I used to play this game with my students. Over the years I taught elementary, middle school, high school, and college. I have to say, my favorite might have been the ones other teachers seemed to struggle with and that was the middle-schoolers. Sure, they were squirrely, but they knew they didn’t know everything and most of them still thought learning was the purpose of school, not whether they would get into a good college or get a high-paying job some day. And they still saw the value of playing and using their imaginations. But regardless, no matter the age of the students, I would ask them to think of what they believed to be the worst problem in the world, the thing that if they were king or queen for a day, they would require all world citizens to do or not do. And if this role of being the world’s ruler was combined with one Super Power, a magic, god-like power, how would they use that power to ensure that this Great Big Worldwide No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Problem was solved, eradicated? (And yes, I had to define the word “eradicated” for even the college kids.) Eventually, this became one of my classes’ favorite writing assignments.
So, “Kids” of the World:
1. Take out a piece of paper. In the first paragraph, either bullet point or draw a picture, or write a paragraph (or two), or do a mind-map of what you believe to be the world’s greatest problem. Is it not enough food and hunger? Diminishing resources like water? Violence and too many weapons? Nuclear bombs? Not enough places to live? Political unrest? War? Write that down in detail.
2. Now in the next section, write down what you think the human motivation is that causes this world-wide problem. Is it greed? Prejudice? Religious intolerance? Racism? Stupidity? Anger? Hatred? Fear?
3. Now… Remember you are the Ruler of the World. You have an ultimate Super Power to change every thing that causes this one, biggest human ill. What do you do? What is your Super Power? How do you fix the world’s biggest problem?
I still mentally play this game sometimes. As my mind gets mired down in the many problems of the world, which seem to exponentially grow daily, if not minute by minute, I think to myself, “If only…..” And I am not talking only about the problems “out there” — the greedy, evil rulers and titans of capital that so many countries and people seem to inexplicably worship today, believing that somehow bad people can enact good for others. (Side note: Not a single leader of any religion or spiritual program has ever taught that the ends justify the means. Not one. And if you claim to be a Jesus follower, then he taught exactly the opposite. The means are all that matter. The end is not in your hands just as they were not in Christ’s hands. They are in God’s Hands. Just sayin’.) Okay, so back to the main topic of problems and Super Powers. I am not just talking about the big world problems, I am talking about the “where we live on a day-to-day basis problems”. I am talking about the people who drive their cars as if they are the only people in the world, ignoring rules because they never get caught. You know the ones — you are crossing in a crosswalk and they don’t stop, speeding through, looking straight ahead since if they don’t look at you, you can pretend with them that they don’t see you and didn’t almost just hit you. When I say the problems of this world, I am talking about the people who drop trash on the sidewalks in the town where you live — it’s not their yard after all. I am talking about the people who just seem to go through life spoiling for a fight, lurking in the grocery line for someone to snap at, eating at the restaurant and hoping something isn’t right so they can complain to the waiter, or slamming down the phone on the receptionist on the other end. (If it’s a real person that is — it is totally understandable if you slam the phone on some AI robotic phone voice. In fact, I would almost say it is required if we are going to defeat the Trojan horses of these AI robots.). I am talking about the real-life angerings or irritating problems of the bosses who think only of their paycheck and not yours; the coworkers that gossip at the watercooler, the neighbors who blow their leaves into your yard or just never say “hello”. So day after day, or minute after minute, my mind swirls with the negative energy that seems to, like horror-movie zombies, feed on the human brain these days, wasting away the precious “Only-Nowness” of Life. And I come back more often to the game: If I were Queen of the World, if I had a Super Power…
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I used to think that if I had a super power, I would focus on ending all violence. As queen, I would destroy all weapons. Gun rights, my patootie. No more bombs, no more guns, no more weapons of any kind. My college kids would rather smugly point out, “Well, Mrs. Tawel, what about kitchen knives? How will people cut their food without knives? Knives are used as weapons.” I wanted to flunk those kids, but as queen of the world, I was much wiser than I normally am, so I conceded their point. Hmmm…. What about knives? It’s tough being Queen of the world, even with super powers.
So, my next super power and act as ruler of the whole world, was to magically build homes for everyone in the world and to end homelessness. But this didn’t solve the hunger problem, or the job problem, or the water problem. I thought maybe the best way to use my ultimate power would be to clean up the environment — no more fossil fuels, no more trash, no more dirty rivers or plastic in oceans. But how to solve the ice berg issue or the endangered species problem — I was Queen, but I wasn’t God, for God’s sake!
And on and on my imagination went and at each wonderful idea about how to make the world a better place, I ended up in a dead end of problems multiplying and piling up like giant roadblocks to my great and amazing ideas of how to rule the world and use my super power to fix The Biggest Problem. And all that was left to say was… ugh.
