he said nothing.

Then they came for him.

And then they came for me

Distractions, attention, and focus

It was a beautiful winter night to take our dog out for a walk. Looking toward the west I saw the planetary alignment my wife had told me about earlier that day. I immediately pulled out my phone to capture a picture. But, the picture didn’t look just right. So, I opened a browser window to see what settings to adjust for night shots. I must have messed with my phone settings for ten minutes before the ridiculousness of the situation dawned on me.

Beliefs Worth Examining

What would your belief system - your religion and politics, for example - have to do to cause you to reject it? It’s a question for our ideology-driven times.

Decades ago I believed in almost every facet of the Christian Nationalist dream, including their beliefs about sexuality. I ignored the human experience, following ideology instead. Then, as a chaplain in training, I sat by a gay man who lost his partner moments before. His racking sobs revealed his overwhelming grief. Wait, I thought. He really loved his partner. This relationship wasn’t the perversion I was told it was. There was more love in that room than in my own “straight” marriage. It was love. Pure love. It was the beginning of the collapse of my walls of belief about human sexuality. My former beliefs still cast long shadows.