Category Archives: Connecting with others

Mimsy thoughts while editing my email address book

One of the things I feel driven to do, at work or at home, is render order from chaos until something deep within me answers “Yes, it is now good.”  This is why I found myself, on a rare day off on the 4th of July, editing the duplicates out of my Gmail address book and adding my Apple contacts into that and eliminating the duplicates.

I love clean data. It allows you to have faith as you charge forth and generate charts for impatient bosses, or do hurried searches for your skin doctor, or look up the phone and address of your little brother who lives in Portland and is about to get married. Perhaps it is this imminent marriage of my 8-years-younger brother Alfredo which has me thinking in a mimsy way while editing my address book.

I love clean data and structure, but I also love the people whose names were flying by under my gaze. As I watched diligently for those names that were to go under the “Business” heading, I could not help but see the names of the people with whom I’d shared part of my life.

Start with those no longer with us, whose names I left in my address book for memory’s sake:

Louise Dale, mother, born in 1946, died in 2006 of cancer. Visionary, empath, kind soul to those who hurt and strive. Funeral included native American drumming and the presentation of an eagle feather to one undeserving daughter, the vicarious, accidental beneficiary of the joys of a life lived full of heart.

Jeanne Marcoux, grandmother, born in 1913, died in 2008 because she didn’t really want to outlive her daughter. Warned us for years that she would check out, and then did so after a nice breakfast in her favorite easy chair. Left me enough money to move my new family out of squalor and buy me an iPad which I stubbornly cling to, because it came from Grandma. Devotee to the digestive systems of all her daughters, granddaughter and grandson. Fudge and quilt maker extraordinaire. She did not understand her daughter’s death at age 60.

As I read and edited, I deleted the names of people whom I’d met a long time ago and, for whatever reason, with whom I had not kindled a friendship. It was with a sigh of regret for each person, though barely remembered. I knew I must have had at least one meaningful connection with them, to have put them in my address book. Like those unread books filling my bookshelves, I had hoped to eventually fill my days with their potential companionship. But now I know – time is limited and life is scant. Delete.

No one was deleted because I hate them now. That is no longer how I operate. Human beings are full of flaws and challenges. There is no room for contempt and no time for blocking out a potential meaningful contact.

Although I have plenty of confusion about the pain and sadness that still follows me, and bitterness does crop up, I am actively saying no to that way of thinking.

Reading through the names, I rekindled a profound sense of gratitude and warmth at some people who aren’t immediate family, but who nonetheless played an important role in my life. Here is a small sampling of a very large list of caring individuals:

The fellow editor from Tulsa who escaped to Florida after being a balm to my hurts as my mother slowly died. “That’s some shit,” she would say after listening. “Come over and I’ll get you drunk.”

The best, and longest-held friend I ever had, who I met when we were both age 4 (we are one month apart in age), who after so many twists and turns of our lives carried us along separate paths, showed up with her baby and husband at my mother’s funeral.

The fellow editor from Washington who I met at a scholarly society meeting, and who inspired me to understand what I needed now that my mother had died.

The cheery woman who greeted me in an online world where I was still a stranger and welcomed me with open arms, helping me understand how Second Life can embrace a lonely person.

The creative and welcoming man who encouraged others to play and create with him in Second Life, and who listened with genuine sympathy to my troubles.

The quirky boss I had at LexisNexus who taught me how to make a website show up higher in Google, and how to explain that to customers and negotiate in any situation.

The sweet young woman who I was friends with in junior college and who almost fell out of our friend’s truck when the door gave way unexpectedly, but without thinking I yanked her back in and shut the door.

A fellow college newspaper editor, a self-described hick who was funny and warm, who stood guard over me in the campus parking lot with a flashlight while I changed my car’s water pump (insisted on dong it myself, too, and he respected that).

The older couple I met at a small Quaker meeting, who did more to settle my heart and draw me into a new spiritual community than all the religious texts and other churches I had visited.

