Gay Marriage

President Barack Obama has recently come out publicly in support of same-sex marriage. This has prompted another wave of engagement by those on both sides of the argument – those who believe that same-sex couples should be afforded the same rights and recognition as heterosexual couples, and those who believe marriage is between a man and a woman.

I am perplexed by the argument as I am one who sees marriage as a social, cultural and economic construct. I also want to honour individual beliefs around the institution of marriage and know that I have no special place from which to judge. But I have seen too much of “marriage” to accept that it is the domain of the self-righteous, the special and the heterosexual.

Whatever God may be for you, he or she is your own personal God and I fully respect that. What he or she is not, is everyone else’s – and that is what I am asking you to respect. I’d like to believe that God has each individual’s journey in hand and that I do not need to interfere with that. I trust God to do his/her work and I also respect that for some of you that means no relationship with God at all.

Buy why do we continue to confuse the issue of our gay friends, co-workers and family members accessing the same legal and social recognition of their relationship with a religious position that marriage is “only between a man and a woman”? Because the concepts seem to be so inextricably linked I am appealing for generosity of spirit.

I want to embrace families in all of their uniqueness, shapes, sizes and colours. I understand sexual orientation, like so many other human traits, is expressed along a spectrum. I’m not sure that there is a perfect, sanctioned-by-God, point along that continuum. I want to respect individual choice. I want to trust in the personal relationship that each person has with his or her own “higher power.” I don’t hope for mere tolerance, I hope for acceptance.

I know my Christian friends mean well when they express concerns about same-sex marriage. They have found a relationship with a God that works for them, one that brings them comfort and one that possibly brings them joy. But it is hard for me to hear their anti-gay marriage comments from a position other than one of moral self-righteousness. The prayer I would ask for each of us to pray (should you even choose to pray!) is: “Dear God, I trust you to support each of us along this journey of life, in whatever way it expresses itself.”

In most spiritual beliefs or practices there is some version of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  In the context of same-sex marriage this might mean: “please do not ask me to defend my decision, my choice or my way of being in the world. I am an expression of my creation and cannot be any other way. In return, I will not ask you to defend your decision to live as you do.”

I am not even asking those against gay marriage to stop being against it. But I ask them to own that position as their personal understanding of the way God might be in the world, not as a fact.

At this moment I can hear some of you saying now, “But it is written in the Bible…” I do not know if that is true. I trust that it could be written there, translated there and interpreted there; but the Bible is not the final authority on this or any matter. I am suggesting that the final authority is each individual’s personal relationship with his or her “higher power,” however they experience it. I do not have to rely on the Bible for my conscience when I have a direct and personal relationship with my God. Some of you might not like that. I am not asking you to like it. I am asking you to respect it.

I am not the spiritual police. I am not the marriage police. I am not the Bible police. I am not the morality police. I am a spiritual person having a human experience and I need all the support I can get. I am a humble person who wants to support others in that way too.

When I feel self-righteous and “holier than thou”, it is a good time to remind myself that God has everyone’s journey in hand. God bless Obama and God bless you – straight, gay, married or unmarried. I ask that we do not create a divide among ourselves – a divide within our families, our communities and our friends. Let’s lovingly and generously support one another as we make our way through this thing called life.

To do, or not to do – that is the question

“If you want to be happy”, says Democritus, “do little.” May it not be better to do what is necessary, what the reason of a naturally social being demands, and the way reason demands it done? This brings the happiness both of right action and little action. Most of what we say and do is unnecessary; remove the superfluity, and you will have more time and less bother. So in every case one should prompt oneself; “Is this, or is it not, something necessary?” And the removal of the unnecessary should apply not only to actions but to thoughts also; then no redundant actions either will follow.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

This passage was written by a Roman Emperor and consummate philosopher, Aurelius; and the theme is credited to one whom many regard as “the father of modern science,” Democritus. Could it have something to say to me?

