Community

When I was in high school, I was a part of a very close and vibrant church family. My mum required me to go to church but she didn't specify which one, so I chose one where several of my high-school friends were members. I found a wonderful family there; I felt valued and included, rare commodities for a teen-aged girl. That church and its youth group formed a safety net for me and became the whole of my social life.

I moved away from that sleepy city after graduation from high school, moved away from Christianity a few years later, and more recently moved away from organized religion altogether. I have too many issues with specific theological points to swallow the pretty fairy-tales, not to mention the rampant hubris and blatant arrogance of religions when they invariably make the claim that they are the ONLY one way to God, and everyone else is wrong. Only frail, weak, stupid humans could make up a story like that.

I don't miss my faith. I am fine with the framework of beliefs I have created through the destructive process of testing every belief and tearing it down if it did not hold weight. I am left with a rather minimalist view of God, and He and I are okay with that.

What I do miss, though, is the sense of belonging that comes with attending a church. A community of people who all hold the same beliefs is a powerful force, and I have effectively painted myself out of that warm glow. I have a neighbor across the street who is quite active in the JW community, and every Saturday when nicely-dressed people pull up in their cars and come into his house for post-church coffee and fellowship, I am envious and lonely for that type of interaction.

My mum feels this, too. She, like me, is post-religion yet longing for community. We discussed going to church anyhow, but in order to be truly accepted into a church family, they need to get to know us... and our lack of belief would eventually betray us.

In an era where families are geographically peppered throughout the globe, organized religion has failed so many of us, and technology seems to isolate us even further, where does one turn to find a sense of community?

A Morning's Meditation

The background noise in my life has risen to deafening heights over the last few months. It's been such a slow progression, I didn't consciously notice, but over the last two weeks I couldn't ignore it anymore. Family, stepdaughters, school, work and other forces added to the general din until I could barely think.

I have no school classes on Wednesdays, so decided to treat myself to some yoga. A year or so ago I was going to yoga two or three times a week, but it eventually caused me pain in my hips so I quit. (I'm an all-or-nothing kinda gal; the thought of simply scaling back didn't occur to me at the time.) This morning, though, it seemed the right thing to do, and truth be told, the studio had beckoned me for some time.

It wasn't the right thing to do; it was the perfect thing to do. I turned off the smartphone that had only added to my interior noise, slipped off my shoes, unrolled my mat, and spent some precious time just being in my body. Stretching. Breathing. Being. During the final meditation, the savasana, I silently cried, so delighted to have connected with my self and my soul in such a vital manner. I felt washed clean and ready for the day.

I can see a great deal of yoga in my future as I seek balance and peace in the eye of the hurricane.

Today, In the Garden

Dinner on the patio was perfect this evening; the weather complied beautifully and I had a wonderfully mindless book to indulge in while I ate. The breeze was gentle, yet the movement of a single hair on my arm made me look down.

There, perched on legs seemingly finer than my hair, was a tiny baby spider. All gawky, spindled legs and hardly any body to speak of, he flew in on the breeze and landed on my arm. Curious, I watched as he did a cursory exploration of the moonscape of my arm. After seconds, it stood still and raised his tiny body away from his legs and into the wind. Although I couldn't see the silk, he was exuding his next parachute. Sure enough, soon he achieved lift and rose from my arm.

The gently breeze caught the silk thrown to it and lifted the little spider above the fence in seconds. I watched him until he was invisible to me.

That tiny little spider, who had a body about as long as the points of three pins lined up and a brain correspondingly small, had landed in an environment that was hostile to its growth. It sussed that out in 10 seconds flat, and literally threw his body to the wind and God, trusting that a softer, more hospitable landing lay somewhere within his reach.

How can a tiny baby spider already know what we humans spend our whole lives trying to understand?

Can't Prove it By the Poppies

Here it is, mid-November, but my front garden is seemingly unaware of the fact. These pictures were taken about a half-hour ago.

This is my first year growing poppies and I am utterly charmed by how fragile they appear, yet how hardy they actually are. Every night I sit out on the front stoop for a bit, taking in the air and clearing my head before turning in for the night. There have been nights when the grass was crispy and a cautious poke at the poppy petals revealed them to be frozen solid; as delicate (I would imagine) as a glass potato chip. However, the morning dawns and they raise their cheery little heads and sing once more.