*
In the early dawns, I run through my small-ish town nestled in the burbs of my gigantic, big sprawling city and not a morning goes by that some driver almost hits me. Now let me explain, I really, really, really do not want to be hit by a car (or truck, or electric bike). So, I not only wear a neon yellow or neon orange shirt, I have seven — 7!! — blinking white, red and blue lights (nod to the American flag is completely coincidental) and these lights are arrayed across my body, front and back. I look so dweeby and hilarious, but I WANT TO BE SEEN AND NOT HIT BY A CAR. (Besides at my age, no one looks at you any more let alone cares how you look.) However, blinking lights and neon clothing aside, you would be amazed, but almost every single morning a driver just doesn’t LOOK! They do not, as required by law, look left and right or even sometimes straight ahead but charge through the intersection. Or they see me, I know they see me, but the driver PRETENDS NOT TO SEE ME. I am a lit-up Christmas tree all year long, so I know you see me, madam, dude, pal. In case my ALL CAPS are not clue enough, this drives me insane. And yes — I can tell you, what the feelings are behind my reaction — anger and fear. I don’t want to die at the hands of reckless driver. I am angry at their selfishness. I am fearful that someday I won’t stop in time and they will crush my little human body with their big machine. I am a slow runner, lit up like a Carnival cruise line ship in the dark night ocean, and there is nothing else I can do really, to say, like the little Who’s in Whoville, “I am here. I am here. I am here.” Yet, still, they seem to think because they are in a machine, that they have no mind — they are just a machine. Do I think they are stupid? Yep. Do I think they are mean? Yep. Do I think to myself, “oh, if there were some way I could get revenge or teach them a lesson”? Yep. But then I think, maybe I need more lights……
*
The other early morning, out for my jog, I turned off my earbuds and music when I got to the big wide city park trail I run to, and as is my habit lately, I communed with the trees, and early birds catching the worms, and also my fellow travelers. The same folks are usually out on the trail at 5:00 a.m. We are the very early morning people. Over the years, some of us have briefly exchanged names or news. Many of us know each other by sight only — “there’s pretty quiet girl with the shy smile”; “there’s the Japanese woman with her little white dog who had her arm in a cast that one month”; “there’s the professor-looking dude”; “there’s the couple who always walk with their coffee”; there’s the gaggle of women friends who walk and always have something cheery to call out at me”. I know Paige, and Jose, and Rich and Pastor George, Melba, and Patrick and his dog, Sammi. And I? I am the lady with the lights who says, “Hey, hey”. I am “Hey-hey Woman” With the Many Lights. In my mind, it is sort of my Native Name — I am “Hey-Hey Many Light Woman”.
And the other early morning, I thought a couple of things and one was negative and very sad, and one was positive and very joyful.
On the trail there are a few places where there are roads that intersect the trail and where cars come out of neighborhoods to catch the streets or freeways to their work. Now, there is no way in the world, these people do not know that people are on the trail. There are big yellow “Pedestrian Crossing” plastic thingys and bright crosswalk markings but nonetheless, the car drivers very often pretend they are the only living thing in the world, and that you do not exist. I guess they are so used to NOT hitting and killing someone that they just assume it will never happen. And the negative thing I thought the last time I was almost hit was, “these people are not human”. (My husband blames it on our current U.S. administration that is surely not human, but I always say, no, it’s the other way around, non-human’s elect their non-human counterparts to lead them. It’s an ongoing discussion in the works.) But on this particular morning, I took a deep breath and then I saw a couple little yellow-breasted birds sitting together on a branch, and up ahead I saw a couple coyotes loping across the grey-morning horizon and I just felt their love for each other as the coyotes protected each other, and the birds breakfasted together. I thought, why can’t we humans be more like the animals? I angrily and sadly thought to myself that it isn’t just that people have lost their humanity, they are not even animals anymore. Even animals take care of their kind. Sometimes, I look at the humans running this world, or the humans running their cars, and I think, we humans have devolved to something less than the animals. How sad is that?
