Entries Tagged 'Acceptance' ↓

For the past three years, I have been sitting with the idea that it is the questions that are important, not the answers.

Today I realized I have been waiting for an answer about joy and sorrow. I had the question in my heart, is my involvment with the Quaker community my answer to the sorrows that life brings us? Is it THE answer, i.e., just about the only thing that will help balance the sadness of losing loved ones to sickness and tragedy and working in a job market that seems to separate us from our humanity?

What then is my question?
And also, is this a signal that my focus is shifting back towards answers rather than questions?

Then I realize with a laugh that, in the process of exploring this, I have just asked four very important questions.

It is not enough for me to simply place more trust in questions than answers. I think that I must also ASK the RIGHT QUESTIONS.

So then I am exploring whether trying to ask the rights questions just brings me back to an ‘answers’ mindset. How could this be the case? Well, it all depends upon my intentions when I am selecting the ‘right’ questions. If I am trying, in a well meaning way, to ask questions that maybe more likely to achieve a specific desired outcome, then do I understand what that outcome is?

And if that is the case, how shall I value that outcome against other outcomes? If the outcome seems to solve a problem in an area of my life where I have decided I have a lack, then that is one way of prioritizing the outcome.

Do I truly understand which aspect of my life needs work most? When I look at the various parts of my life which I usually feel need work, again the question comes up, how can I fairly and with my highest good in mind choose one area over another? In priorizing and ranking them, do I risk solidifying my thinking too much about something which is constantly changing?

When I sit in silence among my Quaker friends, I often have lots of prayers ready in the front of my mind. They are kind of like a wish list for Santa, although a bit less materialistic. Still, I am noisily (in my mind) asking for specific, tangible, measurable objectives – ha ha! The business mindset creeping into spirituality! If your intention is to sit in expectant silence, is it not just as materialistic to pray for a full time job in a certain field with a certain salary as it is to pray for an Xbox 360?

If this is happening during prayers, and when deciding upon the best questions to ask oneself, then what space does this leave for divine intention to be understood and/or made real in my life?

How can one human being possibly come up with something they want to pray for which serves their higher good better than that which God can come up with? Even if you don’t believe in a god which knows what you need at any given moment, perhaps in your life you’ve sensed some sort of subtle guidance from time to time in the form of seeming coincidences, and you felt that those coincidences had some kind of greater meaning (or, as I felt as an agnostic a few years ago, there were random happenings from which I chose to take meaning for my life, thus leading to some of the same blessings).

This is a tough topic, because we have deadlines, priorities, family needs, personal goals, and lots and lots of obstacles. When these obstacles get especially tricky, sometimes our response can be to become callous, abrupt, thoughtless, cranky, and more.

Christmas season is tough for me anyway, with memories of my mom’s final decline (she died three days after her birthday, on Dec. 28) and doubts about the over-wrought complexity of American-style Christmas. A visit with my family was two years overdue and they were all living in Oregon for the first time in years, so I made travel arrangements to take Jim to meet my dad and stepmom before we get married. I combined some time off that I had saved up, plus company holidays, so that I could be off the last two weeks in December.

The company had planned in January to move me to the Internet group, a better fit for my skills and a way to make me more of a shared resource to all groups. I was excited about the transition and feeling optimistic about the strategic direction this was taking.

Going into Christmas season, one of the kids developed some pretty serious health issues and had to be hospitalized, which worried the whole family. At the same time, my dog Sophy was dealing with a recurring bladder infection and one vet had said we might need to check for bladder cancer. The last week before Christmas, I got some wonderful news on both fronts as both were feeling better and back at home with us – it seemed things were beginning to even out for us and I was full of gratitude.

Seeking to embrace hope, we managed to get the Christmas tree set up, plans went forward for family visits, and we purchased a few gifts.

A few days later, I was laid off from my job because of budget cuts related to the economy. Lots of people have gotten laid off during this economic downturn, but I have never been laid off or fired from a job in my life, so this took me by surprise. I made two decisions that day after filing for unemployment: I wouldn’t let this stop our plans to visit my father and family, and I wouldn’t let this discourage me about my own professional future.

I would have been off the week of Christmas anyway, but my time at home took on an almost feverish urgency as I began to do all I could to make sure my name was “out there” – I got my resume updated on three career sites and began applying for jobs that were suited to my skill set. I started thinking about contract work and freelance email marketing work, and this led me to realize something important: I was out of health insurance coverage. I either had to get COBRA or get added to Jim’s health plan.

Because he and I had planned to marry as soon as we could arrange it, deciding to move up those plans was easy, but figuring out when to fit in a marriage was the hard part. We’d be in Oregon for the last week of 2010 but we needed to do this right away – sort of a “shotgun wedding,” if you will! I did some research, and we ended up getting married in one day before a county clerk in Newport, Oregon, with my dad and stepmom there as witnesses. One I am employed again, we can plan a nice reception here in New Jersey.

The new year has brought with it some signs of hope. I’ve had several job interviews already and I am getting calls every day. I think it won’t be long before I am working again.

These challenges are opportunities for frustration or patience, despondency or hope, anger or humor, and so on. In other words, the important thing is to remain a human being, first and foremost.

I see so many people in New Jersey that are caught up in the grind, working hard and not really happy with their circumstances because the cost of everything keeps them from really having the freedom to explore in their lives. Many residents of the part of New Jersey I live in have families and all their decisions are in support of family needs and activities, understandably.