Thank you, God, for poppies. I hope to grow up to be one.

He Gets Me

Things have been a little dodgy with my husband and I for a week or so. I, as usual, opened my over-sized mouth and uttered a comment or three that should have remained unspoken... he, as usual, got all distant, quiet and broody while maintaining that everything was just fine.

We spent a quiet weekend together, eyeing each other warily from across rooms. Saturday night, after a busy day, we went for a long walk together, and in the isolation of the still night air of the last day of spring, poured out our hearts to one another in the messy, slightly confrontational, yet healing way that we have discovered solves our blockages of communication. We (gently, somehow) stomp, posture, accuse, and eventually come around to understand each other... and more importantly, we become ready to admit that we understand each other.

My last thread of rebellion and stubborness melted when he took my face in his hands, looked deep in my eyes, and said, "I get you, you know."

And he does. All my quirks, complications, baggage, moods and foibles. He gets me.

Somehow, this is bigger than the fact that he loves me. It is possible to love someone without understanding them... but infinitely better and more meaningful when someone sees you in all your imperfections, understands you better then you do yourself at times, and still loves you.

I am truly blessed to have him in my life.

The Eternal "Why?"

A very dear friend of mine was seriously injured in a hockey game a little over a week ago. This brave, spirited, generous and kind man, who served his country unflinchingly, taught little kids to have respect for themselves and others on the hockey rink and soccer pitch, and who served in his community as a volunteer fire-fighter, has suffered a spinal cord injury and has no feeling from the neck down.

It's in the process of breaking my heart. Why him?

I know it's all random, this fun roller-coaster called life, but why does life seem to save up these awful experiences for the truly good people?

Hardest Thing To Do

I'm a worrier. I work through every single possibility that might happen in a given circumstance, and dread each wrong turn, each mis-step. I know by now that in the vast majority of cases, the things I imagine don't happen, and that real life isn't nearly as terrifying as the things I have cooked up in my head, but I still can't help trying to anticipate everything that happens.

I noticed this weekend that I try to do that on the dance floor, too. As the female, it's my job to remain expectant yet responsive. I never know which way the man will spin me or turn me on the floor, so I must be ready to move in any direction at any time. However, my thinking self, which pretty much always rules the roost, starts taking over and anticipating what will happen. This usually leaves me off-balance for what actually does happen; unprepared and ungraceful in transition. When I manage to clobber my racing mind into submission and just be in the moment, I am one with my partner, one with the dance, one with life.

Isn't this a precept of Zen Buddhism, too? To let go of expectations and flow from moment to moment. It sounds so easy; yet for me, it's the hardest thing to do.

Half Full or Half Empty?

It would be easy to get a little scared of where we as a North American* society is going. Ever-increasing fuel prices and the promise of rising food prices are just two of the headline stories that have loomed overhead for the past few months. Combine that with the US economy and real estate market dropping, and the anticipation that Canada's markets may not be far behind, and there seems to be legitimate grounds for worry about what the future will bring.

That's if you're a glass-half-empty kind of person. If you're a glass-half-full, you are excited. Here's why I am.

It's no secret that the current, automobile-driven (no pun intended) way of life that has dominated North American society for the last few decades is completely unsustainable. From an environmentalist view, cars and their manufacturing process are responsible for rampant pollution. The roads they drive on ruin natural habitats and suck natural resources. From an economic standpoint, we throw away thousands of dollars a year on maintenance, fuel, and taxes to pay for roads. From a time perspective, millions of man-hours are lost in the everyday morning commute from the 'burbs to the office.

From an urbanist's perspective (Jane Jacobs, in specific,) suburban sprawl, which is only made possible by the overwhelming ownership of personal vehicles, murders communities and wastes land, time, and energy. From a health perspective, the ability to drive everywhere has robbed us of fitness and made our society overwhelmingly obese. The automobile is also partially responsible for the rise of diabetes, in that fast food chains have flourished because they have become so very easily accessible.

