Browsed by
Tag: gratitude

Gratitude and Appreciation

Gratitude and Appreciation

Comments 1 comment

The bittersweet wistfulness of late fall is a good time to reflect, appreciate, and be grateful. It is connected with the traditions of harvest, the feel and smell of autumn, the awareness that cold winter is approaching. All the senses come alive with foggy mornings, trees baring their arms, the last warm moonlit nights, the cessation of summer’s buoyancy.

Thanksgiving is also associated, for me, with a break from routine – the first trip home from college, the warm hospitality of kin, reunions with friends. It’s less hectic than Christmas, and not so cold that a profusion of light is needed (although a fire is very lovely).

This year, we’ve all been pretty sick, and we aren’t going anywhere. It’s a low-key day, a relaxing one. I’ve got some chores to do, but everything is simple and sweet. All is prepared for the meal, and it isn’t a huge feast. I like it.

It’s a great year to withdraw a little, to allow my mind to wander, and to celebrate my own little family. It’s a good time for introspection and introversion. I would not be good company in a group this year. I’m grateful that there is no sacrifice to be made, no atonement, no resolution, no gift-wrapping, no grand plan. There will be no arguments, no whining, no politics, no religion, no nationalism, no pointless squabble, no rehashing of disputed histories, no need for diplomacy, no call for forgiveness, no heaviness, no superficiality, no football game to watch. I don’t need to walk on eggshells.

I’m grateful – to the core – for my dear family.

I’m especially grateful that it is so very easy to be proud of my delightful son, and so rewarding to be his mom. I never thought it would be something that suited me, but I was so wrong.

I’m grateful for my kind and smart and understanding (and big and strong) husband. I’m grateful for my daily life: for the welcome-home hug, for the coffee, for dinner that is often served to me, and for the occasional walk in the woods. I’m grateful – really – for intelligent conversations and also for silliness, and for living with someone who thinks I’ve still got it.

I’m grateful for our kitty-cat Molly, who has tamed us, trained us, and let us know just who is in charge.

I’m grateful for some of the most wonderful friends that anyone could wish for, and for the spirit-sisters and soul-brothers that mean more to me than they might appreciate. You know who you are (and you know who you’re not).

I’m grateful for my brothers Roy and Michael – and their families. I love my nephews Dylan and Eric and David, and you are great Dads.

I’m grateful for my Mom, and especially for those moments when we really connect.

I’m grateful for my uncles and aunts. My Uncle Ronnie has been there for me my entire life – and he holds a special place in my heart.

I’m grateful to have been able to get to know my Dad’s brothers and sisters better over time, and that nothing but actual distance separates us. I love you Joyce and Elaine and Roberta and Gail and especially Jerry, who is so like and so unlike my Dad.

I’m grateful for all my cousins (and there are a lot of them!). You are so funny Mark, you are so dear Allen, you are so lucky Paul. I’m especially grateful for my beautiful, intelligent, grounded, caring woman-cousins. You make me smile – a lot. You are astounding women in your own right, and you’re great mommies too! You – Kim and Jillian and Micaela and Aletta and Kirsten and Katie and Dawn are stars in my universe. The cousin-spouses are wonderful – you’ve chosen well.

I’m grateful for the cousin-kiddies: Zaqq and Jynessica and Alex and Katie and Olivia and Grace and Paige and Devin and Brooke and Douglas, and Shelby, Hunter, and Zach, and Ethan, and Taylor, and and .. awww… this family sure did reproduce well! I don’t think I’ve listed anywhere near…

I’m grateful too for my in-law families. Tommy and Pam, Steve and Pat, Laura – and yes – John (I hope I’m still your favorite left-winger). All their kin are my kin too.

I love my nephew JT and his dear wife Tonya, and I love my nephew Lance. I remain hopeful that bridges will yet appear, and I have faith that all misunderstandings will be unraveled and healed.

I’m grateful to have found an odd kind of respect for and friendship with my hubby’s ex-wife Paula. I’m grateful for the caring love between my stepson and son. I’m grateful for some good discussions and fun with my stepson Evan, and I know that all difficulties will heal in time.

I’m grateful that I have a job, and that it’s a good job with a company that I respect. I’m grateful that I have amazing colleagues there: smart, fun, and sometimes even annoying. I love them all.

