Soul Work - Deeper Moons Focused on Self

In a previous post, I identified deeper Moons focused on God, others, and self. By Moons, I mean things that I deeply want to bring into my life and live into. This post will explore deeper Moons - Moons that involve important soul work - focused on self.

The Moons focusing on self are SHOW, BE, and RELAX. Each involves a deeply ingrained attitude toward life, an attitude that I imbibed in the family where I grew up, along with needed family soul healing. Here they are:

• SHOW: To heal secretiveness by being honest in appropriate ways, especially in taking responsibility for my actions and feelings
• BE: To heal excessive busyness by spending time being rather than constantly doing
• RELAX: To heal excessive anger by acting from a place of calm centeredness

SHOW

I've written about this in previous posts, especially my Hospital Experience posts of June 2010, where I describe growing up in a family with lots of secrets, the main secrets being that my mother was an alcoholic and that my father was a rage-aholic. We did not discuss this, inside or outside the family.

In addition, unacceptable feelings were not discussed as I was growing up. Unacceptable feelings were kept secret. I see this suppression of feelings as the result of the Catholic Church's teachings, especially as modeled by my mother. I also see this suppression of feelings as a major cause of my mother's need to drink.

Here is how I believe it worked. The Catholic Church lays out norms for the ideal Christian woman. Women, pontificates the Catholic Church, find their fulfillment in sacrificial self-giving. A true woman sacrifices herself unceasingly for the benefit of her husband and family. It is in this constant self-sacrifice that a woman finds her greatest happiness.

Can you imagine the conflict for a Catholic woman who believes this? This woman gives herself sacrificially for her husband and family. Her needs do not matter - it only matters that she give herself for her family's needs and benefit. So she does. She gives and gives and gives and gives and gives and gives and gives and gives - but she is not happy. She is exhausted and depleted. She knows that a real woman finds her greatest happiness and fulfillment in sacrificial self-giving, and she knows that she is constantly giving herself sacrificially - so why isn't she happy? It must be that something is wrong with her - that she has a shameful defect that makes her less than a real woman. Since this is shameful, she decides to hide her unhappiness and to do her best to pretend to be happy. After all, the other Catholic wives and mothers she knows appear to be happy - or at least not as utterly depleted as she feels. There is no one she can talk to about this, because admitting her feelings would be to admit something deeply shameful. Her feelings must be kept secret. I believe that this is a description of my mother. I believe that my mother's drinking was largely an attempt to escape from this painful conflict.

Added to this conflict, in the case of my mother, was a critical and rageful husband and six needy and demanding children, all born within one decade - the 1950s. And of course, the Catholic Church forbids divorce and forbids birth control. So my mother was trapped in her marriage and trapped into having "as many children as God sends us" and trapped by the need to be happy in all her sacrificial self-giving. And the fact that she felt trapped - that her true feelings were ones of rage at never getting her own needs met - had to be kept secret.

SO - I learned that unacceptable feelings were secrets. I learned that parental failings (my mother's drinking and my father's rages) were secrets.

It also strikes me that my reluctance to give and to serve, as described in my previous post, may very well have to do with seeing the devastating effect of my mother's extreme giving and serving. Of course, the corrective to extreme giving and serving is not refusal to give and serve but balanced giving and serving, that is, giving and serving balanced with self-care.

My Show Moons have to do with healing the harmful secretiveness that I learned in my family by showing the truth.

• Show the truth to myself about my thoughts and feelings.
• Show responsibility for myself - my thoughts and feelings and actions.
• Show the truth about myself to others in appropriate ways. The words "in appropriate ways" are important when it comes to others, as there are thoughts and feelings that should not be shared with everyone.

This blog is a forum for me to practice all three aspects of that honesty.

1. Be honest with myself: The act of writing brings insights about myself to my awareness. It clarifies my thoughts and feelings and makes them real to me. This helps me to be honest with myself.
2. Take responsibility for myself: Writing also places my thoughts and feelings outside myself - on a page or a screen in black and white - where I can consider them more objectively. This helps me to take responsibility for my thoughts and feelings and actions.
3. Be appropriately honest with others: Writing publicly, as in a blog, allows me to be honest with others. I believe that honest writing encourages others: when I read someone else's honest writing, I am often led to my own truth - whether I see myself in the writer's words or whether I see my own truth as very different from the writer's.

BE

My father was excessively busy. He was always "spinning," as he put it. He always had somewhere to go, something to do, someone to see. His body never seemed to rest - if nothing else, he was always tapping his fingers.

With my father, everything was a chore - even "fun," which wasn't really fun because it was a chore. We had to work to set up the necessary equipment to have fun, and then we had to work to take it down afterwards. And because my father was a rage-aholic, he often raged at us kids about how incompetent we were in loading the car for a trip to the playground, or in cleaning the plastic swimming pool in the backyard, or in clearing up after a bar-be-cue.

My father liked it best when he and everyone in the family was busy, and he tended to make any busyness unpleasant with criticisms of our work - criticisms often expressed ragefully.

In my family, I learned that it was important to do (and to do busily), not to be.

I find it difficult to take time to be, although it feels very good when I do. I also sense that this is a really, really important area of soul work - perhaps the most important. What I do - my enjoying, thanking, giving, loving, serving, showing, and relaxing - need to come from being, from the still centered place within.

I find myself feeling agitated when I think of all the things I want to incorporate into my life. How will I find time to exercise (getting in aerobics, strength training, and stretching), to write, to draw, to read, to study the Bardic materials, to teach and interact with my students, to spend time with friends, to go to concerts and plays and movies and operas, to attend Lyceum events, not to mention eating and sleeping - and also to get in time for just being.

Well, okay, how can I make time for just being? Here are some things that come to mind.

• Yoga: Attend yoga class two (or more) times a week. It is easy to BE in community with other people who have set aside this special time for just being.
• Centering Prayer: Practice centering prayer twice daily. This could be difficult to keep up, since this would be a solitary practice. Would I stick with this?
• Angel Day; Moments of Grace: Pause for moments of grace throughout the day, especially before each activity. Actually, this could be done by having Angel Days. An Angel Day is a day spent with your angel. You pause at certain moments throughout the day to connect with your angel and with God, perhaps by expressing gratitude, or by praying for someone or something, or by simply being still and receptive to God.

