Grace – Jane Tawel

My Small Lizard-Self

A Mish-Mashed Essay on Meaning

My Small Lizard-Self — A Mish-mashed Essay on Meaning

By Jane Tawel

I am but a small, small person, living in an age of gigantic egos, no matter the reality of who they are, and no matter the justification. And the biggest ego of all — the biggest problem of all — the biggest complaints and worries and angerings of all that make my life miserable and fraught and painful is my own out-of-bounds, out-of-control, out-of-all-proportion Ego. People, who know me, may think they are being kind and truthful when they poo-poo this statement about me. And all the world’s psychologies and philosophies and spiritualities will try to help me or dissuade me from this albatross of my understanding of what the world’s problems are. Oh, I see the world’s problems and wrestle daily with the knowledge that if only every single person — my family members, my friends, the government, the religious leaders, and the silly squirrels and rather stupid lizards and one-minded ants would JUST LISTEN TO ME — well then truth, justice, and correct behavior would be universal if everyone would just listen to this darn smartness I have about how to fix everyone and everything. And you know I am right, because that is exactly what you think about yourself, right? (This is where if this were a text I would put a laughing hysterically emoji. So, I will just say –ha! ha!).

See what I mean, though, about my ego? And after the last years of studying the Greats — those who realized that their ego was a burden to let go of and that only by “laying down their lives” could they truly have Abundant Life and be their True Self — I have imbibed a lot of good hints about Who I Am meant to be and How to get there and What the real purpose of all our lives is and Where I should be using my desire to give and be of good use, and above all Why — Why I should gladly “die to my small self, the ego” and Live to the Spacious Self, the Deep I, the unattached Buddha, and the Love of Enemy Christ. (And yes, those capitalized words are the penultimate, Ultimate and well-documented for effective truth-gathering “Investigative Questions”.) And I love learning all that important stuff about The Soul of myself and The Soul of the World, and God, and my True Nature — and then I go out and just snuggle back down into the bed of my narcissistic, ego-driven, comfy little lumpy small self.

My ego’s biggest fears right now can be reduced perhaps to two: First, I see that we humans are literally intent on destroying the world, people and planet and all; and this makes me fearful and very sad and very angry because humans can be incredible and none of us (don’t lie to yourself) none of knows what really happens to humans when they or all this world are gone forever (Great humans = Mozart, Dickinson, Usain Bolt, Ghandi, Teresa of Avila…). And also the planet is the most beautiful, awesome thing I have personally every experienced (Trees! Aforementioned squirrels, lizards, and ants. The Ocean. Little streams that make their way around rocks and fallen branches. Rain and also, sunlight falling on an open page. My children’s hands and our knees — aren’t knees amazing!? And flowers — I mean, Why God? Why useless, lovely things like flowers? Oh, this glorious world!) And none of us really knows (don’t kid yourself) if there is some other place somewhere that is anything as glorious and delightful and awe-inspiring as this dear, dear place we call Earth with these unique creatures from bees to rhinoceroses to people. I mean Jesus said it — The Kingdom of Heaven isn’t out there, it is here on Earth, among you, within you — earth and humans = Perfect World. But of course, it isn’t. Cuz — well, our egos. We don’t want the perfection that is or at least could be, because then we would all have to give up our egos and just share it all with each other and love each other and be joyful and peaceful and how boring would that be? (See Book of Genesis for allegorical proof of this should you need proof.)

Secondly, my biggest fear can be reduced to one word: Time. Running out of it (from being late to not getting a project finished on time to dying — the ultimate running out of Time). There is also the constant monkey-mind fear of not being present in this moment of time and constantly trying to anticipate or actually anticipating what it might or might not bring me tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow as it “creeps in this petty pace from day to day” (Yep. Shakespeare — Another great human to mourn the possible eradication of from the memory of the Universe if we kill the planet and ourselves.) (Does the Universe even have memory? Does it need memory? I don’t know. Stop asking me these hard questions. I’m tired.)

And the ego has long accepted platitudes and mockeries of faith to shore up its sandy shores upon which I have built the house I call my home — my ego, my small self. And it is only in small ways that I have started to piece together a new shelter, a shelter cobbled together from bits and pieces and wrecked ships on past shores of desire and dreams and beliefs, and my soul or True Self has begun to seek that which creates in me a small sanctuary, created from moments of mystery, the calm of curiosity, the unfailing truth of Unknowing, and in lighting the small wick of Love in my small self for all people, all things, and all that is “not me” and perhaps is God. And for a few little seconds at a time I can dwell in the difficult but loving reality I happen to achieve in nano-seconds of letting go, of opening up, and of quieting and lovingly rejecting all that races as a false reality in my ego-driven mind, and I stop momentarily the babble of my brain and with my heart I listen for the Still Small Voice of “peace that passes understanding”.