*
Then I saw shy pretty girl, and she smiled and said, “have a great day”. And I saw the man with the little ratty looking dog and the Dodgers sweatshirt, and he called out laughingly as he always does to Hey-hey Woman: “Hey, hey, hey, have a great day!” (I always mean to ask him if he knows he is alluding to Fat Albert or not.). And I thought to myself — these people SEE ME. I am seen by them, even if they don’t know me. And I See them. We early morning trail folks do worry if someone doesn’t show up on a day when we expect them to. We say jokingly to each other, “hey, you are late today”. The gaggle of walking friends who have a ringleader that usually speaks for them, smile at me and say, “Happy Hump Day. Almost there!” or “Happy Friday, time for the weekend”. Sometimes even the bearded grey man who walks far away in the dirt part of trail and carries a big walking stick, the one who never talks to any one, the one I call “Gandalf”, sometimes I will give him a little wave and he will secretly wave back and today he did. I think he knows I will never reveal his true identity. On the trail, with “my people”, I know if I fell down, someone would come by and give me help. I saw Paige after the last election, and I just gave her a big hug while she cried a little bit as I held her hand. Some of us trail folks seem to know things about each other, things that are never said, but when you walk the trail morning after morning with people you connect in ways that go beyond words somehow. George, an older Black man, and I connected one morning with worry about whether any one we knew had been effected by the recent Eaton Fires. I told him about my friends who had lost their historical Black church in the fire. That is when I found out he was a pastor. I worry about his wife Melba when she isn’t with her husband Pastor George. I was happy for Patrick when he got a new mutt after so many years of missing his old golden retriever. Ali was a fighter pilot for Iran before coming to America, and he is prickly about the world but also a great hugger. I have to plan extra time on Saturdays, when I know that Ali will want to talk. And the professor — well, Jose was a gardener for twenty years for the L.A. School district. I used to wonder why in the world he still wore a face mask every morning on his runs. But then one day we talked, and I found out his wife has asthma, so he runs every morning with a mask on so as not to bring any germs home to her. If you are a runner you will especially realize what a sacrifice of love this is of Jose for his wife. (I now call Jose, “Professor Gardener”. Jose is quick as a hare and I also teasingly call him the Energizer Bunny).
I used to be part of what I thought was a community — it was called a church. And then one day, through a series of unfortunate events, called American elections, I woke up to realize that the word “community” was just a name to these people, and not an action. I realized that at least for this particular group of people, a church “community” was just another word for “walled in fortress” — an “us versus them” idea. And when I became a “them”, I was suspect, not really “one of them”. I have come to believe that we early morning trail joggers and walkers are a little microcosm of what the word “community” means to me. And I guess this is what is lacking in the world today. People think their church or their country club or their town will provide community, but they don’t realize that a group defined by beliefs, or status, or culture is temporal and oh, so very fragile. And if we could all just look at everyone we meet as someone in our community — the community of humans — If we could just SEE that other human being as someone who is just like we are — like the birds see birds, and the coyotes see coyotes, and the ants see ants — If we could see that that person is a human being just like I am a human being — If we would really SEE — the woman with the screaming child at the grocery, the homeless man in the shadows of the church door, the Black Lives Matter people protesting the police, the police burying their fallen friends, the woman in a hijab studying at the university, the woman who fled her war-torn country, now waiting for a bus to go clean someone’s house because that is how she can feed her children in what she hopes is a safe nation to live in; if we saw the old lady who fumbles for her change in the store; the teenager who tries to impress his pals by riding too fast on his skateboard; yes, if we could even see the driver who refused to slow down as someone who has been dehumanized by his vehicle and yes, if we could see the people who leave their trash on our sidewalks as people who think no one cares about them so why should they care — If. We. Could. See. . . then couldn’t we possibly, just maybe, change Everything?
If I would see every human being in the whole world as part of my community, well, that would at least change everything for me. I can’t change the world, but I can change myself.
So, every day, now I try to make a little pact with myself: I will not go home from my run without picking up at least one piece of someone else’s trash. I pick up the trash because I want to feel empathy with the animals, and fish, and the water in the Ocean, and with our dear Mother Earth. I love all those things like birds and squirrels and waves, and I empathize that they can not pick up someone else’s trash, but I can. I can help. I also try to turn my irritation and anger into empathy for the person who maybe didn’t realize the piece of paper fell out of their pocket, or who rushed off and left their plastic cup on the sidewalk because they got a distressing call, or the homeless person who left his beer can in the street, who day after day realizes no one cares about him and he is just trying to survive on the streets. God knows, how much I would want to drink if I had no home. Empathy.
When I am almost hit by a car, after cursing and muttering imprecations and throwing my arms in the air at the driver with lights and eyes a-blazing, I say, “ Anger is the right response, but now, please, God forgive my unchecked anger, and help me pity them.”. Pity is not so great a response with friends and family but it is a very helpful tool when strangers hurt you or almost hurt you or cause you anger or fear. Pity.
So — pity and empathy help me see every one as a human being, just as I am, and therefore, they are part of my community. I don’t have to like everyone in my community or agree with them and I may at times have a responsibility to call someone out for bad behavior — even if it means getting a dirty look from someone who has forgotten they are a human being and that I am a human being too. I can’t make someone change. But I can model good human-being-ness. And when I don’t — when I mess up, or am mean to someone, or impatient, or hurt the environment, or act out of anger or fear — then I am simply in a place to recognize — we are all human, and I can try to find mercy and grace within me, as I ask for mercy and grace from others. Grace.
And now I think I know what I wish my Super Power would be if I could be the Ruler of the World. I think, actually, that my Super Power would solve all the problems in the world — the violence, the bombs, the hunger, the greed, the tragedy of what we are doing to our Planet Home. If I could have one Super Power it would be to make every single human being — -
Care.
