Today in Meeting, I jotted a note to myself: "Sometimes it feels like we have no choices - that's fear. If we're open to the 'we in me' in calm and trust, we find we do have choices and they become clearer, less blocked by the fear."
I deal with anxiety and depression from time to time, but I don't often think about either in terms of fear. The paralysis I experience when faced with some emails or tasks, I think of as 'just' anxiety. By reacting to my fears, I do various things that shut down my choices or I do nothing at all.I never really thought about how I sometimes get into a pattern of staying up too late to self-soothe through a pleasant TV show or novel and how that's related to fear. Instead, I just get angry with myself for having 'ruined' the next day. It came to me that I'm afraid of the next day and all the looming tasks and changes. I'm pulling the covers over my head by *not* pulling them over my head! I want more time conscious to enjoy my solitary peace before the terror of the next day.
In meeting, I kept returning to the story of the Annunciation when Gabriel says to the Virgin, fear not. Ne timeas. It was really pushing at me - fear not. I tried testing if this was something that I should share with the meeting, but I felt like it was perhaps, too small and individual to be of much use to others. And then I got worried about it, too. I'm still learning the mores and language of Quaker meeting.
It feels as though there was a complicated message for me, that will take some time to unpack, in these thoughts about fear. I'll keep thinking about it and trying to listen to it to see if I can get a better handle on what these sort of fleeting but repeating thoughts might mean.
***
Another piece of today's meeting was somewhat intense for me. I had been thinking and listening on the concept of fear, when my brain sort of skipped off that track and on to a new one.
I have celiac disease; it's dramatically underdiagnosed in the US and while awareness is going up, it's still pretty low. It can be difficult to live with sometimes, as you can't have ANY gluten (wheat, rye, or barley, or their byproducts), and very often these aren't listed on labels as anything recognizable (almost no companies indicate what lipbalms/lipsticks, for example, are gluten-free). Eating in restaurants can range from merely difficult to excruciatingly embarrassing and very dangerous. It's hard for me to send something back once, but croutons in the salad and gravy on the potatoes are NOT ok. Scraping them off, also not ok. (that's another blog, however!)
Since my diagnosis, I've tried to think about to handle the issue of the disease with students, colleagues, etc. My rough decision has been to be very open about it, at least about the part where I can't eat gluten, and to not call it an allergy (it's not, but that's the easy way to explain it to, say, a waiter), but to say "I have celiac disease." I've been sort of worried about whether I'm being too open, or that being open is just being selfish and using CD to get attention. My justification has been that I'm contributing to awareness and doing a kind of outreach.
So, today, these thoughts came back again. It became very clear to me that there was a place for me to be an activist on behalf of Celiacs and CD research and awareness.
Not only is there a place/role, but also that it was one I need to fill. I've never had a feeling like this one. That perhaps there's something I can really do that could really *help*. I'm a teacher and I am passionate about what I do, but, particularly in today's world, the activist element of teaching pre-modern history (as an ex) has become somewhat diffuse. I'm not putting that quite right and I need to sit and think about what I'm trying to say there about teaching in another post.
So, I think that I have a leading to develop for myself an activist role. Here's where the concept of discernment, I think, comes into play, in judging if this is a true leading. But perhaps I'm using all of these terms incorrectly. I once confessed to my (quite small) meeting that I was afraid I wasn't good enough to be a Quaker and that I was doing it wrong. I got wonderful responses back, full of support, but I still feel like that a lot. I'd like to think more about how the form of meeting leads to this in some ways for newcomers and particularly for me. I am very happy in unprogrammed worship, but a little confused about what happens next!
A very long post, definately in need of editing.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Reading
I started this blog to journal some of my coming to Quakerism and to help me make some sense of the process.
Also, I think, because, the blog that I desperately wanted to be reading is one I haven't found. Or, the book, possibly. I want to read someone's lyrically written memoir of their coming to Quakerism. I've read Mary Rose O'Reilley's the Barn at the End of the World which I enjoyed tremendously, but I want to find something else. I'm also interested in those who come to Buddhism or other contemplative traditions.
I'm not imagining someone reading this, but should someone does so, I'd love some suggestions for what/who to read.
Also, I think, because, the blog that I desperately wanted to be reading is one I haven't found. Or, the book, possibly. I want to read someone's lyrically written memoir of their coming to Quakerism. I've read Mary Rose O'Reilley's the Barn at the End of the World which I enjoyed tremendously, but I want to find something else. I'm also interested in those who come to Buddhism or other contemplative traditions.
I'm not imagining someone reading this, but should someone does so, I'd love some suggestions for what/who to read.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
At the still point of a turning world. And Quakers.
There's something about the phrase "at the still point of a turning world" that has kept it with me over time. It's only a fragment, a piece, of something larger. The line comes from the first section, "Burnt Norton" of T.S.Eliot's "Four Quartets." It starts a stanza and is punctuated as though it were a sentence, a full thought: At the still point of the turning world. But it's not complete, not a sentence; a piece of a poem in a group of poems.