So we lose time, money, health, a sense of community, and damage our earth in various ways when we bow in homage to the almighty automobile. Ask yourself who wins. The answer is always the same... Big Business. As long as there is a profit to be made selling cars, they will be made. As long as the government serves as a marionette, with the industry and unions (CAW, anyone?) holding the strings, they will not begin to make the kinds of changes that are necessary. And until government (at municipal as well as provincial and federal levels) starts making changes, there is not much incentive to make the average person park their car and find a better way.

What kinds of changes need to be made is the next big question that everyone should be thinking long and hard about.

There's electric bikes... how cool are these? Or there is always the time-honoured bicycle. What about car-pooling, or even carsharing?

I see these gaps in alternatives as an opportunity, and I'm not alone. I posted a while back on my experiments with hypermiling, a concept I heard about on the pages of Wired magazine. This week it made headlines on CBC.ca ... the concept is catching on. (Incidentally, I've dropped from ~11.3 litres per kilometer to less than 10 lpk (what an unwieldy measurement) in my experiments... and I suspect there's lots of room for improvement.)

The point is that there's plenty of options to the solo-commuter car. Some are less convenient and practical, but eventually, government at all levels will need to step in to help its citizens to find compromises that most can live with. Better mass transit, more bike lanes, less urban sprawl, communities designed around walking, not cars. Answers to the transportation questions to be found when our backs are hard enough against the wall. If they're not now, they will be.

The same can and will happen for food, manufacturing, and other key industries. When the economy makes what we do or how they do it unviable, we will change. We will become more efficient, less wasteful, more respectful of limited resources, and more community-oriented. Despite the fact that rising prices forced our hand, I can't see these as bad things.

Margaret Mead says it best. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

We are that small group of thoughtful citizens. Let's recognize that change is very much in our hands... within our families, within our communities, and eventually within our country. The dramatic news stories that threaten doom and gloom ought to serve as a wake-up call, and a hand gently guiding us to solutions implemented not nationally, but starting in our own homes. We have created these problems and we can surmount them.


*North America, for the purposes of this article, is the USA and Canada.

Have You Seen...?

I saw an ad last night on TV that advocated wholesome old-fashioned values such as passing on your skills to younger generations. The long commercial was by an organization called the Foundation for A Better Life. This site, and its' sister site The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation is really offering a message I can get behind, but I can't help being a little suspicious. I've been lulled into warm cozy feelings by other ad campaigns, only to realize it was some churchy thing in the end. However, this appears to be non-religious in nature. What do you think?

I have nothing against churches or religion. I just don't like deceptive, underhanded, sneaky proselytization. Or any proselytization, come to think of it. I respect utterly your right to practice your religion, whatever it is, as long as you don't harm others in its practice. But don't assume some moral superiority because you know that yours is The One True Religion and take it upon yourself to save us all. We're fine. God will take care of all His children, and I do mean all.

Fall Where They May

This has been an amazing couple of weeks for me. I don't quite know how to explain all the things that are going on and how I feel about it all!

I've had a lot of plans for a long time. Plans to leave my current job, plans to go to university, plans to work in textile arts. These were all vague goals I was working towards.

This seems to be "rubber hits the road" month. I am in the process of making each of these goals a reality. The years of dreaming and planning are over, and now it the time for doing. The paperwork for the medical release (!) is flying fast and furious, I have completed my application for university and am just awaiting a final transcript and a decision, and I have applied and interviewed for a part-time job involving textile arts (!!)

I ought to be scared witless, what with the prospect of losing my job and such major life-changes hovering over me, but I am giddy. Intoxicated.

There is something transcendent about this pause. I am a dancer who has thrown several sparkling glass balls in the air, and am exultantly suspended in the moment before they first start to descend. I don't know which ball will drop first, or even if I'll catch all or any of them... but it's okay. Whatever happens, it's okay.

This is a perfect moment, where everything is possible.

Joy, Unexpected

With the abnormally warm temperatures and deep banks of snow, my little corner of Ottawa is muffled in a thick fog. I can barely see the houses across the street.

While out running errands, I stepped out of a store and was taken away. The smell, the warmth, the fog and the damp transported me back to the West Coast, where my heart resides. I smiled, buoyed by the familiarity and welcome. It felt like anything was possible.

This little moment of joy was the last thing I expected from the fog. Thank you, God.