If we just cared about every single person we meet and then care about the people we will never meet then we would all be kind, we would share, we certainly wouldn’t kill or harm people we care about. If I cared about every one, all the people who think differently than I do, all the irritating people, all the angry people, all the lonely strangers, in the same way I care about my dearly loved family and friends, then wouldn’t all my problems seem smaller, and more easy to handle, and wouldn’t I be happier sooner? If I cared, wouldn’t my anger at injustice pass in a moment and I would try to help people who, after all, just don’t understand the consequences of their actions — wouldn’t I try to help them change course? And wouldn’t fear would be replaced by acceptance and grace, and prejudice would be replaced by curiosity, and greed would be replaced by trust that there is always Enough — if I cared. If we cared, we would share our sorrows and mourn together because we know this life is short, but eternity is long. If we cared, we would realize that today is a good day to do something to try to make sure that all needs are met by helpfulness and sharing rather than separation and dismissal.
People lately have been saying that you put your family first, your friends, your community and if there is any left over then you can care about others. This is exactly the complete opposite of what the greatest spiritual teachers who ever lived believed. The True Truth is the Buddhist idea of Oneness with others. The True Truth is the Judeo-Christian idea that you put the least of us first, and you go after the one that is lost, not hang out behind walls, with those who have “found it”. Because none of us have “found” all of it. We are all seekers for meaning in a world that can seem so meaningless at times. So a little bit of humility in the face of what someone else might be going through, a little less driving with eyes averted and a little more walking in someone else’s trainers, just might be the ticket to that freedom from anger and fear that we really all deep down desire.
Can you imagine if we all believed that we are not separate from the bad driver, or from the screaming grocery-cart child or her mother, but One with them? But I always think that Jesus said it best, “Love others as you love yourself. And also — Love your enemy.” This wasn’t pie in the sky theology. This was practical sensible wisdom (as all True Truth is). Loving every one as if they were myself; Loving everything in the world as if it were created by God (it was); Loving every single, broken, messed up, trash-talking, trash-throwing, insane-driving, hungry, fearful human as if they were your only child; loving even the person who has forgotten that at the end of this life, there is only one thing that will have mattered — how much did you care? How much love did you grow in yourself and plant in the world to grow in others? To riff on early Judeo-Christian thought — “Now only three things have any real meaning, and will remain as your legacy, and will remain to exist in Eternity — faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is Love”.
Where will your trail take you today? And on that journey, if you had one Super Power, what would it be and how would you use it?
Today I hope to walk a little further on the Way, on the narrow path that leads to Life and not mindlessly jog the wide trail that leads to the destruction of my soul’s peace, joy, and love. I hope to find a little more grace for others and for myself. I hope to find a few pieces of trash to turn around for and pick up to throw away. I hope I will turn my anger into pity, my fear into hope, my hate into empathy, and my doubt about the continuing existence of humanity, into faith. And each step that I have left — whether for just another decade or just another day — I will try to draw on my own, God-given Super Power — a power we all can have if we want it– and I will Rise Up in The Ultimate Power of — Caring. The Super Power of Love. And maybe just maybe, people will see my Super Power and they will say — “hey, I want some of that power. I want to have that.”
Maybe.
And maybe our children, and our children’s children will thank us for ruling the world with Love, and keeping it and them safe to continue to rule it with Love, forever, and ever. Amen.
Pictures and a Story on The Way to Jury Duty in L.A.
by Jane Tawel
June 8, 2022
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I walked this route from Union Station, Downtown Los Angeles each morning to the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center. One morning I saw a thin, rather frantic young woman who had parked her shopping cart of belongings against the railings that are the only things protecting walkers from falling into the mass of cars on the freeway. She had a small bucket of red paint and she was painting something on the sidewalk. The next morning I found she had painted a love letter to some one named Amgtriky. I wondered what she had written but then covered over with a big red square. “I Love you Amgtriky you are my world.” I hope Amgtriky got the message and hope the frantic young woman gets the love she craves enough to risk arrest for defacing public property. Aren’t we all, in one way or another, trying to get our message out to the ones we call “our world”? Aren’t we all just living with our big red letters sloppily painted wherever we go in our hope that someone will answer back that we too are someone’s world?
Los Angeles
Taking the metro about an hour each morning and evening was an experience in itself. Union Station is a truly beautiful architectural gem, both inside and out.
Union Station L.A.
One morning I was going to stop at the restroom in Union Station before making my fifteen minute walk to the courthouse. The restroom was unavailable and there were about five or six cops and a couple station security guards swarming around the entrance to the women’s room. I never knew why but I found the paradox of what is shown in this picture quite a succinct comment on modern life. Outside the restroom is a “Lactation Pod” next to someone’s entire earthly belongings, carried around on a makeshift cart because they have no home. I wondered since the lactation pod didn’t seem to be all that practical or often used, if maybe we could give all the lactation pods to all the people who don’t have a home? We could call them “Humanity Matters Pods”.