How could I put this ancient wisdom into practice in my daily, modern life? To simply remember to ask myself, “Is this, or is it not, something necessary?” I have to wonder, to what demands did Democritus and Aurelius judge as unnecessary?

For one thing, they both lived a very long time ago – Democritus, around 470 BC; and Aurelius, 121 AD. Therefore, my immediate list of “unnecessary” tasks did not apply to them. There would have been no need, for instance, to check their Facebook page multiple times during the day, watch t.v. or remove unwanted body hair.

Do only what is necessary...

Stories about Democritus speak of his disinterest, modesty, and simplicity. He is said to have lived exclusively for his studies. One story claims that he deliberately blinded himself in order to be less disturbed in his pursuits. Hmmm, a bit extreme I would have thought, but then I am reminded of an image recently shared on my own Facebook page of the “The Isolator,” credit to Del Widdowson, one of my favourite “sisters” and academic and Facebooker extraordinaire. (Who would have believed I could make the link between the ancient philosophers and “The Isolator?” Oh ye of little faith.)

Democritus - the laughing philospher

Democritus is often depicted as the Laughing Philosopher. It seems he liked to laugh at the follies of human beings. Follies like doing the unnecessary. This is no doubt why he was able to have great thoughts, thoughts about atoms and the space in between them. He thought about the void, and could there really be a void, if a void is a thing in and of itself. These are deep thoughts. Pondering thoughts. These thoughts give me a painless kind of headache. And I love them.

I have a friend and “sister” Dorothy. She has deep and pondering thoughts about consciousness. For example, “where does our consciousness go when we are anesthetized?” This thinking too gives me a kind of painless headache but I accept that this is completely necessary thinking for a PhD candidate like Dorothy. I think that that consciousness might go to a Caribbean resort; to a Bermuda, Barbados or Belize. This is a simple concept for me, one that takes me dreamily into my own, altered state of consciousness, where the most necessary thought I might have is “will I have a Mojito or Caipirinha.” And the ultimate question of all time…”Is it too early to have a drink?” Ironically, it is Dorothy, the future Dr McLaren, PhD, who introduced me to the Caipirinha. More lime – that is what the world needs! Limes, unequivocally, are necessary – suck on that Democritus.

I do not mean to besmirch our dear Democritus. I’m just saying that I can begin to feel a bit inadequate with all of his thinking. I think that our dear Demi, if I may call him that, would have laughed loud and long at all the unnecessary things that I do in any given day. I dust, I iron, I answer phone calls from people I do not wish to speak to (telemarketers top amongst them), I buy clothing I do not wear, and greet people I do not like – the list is quite long really.

But I will consider Demi’s idea, brought to us from our dear Aurelius. More time and less bother sounds like something worthy of aspiring to. I may, in lieu of checking my Facebook and Hotmail, ponder the void and some good old fashioned metaphysical logic, or not. After all, Demi, doing nothing is, actually, doing something. But first, I might just have a Mojito…

That's what the world needs - more lime.

No more muddy boots

The Midwest of the United States casts a broad landscape. Within this expanse is Kansas, an expanse in itself. And within the centre of Kansas, where I was born there is an expanse of wheat fields; that is dark, cold and frosted in the winter and of slight undulation, very slight. This was my childhood landscape; an expanse with hidden gems of slow moving creeks or the canopy of a broad cottonwood. The winter sky was so big, as was the sun in the summer, that sometimes you just wanted to hide from it.

My father’s mother lived on the family farm. It was modest. My uncle and his sons farmed it then. We used to visit my Grandmother weekly. It was a 12-mile drive to her house. In those days, it was the longest drive we took. Her small weatherboard house never changed. She had a storm cellar six paces away from the outside the back door, under the milk house. The kind of cellar with a trap door. The kind that you see in the Wizard of Oz when Auntie Em is calling out for Dorothy as the tornado bears down on them. These are places you would never go unless your life depended upon it. There are places like that.