It feels complete, though; I hear it, say it, remember it, read it. Partly because it is such a very rich thought to me, so in its fullness, there doesn't seem to be anything missing. But the verb is indeed missing; the one part of speech you need for an 'official', grammatically correct sentence. I think Eliot left it out on purpose. (I am sure Eliot left it out on purpose, he did not craft his poetry unaware, or throw it together. There are no accidents in Eliot.) Imagine the difference in this phrase if a verb of action, or even of being, were to be added. It would remove the (spiritual/physical/emotional?) sense of that very still point he describes, would make it somehow less still, make it somehow just less.
Taken out of the context of Eliot's poem, this phrase, this concept has stayed with me. I once tried to describe to someone that I thought a relationship, real love, should be as though a still point in a turning world. I'm not sure that what I meant came through, or if I would entirely still try to make exactly that statement.
What I do know is that when I came upon this phrase for the first time, it struck me as enormously, fundamentally correct. It somehow struck me, and I literally do mean 'struck' me, as in 'hit me physically, bodily,' as though someone had but into words some fundamental concept, some law of reality, described something essential for which there previously hadn't been words. The passage, the very words, seemed created to do what they were doing. It was almost as though the world and I together made some fundamental leap of understanding.
And so, I took out this phrase from time to time, remembered it when 'things of great importance' were discussed. But, I never meditated on it or thought seriously about why it aroused such powerful spiritual, emotional, and mental reactions it me. It actually makes something ache or twang or sing inside me; I can feel it bodily.
It is only very recently that I have come to begin to undertstand the place of this phrase for me in my cosmology, my identity, my body, my soul. I am searching and have been searching for that still point of a turning world for as long as I can remember. Even before I knew this phrase. I don't know yet all the outlines of what it means to me.
A pause, a rest, a chance to breathe. A moment, a place, a state to think, or more truly to reflect (and not (or not only) in the connotation of 'looking back'). A way to be, ideally, with (not against) the scream and jangle of the always-turning world. A goal. A mission. A desperate need. The cure, the answer, the solution. Peace. GRACE.
I think it might be my notion of God: a still point in a turning world. Or one piece of what I think of when I think of God. It may be where I think you can communicate (commune, perhaps is better) with God. It is where, I think, that the God in me exists.
One of the reasons I find silent worship so profoundly moving, I think, is that it not only allow, but encourages the development and exploration of this still point. In individuals, but also in the process of the meeting itself.
Quaker meeting (and quakerism) has offered me a place and an encouragement to seek the still point in a turning world, and for that I am profoundly grateful.
I felt led to the Quakers. I felt like I needed to go to meeting, desperately, and I overcame my fear of new situations where I don't know what to do, my fear of 'what people might think' more quickly that is normal for me. I am so thankful for finding a community and a faith that fits this search for me. There are other ways, I have no doubt, but for now, this is one that is important to me.
Have I found the still point in the turning world? Or figured out all of what it means to me? No, but there is grace and joy beyond measure in the search, in the seeking. Sometimes I think I touch (in all possible senses of the word and its possible uses), that I am at (the edges of) the still point in a turning world.
And, if you haven't read Eliot's "Four Quartets," here's a link to an online copy. I think it's better read from an older book, where the printing press has 'bitten' into a rag paper to leave texture you can run your finger across and the black of the ink creates warm or starkness against the white or yellow shade of the page. But that's just me!
http://www.tristan.icom43.net/quartets/
It feels complete, though; I hear it, say it, remember it, read it. Partly because it is such a very rich thought to me, so in its fullness, there doesn't seem to be anything missing. But the verb is indeed missing; the one part of speech you need for an 'official', grammatically correct sentence. I think Eliot left it out on purpose. (I am sure Eliot left it out on purpose, he did not craft his poetry unaware, or throw it together. There are no accidents in Eliot.) Imagine the difference in this phrase if a verb of action, or even of being, were to be added. It would remove the (spiritual/physical/emotional?) sense of that very still point he describes, would make it somehow less still, make it somehow just less.
Taken out of the context of Eliot's poem, this phrase, this concept has stayed with me. I once tried to describe to someone that I thought a relationship, real love, should be as though a still point in a turning world. I'm not sure that what I meant came through, or if I would entirely still try to make exactly that statement.
What I do know is that when I came upon this phrase for the first time, it struck me as enormously, fundamentally correct. It somehow struck me, and I literally do mean 'struck' me, as in 'hit me physically, bodily,' as though someone had but into words some fundamental concept, some law of reality, described something essential for which there previously hadn't been words. The passage, the very words, seemed created to do what they were doing. It was almost as though the world and I together made some fundamental leap of understanding.
And so, I took out this phrase from time to time, remembered it when 'things of great importance' were discussed. But, I never meditated on it or thought seriously about why it aroused such powerful spiritual, emotional, and mental reactions it me. It actually makes something ache or twang or sing inside me; I can feel it bodily.
It is only very recently that I have come to begin to undertstand the place of this phrase for me in my cosmology, my identity, my body, my soul. I am searching and have been searching for that still point of a turning world for as long as I can remember. Even before I knew this phrase. I don't know yet all the outlines of what it means to me.