Lactation Pod and Belongings, Union Station, L.A.
At lunch I would, for a brief hour, escape the horrible weight of being a judge of someone else’s life and a carrier of a lot of people’s pain, and I would eat my little cheese sandwich and apple in this park that sits in the middle of all the justice halls that a big city like Los Angeles needs. This playground was unavailable and yellow-taped off. I don’t know why but there weren’t many children around at that time of day anyway. I found myself singing to myself Cat Steven’s metaphoric and prescient tune, “Where Do the Children Play”.
City Hall Park, Los Angeles
During my lunch hour, the thing that always restored my joy was a group of men who played a pick-up soccer game in the park. They were also enjoying freedom from whatever jobs or lack of jobs they might have had to go back to. I imagined some of them may have been the police or public defenders or D.A.s who had a bit of anonymity and a bit of fun in otherwise hard, stressful days. I had a lot of respect for not just the people who make our American legal system still what has to be one of the best things about America and our wanna-be democracy, but for all the people I met in Los Angeles. I got lost my first day and I was a bit over-the-top freaked out about it and yet so many people would stop on the street and help me reorient or calm down or figure out where I needed to go (I got lost quite a few times). Strangers can be so very kind, even in a big city like L.A. and it made me hopeful to know that as Anne Frank said, “people are really good at heart” — or they want to be, if we maybe just let ourselves ask for help. It gave me such hope for the human race, that even though I didn’t get to see children playing in the park because the playground was shut down, I got to see grown men playing in the park each day, and as long as grown adults can still play, maybe we can all somehow stop all this ridiculous violence and sorrow.
City Hall Park with Soccer Game in distance, L.A.
Every evening, on the way to the metro at Union Station, I walked past homeless encampments. Every unhoused person I talked to was very nice, although there were a couple of them now and then who had just “lost it” and I guess I would be crazy loco if no one loved me enough, here in the richest nation on earth, to at least give me a roof over my head and maybe some meds I might need and some daily bread, I mean, food. I often saw the saints of the world out on the streets, like the mobile shower people who park their vans near the encampments so the homeless can take a shower and feel at least a little more human. Each day the metro took me past the Homeboys Industry Home and I saw a lot of care given to homeless folks by strangers and city cops and security guards. I think it’s time we took all the guns and bombs and weapons in the world (or at least in our nation) and turned them into homes.
L.A. Homeless Encampment overlooking the freewayL.A. Un-Housed People
Going downtown by myself every day and serving on a jury, felt like a very brave thing for little old, stuck in the mud me to do because I am pretty well sunk-in to my careful little, often anxious but small risk suburban life. I ended up feeling both much older and quite a bit younger and also hopeful that my life wasn’t really all that set yet, and I could still live a more helpful, kind, — adventurous — and useful,caring life. I realized it is now time to find a practical way to give more to people who need another pair of hands to help them out. I have been volunteering from a distance, literally during the Covid pandemic years, but always a bit distanced metaphorically in how I choose to care for the stranger, the orphan, the homeless, the prisoner,or the hurting. But during my two weeks of Jury Duty I had been forced to be “present”. Each morning when the court clerk would call my number and I answered “present”, was like a vision of a future where the Great Judge of All calls the roll call. I want to start waking up each day, and be able to say, “I’m present. I’m ready. What is it that The Universal Good would have me, little old me, do for someone else today?” Because you know what — most of the good that gets done in this world is being done by “little old me’s”. And seeing all the “little old me’s” of Los Angeles made me realize that if anyone is looking for Christ, or looking for Jesus to return, I can tell them where to find him — he is in the City of Los Angeles, in the homeless camps and prisons and court houses and parks and sidewalks. All we have to do is look for Christ and we will find that Christ is here because Christ is waiting to be us.
And I realized, although I didn’t want to do it, that Jury Duty had been a sobering, emotionally and spiritually exhausting gift from God. After seeing the world that lets a young man join a gang because he doesn’t have any real family to help him grow up strong and valued and loved, or a world where someone gets shot by a gun while going to the grocery because we have become so greedy and stupid that we worship guns instead of life, or a world that walks past people without homes while other people fly into space on their chump-change, or a world that has been so very, very gracious to me, such a lucky world for me to be born and raised and survive in, while other people get the short end of the whole deal, after seeing a world where bad decisions became a life of no return, and good decisions can get you in trouble or killed, and where everyone is seeking the same things but some people just have the odds stacked against them and no one is around to help them find their way–help them find The Way; in world where every one is throwing their red paint around hoping that someone believes in them and loves them enough to say, “You are my world” — in this time and place that I happen to find myself in, I realized I need some skin in the game. Because this game? This game of life can’t be played from the sidelines.