In fact, my grandmother’s name was Dorothy. Like her house, she never changed. She was the same from the time I first remember her until the time she died twenty years later. I don’t think she left the farm very often except to go to the library, grocery store and her women’s group. She lived alone in that house since my grandfather died. Living in a house alone seemed unnatural to me, but I liked the idea of it. It seemed courageous. It seemed like an independent thing to do. It seemed peaceful. Things were in order. Things were organised. Things were in their place and she always knew where to find them.

When I was 14 I was sent to live at my grandmother’s house. My parents don’t remember this, but I remember this. I remember the bus driver Floyd with the big ears. I was the first to get on the bus and the last to get off so I had plenty of time to study the back of Floyd’s head.  As children, we never went to stay with our grandmother. Our grandmother came to us. That would be because there were five of us.

So, as I piece the story together, with no corroboration (given my parents faulty memory and my grandmother’s subsequent death), I was sent to stay at my grandmother’s house. I slept in my Aunt Kathy’s room. It felt monastic. Completely unadorned. Like the landscape. I could hardly imagine Kathy here. At this time, Kathy was the most exotic and fascinating woman I knew. Our mother’s wore the standard polyester twin sets of the 1970’s. Kathy dressed in clothes that looked more like pyjamas. She had indoor shoes as well as street shoes. Her make-up was always on and her bright, red hair always done. She had the polish of her profession, especially as it stood in those days before it was considered discriminatory to fire people because they were fat, old, ugly, married or mothers. She was a stewardess with TWA. She was pure glamour to this young girl from the wheat fields of Kansas.

Every Christmas my father bought his sister, Kathy, a bottle of scotch and a carton of Salem cigarettes. It seemed a funny gift because I was pretty sure that Kathy would buy these things anyway. But what could you buy her? She was a single, career woman with a job that allowed her to travel all over the world. She always had the best French perfume, bought at the duty free shops and her presence wafted through the room in a cloud of perfumed smoke trails to the tinkle of ice cubes in a highball glass. I adored her.

Many years later, when I was approaching my 30^th birthday, the Berlin Wall came down and it seemed to me the beginning of a new world order.  It made me think about how I would want to live my life and I wrote a poem, “No more muddy boots.” It was a poem about a female existence; an existence, a life, where no one walked into your space with their muddy boots on and left a trail of destruction on your freshly polished floor. As far as I knew, Kathy had no man in her life, she certainly had no husband. As a child I deduced that not having a husband meant you got to travel the world and wear beautiful clothes and perfume. It also meant you didn’t have children. You had freedom and clean floors.

Living on the prairie gave me the time and space to think a lot. A lot of thinking gets done under the shade of a tree when it is too hot to move. When I was in my 30’s, I moved to Australia and met a woman from Canada. She was one of many ex-pats who became my surrogate family while living abroad. She suggested that we came to our region in Australia to heal. I think that is because it is another prairie, another expanse, another big sky and another big sun. It is hard for things to hide there, to remain hidden. Its spaciousness doesn’t distract you with so many vistas, changing tides or colourful plays of light on the side of a mountain. It held the space for me to go within. It supported me in exploring my internal world. That is where we go when our lives depend upon it. That is the trap door and the cellar where we go to be safe.

Sunday afternoon

I sit within my house, the windows are clean, the autumn leaves outside are crisp and orange. It is Sunday afternoon. The fire glows and my chair is soft; my book is thick and the lamp shines only on me. The cat rubs my legs but respects my peace. If the phone rings I will not pick it up. If there is a knock at the door, I will not answer it. It is quiet and I hear my breathing. I go deeper into the breaths and deeper into myself, and for this short time, for this moment, I am O.K. While this moment lasts I will choose not to leave it as I know soon enough it will flee without my chasing it.