A pause, a rest, a chance to breathe. A moment, a place, a state to think, or more truly to reflect (and not (or not only) in the connotation of 'looking back'). A way to be, ideally, with (not against) the scream and jangle of the always-turning world. A goal. A mission. A desperate need. The cure, the answer, the solution. Peace. GRACE.
I think it might be my notion of God: a still point in a turning world. Or one piece of what I think of when I think of God. It may be where I think you can communicate (commune, perhaps is better) with God. It is where, I think, that the God in me exists.
One of the reasons I find silent worship so profoundly moving, I think, is that it not only allow, but encourages the development and exploration of this still point. In individuals, but also in the process of the meeting itself.
Quaker meeting (and quakerism) has offered me a place and an encouragement to seek the still point in a turning world, and for that I am profoundly grateful.
I felt led to the Quakers. I felt like I needed to go to meeting, desperately, and I overcame my fear of new situations where I don't know what to do, my fear of 'what people might think' more quickly that is normal for me. I am so thankful for finding a community and a faith that fits this search for me. There are other ways, I have no doubt, but for now, this is one that is important to me.
Have I found the still point in the turning world? Or figured out all of what it means to me? No, but there is grace and joy beyond measure in the search, in the seeking. Sometimes I think I touch (in all possible senses of the word and its possible uses), that I am at (the edges of) the still point in a turning world.
And, if you haven't read Eliot's "Four Quartets," here's a link to an online copy. I think it's better read from an older book, where the printing press has 'bitten' into a rag paper to leave texture you can run your finger across and the black of the ink creates warm or starkness against the white or yellow shade of the page. But that's just me!
http://www.tristan.icom43.net/quartets/
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Becoming
My use-name online is grey, and has been since I first posted to a discussion board ten years ago. I don't know entirely where that name came from--grey being the color of my favorite sweaters, or the color of my eyes? An emotional state? The fact that I see most issues as shades of grey? Or that I almost always can see the other side of things, even when it would be easier, less emotionally conflicting, and certainly help my anxiety NOT to?
I started this blog as a place to talk about my "spiritual journey." I've been attending Quaker meeting and reading as much as I can about the Religious Society of Friends. I'm also reading general materials about spirituality. As you can see above, I'm struggling with the language of spirituality and religion - I feel the need to put quotation marks around things! One reason for the blog is to try to work out this discomfort and to clarify for myself how and why I react as I do.
As I signed up for this blog, I didn't have any difficult thinking of what to call it. Usually, titles are a nightmare for me; titles of courses, of writing, of emails, of everything. This one just popped right out. I'm not entirely sure WHAT I'm becoming - I have no real idea of the endpoint of this journey - but I'm entirely sure that SOMETHING is happening. I am becoming something. I think one thing might be a convinced Quaker. One thing might be a more centered person. I definately becoming a more spiritual person (although it was really uncomfortable to write that!!).
The blog address "becoming@blogspot" was taken. One of the suggestions blogger gave me was "becoming-grey." It's perfect. I feel like the name "grey" gets at something more true to me than my given name, with which I've never had much of an identification.
Given the association of Quakers and grey, I think it may be an entirely apt title for this blog, as well, although it feels somehow presumptuous to say so. Presumptuous in the sense of, I'm just an attender, how could I possibly say anything about becoming a Quaker? It's not only about becoming a Quaker (in the most pragmatic sense), however, but becoming in some way more truly myself; I feel a bit like I'm in a spiritual crucible, being burned clean at the moment. It feels incredibly good, although sometimes painful. The whole world feels more real.
I started this blog as a place to talk about my "spiritual journey." I've been attending Quaker meeting and reading as much as I can about the Religious Society of Friends. I'm also reading general materials about spirituality. As you can see above, I'm struggling with the language of spirituality and religion - I feel the need to put quotation marks around things! One reason for the blog is to try to work out this discomfort and to clarify for myself how and why I react as I do.
As I signed up for this blog, I didn't have any difficult thinking of what to call it. Usually, titles are a nightmare for me; titles of courses, of writing, of emails, of everything. This one just popped right out. I'm not entirely sure WHAT I'm becoming - I have no real idea of the endpoint of this journey - but I'm entirely sure that SOMETHING is happening. I am becoming something. I think one thing might be a convinced Quaker. One thing might be a more centered person. I definately becoming a more spiritual person (although it was really uncomfortable to write that!!).
The blog address "becoming@blogspot" was taken. One of the suggestions blogger gave me was "becoming-grey." It's perfect. I feel like the name "grey" gets at something more true to me than my given name, with which I've never had much of an identification.
Given the association of Quakers and grey, I think it may be an entirely apt title for this blog, as well, although it feels somehow presumptuous to say so. Presumptuous in the sense of, I'm just an attender, how could I possibly say anything about becoming a Quaker? It's not only about becoming a Quaker (in the most pragmatic sense), however, but becoming in some way more truly myself; I feel a bit like I'm in a spiritual crucible, being burned clean at the moment. It feels incredibly good, although sometimes painful. The whole world feels more real.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