It’s hard for young people to strike out on their own in this state, because of how late they have to wait for driver’s licenses, the competitive job market, and the cost of rent and gas. They end up staying at home with their parents longer than they had planned, which can cause more frustration.

What I am seeing these days is examples of how people are still striving to be human, and to treat others humanely. They may still have gruff exteriors, but grocery checkers are occasionally unexpectedly kind and considerate, postal workers smile from time to time, bartenders remember my favorite ale flavor, and clerks of small shops still find the time to carry my purchases to my car. In fact, in the last month, a former employer recommended me on LinkedIn, many friends where I worked reached out to me to help me look for work, a family member sat with me in gentle conversation, another family member made us a wedding cake, former coworkers invited me to lunch, a toll booth attendant let me through without paying when I failed to exit in time, and recruiters gave me helpful advice on my resume.  There are so many more examples I could include.

You can get wrapped up in your life circumstances and start asking “why me?” but the fact is, there are examples of grace being offered to me (and you) every day. When others are human with me, it’s an opportunity for me to stop, take a breath, and reset my emotional condition. Chances are, I wasn’t being human with myself. Maybe I was judging myself, trying to push myself too hard, or commit other unkindnesses. This just makes me frustrated and cranky with others, too.

A very wise man told me once to give myself more grace because we are all imperfect. Through his example, he taught me to keep placing myself back on my intended path even after I mess up. I don’t really want to be perfect – what I really want is to be human.

My mom died at the end of 2006, just after her 60th birthday. She died of a rare kind of small intestine cancer, but actually she died of kidney failure as a result of starvation after her innards refused to pass food for a while. She died in the manner she chose; no feeding tubes, IV lines or other heroic measures; the DNR (do not resuscitate order) was signed and posted on the side of the refrigerator. At the very end, she was living on oxygen, whipped cream and morphine.

I find that her journey, and the role I played in it, have colored my relationships with all the people I care about. I began to ask myself, how would I respond to my loved ones’ choices about what they want out of life? When should I sit quietly and try to just be a good companion and when should I take an active role in trying to bring about healing? It is so hard to watch people suffer and not do something, and yet there are times when there really is nothing we can do.

One of the hardest things I had to learn with Mom was how to just be there for her while she went about the process of dying. I wanted to FIX her, I wanted to SOLVE something that had gone so terribly wrong. She couldn’t take in food, something was blocking the way, I had to find a solution…and then again, I couldn’t. I read piles of books and scanned Web sites looking for answers; I mentally checked off a list of things that could be done for her to make sure nothing was forgotten. The surgeon had done what he could. The hospital did what it could. Her regular doctor visited her home and did what he could. They were in charge of cutting, medicine, therapies. What role did that leave me, the untrained and unprepared daughter?

Deep in my bitterness, I realized I could stand there and wring my hands, I could watch her puke and waste, I could try again and again to serve her food and drinks that might, this time, make it all the way through to nourish her body. And yet that was the only role I could have – it was uniquely mine, as her daughter. She didn’t seem concerned about what could be done for her; she seemed to accept the situation as it was in each moment. When I finally confessed to her that I didn’t know how to help, that I wanted to be of service but didn’t know what to do, she smiled and said just by being there with her, I was helping. I did precious little during my visits with her that year; and yet she said how grateful she was that I did so much. Mostly I tried not to scream and cry and tear out my hair every minute of every day that I witnessed her being squeezed dry by this relentless cancer that had her in its grasp. Meanwhile she said gentle words to me and squeezed my hand.

Now someone close to me wants to be skinny so badly that she has eaten almost nothing in the last two weeks. She ended up at the emergency room with dehydration and signs of kidney stress. For a completely different reason, she had been eating almost nothing; and yet it felt to me the same. If you give up on food; if you tell your body that it doesn’t need food, eventually it will believe you and you won’t be able to feed it any longer. I don’t know at what point this happens, but the very thought scares me so much. Here I am again, standing by helplessly, once again in a minor role of providing occasional comfort. I know better than to think that I can FIX this. Healing can happen, but it has to come from her and won’t be instantaneous. But why would she take her life so lightly that she could risk it this way? How could someone so beautiful to me think of herself as anything less than?

Still, as I try to settle in to wait, I wonder if this is the same situation or not. Before, Mom was clearly dying and had come to terms with that. In that case, I rightly accepted her choice and helped her stay comfortable. In this case, this young lady is not my daughter and I have no decision making responsibility for her. I must accept that this is true too. My prayer is to gradually understand how I may help with this; not from arrogance or false desperation, but from a true desire to be of service if my service is beneficial in some way. To feel this way, and be standing outside looking in, is the most painful thing I have ever experienced. This is life – there are so many things we are unable to change, such as illness and death; other people’s minds, the laws of our society, who our bosses are, and the weather.

My personal challenge is to find a way to accept those things and do what I can without succumbing to the temptation to give up and run off. That’s the faulty logic that if I can’t fix it, then I am going to get as far away from it as I can so that I might ignore it. But I  cannot ever escape my own desire to make something better melded with my knowledge that there is very little I can actually do. That will follow me everywhere I go, because it’s embedded in my personality, my soul, my life’s path. I will encounter these helpless situations again and again as people and creatures I love suffer hurts and illnesses; what then is my role, and how will I be content with it?