The Jewish friend who, with her lovely husband takes me to New York some Sundays, to visit museums and eat good food, or just to hang at her house and have inspired cheeses and wines and good conversations.

The kind doctor of physics who loves good beer as much as I do, played Dungeons & Dragons, and talks engagingly about science fiction.

Thank you all, and I hope you are part of my life for a long time to come.

 

 

 

 

Collaborating with your family using social sites

Our family is totally digitally connected. To wit:

  • We have high-speed (N class) wifi throughout the house and a digital telephone line and all six of us can be streaming at the same time with very little slowdown. This is such an important feature of our home that after Hurricane Sandy blew through and we had endured 10 days without power and 12 days without heat, the first question from the kids was “is the wifi back on?”
  • In this house, we have the following functional technology: five Apple computers, one gaming PC, two iPads, one Kindle Fire, four iPhones and one iPod, an Airport Extreme and two Apple TVs. There are also two cheapie phones.
  • Every person in this household has at one time had a WordPress-themed blog on our own domains.
  • Every person in this household knows what cloud computing is and how to use Google Drive.
  • Every person in this household has been in Second life, a 3-D virtual world.

After saying this, it’s with a bit of shame that I admit to you that we STILL can’t keep track of each other’s schedules, what’s needed at the grocery store, and who fed the pets.

Jim and I are productivity tool hounds and we religiously use such apps as Evernote, Dropbox, Remember the Milk, OneNote, IFTTT (If This Then That) and dozens of others. We have long conversations about the things you can do with the various services. Cross-posting to social networks? Yep. Saving Google Reader articles to Instapaper? You bet.

How are families sharing information using shared apps, social sites and other tools?

What platforms would these tools need to be present on? IOS apps, PC and Mac app downloads, web access?

What are the tools that work? Family checklists and shared notebooks including Evernote and ….?

Cool ideas?
What’s for dinner and when
Plans to go out to eat
grocery list
recipes
Chore reminders
Individual calendars including work schedules for those with jobs
Pet care daily checklist
Shareable videos and photos
Links to great articles and essays
Shared music and art
Plug-ins, apps and tabs
Family game stats
Email and SMS reminders, event invites
Family-only online games

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Reason and passion (and appreciating point of view)

There are some learning experiences that are inspired by interactions within Second Life groups. I belong to a group called Play as Being, which gets together in Bieup to discuss things like meditation, mindfulness, the self, and play. Over time, we have evolved an inclusive method for discussion that helps all participants to be understood and appreciated.

It’s a gentle way to communicate, and especially well-suited to a virtual environment where we cannot see on anothers’ real life faces and so we must make an effort to show positive sentiment in our written chats.

In a Yahoo Group email list, we began to discuss an article written by one of our members, who is known as Bleu.

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge342.html

Edge Seminar speaker Jonathan Haidt explored:

Why are humans so bad at reasoning in some contexts and good at reasoning in other contexts?

“Reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments. That’s why they call it The Argumentative Theory of Reasoning,” Haidt said.

Another friend responded with this exploration of reason and passion (Hume was one of my required readings a long time ago in college):

“That reminds me of Hume’s argument that ‘reason is and ought only to be the
slave of the passions.’

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotions-17th18th/LD8Hume.html#ReaOugOnlSlaPas

To this, our group founder and leader, who goes by Pema Pera in Second Life, related Play as Being’s way of gently exploring issues. He said:

“Once we realize that reasoning is mostly arguing,
a way to consolidate your already existing opinions,
we can discern different ways of doing so.

“The simplest way to reason/argue, is to confront
someone else saying ‘I disagree.’ Here is an example:

“A: I think X.

“B: I disagree. I think Y.

“Clearly, that’s neither very helpful, nor very pleasant.
Chances are than immediately both sides harden their
position, drawing battle lines, and defending X and Y.