I'll stop with these ideas. Angel Days really attract me because I have the help of my angel - I'm not alone with my practice of being.

RELAX

My father was a very angry person. I would say that anger was his default emotion, and he often seemed to lose control of how to change the default and choose a different emotion and different behavior. When something pushed his trigger, anger would erupt. You could count on it. For someone who loved the word "control" - as in the expression "Is everything under control?" - my father certainly did not have his anger under control at all. On the contrary, his anger controlled him.

I find that I, too, am prone to anger. I'm speaking of getting angry at the inevitable irritations of life, where anger serves no purpose. This, too, is an important area of soul work. It strikes me that a good way to proceed is to consciously use irritating situations as opportunities to change the default and choose a different emotion and different behavior - something my father simply could not or would not do. When stuck in traffic, one might relax and sing, for instance.

So here is the Relax Moon.

• Use situations that push the anger trigger as opportunities to relax and choose different behavior.

Soul Work - Deeper Moons Focused on Others

In a previous post, I identified deeper Moons focused on God, others, and self. By Moons, I mean things that I deeply want to bring into my life and live into. This post will explore deeper Moons - Moons that involve important soul work - focused on others. Just as with the Moons focused on God, there will be an overlap. Some of the goals focused on others wind up also focusing on self.

The Moons focusing on others are GIVE, LOVE, and SERVE. Each involves a deeply ingrained attitude toward life, an attitude that I imbibed in the family where I grew up, along with needed family soul healing. Here they are:

• GIVE: Heal a scarcity mentality, leading to hoarding, by developing an abundance mentality, leading to generosity
• LOVE: Heal a judgmental attitude by developing compassion
• SERVE: Heal an avoidance of service by serving in appropriate ways

GIVE

I grew up with a scarcity mentality. I learned to hoard rather than to give. If I gave something, that meant more for someone else and less for me. Also, if I gave something, I might want or need it later, and then I wouldn't have it because I had given it away. In fact, the word "away" describes my feelings about giving. When I gave something, I gave it away, meaning that whatever I gave was henceforth away from me, no longer with me.

In addition, my parents didn't like to share things. They preferred to have things for their own exclusive use. When things are shared, other people don't take care of things, whereas when you have your own items, you can be assured that they will be well maintained because you are the one in charge of maintaining your own possessions. In other words, if you want your things taken care of properly, have your own things, don't share them, and take care of them yourself.

In spite of this, my parents were generous with close friends and family members. For example, my father gave financial help to his first cousin Helen in the later years of her life, and he helped his first cousin Ed considerably when Ed's professional office burned down. (Because my father was an only child, he was very close to his first cousins.) My father and mother cared for my paternal grandmother at home in her last illness and made sure that she died at home in her own bed as she wished. My father was also a generous alumnus of his university, giving both time and money, because the university had given him a scholarship that had allowed him to be a first-generation university graduate, obtain a professional degree, and move out of the working class into a more lucrative and satisfying profession.

My father, though, did not like to accept favors. He seemed to operate within a system where he and his acquaintances traded favors. If someone did you a favor, you owed him a favor - and this was not so good because you never knew when that person might decide to cash in his favor. He might ask you to do something inconvenient at an inconvenient time - and you would be obliged to do it because you "owed him a favor." Favors couldn't be entirely avoided, but one did want to owe as few favors as possible.

As for me, I am not a naturally generous person. Giving, for me, involves conflicting fears. Giving money (beyond a "safe" amount that I won't miss) involves my fear of losing all my money or of wanting or needing that money later and not having it. Lending my belongings involves my fear that I won't get them back and that I might need them. Giving time involves my fear of losing the time I want and need for my own solitary pursuits, which is the way an introvert replenishes her energy. Giving space, such as having a house guest or sharing an office, involves my fear of not having the time I need to myself and not being able to concentrate on my projects because of the presence of someone else. In all these instances, I fear that I won't have what I need when I need it, so I tend to guard my money, my belongings, my space, and my time.

On the other hand - and here's the conflict - I fear being selfish and I fear the disapproval of others for my selfishness. In other words, I "should" be generous but I don't want to be - yet I also don't want to be seen as ungenerous. So what do I do? Do I give with secret resentment - so as to appear generous? Do I withhold giving, feeling guilty within myself, making excuses, trying to hide from others the fact that I'm not giving - so as to preserve my money, belongings, space, time?

I guess another way to put this conflict is like this: I feel that I am supposed to want to give, but in fact I don't want to. What I want - to keep my money, my belongings, my space, my time for myself - conflicts with what I believe to be society's (and God's) expectations of me. Society's (and God's) expectations define what a good person is: I should be generous because a good person is generous. The fact that I don't want to give means that I am bad, that my desires are warped, that I have a shameful innate defect at my core. I need to keep this shameful core defect (of which my lack of generosity is a proof) hidden from others.

Goodness! It seems that a reasonable solution here is to quit the pretense: to simply decide what I will and will not give and to let myself be comfortable with it. Besides, it's not really the case that I never want to give. There are quite a few situations in which I feel delighted to give - to give money, belongings, space, or time. The times when I don't want to give need to be okay, or at least not horribly shameful. It is also okay to admit that I am still growing in my capacity to be generous.

There are times when I don't want to give, and I really do feel okay about it. At those times, I find that I can say no in a polite but clear way.

There are times when my soul wants to give but my superficial grasping self does not. I have started to be able to recognize these times and to go with my soul. In fact, I think that there is a very important truth here. God is generous. The universe is generous. Generosity is part of the bedrock of Reality, as are compassion, beauty, and joy. Perhaps that is why I feel that I "should" be generous and that lack of generosity is somehow off-balance - it is because generosity aligns us with God. (Another reason is that society wants us to be generous so as to support its causes, and society is not above using guilt to get contributions. The same can be said of churches and universities and non-profit organizations.) Back to God, though - it is true, I believe, that growing in generosity draws us closer to God, to Reality, to the heart of the universe. So, built into my very nature, is the sense that it is good to be generous. There is nothing shameful, though, in admitting honestly that generosity is an area of growth for me and that, at this point in my growth, I feel able to stretch myself this far in giving but not beyond. In other words, I can say, "In response to your request for x, I am not able to give that full amount, but I will give y."