Every day I got to come home to a home and a family that loves me and feels loved and where I have more than enough food and clothes and places to keep my stuff. I got to come home to a garden, and not just any garden, but a garden my daughter had made for me to enjoy. I got to come home to roses and I could avoid the thorns or get a band aide if I pricked my finger on a thorn. I thought about the defendant in the trial who would have many years where he would never see a garden, let alone tend one. I thought about the families of the victims who would never have their son or daughter make them something beautiful, like my daughter made my garden for me. I thought about the homeless folks who didn’t have any where but a cold or hot sidewalk to lay their heads at night. I thought about the judges and detectives and cops and prosecutors and defense attorneys and courthouse guards who every day go back into the world hoping for justice and also, I hope, praying not to get so jaded or worn down that they give up caring. And after my journey in the City of Los Angeles, I am still asking to know a better answer to the question, “How Shall I Then Live?”
When I was about ten or eleven, my mom moved her four kids to Monmouth, Illinois to be near our dad who had left us but we didn’t know it yet. And as I often say to Raoul, this could have been the beginning of my being a heroin addict or a serial killer, but instead I went into acting. Going into theater by way of getting an MFA, is the most expensive kind of psychotherapy a girl can get and it was worth every penny because today I am an ex-English teacher slash secretary slash waitress looking forward to someday having monthly Social Security checks in the high two figures. But then, I got to be a mom for a couple of decades, which is the hardest greatest best paid job in the world, so … Meh! to my dreams of sitting on the Tonight Show riffing about my latest accomplishments. Which brings me to the point – accomplishments.
*
This past week Raoul and I got to puppy-sit our only grandpuppy, Beni. Grand-paw and I have several adorable grand-cats but only one grandpuppy. And while this Grandmeow loves all her grandcritters equally, Grandpaw Raoul has fallen head-over-tails in love with Beni. Look at that face and you can see why we both are rather smitten (exhausted but smitten). And let me tell you something beneficial about loving one of God’s critters as opposed to loving one of God’s children. Loving an animal, especially a pet, especially a cute but naughty, tear-up-your-slippers, accident-on-the-floor, wake-you-at-an-unholy-hour, nip-at-your-calves little beastie –being in a relationship with a critter is a giant wake-up call to what I think God and Jesus and all other spiritually minded Beings mean when they try to teach us about “heaven on earth”. The reasons are many but here are a few I woke up to this morning, as my old girl Daisy and I adjusted to Beni being back home with his Mommy.
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Why Animals “Get” Heaven on Earth More than People “Get” It:
Animals are very forgiving. They don’t spend any time at all stewing over past spankings or harsh words. They encourage their humans to do the same. If you are going to have an animal in your life, get ready to find forgiveness easy, which can be unsettling, because we really should find forgiveness and asking forgiveness much more easy with the people in our lives –like we do with our pets.
Many animals, but especially the dogs I have observed love everything that you share with them and that they can share with you. They love life. Everything is always new to a dog because it is a new moment to experience it. Same walk? “Let’s explore!” Bad smell, good smell, pee smell, food smell – “Mmmmgrrrr, I Love It!” The Mailman is at the door again– “ Who are you? WOOF! WOOF! Heeeelllllloooooooo!” Same ball thrown for the five-millionth time? – “This is so much fun! Here I brought it back to you, Mommy. Want to play tug-of-war again? Okay, throw it again! Isn’t this fun!!! Do it again! Again! Again!” Oh, if I could love living life in just this moment, like a dog does. That alone would bring me a heaven to earth.
Animals have a sure, secure, and content sense of who they are without having any ego at all. Name one animal you have met with an inflated sense of ego? (Well, okay, cats. Let’s just say, cats have an ego, but can we really say it is an inflated ego? I mean, maybe when kitty gives you that look, they really are trying to communicate to you: “Oh, foolish human, do you not yet recognize a goddess when you see one?”)
Justine’s cat Artemis (yes, like the goddess) studying theology with me
But back to the sense of self of animals (probably sans kitties).
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On the flip side of animals having no egos, name one beast you have met that isn’t completely content and at peace with being who they are. It doesn’t matter one bit to your chihuahua that his isn’t as big as the Great Dane’s or to the alley cat on your street that the Siamese in the mansion has a more expensive fur on than hers. Animals exist in the absolute center of what psychologists and spiritual people call the “True Self”, not the “False Self”. And one thing I noticed about Raoul and I during our pup-sitting week, we became more our True Selves – more loving, more giving, but also more needing and more accepting – of the love we each shared together and individually with our grand-puppy. Granted, we would not sustain this if we had him for years instead of a week, and I know this because we have had dogs our whole family life and sustaining the kind of love we had with Beni this week is an impossibility, which brings me back to Thank God! our pets are so forgiving. Living in the kind of world we think of as a perfect world is hard work, just like taking care of a pet, but it is the kind of hard work whose greatest and perhaps only accomplishment is a loving relationship where I know myself as I am and accept you as someone you are and we both are at peace with who we are while also trying to be better together. If we took care of other humans as well as we do our pets, what a heaven on earth this would be. Maybe for a while we should think of The Golden Rule as saying, “Do unto others as you would have your pets do unto you.”
