Angels with A**holes and God in a Google Search

I’ve written before about my professor, Reverend Beverly Asbury, Chaplain from Vanderbilt University, circa 1990s.  He was my Religious Studies professor in undergraduate school and I adore him.  I probably can’t measure the influence he’s had on me since I met him when I was 19 or 20 years old. One of his bits of wisdom, probably an offhand comment on his part, but something that made a profound impact on me was when he said, ‘You know, we humans are ALL just angels with assholes.’ 

I’ve found that to be one of the truest statements I’ve ever heard.  Each of us has potential to be an angel of mercy and compassion, a symbol of hope, an act of love and giving.  Yet, each of us is bound by our humanity.  We are bodies.  Sometimes we are full of shit.  We are transcendent and just pretty regular at the same time. 

I am learning something about myself and in the end, maybe I just want to put it in words, because that’s what I like to do.  In my life, I have witnessed selfless kindness, unimaginable courage, creative compassion, love overcoming fear (not to mention overcoming rules), and humanity enduring with humor and love even in the face of such horror as the Holocaust. 

And I believe that when you see other people, you have the opportunity to see the ‘angel’ in them.  The holy in them.  If there’s holy in us, I feel that there is holy out there, too.  That’s just what I believe.  Somewhat along the lines of Albert Einstein, who said,  “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

So, for me, as I get older, one of the intrinsic pieces of my own ‘mental and emotional health,’ as I summarize in my ‘ google bio’, is my spiritual life.  When we talk about spirituality, nothing is more frustrating that the limitation of words, but let me give it a try.  Even as a little kid, I had lots of questions about God – “How could God always have been there?  What came before God?”  My mom even invited the minister over for dinner to talk with me about it (a terrible explanation – ‘take it on faith’, was what I was told.)  Other questions – “why should I want to be a good person, just to go to heaven?  Is that really being a good person, if I just want some reward?”  And I took religious studies classes in college.  Death and Dying classes when they were offered.  So, maybe it’s no surprise that this is where I am today.

Maybe you have an inkling that you’d like to pay more attention to your spiritual life?  If you do, found or been recommended a number of online resources that create access to information, ideas, and community and I thought you might like to take a look too.  I hope you find this helpful:

 

Spirituality and Practice -  www.spiritualityandpractice.com  - can range from pop to academic, but pretty straight up and diverse theology.  I look at it every day and am amazed as the breadth and depth of information, inspiration and continuing education opportunities.

  

Patheos –  www.patheos.com  If you want to get an unfiltered universe of every type of belief/opinion/pop culture blog community this is where to go.  Every group from Pagan to Evangelical Christian from Muslim to Unitarian Universalist is well represented here and there is no editorial filter or preference.  You may not like or agree with everything you read, but everyone is welcome here.

Belief -  www.globalpost.com/globalpost-blogs/belief  -  This is part of Global Post – an American online newsource that focuses on global news.  This page is where religion and news intersect, primarily through current news events.

On Being with Krista Tippett -  www.onbeing.org Her public radio show is available on podcast here.  Diverse and thoughtful, a broad-ranging understanding of spirituality that encompasses science as well as belief.

Daily om -   www.dailyom.com:  kind of new-agey/Buddhist writing.  Something to think about in small nuggets.  

U.S. drones in Pakistan and other wake up calls

I dreamed about war last night and weapons.  I think this may be rooted in information shared this past week in the Spirituality class I assist at Wash U.  After a student presentation about spirituality in the military, another student, who is from Pakistan said, 'I'd like to share something about the U.S. use of drones in Pakistan.'  She went on to explain that most Americans don't know about drone use there, but drones are unmanned aircraft that are controlled remotely.  They are used to bomb sites where suspected Muslim extremists may be gathering.  Unfortunately, there are many inaccuracies with such a remote system and many, many civilians - including women and children have been killed.

The woman who shared this anecdote is a lovely, intelligent, and thoughtful young woman.  I had a deeper sense of both connection to her and also a sense of guilt and culpability after she talked.   I have heard her describe her city, her mother, and now how her fellow citizens are hurt by the actions of my government.  I just read a statistic online that nearly 75% if Pakistanis consider the U.S. an enemy.  For a pretty balanced report, I've attached a Wikipedia entry on 'u.s. drones in Pakistan.'  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan

 I can't tell you how many times before this I'd heard about drones on the news or read about them.  At least the word 'drone'.  Why did I not pay more attention?  Why have I not used my curiosity to find out more about what my government is doing and where, as a representative of me?  What does this have to do with emotional health?