There are times when I have given away too much in order to appear generous. The best example of this happened when I was five years old. I had a wonderful friend in the form of a stuffed animal - a bear/rabbit (he was really a rabbit but I thought of him as a bear) named Blue Ribbon. I had heard about a collection of toys for needy children, and in a misbegotten fit of super-generosity, I gave Ribbon to this cause. This allowed me to feel good and generous, but these feelings did not last. It wasn't long before I realized how much I had given away - I had given away my dear friend, my play companion. I missed Ribbon terribly, but there was no way to get Ribbon back. I know that I gave Ribbon away just to have the good feeling of being generous. This was wrong - I could see immediately that I had given away too much and for a very wrong reason. There are things that should not be given away.

There is also such a thing as irresponsible giving. Giving away so much that one limits one's ability to care for oneself and for those who are one's responsibility. Giving without regard to our created reality, where society is not likely to treat us kindly if we do run out of money. Deciding that God will take care of me if I give away absolutely everything.

Unfortunately, irresponsible giving has been encouraged for women by the Catholic Church and also by society at large, particularly within marriage. Mary Catherine Bateson, in Composing a Life, puts it like this: Women are taught to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the marriage; men are taught that the marriage exists to support them. Women have been taught that their fulfillment as women is to be found in giving themselves sacrificially to serve their husband's and children's needs. This has caused women to sacrifice themselves constantly for their family, all the while castigating themselves for not feeling fulfilled as a real woman should. Since they aren't exercising self-care but only giving and giving and giving, they feel depleted.

I will move now to what Erich Fromm says about giving in The Art of Loving. Erich Fromm distinguishes three types of givers. One type of giver sees giving as depletion: Whenever I give, I deplete my own store; to give means to have less. Another type of giver sees giving as marketing: Whenever I give, I aim to get something of like value in return. A third type of giver sees giving as an indication of abundance: I give because my life is abundant; giving shows that my life is rich and full. It is not necessary to be wealthy to be this third type of giver; some givers of this type are actually poor in society's eyes.

There are times when I have wanted to give, when I have given, and when I have indeed felt abundant and rich.

So - what is my Giving Moon? Initially, I said that I desire to heal a scarcity mentality that leads to hoarding by developing an abundance mentality that leads to generosity. What does it look like to give generously? Giving generously comes from love. Hoarding comes from fear as does giving super-generously or irresponsibly.

Perhaps, at rock bottom, the Moons are about moving from Fear into Love. Love encompasses myself and others - otherwise, it is not love but something else, something out of balance. To favor myself at the expense of others is out of balance and involves fear of not having enough for me. To favor others at the expense of myself is also out of balance and involves fear of being judged selfish. A question to grapple with is one of balance: how much to spend on my own pleasure in a world with severe needs and how much to give while still exercising responsible self-care. The answer is not out there - the answer is within. So this also involves ceasing to look outside myself for the answer but seeking my own God-wisdom within. This doesn't preclude asking friends for help with these questions; friends can help to spot areas of imbalance in my thinking.

Here are some Moons about Giving that come to mind:

• To reach and maintain a proper weight, a well-toned and agile body, and a high energy level through healthy habits of eating and exercise. (This is a Giving Moon because self-care enables one to give effectively.)
• To grow into a person who gives from the desire to share joyfully the abundance of a rich and full life.
• To look to my God-wisdom within to know where, when, and how much to give.
  

LOVE

I have posted quite a bit about this lately, for example, in my Hospital Experience posts of June 2010. I will simply state my Moon.

• To grow in compassion for myself and others.

Growing in compassion does not mean eliminating consequences for wrong behavior or acting irresponsibly from a misguided sense of love. For example, a dangerous convicted murderer does need to be kept firmly behind bars. Compassion can help us to understand how, given his circumstances, he did what he did, and compassion will lead us to treat him humanely - but compassion will not let him back out on the streets where he will pose a danger to others.

SERVE

Service, of course, relates to giving - particularly in action. Service is not giving money or belongings or even space - but giving time and effort and action. Giving, though, implies something above and beyond what is called for - while service is part of what one does because one is part of a community.

At a university, faculty members do well to serve their department, the university, their profession, and the wider community. For example, a history professor might serve on the committee to hire a new faculty member (reading numerous resumes, interviewing applicants by telephone, coordinating campus visits for the top candidates), might serve on the faculty senate of the university, might edit a professional journal, and might give a series of presentations at the public library on a local topic of historical interest.

There are ways to serve one's neighborhood, one's city or town, one's nation, and our world. Military service, for example, used to be the norm for all young men. If one is a member of a faith community, it is well to serve the faith community in some way. In a church, one might serve by teaching a Sunday school class, preparing the altar for the Eucharist, greeting people on Sunday morning, setting up and taking down for a church event, acting as a host for church meals. If one is a member of a club, it is well to serve the club in some way.

In other words, one serves because one is part of a community and because one's service is needed for the community to function smoothly.

There have been communities and time periods when I have done quite a bit of service and enjoyed it. This was the case in the 1990s - for my local professional organization, for example, and for the church I belonged to at the time. Also, between 2006 and 2009, I did a certain amount of service for my university department and some professional service for the wider community.

Yet it is also true that I sometimes tend to guard my free time closely and to avoid certain types of service. In these situations, I let others carry the responsibility for the smooth functioning of the community. I benefit without contributing - or without contributing very much.

For some years now, I have faced a struggle with areas of service that I feel are important, that I feel I should be involved in, and yet that I do avoid. I avoid them because they have the potential to be inconvenient and to interfere with my free time and with plans I've made. My choice has been to avoid these areas of service, to feel guilty about this avoidance, and to try to keep others unaware of my avoidance. The other choice, it seems to me, is to engage in these areas of service and to feel constantly anxious about when I might be called on inconveniently in ways that interrupt my free time and my plans. So I can feel guilty but have my freedom, or I can feel anxious but have the approval of others. I've decided to go with guilty but free. There must be another way of approaching this, but I don't see it.

Sometimes it may be that we need to do something because it is right, not because we enjoy it. And yet I think that there is a certain amount of enjoyment simply in the feeling of rightness about what we're doing, even if the action itself isn't very enjoyable. In other words, the motivation or the reason for the action - the greater purpose - provides some enjoyment.