“The PaB way of reasoning, as it developed very quickly
and is still developing, is more along the lines of:

“A: I think X.

“[ B thinking: X??? How odd, I’m pretty sure it is Y !!!
how interesting that a nice person like A can have such
a strange idea — I want to know more about that ]

“B: can you say more?

“A: … (saying more) …

“[ B thinking: aha, now I have more of an idea where A is
coming from and the context for thinking X. But let me
make sure I understand, before comparing with my ideas ]

“B: ah, how interesting. So you think X, because of …
(this and that) …

“A: yes, but not quite like that, more like … (such and
such) …

“[ B thinking: okay, that is very helpful, now I have a
more clear picture — though I still think that Y may
be more correct. Let’s see whether we can figure out
our differences. ]

“B: I see. That helps me to understand why you think X.
I myself had thought Y, but I may have to reconsider.
My main argument for Y, rather than X was … (gives
argument) … How does that fit in with your picture?

“At this point, A happily can extend the picture already
sketched and shared, in order to point out how A sees
things differently from B, and they both can walk around
the issue, looking from different angles, while together
finding new vistas.

“Initially, I had not clearly realized that this had become
the PaB way of reasoning by playfully ‘comparing notes’.
It only became clear when we had a few visitors joining us
for a while who were not operating in that mode. Their
much more jarring way of reasoning (like in many academic
forums, or political forums) was very helpful to bring out,
in contrast, what it is that we are all sharing here.”

Being Human, First and Foremost

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.

The milling exercise: good for families?

I’m reading this book about anger called “The Cow in the Parking Lot – A Zen Approach to Overcoming Anger” and it’s written by a lawyer, Leonard Scheff (with Susan Edmiston) who felt that the Zen talks on anger sort of miss the mark with most Americans and he needed to explain it in a way most of us could grasp it.

In case you’re wondering, the cow in the parking lot stands for a way to visualize the person who just cut you off to take the parking space you had been waiting for. If you imagine it’s just a cow, and that cow had come to that spot every day for 3 years for a nap, your reaction might not be as angry. It’s all about the expectations.

The milling exercise he mentions is about how your anticipation of a good or bad interaction can cloud your perception of it during the interaction. I was thinking this is a great exercise for families, although he just describes doing it in workshops. In our family, sometimes what seems to be going wrong is more about family members’ perceptions of how others will treat them. This exercise helps you become more aware of the power of your expectations:

Step One: Everyone closes their eyes (no peeking) and mills about in a room that’s safe, with no sharp corners, etc. If you bump into someone, just set yourself another course and keep moving.  Do this for about 5 minutes. Afterwards, talk about how you felt.

Step Two: Everyone should imagine that the other people are toxic and that they will get hurt if they come into contact with them. Then close your eyes and mill about just as in Step One for 5 minutes. Afterwards, talk about how you felt.

Step Three: Everyone should imagine that the other people are kind and loving and warm and that they will be happier if they come into contact with the others. Then close your eyes and mill about for 5 minutes. Afterwards, talk about how you felt.

In Step Two, did you notice more stress? Did you imagine someone had bad intentions towards you, or even malice? Did you feel fear or  annoyance? In Step Three, were your nerves soothed? Did you find yourself smiling if you brushed someone’s arm?

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Sylvie Dale

You too can make one of these Facebook badges. It’s easy and a great way to reach out to others who haven’t met up with you on Facebook yet. Here’s how:

1. Log into your Facebook account (hint: if you’re trying to get the word out about your business, it’s a great idea to create a Facebook account that’s just for your business. That way if someone “friends” you from your Web site, they don’t accidentally get to see your summer beach photos.)
2. View your profile by clicking “Profile” from the top bar.
3. Scroll down and look for the link on the bottom of the left side of the page – Create a Profile Badge” – or just go to http://www.facebook.com/badges.php.
4. Click on the gray “create a new badge” button from the top right.
5. Choose whether you’d like this to show as a horizontal badge or a vertical badge. I recommend horizontal if you want to place this in the center portion of your Web page.
6. Choose which items you’d like to include. By default, you get your profile picture, your name, your email address, and your status update. You can “remove” each of these by clicking the link to the right of each item. You can add to these by clicking “add item”.
7. When you are happy with it, click “save”
8. You’ll see a view of your updated badge, which Facebook will save for you. To put this badge on your Web site or blog, just copy the HTML from this page, start a new blog entry, and click over the the HTML editing view, and paste the HTML into your blog entry, then click “save” and/or “publish”. If someone is helping you make Web site updates, just send them this copied HTML in an email.

An update on Sylectra’s life

I just returned from a wonderful experience at the Gathering of Circles, a camping and fellowship event held every year in Cloudcroft, New Mexico. The give away ceremony at the Gathering of CirclesMy mom attended it for years and she was well known by everyone I visited with there. I also got to meet Carol WhiteWater Dawn, a medicine woman, mystic, and all around wise and wonderful lady. Mom had said many many wonderful things about her but they didn’t hold a candle to her personal presence. She looked calmly and directly into my spirit when Dave took me to meet her; she was totally focused on what I said (which wasn’t a lot because I was hoping to listen more than talk). I looked at her Web site and I was very interested in the fact that she quotes from so many spiritual teachings of different kinds. Obviously she is a versatile and intelligent thinker.

I’m still volunteering (helping with meetings and the wiki) with a discussion group in the 3D virtual world Second Life called Play as Being. It talks about exploring the nature of reality and perception using various multidisciplinary practices like meditation, prayer, etc. It brings together the most wonderful and diverse people to discuss things in a very open minded way.

In fact, my help and involvement with the Play as Being group may grow and my life is being enriched as a result of it. I am passionate about Second Life because I think the Internet is going to become a 3D environment before too long – maybe as soon as five years. The leader of the PaB group works at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, and I am flying out to meet him and some of the other volunteers this week to have a day of discussions on the group’s possible transformation into something bigger. I am so excited!

In addition, I invested in myself by booking travel and attendance at the Second Life Community Convention in Tampa the first week of September. I will meet many of the people I have been privileged to know in-world. I hope to learn a lot about education and business in Second Life. I am also in touch with another group, Metanomics, that runs discussions in Second Life about the economics of running a business based in a 3D virtual world. One member of this group, Beyers Sellers, is going to present during the educational session.

In my SEG job, I am working with the different departments (we call them ‘business owners’) to get changes made to their pages. The part of the site where we have total control is the News page. We also do an e-mail newsletter called the SEG Extra and help others edit and send out their newsletters too. We’re getting ready to change to a more versatile e-mail vendor and install some social networking tools on our site. Workflows are being built so that staff members can help enter new content and changes to content; the workflows help the review process happen seamlessly and efficiently.

So you could say I practically live online and you’d be right. But I did so enjoy the recent chance to be again in my favorite forest (Cloudcroft) with the lovely breezes and the rain and the nice firm earth. The people at GoC were so welcoming and kind, I felt right at home. I worried about being able to measure up to my mother’s legacy but decided it was impossible even to try. Luckily everyone seems to accept me on different terms than those they knew with Lou Dale. My first name means girl of the forest, by the way, which is ironic since I grew up in the deserts of El Paso, Texas.

One of the great things about the Gathering of Circles is their respectful use of rituals and ceremonies with Native American elements. These include sweat lodges, dances, drum circles, a womens’ bundle ceremony, feasts, and the give away ceremony. The give away ceremony allows participants to give away something that once was important to them and now they are ready to let go of. Many symbolic and emotional objects are given away in this manner. The items are placed in plain wrappers like paper bags, and laid on a blanket in the center of the circle of participants. There was a fire going near the blanket at this one. One by one, participants went to the center, talked about their Gathering of Circles experience thus far (optional), and selected an item. The person who gave the item came up and explained what it meant and why they let it go. There are a lot of really personal and wonderful sentiments shared during this ceremony and talk is formally controlled by the passing of a significant object indicating whose turn it is to talk, such as a walking stick in this case.