***

Last week I was in and out of my back door hanging up laundry. My husband and I like to hang up laundry when we can because not using our dryer is pretty easy in California all year long, (it rarely rains, alas) and it is a small thing we can do for the environment. It has also become a rather “Zen” activity for me and gives me a sense of connection to eons of women doing small tasks with our hands in the open-air, praising the sun and breeze as gifts for our good and our pleasure. Our back French doors are a bit wiggledy-woggledy, and if you aren’t focused and careful, there is a slight crack left open when you sort of swing it shut which you have to kinda’ do, to be honest, with a basket full of laundry in your hands. I hung the clothes and came back in to find a small mama-lizard (I know it was a mama by the size — in SoCal you get to know the lizards in your yard — the baby ones are soooooo cute!). Mama-lizard had rapidly, sneakily, foolishly, crawled inside to warm herself on the warm sunny grey kitchen floor. Now, that would be fine, but eventually, the lizard would realize that once inside she didn’t really have escaping capabilities (or brains –I am not being judgmental here, cuz well, lizards, well… evolution, people. Lizards — not meant to be all that high up on the smarts chart.)

I hate for anything to be in danger of harm or especially danger of death. On walks, if I see a silly squirrel start to dash across the street with a nut in his mouth, unconscious of oncoming cars, I call out: “Don’t do that, Silly. Be careful.” I often caution the deer who come down from the foothills to be safe out there and try to head back up as soon as they can. And my dear bees who throng busily around my lavender are such marvels, but they do buzzily worry so when I come in the evening to water the plants. I always let them know to stay up high (“When I go low, you go high!” To paraphrase Michelle Obama, another great human). “I won’t spray you, dear girls. I love you. (Bees busily buzzing in their beautiful business around our plants are girls — I used to call them “guys” but if you think about it, of course those lovely busy honey-giving, plant-pollinating nurturers are Female! I mean, it makes me feel sorry for Queens to think about the queen bees having to stay inside doing nothing but making more baby bees with AI drone bees. Makes me happy to be born one of the female worker bees out here.)

So, the mama-lizard gets into the house, and I realize I have to get her out. If you have ever tried to catch a lizard — well, you will have a clear picture of just how fast I failed. So, if lizards are stupid, what does that make me? I was actually very smart. I quickly got a colander (air holes) and a thick piece of cardboard (sturdy). I cornered the scampering (well, sort of quickly slithering, to be honest) lizard but then — I choked. I knew the lizard could grow a tail again if I accidently bashed the colander down on it but I am really rather mechanically challenged and I feared I would clang the pot down on its head and I didn’t think lizards could regrow their heads, even though they do have very small, barely functioning brains. And when I choked, mama-lizard dashed under the washing machine. End of lizard. End of story.

Except it wasn’t. Because speaking of small-brained dingbats, the next day I left a crack in the French doors and Another Lizard Came In! Wash. Hang clothes. Repeat human stupidity. I came closer this time with the colander/cardboard trick, but this lizard got back behind a cabinet. End of story. End of my saving lives. End of my Mother-Teresa-ing it, and doing great things with love by a small person.

I spent the rest of that lizard-losing-and probably-dying day mourning mama and papa lizard and all lizards and all lives and feeling like a failure and thinking all kinds of Nietzsche-esque thoughts about the meaningless of life and in particular the meaningless of my small self- life. I mean who can’t manage to wield a colander and piece of cardboard to save someone’s life? Ugh! Useless me.

But the next day, a miracle occurred. Because miracles are really just those moments when you have given up your small self and ego enough to just not know anything and so all the walls and doors and boundaries and ideas that close you off to something happening can happen– despite yourself, despite your beliefs, despite your accomplishments and also, well, — just “despite” — and when you give-up, then a small little crack in the unreality you have created about yourself and the world and Nature and God — opens to the Reality and through that little crack, the miracle of one, small act of Grace can sneak in.