Doing something so as not to be judged selfish is simply not a motivation that will provide any enjoyment at all. Unfortunately, that would be my motivation for certain kinds of service that I currently avoid. I would like to get to the point where the rightness of this service would provide my motivation and at least some degree of enjoyment (the point where I may not enjoy the action but I would at least enjoy the action's rightness), but I am not there and I don't see how to get there. I am more at the point of dreading the loss of freedom that this particular service could entail, of dreading not having control over when I might be called upon, of dreading the possibility of having to cancel eagerly anticipated plans. The dread is strong enough for me to avoid the service, even though I feel guilty about avoiding it.

This is as far as I can get with this situation right now. So here is how I will state my Service Moons.

• To serve in ways that give me joy, whether the joy comes from the action itself or from the rightness of the action.
• To resolve my stalemate about the areas where I currently feel that I should be serving but am not by accepting my non-service without guilt or by serving with joy.

To Avoid Pain or To Embrace Joy

For most of my life, my goal has been to avoid pain. My childhood and adolescence were dominated by avoiding the wrath of my terrifyingly rageful father and worrying about how to avoid the wrath of a God whom I imagined to be even more terrifyingly rageful. I couldn't really envision joy - and I didn't care about it. If I could just avoid pain, that was enough for me.

I have sometimes imagined arriving in heaven, which is supposed to be gorgeous and blissful beyond anything we can imagine, and saying, "Yeah, this is nice, but it certainly isn't worth it. It's not worth the pain I went through on earth to get here. Being so terrified on earth was so painful that it wasn't worth it to go through that terror to get to heaven."

I have been puzzled as to why God would create humans, knowing how much people on earth would suffer and knowing that some people would even suffer for an eternity in hell. If God hadn't created humans, no one would suffer. Of course, no one would experience the joy of heaven, either - but if no one existed, then no one would miss it. A person who does not exist cannot be said to miss something. And it has seemed to me far more important to prevent pain than to provide joy. Having no one around to experience joy seems a small price to pay in order to prevent suffering. If no one existed, then no one would be in bliss, but no one would be in pain, either - and that has seemed good to me.

So eager have I been to prevent suffering, that I have never had a child. I even feel that this is the best thing I have done in my life. When I leave this earth, I will not leave behind anyone on earth who is there because of my efforts. I have given birth to no one. No one will suffer on earth because I inflicted life upon them. That is one thing I have been determined never to do - never to inflict life upon anyone. When I die, I leave no one behind. It is true that my children will not experience joy, but they will not miss the experience of joy because they don't exist. Someone who does not exist cannot be said to miss anything. And since my children don't exist, they will not experience pain, either.

This goal of avoiding pain can actually lead to an attitude of simply waiting to die. One can start to think: It won't be much longer before I can die and get out of here.

Now, what would it be like to abandon the goal of avoiding pain and to embrace joy, instead. Here is what I think it would look like.

• Turning my attention to the good, the gracious, the beautiful, the compassionate, the joyful.
• Savoring those things.
• Noticing what causes my heart to leap with joy.
• Bringing more of those things into my life.
• Expressing thanks.
• Relaxing into a gracious universe.
• Relating to God as Being itself.
• Spending time quietly centered on God within.
  
• Living generously.

Harsh Realities and a Gracious Universe

This is my second follow-up post to the post on my Moons having to do with God. By Moons, I mean things that one deeply desires and wants to bring into one's life. In my previous post, I looked at reasons why one might see the universe as hostile or indifferent to us and reasons why one might see the universe as gracious. I myself believe that the universe is gracious - in spite of having had a hostile worldview implanted in me as a child and in spite of difficulty, at times, in holding to a gracious worldview. One difficulty in holding to a gracious worldview is that of some very harsh realities. How do we hold to a gracious worldview when confronted with such realities as debilitating poverty, severe disability, and slavery? In this post, I will work with this question.

I believe that, although it is not easy, we can see the universe as gracious in spite of these harsh realities if we consider these areas:

• People do attain incredible Moons in spite of very harsh realities.
• Sometimes it is necessary to adjust one's Moon because of life circumstances.
• Sometimes it is necessary to trust in an eternal perspective.

People do attain incredible Moons in spite of very harsh realities.

People have come through deep hurt (concentration camps, severe childhood abuse, rape, torture, murder of loved ones, debilitating poverty), preserving a spirit of faith, love, and forgiveness. Some have gone on from these atrocities to become writers, artists, entrepreneurs, community organizers, teachers. People with severe disabilities have done the same.

I think of Joni Eareckson Tada, who became a quadriplegic after a diving accident at age seventeen (she is now in her sixties), and who has done work as a writer, an artist (drawing with a pencil held in her mouth), a singer, an actor, a community organizer, and a public speaker. She has also had a successful marriage. I think of Jean-Dominique Bauby who was completely paralyzed after a stroke, such that his only method of communication was a system of winks with his one good eye. He wrote a book in this manner - spelling out each word with winks. I think of Frank McCourt, who grew up in dire poverty in Ireland, and who went on to become a teacher and writer. I think of Maya Angelou, who grew up in the South of the United States under a system of severe racial discrimination and who became a writer and an actor.

I do not know how I would react to this type of harsh reality. I do know, though, that there are people who continue to go for the Moon despite tremendous odds. These people keep their eyes on the gracious elements of life - the beauties of nature, supportive friends, things they can do and enjoy.

Sometimes it is necessary to adjust one's Moon because of life circumstances.

Sometimes life circumstances are such that certain Moons are not possible. I think of Maya Angelou's grandmother, Mrs. Annie Henderson, who lived in a time and place where opportunities were severely limited for African Americans. Yet Mrs. Henderson managed to own and run her own general store, supporting herself and her family with her own independent business in the African American community. Mrs. Henderson may have been capable of a far grander entrepreneurial Moon had greater opportunity been available for her, but she went as far as the society of her time allowed her to go. She adjusted her Moon to what was possible for her and went as far as she could with the possibilities she had.

If one is an athlete and suffers an injury that leaves one disabled, one will need to adjust one's Moon. If one encounters serious financial set-backs, one will need to adjust one's Moon. If one is faced with caring for a severely ill family member, one will need to adjust one's Moon.

It is possible (though certainly not easy) to adjust one's Moon, to keep one's eyes on the graciousness of life, and to live in joy and thankfulness.