I’m grateful that I am able to live in a house, especially one with a back deck that looks out to the woods. I love to watch the sunsets and the moonrises and the birds, and the trees. I love to sit outside here and feel that we’re miles from anywhere.

I’m grateful that I have “a room of my own” – the private space that is my office and the private space of my mind/heart/spirit. I’m grateful too for interconnectivity – for the telephone, and the internet, and yes, for Facebook.

I’m grateful that my car is somehow still running, and I’m grateful for the new furnace. I’m grateful too for a good vacuum cleaner. It sounds silly, unless you’ve lived without one.

I’m grateful for music, which so often takes me “where my heart wants to go.”

I’m grateful for books – both material and electronic. They have enlarged my imagination, taught me critical skills, expanded my ability to navigate, and allowed me the possibility to imagine things and people and paths differently. I love the heavy books, and I love the candy books too.

I’m grateful for my mentors and teachers, without whom I would have been lost. I’ve been so fortunate in having such excellent guides and friends throughout my life.

I’m grateful for adversaries, too; sometimes you are great teachers.

I’m grateful for the absence of some folks from my life, too.

I’m grateful for humor and laughter, for celebrations, tricksters and court jesters.

I’m grateful for invented vocabularies, for wordplay and codes and abbreviations, and for just the right amount of teasing and sarcasm.

I’m grateful for conversations, and for silence.

I’m grateful to be welcomed in, and grateful too for sweet farewells.

I’m grateful for alone time.

I’m grateful for moments of insight, for mutual understanding, a shared joke, a spirit-communion, for wit and also for deep, abiding love.

I’m grateful for high bandwidth.

I’m grateful for moments that are forever suspended in time.

I’m grateful for every kindness that I see, no matter how small it might seem.

I’m grateful for those who bring out the best in others.

I’m grateful for authenticity and trust.

I’m grateful for what means nothing and still means everything.

I’m grateful for hugs.

I’m grateful for everything I can see, smell, touch, feel, hear, taste and imagine.

I’m grateful that I’ve become more grateful, and that the smallest detail can sometimes bring such joy.

I’m grateful for the microscope, and the telescope, and for the ability to scope.

I’m grateful for the cosmos, and starlight, and especially for the moon – and for what points toward it.

I’m grateful for all of the manifestations that point to the divine and the sacred, and for the playfulness they evoke/invoke in me.

I’m grateful for meditations, for the elements, for the directions, for all the rich tapestries of life.

I’m grateful for language, for paradox, for metaphor, for the rules of civil discourse and the visionary transports of poetry.

I’m grateful for everything, and for nothingness, and for the sweet spots where order and chaos meet in beauty.

I’m grateful for the presence of Love, and for the grace that I receive.

Thank you, deity/deities.
Thank you, cosmos.
Thank you, our reality-niche.
Thank you, family.
Thank you, friends.
Thank you, body and heart and mind and spirit.
Thank you, Love.

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is ‘thank you,’ that will suffice.” ~ Meister Eckhart

Benefits of Being a Former Jehovah’s Witness

Benefits of Being a Former Jehovah’s Witness

Comments 9 comments

I was visited again this morning by a lovely Jehovah’s Witness. He seemed to be a very sweet person. I’m laughing like God(ess) was tickling me. In honor of that, this is a post about the benefits of no longer being a Jehovah’s Witness (beyond not having to go door-to-door on a blustery day like today).

I’d like to set the stage with a satirical treatment of the benefits of being a JW. An illuminating example is this post by the Theocratic Joker:

  1. Jehovah’s Witnesses can count the time they share their faith with nonbelievers door-to-door or with young children, thus proving to God, in actual hard numbers, how worthy they are to have everlasting life.
  2. Jehovah’s Witnesses are encouraged not to attend college, which promotes independent thinking and is controlled by demons. They are happy to get a good job as a janitor or a window washer.
  3. Jehovah’s Witnesses get to celebrate the birth of a child but not the anniversary of the birth. They also do not have to worry about birthdays, holidays and Christmas, all of which are pagan and controlled by demons.
  4. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not pass a collection plate at their meetings like the demonized churches do. Instead there are collections boxes in their Kingdom Halls and Assembly Halls, and they are often reminded from the platform and in their literature not to forget to contribute. They are also urged to put in their wills that when they die, their house, CD’s, jewelery, life insurance, and cash go directly to the Watchtower Society. The end is fast approaching so their families really have no need for money that should rightfully go to them.
  5. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate holidays so they do not have to be with their families during these special times to enjoy each other’s company and eat the cookies, turkey, ham, pies, and other such food.
  6. Because Jehovah’s Witnesses are the only true Christians on earth, we do not have the problems that other churches have with broken families, adultery, fornication, pedophiles, over drinking, and gossip.
  7. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not have to worry about giving food, shelter and clothing to the poor and needy in our community because we give them the Truth which will enable them to live forever in a paradise earth.
  8. Jehovah’s Witnesses are in close contact with God as he speaks to them through the Faithful and Discreet Slave and through the Watchtower.
  9. Jehovah’s Witnesses alone will live in Paradise where there will be no cars, TVs, computers, radios, theaters, washing machines, clothes dryers, refrigerators, stoves, airplanes, electric lights, or malls to buy or clothes. Just miles and miles of garden and lions to pet.
  10. Jehovah’s Witnesses go to a summer District Assembly vacation every year, at the same city every year and have a picnic at their seats during the sessions and then stay at the fine hotels that they are told to stay in.
  11. Jehovah’s Witnesses know the true meaning of the words soon, near, very soon, very near, so close, just around the corner, shortly, near future and rapidly approaching.
  12. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not have to worry about getting old or having a retirement plan. See No. 11 above.

Hopefully, now you can understand the many benefits of being a Jehovah’s Witness.

Now, for the benefits of no longer being a Jehovah’s Witness, I would love it if former JWs would post on that topic and link it in the comments. My dear friend Richard Francis started this ball rolling, and I think it’s a good idea to revisit this from time to time – so as to keep remembering what has been gained, and to feel the sense of gratitude that such remembering can give.

The first link is Richard’s list. Reading it made me very happy. The second link includes a few of the lists made by others responding in kind. In the third link, the benefits of leaving are implicit rather than listed, but you can see some heartening trends across all of these.

When I think of the benefits of being freed from “the organization,” it’s pretty overwhelming. Much of it is very difficult to describe to someone who has not been through that kind of experience. However, there are a few major categories into which the benefits tend to fall for me. I’m probably missing some, but here is the best I can do today:

  • Freedom: As many of the posts suggest, this is the overarching category. All of the others assume this one, which has two movements – 1) Liberating freedom from the anti-loving beliefs and practices dictated by the Watchtower leadership – from totalitarian control and fear and arbitrary divisions of thinking and bad argument and small-minded judgments to the corrupting complicity with all of the above – and more. 2) Authentic freedom to grow and thrive and be a real adult in all ways: spiritual, intellectual, emotional, existential. That would encompass such things as thinking things through for one’s self, learning to discern who to respect and admire, being politically concerned and active, giving to charities of one’s choosing, fruitful experimentation with diverse spiritual ideas and practices, sharing authentic friendships with anyone of your choosing, paying attention to (and trusting) one’s own gifts and calling, and much, much, much, MUCH more.
  • Love – as in a Deeper Capacity for, and Ability to: When you view other people only in terms of their possibly contaminating effect on you or their potential as a new convert or as points on your service report, when you view them as about to be murdered by God and as inferior to yourself, and when you are threatened by and suspicious of their ideas and feelings, it is pretty difficult to care and to be kind and to trust and to enter into dialogue and relationship with them. If agape love is reserved for the members of a small in-group, your capacity to love others is very restricted. And if there is no kindness even there, it’s a very stark and cold kind of existence. The love I used to know was always, always conditional – but the spirit is all about love, and the more there is love, the more love there can be. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love” (1 John 4:18). No-one is perfect in love because no-one is perfect, but when you can love others without restriction and prejudice, your capacity for love… increaseth (grin). Another benefit of this is that when you learn to love, you also learn that there is much that is lovable about yourself – and this helps to undo the habitual self-loathing that seemed to go along with the self-righteousness training.
  • Spirituality: My spiritual life is much more authentic, more real, more attuned, more… spiritual. I could expand on this, but I’d rather take on that subject matter in terms of specific topics. Suffice to say that there are substantial qualitative differences in the questions I ask, the kinds of answers I consider, and a different perspective even on such things as the role of “I” on the path to God. My thoughts about who and what God might be are radically changed, and that has made a huge difference. I’ve also benefited from a range of spiritual practices that had been denied to me.
  • Ethics: Yes, it’s related. There is a kind of immature ethics that can only define right and wrong in terms of what authority figures dictate or in terms of what results in rewards and punishments. Such an ethics keeps you in an infantile sort of relationship with others. A rule-based ethics can never account for the actual realities of people’s lives. Another kind of ethics is based on kinship networks and group loyalties, but is limited to those groups. As a post-JW, it becomes possible to develop meta-principles and relational thinking that try to take everyone’s interest into account, not just those of a few. When you do not fear to hear a wide range of thoughts and testimonies, you can ethically evolve beyond a reliance on projection, scapegoating and appeals to authority. It also allows you – if you choose – to consider the cultural and socio-political contexts of ethical claims.
  • Laughter, Joy, Celebration: Enjoyment of all kinds, with only the restrictions of my own sense of ethics. I can laugh, be happy, and celebrate whatever I want to – large or small, in a manner conventional or eclectic. I love this.
  • Creativity: I no longer have to feel that weird semi-ashamed veil that was thrown over everything to do with imagination and creativity. I can write, and dance, and sing, and paint, and imagine, and have reveries and insights and all the rest. I can be curious, and investigate, and think, and see new connections between unlike things, finding and constructing new meanings – those mysterious shimmery bits of radiance that I value so highly.
  • Communities: Plural. It is an amazing thing to be able to participate at will in communities -groups of people that share something in common – anything! What an idea! Reading groups, political action groups, online groups, groups based on ideas or hobbies or anything! Wow! You can meet and form relationships with all kinds of interesting people you’d never have met otherwise. This one is a very special benefit, partially because when I realized that I could actually do this, it helped to counteract what was an initial skepticism toward all communities (once burned, twice shy). More than that, the sometimes-overlapping circles of my friends now mean so much to me that I can really compare it against how it once was and see what a difference my friends have made. I am thankful for true friends and for the occasional gift of a real spiritual brother or sister (in a sense that makes a caricature of the words as I used to use them).