Finally (for today’s revelations) Animals help us think differently about Time. We didn’t “accomplish” much with Beni around, at least not as much as we could have if he weren’t around and that was wonderful –because we were with Beni –and today we will get to go back to accomplishing more and it will be a bit sad and depressing, and lonely and not as meaningful – because we aren’t with Beni.
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And when I look at my life, so many of the truly meaningful parts were when I wasn’t really accomplishing all that much. I never did accomplish a great acting career, and yet, my theatre teachers, and my experiences when I was acting, were some of the critical ones that shaped and defined me in ways I am still unpacking.
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And my memories of my children growing up? I don’t treasure all the things I “helped” them accomplish or the things we accomplished together, or the trophies or awards they got, nearly as much as I treasure the times we snuggled in the Big Bed reading or singing or just snuggling. Or the times I sat in the yard or by the pool and just listened to them play. Or talks around festival tables. Or traditions we shared. Or bike rides or walking dogs and picking up fallen leaves or pretty stones or shells on the beach. Or the times we splashed in mud puddles or laughed at silly jokes or took pre-technology-kid-coma-inducing long car trips, or….. we just were us together, accomplishing nothing. Nothing but relationship.
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So my mom took us to Monmouth, Illinois to accomplish something with my dad, but it didn’t. It was always a great sorrow to her, which I only understood much later. You know, my mom passed this summer – I keep waking up or being startled at odd times during the day to realize that all over again – she is gone. wow. If you have someone in your life that you deeply loved that died, this year or fifty years ago, you know what I mean. Time changes forever when that person you loved so much is no longer in the same Time-plane that you are. I don’t know what Time-plane my mom is in now, or what any of my departed loved ones live in now that is a kind of “Heaven-Time”, but I think they must be in something like an Eternal Puppy Time; a Pet-Time when there is nothing more important to accomplish than loving everyone and everything around you. And smelling stuff. And snuggling.
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When someone you love leaves, like Beni left us last night temporarily, and my mom left us this summer, less temporarily; then you realize that it sure didn’t always feel like heaven on earth when you were with them, but that you can, if you try, hang on to the heaven on earth moments that happen in all true relationships and in all True Selves. Because it was really heaven on earth when they were with you because heaven is just another word for Love—the kind of love that loves others with a sense that renewal and newness are in our power to create together, with enjoyment in doing the same things over and over, with the kind of love that forgives and asks to be forgiven knowing that soon you will both forget the bad thing ever even happened. Heaven on earth is simply loving what you are, not what you can do, and loving relationships more than accomplishments.
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Heavenly love is the earthiest kind of love there is because we are all just critters of this amazing, wonderful Earth, full of smells and accidents to be cleaned up, and sounds, and the same people who can get on your last nerve but keep showing up, and an Earth rooted deep in Time and yet ever expanding, expanding just enough to keep holding on to each other and also allowing each other to run. We are all part of the Earth, revolving into days and nights and if we try hard enough to stop trying, part of the great DNA Dance of All Living Things, things and humans and beasts that can for a little while – maybe even a week — lose track of Time completely because we are caring for a puppy and we are in love and because of someone else, we are loving life so much that heaven is on earth.
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Living like you are worthy of living in heaven forever is really just living like you are the most special person to the most special pet you have ever known. One of my husband’s favorite songs when he was growing up was one that Donny Osmond sang and the famous refrain was, “And they call it puppy love”.
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Find your “puppy love” today, whether it is in an actual doggie pet, or kitty-goddess, or human man-child, or needy friend, or that other-you that needs you to love her today. Go into the world looking for the messes you can clean-up and the forgivness you can offer. Apologize for your wrongs to others as if you just kicked the dog who wasn’t doing anything other than being herself. Sniff things, and touch things, and enjoy your feed even if it is the same chow you had every day this week. Look into the eyes of the people you care about and let them know you need them and that also you are there for them when they need you. Take a nap when you are tired and don’t feel guilty about. Take a walk. Take lots of walks. And if love is something you are desperate for, like it was for my mom when she moved to try to find love with my father, but only finally found when she had grandchildren — if you want love — then don’t hang your tail and let your ears droop and give up. Never grow weary as you keep chasing and fetching and bringing love back to lay at the feet of Love. Just keep doing it. Just keep loving and asking for love. Keep the ball in play and you will find heaven on earth. Again, and again, and again.
A long, long time ago and only yesterday, the materials for making my little life’s boat, were gathered in secret by the DNA of my Scottish, Irish, American Indian ancestors. But the real craft, the trued and tried boat itself, was crafted by the Great Crafter in the secrets that stretch back to the Beginning and stretch forward to the End of Time which never is. Like all carrying agents, large and small, puny and mighty, all that sail on this Ocean we call Life, or The World, my boat is unique and also it is exactly like every other little boat as well. My little boat, so small compared to others, yet just as specially made, will sail, in spurts and starts, or travel full-steam ahead, and go and go until the boat is moored someday as it was meant to be in the Eternal or until it crashes on the rocky shores of Ego or Despair. This is the truth about all sailing crafts, though many never know it because we either tie our boats up on shore, or we create a false shore in the water. But all true Truths try to teach us that our boats were made for motion in the ocean.