Sometimes it is necessary to trust in an eternal perspective.

Sometimes people encounter such horrendous life circumstances that we simply need to trust in an eternal perspective. Some people simply cannot, in this lifetime, even imagine aspiring to joy or to going for a Moon.

Sometimes life circumstances that one person may be able to handle can be too much for another person. I think of a story that Anne Lamott tells in one of her books. She speaks of a member of her church - a woman with a strong faith which had seen her through a life that included a good deal of hardship. As this woman entered her eighties, she started to go blind. Everyone in the church knew that this woman would face this new trial with the strong faith that was so characteristic of her - her faith would see her through. But this did not happen. The woman found blindness too much to bear. She grew depressed and withdrew from the church community, refusing to see anyone and finally dying in despair.

What happened with this woman? Why, after a lifetime of exercising her faith and seeing life as gracious in spite of difficult trials, was she unable to continue this attitude in the face of blindness? Of course, I cannot answer those questions. I can say, however, that when a church member can no longer sustain her faith, the church's faith will sustain her. The rest of us can have faith for a member whose faith seems to have deserted her. This is another evidence of life's graciousness. When life circumstances seem to have crushed an individual, others in the community can uphold that individual. Others can believe for that individual. Despite appearances, the faith of the community will see that individual through.

Slavery is an extremely dark area where Moons are impossible. A slave can have no goals, no plans, no will, certainly no Moons of his or her own. A slave can only carry out the will of his or her master.

This is brutal. The brutality of slavery is brought home by Ned Sublette in The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square. Ned speaks about the sexual relationships that white male masters forced upon their black female slaves. Ned says that we can't even use the word rape for this because there is no question of consent. On page 216, Ned says of a female slave, "The matter of her consent was irrelevant, because she could not refuse," then adds, "Because that's what slavery was."

Elizabeth Gilbert in Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, makes a similar point. On page 69, Elizabeth says this about slaves and marriage: "The argument against slaves' marrying, simply put, was this: It's impossible. Marriage in Western society is supposed to be a contract based on mutual consent, and a slave - by very definition - does not possess his own consent. His every move is controlled by his master and therefore he cannot willfully enter into any contract with another human being."

Whenever some humans create conditions that rob other humans of joy in life, I would say that we are dealing with deeply serious sin. This is true of slavery and of employment conditions that keep people in poverty and require long hours of grueling work. People born into situations like these grow up expecting no joy from life and seeing no possibility of reaching toward a Moon. Those who create such conditions incur and inflict tremendous soul wounds.

It is also true that, when a particular society is occupied with survival or when a society has fixed social roles, questions of joy and Moons become irrelevant. Working or fulfilling one's expected role in society takes precedence, though joy is not necessarily excluded from such a life. Joy is simply not sought and not expected.

In situations where joy doesn't seem possible, particularly where life is brutal, I can only trust in an eternal perspective. I absolutely do not mean that it's okay for people to have brutal lives on earth because they will have a chance to experience joy after this earthly life. It is never okay for life to be brutal, especially when this is due to brutal treatment of humans by other humans. I do mean that I believe that our lives are larger than this earthly life, that this life is not the end of the story, and that graciousness wins out in the end.

Why Would We See the World as Hostile, Indifferent, or Gracious?

Before I write about my Moons having to do with others or with self, I realize that I want to do several more posts on topics related to my Moons having to do with God. This is the first of these.

In my previous post, I looked at how I grew up with a view of the world as a hostile place and how I believe that a healthy soul views the world as a gracious place. According to Marcus Borg in The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith, one may have any of three worldviews:

• Hostile: One may see the universe as hostile to us. We can expect bad things to happen, and we must be constantly on the defensive.
• Indifferent: One may see the universe as indifferent to us. We still need to be on our guard because things happen without regard to their effect on us, for good or for ill.
• Gracious: One may see the universe as gracious to us. We can relax. At the heart of the universe is goodness, compassion, beauty, joy. This view needs to recognize areas of hostility (criminals do exist) and areas of indifference (hurricanes have no regard for humans), but the overall bent of the universe is gracious.

In this post, I will look at why we might see the universe as hostile or indifferent and why we might see the universe as gracious.

A HOSTILE OR INDIFFERENT WORLDVIEW

It is easy to see the universe, or at least our world, as hostile or indifferent. We see hostile forces: murder, stealing, rape, sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, slavery, grinding poverty, exploitation of workers by employers, pollution. We see indifferent forces: illness, serious accidents, losses that come with aging, natural disasters, adverse economic trends. It is easy to conclude that the universe is essentially hostile or indifferent.

I can see three elements in the formation of a hostile or indifferent worldview.

1. Our assumptions about reality shape our society.
2. God empowers us to shape our society as we will.
3. The shape of our society reinforces our assumptions about realtiy.

1. Our assumptions about reality shape our society.

Our society makes these assumptions:

• Competition creates a healthy economy.
• Nature is based on survival of the fittest.
• Society functions best when each person acts in his or her own self-interest.
• Individual freedom is sacred.
• The economy is an impersonal force.

We believe that these assumptions constitute ultimate reality, so we have created a society where our reality is, indeed, competition, survival of the fittest, self-interest, individual freedom, and impersonal economic forces. People act for their own benefit without regard for the effect on others. Those others are expected to take care of themselves. We have people who feel free to steal, whether through a crude armed robbery or a sophisticated money-laundering scheme. We have people who feel free to enrich themselves at the expense of others, as we saw in the Enron scandal and the more recent mortgage failures. We have people who feel free to hurt others to get what they want. If others get hurt, it is their own fault - they should be watching out for themselves. We speak of the economy doing this and the economy doing that, as though the economy is an indifferent force that operates on its own, whereas actual people are doing the things that the economy is said to do.

As stated in The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein - "Your car goes where your eyes go" (page 82). If your car starts to spin out of control on the race track and your eyes go to the wall, you can expect to crash right into that wall. But if your car starts to spin out of control and your eyes go to the track, you can expect to regain control of your car and get it back on the track. I believe that we can give this a wider application, individually and collectively. On the individual level, my life goes where my eyes go. On the collective level, our society goes where our eyes go - and our collective eyes go to competition, survival of the fittest, self-interest, individual freedom, and impersonal economic forces - our deep-seated assumptions about reality. This is, therefore, the kind of society we create.