The Cafe

It’s all very civilised really. Even though the tables and chairs are of a size diminutive enough so that patrons can not get overly comfortable. In fact, those in the cafe with me now are indeed poised on their modern, silver chairs; sitting on the edge, leaning forward to be heard and to maintain confidences I imagine.

There is an earnestness in their posture as if they had to come here to share their intelligence and espionage. Sharing a coffee is actually an intimate thing to do in public after all. It’s what we usually do in kitchens. You wouldn’t normally go to a public place to sleep or watch t.v., but cafe’s and coffee are different. It’s a  social thing to do.

It’s mostly women here. We seem to crave that connection more. Some are professional, and many are mums seeking respite from the four walls and the endless, mundane tasks that make up making a home. I see a man and woman now – a couple? I think not, their conversation is a bit too animated and engaged. Couples, married couples, seem to lose their energy for one another. I can say this. I am divorced. I give myself permission to generalise and make judgements about what happens to married people. These judgements are of course reinforced by all my still married friends who call “good sex” an oxymoron. Besides, making judgements about other people in the cafe is accepted cafe behaviour.

Actually, I am ambivalent about not having a partner now, and a cafe is a  perfectly good place to be ambivalent about that and other things…like the price of a cup of java. A good cafe is overpriced so you know that you’re getting quality. Still, one can be disappointed. Today I ordered a scone and had to ration the jam out to make it last the scone. I don’t think they should scrimp on jam. With jam, one should be generous. It isn’t truffles or caviar after all. Anyway, I had my jam and scone and cream (of which there was adequate cream, not really being a cream person) and waited for my girlfriend. (Do you think the world is divided into jam people and cream people?) We were escaping our offices where we work alone (not dissimilar to the mundane environment that our sisters at home have to endure). We haven’t really evolved so far after all. We still want to be part of the tribe, the cafe club.

Cafe banter

Just say Yes

Just Say Yes
The responsibility in being Love is more than the mind could imagine or hold up under. If most human beings truly realized the impact that they have on the whole, they’d be crushed by the realization of it.
But what I’m talking about is being thrilled by it. All you have to do is say “yes.” Don’t make some big project out of it. Don’t make some big deal out of it. Just say “yes.”
You don’t even know what it means to say “yes,” but you say it anyway. You’ll never know what it means to say “yes,” but you do it anyway. Freedom and Love arise when you die into the unknown mystery of being.
~ From: The Impact of Awakening, by Adyashanti

When I read this piece this morning I thought of one of my Sisters. We’ll call her Jane. Jane is in a well (enough) paid, respectable (in a cardigan and corduroy kind of way), interesting (mildly and sporadically), secure (paid every two weeks) and stable (read conservative and uninspiring) job. Jane has done well (enough) in this job and is respected (she hasn’t broken any laws, physically assaulted anyone or publicly embarrassed the CEO). In fact, Jane has had some projects that are regarded as successful and meaningful and has made a wide network of friends and colleagues who trust and admire her.

But Jane is being called and really wants to leave her well paid, respectable, interesting, secure and stable job. She is being called, but who or what is calling? I believe it is Love. She is called to be Love. And all she has to do is say “Yes.” And in being Love, we do not know what the ripples of our influence might be. Maybe the current “job” pond that she is within has become too small and stagnant to contain her ripples; or as Adyashanti put it, “…the impact that they have on the whole.”

And I write to her in an email this morning -

I read this (Adyashanti) and thought of you and your thoughts around leaving the known (job) for the unknown (life after job)  and I wonder if you are being called to say “yes” to change, to life, to Love? I think you are being called, that is the tension – the tension of where you are now and where you want to be (even if you don’t fully understand the wanting). The tension is the call. It is the signal. Being called and having faith. Having faith that you will not abandon yourSelf and God will not abandon you. Leaving all that is known for the unknown. They call it The Hero’s Journey.[i]

Someone else said, “the longest journey is from your head to your heart.” Jane, we know what your head is saying, how about letting your heart speak?