I talked about how Mom’s journey into the next world worked a peculiar kind of magic with me. I resolved early in 2005 to really be there when I was with Mom, and not to miss a moment of the experience, no matter how painful it was to witness such a beautiful lady suffering. I flew back and forth often to her home throughout 2005 and 2006 as we went through various stages of the process. We knew it was probably over in October 2006 but she was so brave about the whole thing. She did acts of service for others and was a warm and comforting presence at a time of great uncertainly for her. I did what I could to be her emotional support, although to tell you the truth, it was probably the other way around more of the time. When she died, we knew that she had chosen the time that was optimal for her. She gave a speech at her Christmas feast (on her birthday) and then quietly passed away in the morning two days later, after I had flown back to Tulsa. I dreamed of her several times, knowing in the dream that she was on the other side.

My husband’s father was sick with COPD and cancer in 2006 and died in Oct. 2007. He also was brave and unselfish about his journey, and I have dreamed of him, too.

Anyway, I sort of took a year off from feeling anything from about April 2007 through March 2008. Then I woke up. I suddenly realized the lesson from Mom – it’s time to LIVE and make those dreams happen NOW, not when it’s too late. I have so many things I still want to do before I die. I need to get started right this instant. And I have. I dove into making connections – personal and fulfilling friendships with others, including on Second Life. I started volunteering with Play as Being, and learning all I could about furthering the Web 2.0 stuff for my company’s web site and for other web sites. I realized I had put off plans to travel more and see the people I loved, because my husband had quit work to help care for his dad and start a business. I knew that my journey would take me out of Tulsa and to parts unknown, and that it was going to be an adventure but I would need my income to be more in the service of that. I want to go to India in less than 5 years, etc. We decided to split up amicably and are in the process of separating accounts, paying off debts, etc.

Though I have some sadness and certainly some loneliness, my life is taking off and I love the mystery of it all. I am already living part of my dream – traveling and getting to see people I care about more often, and nurturing my career path with attendance at conventions and seminars that interest me.

On lighter burdens and connecting

This post fits within the context of becoming more connected to others.

I feel like I am living so many days packed into each one now. I had no idea when I began writing about it that the act of writing about my experiences would show me how much I am actually living my life and spur me to have more experiences. Here is an experience I had with a little church in Menard, Texas.

I went to an Orthodox church with my stepmom Lisa in Menard, Texas, a totally unexpected experience from beginning to end. We picked up Mike on the way – a friend and fellow churchgoer from Eden who had had a stroke and recently lost his wife. Nice fellow – old rancher. It was a bit of a drive to Menard, and when we got there the church turned out to be a little white building no larger than a cabin. Several people of hispanic descent wore white robes and greeted us at the door. They turned out to be mostly of one extended family, and there was a comfortable easy familiarity in scene.

A warm and bubbly lady sat behind us – her name was Lisa too. She mentioned that she’d lived in the Chama NM area and wished us a lovely time. She was very touchy and huggy and I warmed to her right away. She put her hand on my shoulder before she’d even met me. Her look was of pleasant expectation that I would be introduced to her so she could begin to know my story. I would have liked to get to know her better.

We had these plastic binders with the various prayers and observances as our guide. Nowhere was there a list of people who help officiate the service. I forgot the pastor’s name almost as soon as he was introduced to me, but not his bearing. Bear is the right word – he was big and round and still rather powerful in his energy levels. Maybe mid 40s? some gray in his beard. Black hair – hispanic like many of the others. Twinkle in his eye, informal manner, plain spoken like the people in this area but thank goodness not dogmatic and holier-than-thou.