2. God empowers us to shape our society as we will.

Through reading Karen Armstrong's The Case for God, I have been developing an understanding of God, not as a being but as Being itself. Humans are beings made in the image and likeness of God - which means that God shares Being with us. Being entails tremendous power and potential. And this is key - God does not direct or force us in using that power and potential. We can use that power and potential for good or for ill. What we are capable of is huge - we can literally create heaven or hell right here on Earth.

If we choose to create a society based on competition, survival of the fittest, self-interest, individual freedom, and economic forces treated as impersonal - we have all the power of Being to do so. God will not interfere. Indeed, this is what we have done, and God has not interfered.

I can see two reasons why God would not interfere. First, God's perspective is eternal. If, right now, an erroneous worldview is in the ascendant, God has eternity for balance to be restored. Second, it may be that restraining the power of Being for ill would also restrain the power of Being for good. When you provide a huge potential for good, the same huge potential exists in the other direction. It may not be possible to limit potential in one direction only. Any limiting is likely to limit the whole. This is why a person with a tremendous capacity to feel joy also has a tremendous capacity to feel pain. If you diminish the capacity to feel pain, you diminish the capacity to feel. If you limit the power and potential to create ill, you limit the power and potential to create.

3. The shape of our society reinforces our assumptions about reality.

So we shape our society according to our assumptions about reality, and the tremendous power and potential of Being given us by God allows us to do so. Once we have a society shaped by our assumptions, the very shape of our society then reinforces those very assumptions. We look at our world, and what do we see? Competition, survival of the fittest, self-interest, individual freedom, impersonal economic forces - we see all these things run amok. We are born, we grow and compete for limited resources, the fittest get the biggest slice of the pie (or even the whole pie), each person acts in his or her own self-interest without regard for the effect on others, and we learn to ride the waves of impersonal economic forces or we are crushed by them. Life is a fight for survival and dominance in a hostile or indifferent world. Our assumptions about reality have created this reality, and now this self-created reality reinforces our assumptions.

Where is the meaning in this? There are those who observe this self-created reality and conclude that life has no meaning. Spending all one's energy to get ahead or even just to hold one's own does not constitute a meaningful life.

A GRACIOUS WORLDVIEW

Although I grew up with a hostile worldview and although a gracious worldview is sometimes difficult for me to sustain, I do believe that the world is gracious. I also believe that we need to recognize areas of hostility and of indifference. Some people, for instance, do intend to harm us, and natural phenomena, such as weather patterns, are indifferent to us - so we need to act wisely and take precautions. But at the heart of the universe is goodness, compassion, beauty, and joy.

The evidence for this is not conclusive, but neither is the evidence for a hostile or indifferent universe. And if our car goes where our eyes go, I would much rather have my car go into graciousness than into hostility or indifference. I also believe that there is evidence of a gracious universe. As I see it, this evidence lies in these areas.

1. Graciousness is abundantly present in our world.
2. People create gracious societies.
3. We crave meaning and goodness.
4. Joy is a sign of truth.

1. Graciousness is abundantly present in our world.

Our world is beautiful. Animals, plants, forests, deserts, rivers, oceans, mountains, sunrises, sunsets, the night sky - we live in a beautiful world. Nature is beautiful in its wild state, and humans can shape it and enhance its beauty. A profusion of wildflowers on a hillside is lovely, as is a garden artistically arranged with flowers, a statue, and a fountain.

Our five senses give us enormous pleasure. We can delight in color, shape, and design. A rainbow in the sky lifts our spirits, as do the rainbow colors reflected on a wall through a prism hanging in a window. We can admire pictures in the clouds, as well as paintings and sculptures by the masters. We can enjoy the cricket song in the evening, as well as a powerful chorus performing Handel's Messiah. We can bask in the massage of a gentle breeze or of a skilled masseur or masseuse. We can savor wild strawberries or blueberries, as well as the culinary masterpieces of a great chef. We can enjoy the aroma of a full-blown rose or of brewing coffee.

We can imagine and create. We can explore the world of fiction, poetry, film, theater, painting, sculpture, architecture, needlecraft, song, instrumental music, gymnastics, athletics, mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics. theology, philosophy, dreams, psychology.

Our world is full to overflowing with things to enjoy.

2. People create gracious societies.

While an over-emphasis on competition, survival of the fittest, self-interest, individual freedom, and economic forces seen as impersonal has been in the ascendant for some time - it is also true that people create gracious societies. There are people who consciously turn their attention away from those things that point to hostility or indifference and who turn their attention instead toward graciousness. They create gracious societies based on cooperation, compassion, and inter-dependence.

Many indigenous societies, intentional communities, and loving families are of this type. I think of the Goddess-worshipping cultures of Europe, the Native American nations encountered by the first Europeans coming to the Americas, the religious communities founded by Saint Francis of Assisi and by Saint Claire, churches whose members have a deep commitment to each other and to their neighbors, and families I have known where love and social consciousness prevail.

Are these societies, communities, and families perfectly gracious? No. But then, neither is the wider society, or even corporate America, perfectly hostile or indifferent.

3. We crave meaning and goodness.

For me, the fact that we so crave meaning, that we so crave goodness, points to meaning itself and goodness itself at the heart of the universe.

We deeply want our lives to have meaning. All of art, for instance, is a search for or an expression of meaning - through story, poetry, painting, sculpture, music. Even when an artist believes that life is meaningless, he or she feels drawn to express this - in literature of the absurd, in convoluted visual art, in cacophonous music. The artist feels compelled to show what life means, even if it means nothing. If life truly means nothing, from whence comes this urge to dig for a meaning and to express it?

We also feel an urge to understand our world factually. People devote their lives to the study of biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, history, philosophy, theology - and so much more. We feel compelled to learn about our world, to study it, to understand it, to organize our knowledge. We deeply desire meaning, and this desire points to an actual meaning which is the object of this desire.

This desire for meaning is so universal - across cultures, across times, across disciplines - that I believe it is evidence that an ultimate meaning exists. A desire so ingrained in human nature must be there for a reason - it must have an object - life must have meaning.