It makes me think of a great explorer, setting out to sea and leaving all that is familiar. It is an adventure and ultimately a discovery. How many real adventures do we get to embark upon in our short lives?

 

Now I just thought of putting my son Preston on the train in Adelaide to cross the Nullarbor. He had a swag and a suitcase. He walked the streets of Kalgoorlie knocking on doors to find work. God bless him. It must have been scary. ..and it must have been exhilarating and empowering.

Dear Jane, I’m just saying, as scary as the leap looks from the top of the trapeze platform, I have full confidence that you will catch the swing on the other side. And hey, if all else fails…there is always a net under you. (end email)

I think that I should add here that Jane is no stranger to adventure. She has travelled around the world. She has undertaken aide work in developing countries. She rides a motorbike. She actively seeks out new experiences and embraces them. Perhaps this adventure, this internal journey, this saying “yes” is somehow different. A journey taken in stillness and without movement. A surrender. A letting go. A free fall. Godspeed my friend!

This photo needs no caption.

 

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[i]Joseph Campbell held that numerous myths from disparate times and regions share fundamental structures and stages, which he summarized in the introduction to The Hero with a Thousand Faces:

“

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

”

Mia Sorella Cinzia

I’ve been reading a book l borrowed from my “sister” Rosemarie.  Rosemarie loaned me her copy of The Soul of Money  – Reclaiming the wealth of our inner resources, by Lynne Twist. I won’t go into the book too much, only to say that it is about our relationship with money and it has begun to give me insights into my own life, values and understanding of prosperity. This reflection has made me think of my Italian sister, Cinzia – la mia sorella.

Cinzia lives in Vicenza, Italy – a big industrial town in the north of Italy. Vicenza is midway between two gems – Verona and Venice. While it’s an industrial town, it is not without its own charms, among them Palladio architecture and its vicinity to the Italian Alps, the Lago di Garda and of course Venice and Verona.

Lago di Garda near Vicenza

I came to know Cinzia when I was stationed in Vicenza with the US Army. As I recall, she had a bit of a crush on my company commander and we met at a party.  We became close friends (sisters) and I began to spend time regularly at her family’s home.

Cinzia lived with her mother, father and two brothers in a 5-room apartment on the first floor of a small block of flats in a small court. Her father, Giorgio, had his small machining workshop in the court next to the well and the concrete laundry trough. Her mother, Maria Teresa, could call to him from her balcony off the kitchen. Brothers Carlos and Enrico shared a bedroom. Cinzia had her own small but private room. In addition to the bedrooms there was the kitchen and the living/dining area.

During that time my young son Preston was my constant companion and Cinzia’s family showered him with love and affection. I can picture him now sitting in the middle of the kitchen table while we all basked in his babyhood and antics. I don’t think adoration is too strong a word for what they all expressed for this little boy.

Carlos, Preston, Giorgio, Enrico, Maria Teresa and Cinzia

Within those five rooms however I learned about sufficiency, prosperity and even abundance – all themes of The Soul of Money. In these five rooms where I came to spend every weekend meeting up with Cinzia and Carlos to go to discos and parties, and having the Sunday midday meal with the entire family, I experienced the fullness of wealth. A wealth of family and companionship and the wealth of beautifully prepared food made with love and shared with others. Maria Teresa’s kitchen was tiny and her work space was the small, granite kitchen table top and yet she was able to turn out the most amazing meals. Giorgio took pride in pouring the wine he would decant from huge bottles in the downstairs storage space. The produce from his garden always graced the table. In the Veneto region of Italy, it is customary to pile bread in the centre of the table to represent abundance – a beautiful image and sentiment. The family with bread, wine and friends is never poor.

It was during this time that I began to understand that wealth isn’t measured in square footage but in the space between the hands and hearts that come together for something as beautifully simple as a home-cooked meal prepared with love and a glass of table wine. That’s all there was, and that was enough.