Obviously, this post is written for former JWs (and the people who love them). I don’t really think there are a great many benefits associated with being a Jehovah’s Witness. If you are a current JW then you are also welcome to post real benefits that you feel as well, if you wish to do so, and link those in the comments. I have nothing against you, but only against the cruelties of the leadership. There are so many paths to God, and maybe – somehow – this is yours. God has a way of using everything, and I have no doubts about how the cosmos handles complexity.

One of the huge benefits of not being a JW is that I am no longer required to hate spiritual paths that are not identical to the one to which I am called. Nor do I have to fear you – or judge you to be worldly and/or evil – simply for the reason that you are not part of an organization to which I belong. That’s a really, really big benefit from my perspective – but of course there are many, many, many people from many religious traditions who do not agree (may they be blessed).

On Resolutions for the New Year

On Resolutions for the New Year

Comments 3 comments

In truth there is no such thing in man’s nature as a settled and full resolve either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution.
~ Nathaniel Hawthorn

New Year’s Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
~ Mark Twain

In life’s small things be resolute and great
To keep thy muscle trained: knowst thou when Fate
Thy measure takes, or when she’ll say to thee,
“I find thee worthy; do this deed for me?”
~ James Russell Lowell, Epigram

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
~ Oscar Wilde

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.
~ Benjamin Franklin

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.
~ Anaïs Nin

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
~ T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.
~ Thomas Mann

But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old habits.
~ Andre Gide

Still, I do have one resolution. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and Rosei’s post gave me the occasion to put it into words:

I’m resolving to bring more energy and positivity into my life. My natural tendency is to be somewhat critical and melancholy. I’m comfortable with that. However, in the last year or two I have noticed that the anger level is rising, and I’m not comfortable with that. I don’t know how to deal with it, and it wears me down. It’s also pretty useless, since most of the things that anger me are beyond my control to change (except in very small ways…).

I used to be able to bring energy and comfort in with prayer, but that doesn’t really work for me anymore. So I’m adding some affirming messages to my daily meditations – with themes of gratitude, awareness and mindfulness, cosmic connection, energy, self-acceptance, etc. It’s a little Stuart Smalley, but that’s…. o-kay. It’s only a very modest kind of resolution, but it’s one I may be able to keep, unlike a few others that come to mind (smile).