And the meaning of life must be good. I believe this because we deeply desire goodness. We see the harm in our world, and even though we don't seem able to correct it, we do deplore it. Our hearts are warmed by stories of goodness and kindness, and repelled by stories of harm and hate. I believe that our attraction for the good - the compassionate, the beautiful, the joyful - is the truth of the universe asserting itself in our very nature.

4. Joy is a sign of truth.

I simply believe that what promotes our soul health must be true. Why are our souls made so that the good, the beautiful, and the compassionate give us deep joy? I would say that this is because the good, the beautiful, and the compassionate are the truth at the heart of the universe.

When goodness, beauty, and compassion prevail, we are deeply satisfied, we feel at peace. When harm, ugliness, and hatred prevail, we feel dissatisfied, unfinished, out of balance. We feel that the story isn't over. We must continue until wrong is righted, until the good prevails. Only then can we rest. Only then do we feel complete.

We have a sense of temporariness around hostility and indifference and a sense of permanence around graciousness. Why? Because this is the truth of the universe asserting itself within our nature. Our nature will not let us rest until we are aligned with truth. The truth is not hostility or indifference, but graciousness. When things are hostile or indifferent, we feel out of balance and incomplete. When things are gracious, we feel a sense of equilibrium and completion.

Soul Work - Deeper Moons Focused on God

My previous post identified deeper Moons focused on God, others, and self. By Moons, I mean things that I deeply want to bring into my life and live into. This post will explore deeper Moons - Moons that involve important soul work - focused on God. The categories God, others, and self are arbitrary and certainly overlap. Some of what I say in this post will seem very much focused on self as well as on God.

The Moons focusing on God are ENJOY and THANK. Each involves a deeply ingrained attitude toward life, an attitude that I imbibed in the family where I grew up, along with needed family soul healing. Here they are:

• ENJOY: Heal the goal of getting from here to the grave as safely and painlessly as possible by living life fully and joyfully.
• THANK: Heal the hostile worldview by seeing the world as gracious and by expressing thanks.

ENJOY

In the family where I grew up, I was afraid much of the time - afraid of my father and afraid of God. My father was terrifying in his unpredictable rages, and I envisioned God as a much huger, more powerful, and far more terrifying version of my father. Life with my father and with the God I created in my father's image was intensely painful. With my father, I learned to suspend my soul, go numb, and wait for his rage to pass. My goal in life came to be staying safe and avoiding pain. I did not care about joy - if I could just be safe and pain-free, that was all I wanted.

I see now that having as one's life goal to get from here to the grave as safely and painlessly as possible represents a huge soul wound. The healthy soul embraces life and lives as fully and joyfully as possible. I do this by knowing and doing what gives me joy. In light of needs I see in my world, I want to embrace Moons of this type that do not involve large expense, that truly enrich me, that promote personal and planetary health, that in some way encourage others. Here are some possible such Moons:

• Savor the simple pleasures of life: a beautiful flower, the evening cricket song, a gentle breeze, the texture of the prayer shawl I'm knitting and the comforting repetitive hand movements, a bike ride on the Mississippi River levee bike trail, a piece of dark chocolate, a cup of warm tea, a ripe peach, the scent of sweet olive.
• Blog frequently.
• Publish small books based on my writing.
• Draw regularly and post drawings on my blog.
• Exhibit a series of my artwork with other amateur artists.
• Organize a reader's theater.
• Attend plays, concerts, operas, movies.
• Give theme parties.
• Study the Bardic lessons of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, and use it as material for writing and drawing.
• Look for opportunities to encourage others to engage in writing, visual art, and music - Live the concept that everyone is an artist.
• Form a piano quartet or duo.

The above Moons do not involve large expense, do truly enrich me, do promote personal and planetary health (usually in the sense of lifting my spirits and bringing beauty and joy into the world), and do in some way encourage others.

The encouraging of others is something I want to be sure to incorporate. Some of the above Moons clearly involve others, such as giving theme parties and organizing a reader's theater. Some make my work available to others by publishing it on my blog, thus making my insights available for others to interact with and perhaps encouraging others in their own writing and artistic endeavors. Some, such as savoring simple pleasures, make me a more pleasant person to be around.

THANK

My father espoused a view in which the world is a hostile place. Survival of the fittest is the rule, it's a dog-eat-dog world, people are out for themselves. What puzzles me is why on earth my father would want to bring children into such a world. If the world is such a hostile place, why would one subject others to it? In any case, I grew up in a home where I learned that the world is hostile, that I must constantly be on the defensive and not trust anyone, and that I can expect terrible things to happen.

I believe that the healthy soul sees the world as a gracious place. Yes, there are pockets of hostility and of indifference. There are people with harmful intent; therefore, it is well to avoid certain neighborhoods and to keep one's doors locked. Nature is indifferent; therefore, it is well to recognize and shun poison ivy, to avoid stirring up a nest of hornets, and to evacuate when in the path of a hurricane. Yet, overall, at rock bottom, life is gracious.

I admit that this can be extremely hard to see when one is imprisoned in a concentration camp, or when one is born or captured into slavery, or when one has been raped, or when one has just suffered an injury that leaves one completely paralyzed. I have no idea how I would respond if faced with any such situation - and I don't wish to find out. It is worth noting, though, that there have been people in each of these situations who have come through with their faith in God and in life as gracious intact. People have forgiven those who have imprisoned, tortured, enslaved, and raped them. People have become authors, artists, musicians, public speakers, and community organizers while severely disabled.

For me, the key is to change the direction in which I focus my attention. In The Art of Racing in the Rain, we learn this lesson:

Your car goes where your eyes go. (Page 82)

Enzo, in The Art of Racing in the Rain, puts it like this: "In racing, they say that your car goes where your eyes go. The driver who cannot tear his eyes away from the wall as he spins out of control will meet that wall; the driver who looks down the track as he feels his tires break free will regain control of his vehicle" (page 83).

It is easy for me to focus on the pain and the injustice of life. The healthy soul, however, recognizes the pain and the injustice but focuses on the graciousness - the love, the beauty, the compassion, the joy.

Where do my eyes go? When faced with flying in an airplane, my eyes go to a possible plane crash and an unbearable injury such as complete paralysis or severe burns over large areas of the body. When faced with a hospital procedure, my eyes go to all the many things that can possibly go wrong in a hospital, such as surgical implements being left inside the body and full anaesthesia awareness and brain injury. When faced with a class to teach, my eyes go to dissatisfied students and poor teaching evaluations. When faced with a social event, my eyes go to others finding me unattractive and uninteresting.