The congregation consisted of maybe 20 people scattered among 50 old-fashioned theater-style wooden folding chairs. The hispanic ladies wore the most wonderful silver jewelry that gleamed on their golden tan skin, big silver hoops, bracelets, rings, silver concho belts, and their hair was long and full, cascading across their shoulders. Many wore white, which further accented their lovely coloring. They seemed happy with each other in an easygoing way. During the singing as the pastor was sitting down, he playfully batted a plastic binder out of one of the ladies’ hands, but then grinned impishly and picked it up to hand back to her. I was struck by how big this guy was as he sat in the row. This was a substantial guy!

This church is different than many I have been to – I’ve been to Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Southern Baptist (yes they are different), Buddhist, Unitarian, Unity, and Episcopalian. I guess this was a cross between Baptist, Episcopalian and Catholic in flavor. The informality of the Baptist church combined with the pageantry of the Episcopalian and the rituals of the Catholic. Of course, not having spent much time in any but the Methodist and Unity churches, I am probably not an authority on describing them. I had enough to keep up with just figuring out which way to cross myself, and I am embarrassed to note that I still couldn’t tell you. I didn’t want to be too conspicuous in watching others at first, so I lost the method after that.

They had the obligatory cheesy sentimental songs but added the twist of putting the words on an overhead projector (text was formatted badly and ran off the screen – I was itching to put that in InDesign or Quark for them) and the music was country western style devotionals. Almost no one sang, or if they did, it was in whisper. I couldn’t figure out which part to take because the loudest singer kept going from soprano to alto.

The sermon was about Jesus’ message that his yoke was easy and his burdens light, and how we can choose to set down our burdens or let God carry them for us while we walk with Christ in our lives. Okay, that’s the lingo, but what did it mean?? To tell you the truth, I didn’t get much out of the pastor’s explanation, or for that matter the deacon’s (a good looking young man who is still new to addressing the crowd). But he called on Lisa to elucidate, and there were two Lisas sitting in the same area, my stepmom and the Lisa I had met earlier, sitting behind me. My stepmom went first with a very nicely worded explanation of the wonderful lightness of heart you can experience when you let go of normal worldly concerns. I liked that her explanation was not too mushy or worshipful. She’s been to many churches and is in the Franciscan order, and she has many viewpoints including secular, and this serves her well for mixing with people of many faiths or none.

Her words flew right over the tops of the heads of some in the congregation (a shame!) but I liked them and the pastor was impressed. The deacon looked terrified that he’d met his match. Then Lisa behind us spoke, and she immediately worried that people were going to have to strain their necks to see her, so she walked up to the front and talked for a bit about the types of cares that can make us feel tired and depressed, like divorce, misfortune, the death of a child. She was near tears the whole time and I found my heart reaching out to her and my eyes welling up. My reaction to her made me feel angry at myself. But anyway, I struggled to breathe and listen. Prybar to the heart, yet again. She said that she liked to use a visualization of a forested road, and you are the weary traveler with many heavy burdens representing your worries, your disappointments, your sadnesses and regrets (maybe your guilts?). You come upon a cart and there is a double yoke at the front, with whomever you choose as your spiritual guide – Jesus, God, the holy spirit – in one of the yokes. You can put your burdens in the cart and put the other yoke on. You won’t feel the burdens at all because your guide is doing all the pulling for you, and as long as you walk with him your burdens will not trouble you – though sometimes you may forget and take them back on, or take new ones, when you remind yourself of your intentions to lay them down and walk with Christ, it will immediately free you again.

I personally don’t buy into the idea that a deity is going to carry my stuff as long as I subscribe to his approach. I think Jesus was really a good guy but no one needs to carry my burdens for me and I don’t need to focus on Jesus or God in order to be free of them. One can do the spiritual work of being free of one’s burdens completely without that divine help. They aren’t actually burdens, really – there is no weight or substance to them beyond what we perceive them to have. The trick is in how you see things. The work is to quiet the mind every day and learn to see things for what they are, so that your troubles get into perspective with the big picture. As your troubles melt away, your joy will bubble up. This is only my opinion, of course, and I have seen how belief in Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit can really help others. I want people to seek out whatever comfort works best for them and their families, just as I do. There is good in every gathering of people that sincerely meets to focus on becoming better humans. For that matter, there is good in every person who regularly focuses on becoming a better human!