Two things:  1)  how many of us go through life, or at least parts of our life, rather drone-like ourselves.  As if we are unmanned vehicles just operating by some remote pilot.  We don't pay real attention to our environment, the people around us, the colors of the trees, the road we are driving on, the expression on a friend's face.  We zone out and don't  listen and aren't fully alive.  What are we missing out on?  2)  We are individuals and we have an individual emotional/mental health - but we are also a society and we have an emotional character as such.  What do we want  that emotional character to be?  Can we help shape that?  If so, how?  Paying attention is one way to start.

It reminds me of a quote that I've heard attributed to Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys.  When asked about the way the band's image changed from frat party boys, to politically conscious activists, he said, "I'd rather be a hypocrite to you, than a zombie forever." 

So whether zombie, drone, the matrix or whatever you want to call it - I don't want to contribute to a world in which we say, 'that's just the way it is and I can't make a difference.'  That's not good for MY mental health.  In a time of year where we are getting ready to pay special attention to giving thanks, I'd like to give thanks for moments that make me uncomfortable.  The moments that wake me up.  

astrophysics and how we spend our time

I am delighted, this semester, to be the  'lab assistant' (read, T.A.) for Dr. Mary Pat Henehan's  Spirituality and Social Work class at Wash U.  Krista Tippett's book, Einstein's God, is one of the suggested readings and I recently finished the first chapter, an interview with Freeman Dyson, a theoretical astrophysicist and Paul Davies and astrophysicist.  Dyson is talking about black holes and says, "The black hole is the only place where space and time are really so mixed up that they behave in totally different ways.  I mean, you fall into a black hole and your space is converted into time and your time is converted into space."  Woah.   I don't know how much I get that, but I think it's really cool.

Believe it or not, I also think there is a practical application for life.  Jump with me now.  This is a strange jump:  Steve Jobs.  I would first like to say with no silliness or flippancy that I am sorry about his death and the grief of his family and friends.  I think he was inspiritational to many, many people. 

In reading about him the past couple of days, a feature of his leadership and personality that stands out to me is how very discerning and maybe even stingy he was with his time.  An article from today's NYT addresses this:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/technology/with-time-running-short-steve-jobs-managed-his-farewells.html?_r=1&hp 

Here is what a friend said, "Steve made choices,” Dr. Ornish said. “I once asked him if he was glad that he had kids, and he said, ‘It’s 10,000 times better than anything I’ve ever done.’ ”
“But for Steve, it was all about living life on his own terms and not wasting a moment with things he didn’t think were important. He was aware that his time on earth was limited. He wanted control of what he did with the choices that were left.”

The meaning of everyone's life is different, and our experiences of time may be slightly different - but the truth is we all have many demands on our time, pleas for our time, and distractions from ways we want to spend our time.  Sometimes we say yes to social occasions we don't really want to be part of, sometimes we let the computer or tv suck away unintended hours of our day, sometimes we put work first when we don't have to, sometimes we commit ourselves to 'causes' because we think we should but we really don't have the time in the first place.

A couple years ago I told my friends and family I was going to have the Year of No:  that I would say "no" to anything and everything I was asked to do outside family and work.  I didn't totally succeed, but I made improvements in discerning how I wanted to spend my time.  I prioritized.  I think Steve Jobs must have done that to the nth degree - he had a vision and ambition and a sense that time was fleeting. 

I can in no way speak to what kind of person Steve Jobs was, whether he was kind, compassionate, emotionally and mentally healthy...but I do like the idea of prioritizing one's time.  I think it leads to greater life satisfaction and feeling of being purposeful, rather than blown about by the needs and wants of organizations or people who don't necessarily have your best interest at heart. 

I also wonder, if we were clearer in choosing to spend our time on the things we say we value - what would that do to our sense of time?  Would time feel more expansive if our pace was slower or our attention more honed. 

This is where I can kind of sort of get physics on a gut level - time is relative - that makes sense to me.  So, here's to more deeply considering how we spend our time, learning to say no or yes (as the case may be), and accepting without fear that all these little moments will add up to what we call our life.