Here is proof of miracles. The next morning, one of the lizards came out from hiding and sat patiently waiting for me in the small shaft of sunlight coming through the crack in the door and I said to the lizard, “Please don’t run away. May I just open the door for you?” And my small little nobody of a self, quietly, calmly, without overthinking, opened the door, skooched behind mama-lizard and with one small, old, very-human foot gently guided forward and through the door-crack one small lizard — back into her lovely, lizardy world and home to her waiting, anxious family.

***

I don’t know the meaning — neither the small little meaning of why I was allowed to be born and live this long, wonderful life I have lived, nor the meaning of why I was graced with saving one life of one lizard, or why I was given the gift of my family, and friends, and my particular Space and Time on this planet; and I don’t know what or if I will have any meaning after this body and brain die; and I definitely do not know the Meaning of “It” “All”. And the biggest tragedy of my life is nothing any one has done to me but rather what I have done to myself in thinking I have to know too much of anything at all and not just live as much Love as I can, embracing all the wonder, all the beauty, all the gifts, and all the joy — in just the miracle of being alive, in just this moment.

Maybe the sole reason I have lived was to witness the salvation of one small lizard and to know that in the end, there is nothing I can do but accept the miracle of grace by opening to the small cracks that let in the Sun. In my smallness is the greatness of grace. And therein, I may find the truly miraculous meaning of it all and a stillness and peace with a mind like a small lizard that needs to know very little, except how to open my heart to everyone and everything and with Love, follow the Light.

Deciding on Miracles

“Last Dandelion in Turku” by Pensiero is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Deciding on Miracles

By Jane Tawel

November 6, 2022

The following are in part, at this time, some of my fledgling reflections on some of the seminal and profound ideas in that great chestnut by M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled.

I shall decide that today is a miracle,

“Today is a miracle”.

I shall imbibe of the salty and sweet,

and watch the small miracle of my carefully placed feet.

And when I feel faint or uncertain in knowing,

I shall not retreat from the knowledge that’s growing,

that every small moment that I have of living,

is a strange unknown mercy, not earned, simply given.

And we fear all the things that we don’t understand,

but, in truth, even as rational thought does expand,

we are ever more fearful, and anxious, and fetal.

While religions have certainly quite often been evil,

we might miss the deep truths of our innate and primeval,

amazing, inscrutable sense of the ineffable,

by ignoring the fact that true faith is accessible,

by simply and humbly accepting right now,

that we are still living — and we do not know how.

Oh, I shall with skeptical prodding, intact,

be carefully aware, we don’t know all the facts.

But how else to explain my survival today,

when all history and science point quite different ways?

One must say, “It’s a mystery.” And then one must face,

that the answer is simple: It’s a matter of grace.

Today I shall decide that I am a miracle.

This moment — a miracle.

My eyes — a miracle.

My breath — a miracle.

My fingers — a miracle.

My thought — a miracle.

My feeling — a miracle.

My health — a miracle.

My family — a miracle.

That bird — a miracle.

That pond — a miracle.

The sky — a miracle.

A dandelion is a stunning miracle.

You and Them — miracles…….

Oh, there are not enough pages or scientific journals or theological tomes in the whole of the world’s history! — to hold all the miracles of grace, in just this moment!

Dear Nameless, Unknowable, Miraculous, Gracious Giver of All Life:

Help me to keep this holy but foolish vow:

This day, I will step into the miracle that I am alive.

And no matter what may befall me or my world or the planet today,

may I count not the things that have been lost,

but the pearl of great price I have found.

If I lose my eyes, may I be grateful for my heart still beating.

If my heart stops beating,

may the memories of my heart of love still live in others.

If I lose all that is dearest to me — my loved ones — my ability to think — my shelter —

may I even in utter despair,

believe that Eternity exists because Love never dies,

and may I trust that when all facts seem to point to hell on earth,

there is a heaven, most real, to be found in the Mystery of Grace.

May I embrace an inexplicable joy in my journey today,

and tonight, lie down in perfect peace, knowing that

fear and even death, have no power

against the Eternal Power of Grace and Love.

Oh, I bless the time in which I was born,

and I stand in wonder that all the factors of my existence,

and that the science and religion and books and other people

have all given me just enough knowledge,

to burn my fingers and my wings,

but not enough fire to blind me, or kill me.

Oh yes, like the primordial, cosmic, foolish, and absolutely brilliant being that I am,

I shall keep rubbing together the two little sticks I have been given.

I shall keep making my small little fire of miraculous light and life.

And I shall keep burning within me,

the friction caused between knowledge and faith.