Where might my eyes go instead? To the excitement of flying, traveling, and exploring another place. To a smooth medical procedure and recovery and to the health benefits to be gained from the procedure. To an exciting class, an engaging subject, and engaged students. To interesting and enjoyable personal interactions at a social event.

Sometimes it is necessary to recognize that we live in a time when a mistaken worldview is in the ascendant, filling the world with pain and injustice temporarily. In The Case for God, Karen Armstrong describes how Socrates did this, even when faced with a death sentence: "He could have escaped and was probably expected to do so. But even though the sentence was unjust, he preferred to obey the laws of his beloved Athens to the end: he would die a witness (martys) to the untruth currently in the ascendant" (page 58).

Socrates knew that a mistaken worldview was "currently in the ascendant" (page 58). Even though this mistaken worldview affected Socrates severely, Socrates knew that this worldview was a temporary, not a permanent, condition.

This is so important to viewing life as gracious. It is so tempting to see the current time as all there is. The current time is not all there is. We can look at the time-line of human presence on earth - tens of thousands of years at the very least, and possibly hundreds of thousands of years. We can look at the time-line of the universe - billions or trillions of years. We can look at the time-line of God - eternity.

I would say that a time of pain, violence, and injustice has been in the ascendant for the last several thousand years. During this time, we have seen the enthronement of a patriarchal system, the dominance/subordination model for social interactions, the use of violence and war to establish dominance, the concept of human property and slavery, the reliance on power over, the exaltation of competition. This leads to an attitude where one does whatever will enrich oneself - no matter the consequences for other people, for future generations, for other living creatures, for our Earth. Others are expected to watch out for themselves. If others get hurt, it's their own fault. We see this today in the current financial crisis, the Enron scandal, the mismanagement of mortgages, BP's disregard for safety precautions, the abuse of animals in research, the inhumane mass-production methods at chicken and hog farms, the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, the pollution of the Earth for industrial growth. People are saying, "I will do whatever benefits me. Let others take care of themselves."

This attitude is in the ascendant, and it has severe effects. It is easy for our eyes to go to the hostile and the indifferent. But I believe this is not the truth of life - it is a temporary aberration, even though the aberration may last throughout my life-time and beyond. It is not all there is. It is not even all there is right now. It is important to turn our eyes to the good, the beautiful, the compassionate, the joyful. There is hostility and indifference in our world - we do need to recognize this. But our eyes can focus on the graciousness of life. This is what I need to do to help heal a deep wound in my family soul.

How shall I do this? By thanking. By noticing the good, the beautiful, the compassionate, the joyful - and by expressing thanks - to God and to people.

MY GOD MOONS

Let me end by listing my God Moons in summary form.

• Savor the simple pleasures of life.
• Do art - Practice, Publish, Encourage.
• Thank God and people for the good, the beautiful, the compassionate, the joyful.

Soul Work - Deeper Moons

My previous two posts have been about going for the Moon - going after and living one's dreams. I have explored my Moons, or those things that give me joy, and I have examined factors that influence whether I choose the easier path of playing it safe or the more satisfying path of going for the Moon.

My Moons include the following:

• ART: Having and playing a piano in my home again, exhibiting a series of my art work, publishing small books based on writing I've done
• EXPLORATION: Driving the Ring Road in Iceland and visiting the Trapp Family Lodge in Vermont
• HOME-MAKING: Giving theme parties
• GOD: Studying the Bardic materials of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids

Although I recognize Moons that give me joy, I often choose instead to take the easier path of playing it safe because of these fears:

• Being exposed as shamefully incompetent
• Feeling others' disapproval for promoting myself and showing off
• Being selfish
• Feeling the anxiety and discomfort of change
• Being injured, especially in a painful or incapacitating way
• Losing all my money
• Losing my solitude, whereby - as an introvert - I replenish myself
• Losing my free time and plans by being called upon unexpectedly

I determined that I might choose to follow and live into a Moon because the Moon has the following characteristics:

• Fills me with joy
• Promotes health and healing for my soul
• Connects me with God
• Encourages others in some way

In this post, I will go deeper. I will examine what soul work I may be called upon to do in this life. I will consider not just my individual soul but also my family soul. The family soul is a concept I explored in a previous post of August 24, 2009, titled "Frank Schaeffer's Memoir: Insight - The Family Soul." In that post, I showed how Frank Schaeffer carried further some of the soul work that his father had done and how Frank's son carried this soul work further still. I explored the idea that we may be able to advance soul work that our parents and ancestors have carried to a certain level and that we may be able help heal family soul wounds.

In observing the family in which I was raised, I can identify these areas of family soul work:

• Goal of getting from here to the grave as safely and painlessly as possible - Live fully and joyfully
• Hostile worldview - See the world as gracious
• Scarcity mentality, leading to hoarding - Develop an abundance mentality, leading to generosity
• Judgmental attitude - Develop compassion
• Avoidance of service - Serve in appropriate ways
• Secretiveness - Be honest in appropriate ways, especially in taking responsibility for one's actions and feelings
• Excessive busyness - Spend time being rather than constantly doing
• Anger - Act from a place of calm centeredness

It seems that there is a word for each of the above points: Enjoy, Thank, Give, Love, Serve, Show, Be, Relax.

That's still a lot to grasp - eight words, eight concepts. Well, I think I can group them into three categories:

• GOD: Enjoy, Thank
• OTHERS: Give, Love, Serve
• SELF: Show, Be, Relax

These are the deeper Moons for me to live into. The specific actions I take are far less important than the deeper attitudes that my actions are expressing. In other words, it is not so important that I get and play a piano or drive the Ring Road in Iceland or give a theme party as it is that I deeply enjoy my life with a spirit of thankfulness.

It is clear that my Moons in my "What are My Moons?" post of July 23, 2010 focus on things that I enjoy doing. In light of my deeper Moons, I think it is important for me to choose a few of those enjoyable Moons - particularly ones that do not involve large expenses in light of the current economic crisis, ones that truly enrich my life, and ones that encourage others in some way. It is also important for me to take delight in living into Moons that involve giving, loving, and serving.

My next three posts will explore the three Moon areas I have identified: God, others, self.