Another part that always inexplicably chokes me up is the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, which begins, “Our Father, who art in heaven….” It’s the part about forgiveness of others’ trespasses that always gets me in the heart. I don’t know why but it chokes me up, ever since I stopped going to church during my community college days. Maybe in my heart I have associated church services with being more forgiving and tolerant of people in general. This is a helpful observation for me because when you can get your judgments out of the way, you can truly connect with each person. Perhaps I have been angry with myself all these years for my slack observance of this important goal. To connect with others is everything – not merely a good idea. I am just now coming around to that and “getting” why this is so vital. When you truly work to understand someone without judgments, you see amazing things. You learn about life and love, and you get ideas for things you can try in your life, and your empathy or other emotional reactions provide you with important clues about things you may want to work on a little bit more from time to time. For me, judgments about people are burdens which I can choose to lay down, to be freer and happier. Sounds good to me.

I really liked the greeting part of the service. I can’t remember the name of the ritual but you approach someone with both your hands together in a prayer position, with fingertips facing the heart of the other person. You make eye contact and wait for them to put their hands in the same position outside yours, then slide them apart and say “grace” and then the other person puts his or her hands together and you put yours outside theirs, and you both say “and peace”. Then you hug, and look for someone else to perform the ritual with. There’s enough ritual for standoffish people like me to find something to do that doesn’t shine the light of connectedness to glaringly upon me. It’s new for me to connect with others and maybe it will always feel too intense to me. But I do like it.

Because I was baptized in the Methodist church when I was 14, I was allowed to take communion with these folks. You go to the front, put both your arms across your front like an X, as if to hug yourself or skydive, and then you say your name and open your mouth, and they put a cracker dipped in wine on your tongue, an oddly sensual experience. I honestly don’t remember what the pastor said. He has a very direct gaze and it blew out my thoughts. Sometimes you wonder if they can see in your heart, you know? Hee hee. Besides which, he was flanked by other officiants, all of which were looking lovingly at me. I love all that attention anyway. Why did they use white zinfandel for dipping? Pleh. Would prefer some nice Shiraz. What do you say when a strange man looks into your eyes and feeds you by hand?? Awkward! I shuffled off to the right and tried to observe others’ behavior for clues.

Other rituals included lighting a candle for someone, in the same way Catholics do, and the holy water by the door – wasn’t sure what to do with that since I haven’t been to many Catholic church services. I also loved the incense and the cool ringing noise the brass censor made when they waved it around, and the pastor kissed the four corners of the table while doing it. Later a helper did the same all around the congregation space. After the service we were invited to the front to take a drink of the leftover wine from the chalice (so as not to waste the blessed wine) while the cute deacon held it and looked into my eyes, then he wiped it off before the next person approached. To the right stood the pastor, waiting to give me a blessing. Amid this intimacy he saw fit to ask me where I was from. I almost couldn’t answer. I was thinking, hey, let me focus totally on this cool thing I am receiving. I got another hug and was sent to light a candle (or not).

Kudos to the officiants for not singling me out beyond simple welcomes at the appropriate times. I absolutely hate being greeted as a visitor, being asked for my address, being asked to sign up for a committee (Southern Baptists – scary), or being confronted about my personal beliefs or churchgoing habits (several of the more rigid faiths).

I got the feeling that family would have been fun to hang out with later – like there were some awesome cooks among them and they were going to have a monstrous feast with happy kids running around and people laughing and talking. Something weird about this area of the country – the land is desolate, so the people try to make up for it by being as cheerful and sweet as possible. And they succeed.