And with the miracle of the scientific fact that nothing is ever destroyed,

and with the scientific fact that my very existence and life today

is an unexplained miracle of grace,

I will rejoice that in this moment, I miraculously live forever.

Oh, grace has kept me safe thus far, and

Grace will bring me Home.

You Can’t Take It With You; But You Can Pass It On

by Jane Tawel

You Can’t Take “It” With You; But You Can Pass It On

By Jane Tawel

January 1, 2021

So, this is what the start of a new year looks like and frankly I am unimpressed. We woke up today, thinking somehow the worst year on record for most of us would be immediately left behind. We all had such high hopes for 2021, because let’s face it, anything had to be better than 2020. And yet is it? Is it really? And then it hit me that every year we go into the start of this new day as if suddenly we are going to make big changes, keep inspired resolutions, be all that we can be, and just do it — and yet, today is merely the start to a new year because we say it is. Many other cultures choose different days to reboot, to restart, to call it on the last year, and call out hopes for a new beginning. And while I felt a deep sense of both ennui and sorrow today when I realized that nothing much had changed — I was still living in a world of raging dictators and raging viruses and rushing humans and roaring need and of course, worst of all my own peccadilloes and broken pieces. But at the same time, by being a day like any other, it meant that I could choose to make it a new start for myself no matter what the date said. And I could also choose to accept that all the things in my life that were part of the “old” life, the past, the previous, and yesterday, were things I could choose to embrace or not.

I mean, I might not be able to change any of it, but I could look it all in the eye and say, “okay, take a seat at the table”. Whether you are a past part of my life like a stinky, yucky, rude guest, something like a mega-virus or bad relationship or the death of someone I so loved; or you are a sweet, clean, polite part of my life like that lovely meal I once had in Provence or the births of my babies, or that student I taught who thought I was a great teacher — no matter what –Today — I will accept you as a vital, living entity appearing in the crowd of that which surrounds who I am. Mr. or Ms. Part of my Life, whether good or bad, I accept that you may stay as that fork in my road, that stone in my path, that mountain I climbed, or river I easily floated down. You, no matter how good or bad, are a part of my journey here on earth and you may enter. So, this morning, I opened up the arms of my soul and said, “All that has been, I will welcome you”.

And that is the moment, when Grace appeared. Grace didn’t show up because I wished or prayed it into being. It wasn’t because I had a religious epiphany or made a conscious choice to believe it. Grace appeared despite everything then and now. Grace appeared because I felt it. I simply felt that Grace was also there at the table of my life. Grace was being offered as a Gift. I could choose to welcome it, or I could refuse it, as I so often have.

And Grace meant that all that had come before no matter how awful, painful, unjust, evil, boring, irritating, angering, hateful, or just plain bad; it could all be made good in my own life if I let myself welcome Grace. I didn’t need to know how or why, I just needed to hold the gift of grace close to myself. But I also, because I was supposed to be thinking about the future on this randomly chosen new start to a new year, had to anticipate the gift of Grace for the future. I had to accept that Grace would also be there waiting in the bend up ahead. Grace would be plentiful in the future, even if today felt just as fearful and overwhelming and boring and plain bad as yesterday was. Grace would appear and it would wait for me to pick it up and unwrap it and accept it. Grace would be there tomorrow, even if I didn’t see it, or feel it, or accept its offering. Grace would be the gift that keeps on giving.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 1*TjwwJvoS43pzbHIa0ZPMMg.jpeg

Photo by Kate Hliznitsova on Unsplash

I am generally very bad at accepting gifts. I could go into all the psychology behind that but for now suffice it to say that I am as bad at accepting compliments, help or gifts from humans as I am at accepting gifts or grace from God. To accept Grace feels uncomfortable to me. Grace makes me feel my unworthiness and at the same time an anxiousness. In the same way that I don’t like even the people I love most in the world giving me a present or telling me I look nice, I don’t like Life cutting me slack or God giving me grace. Grace appears to me as an unreality; something I can not understand. It’s a problem. Of course, that is why, as I realized today, Grace can only be felt, be imagined, be dreamed while awake. Because Grace is not a part of the reality we create and live, it is a part of the reality that only the Divine and the divine inside us can create and gift to others. Grace is the gift of the gods, the gift of the Earth, the gift of god-ness in an individual, and the gift of the God Who Loves.

This year my children gave me a wonderful gift for Christmas. Today, on New Year’s First Day, their gift has helped me understand a bit better how truly my life has been filled with the gift of Grace even when — perhaps especially most when — I didn’t even know it. My darling adulting children gave me a beautiful little pottery jar with little bees pictured on it and the words, “Bee Happy” and inside they had each written on little slips of paper a host of their favorite memories of being with me. I was instructed to pull one out each time I needed to “Bee Happy”.

My naughty “little” children love to give me something that makes me cry with a joy I feel I don’t deserve but which overwhelms me, so you might imagine when I opened this gift surrounded by masked pandemic-protecting kids and kids faraway in presence but never in thoughts appearing on Zoom — I broke down in tears of — well, I realize as I am writing this — I broke down in tears of heart-felt, soul-felt, overwhelming acceptance of the feeling of Grace. Because I will tell you frankly — I was not a perfect mom, and still am not; but the gift of it all is that my children still love me and have enough good memories of me to fill a jar –and that, my friends — that is Grace. That indeed is grace for me and, oh, my mother’s heart! — that is also, grace for them.

Grace is like the bees — miraculous, common, un-holdable, free and absolutely vital. And the problem we have is because we can’t earn grace and can’t keep captive grace and know we don’t deserve grace, we often don’t acknowledge or accept grace.

It is Grace that has allowed me such joy as those four kids and their father have given me. It is grace that I have had some wonderful coworkers and nice neighbors, some good friends and generous bosses. It is grace that I survived childhood and had my own loving mother and got to go to school and Sunday School and learn and play and work and travel and snuggle and enjoy and grow — and well, all of it, right? ALL. OF. IT. And what has held “it” all up and held “it” all together and been there without my effort or ability or even mostly my acknowledgement — has been Grace.

The Gift of Grace has been there for my taking all along and even when I clenched my fists or refused to hold out my arms to accept it, it infused my whole life like a sweet-smelling incense. Grace has lighted my way through the tough times and the darkness, like a thousand candles appearing miraculously along the way. Grace has been there, as well, in all the positives; it has been the constant gifting throughout the whole arc of my life, un-thanked, ungraciously ignored, a gift in every good thing, and every good person that has ever happened to me. Grace gave me new beginnings even when I thought I was stuck in the ruts of yesterday. Grace gave me hope even when I thought there was none. Grace has no boundaries and no end because it comes from a God and from the God-ness in each of us that has no boundaries and will have no end. Grace, like Love, remains forever pulsing throughout the universe, as a divine, unknowable, but un-refusable gift.

So, although we are told we can’t take anything with us, we can pass things on. And that is the greatest grace of all. We may think we work hard to leave a legacy of some kind or other, but all that “stuff” will pass away. The Grace of Love and the Love of Grace are all that we leave and all that we have ever really had. Today, this first day of 2021, I resolve to myself and others, to believe, that tomorrow, and perhaps, even for an eternity, we will also have available for the accepting, the Gift of Grace. Today I will let myself simply feel the gift of grace.

Rather than make resolutions that I won’t keep or be able to keep; rather than try to outguess tomorrow or rectify yesterday; I will be here and now just for today and be open to the Gift of Grace. I will think about who I have been and who I am and be content that some of that has been good enough to pass on to my children and husband and friends and coworkers and neighbors and strangers. And I will accept that I have passed on many bad things and wrong ways to those others, (and we do pass on the bad as well, don’t we? Especially mostly to those we love most and would rather not pass on anything bad. But we do. Oh, yes, we do.). I will accept that passing on bad things are just part of being human and I can resolve not to pass on so many bad things in the future, but I know I will need a lot of grace to keep that resolution.

But I will also try to accept in my heart of hearts, that when I leave this life, even though I have passed on bad things, I won’t be able to take those bad things with me any more than I will be able to take the good things along. I will try to “feel” that even though I left those bad things behind for and in the people I love, they, too, will find the gift of grace when they need it. That is a gift of grace I want to welcome deep into my soul today — not to know, but to dream a dream that when I leave “my people” to wake on another shore, that I will find that grace lets us leave the bad things behind and go into the future with arms wide open to accept the unreal, unimaginable reality of Grace.

Today, I will let myself open up my hands a little more and make my arms a bit wider, so I can graciously accept the gifts of others, the gift of being alive, the gifts of my past, present and future; and the gifts of a Gracious God, Who Is, and Who offers each of us the Power of Grace-filled Love.

Today I resolve to leave behind that which I can’t take with me. Today I begin to feel and welcome the gift of grace alive in the world and in me. Today I pass on, the very real dream and hope of a New World filled with the gifts of Grace.

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by Jane Tawel

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