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I am a little sailboat, who has long had the need for The Wind in my sails. I am lucky that quite early, I was taught what sails are for and what they are not for. I was as unlucky as many when my sails were brutally torn or holes were punched in the hull, the very soul of my ship. But I was not as unlucky as many, and I have managed. So, I have rebuilt my little boat many times with the help of others and that thing that true sailors call luck and that saints call grace. I have kept my faith in The Wind, which no one can control, and yet it exists. I have often sailed in the right direction with the North Star and Morning Star as guides. I have often sailed in the wrong direction and lost my way. Mostly though, I regret to confess, I have mistaken a mirage of my safety while moored to the dock for what I was meant to live as life on a boat.
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There are many great ships that have sailed The Ocean, and sail it still, mighty and amazing in their superiority to most of our little folks’ small crafts. There are great ships with names like Caesar, or Pharaoh, or Titan of Industry, and many of these boats become enormous, powerfully engine-ed ships, making their way through The Ocean without need of The Wind, barely feeling the waves, never fearing the storms, and barely knowing they are moving at all, more like stagnant cities in the water than moving vessels. They put aside their sails and have no more need of The Wind. They take what they need from the Lands they conquer and leave behind. They take oil and slaves and buy more life vests than they could ever use; they sail their gigantic boats, boats that could house whole nations but only have enough room for one’s self. These have stopped being boats at all, and we look at those ships and we all want to have one of those ships, too. We want to be safe and saved and unafraid with everything we will ever need forever and ever, amen. And we look at our little tiny battered, torn-sailed little boats and we hate them and we hate us and we want to be them, the big safe ships. We look at the great steady cruisers and we long to have no need of The Wind; and we yearn to be in the Ocean but to control the way the Ocean takes us, like the great shipbuilders seem to do. And we forget that we are all created to be working sailors, not passengers. And we ignore what our heart tries to tell us, that even those with the biggest ships, will one day too find that The Ocean is bigger than they are. Perhaps when The Wind has wrecked the big ships upon the shoals of shallowness, or the sandbars of Eternal Truths, they too will long to once more sail a little boat.
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Perhaps we will all, large and small, no matter how safe or how broken we think our boats are, someday find that The Ocean sends us an unlooked for buoy or a suddenly appearing piece of the Mast’s Wood; and we will each have one more chance to leave shore, and grab on to what The Ocean provides, and we will once more, like children, relearn a love of sending our little crafts out into The Ocean.
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My boat’s sails have been tattered and torn so many times. I was not born a good sailor, and perhaps that has saved me. I have had to rely on The Wind’s benevolent appearing and disappearing, on the Ocean’s grace in storms and dead calm. I have had to depend on the help of fellow travelers who sailed alongside me, sometimes just keeping me company in the loneliness of Ocean life, sometimes teaching me something vital about how to sail, sometimes showing me what not to do by their own foolish choices at sea, sometimes sharing a compass that helped me navigate. And sometimes there have been those fellow sailors who, with great love, have helped me pick up the pieces of my little boat that I had allowed to break apart when I hit some shoals, or had left to rot in dock. And every once in a while, there was no one to help me, but only Someone to whisper across the waves:
“Fear not. Be still. Have faith. And know what you think you do not know. Don’t look at the waves. Keep your eyes on Me.”
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I would like to say that I have been sailing The Ocean for six decades now, but I have mostly left my little boat docked uselessly in port. I kept thinking I was safer on shore, tied up to the Pier, with those I thought were peers and I felt already the salvation of knowledge of the things I had read about on “How to Sail” without ever needing to do the things it takes to set sail. I could tell you how to sail, but I rarely have experienced the thrill and dangers of sailing. So, I have spent a lifetime mostly feeling I should be happy that I had a little boat but never really knowing the purpose of my boat or why life seemed mostly rudderless and my sails sagged depressedly, longing for A Wind I would never risk meeting head-on. I have mostly lived by peering out, rather than journeying out. I have stayed on shore with all the best charts and maps but rarely finding the courage to launch my craft again and again, failure after failure, frightening success after frightening success, prophetically, mysteriously, in weakness and in strength, in death first and then life, baptized again and again by misadventure and death at Sea, and by setting my course, going into the Deeps, into the Pontus, into the waves left by The Wake of He who first Crafted and Who crafted the Sailor in me.
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Last night there was a Red Sky and so I awoke today hoping for a sailor’s delight. But this morning the sky is still red- Warning! Warning! This morning the Ocean is covered over by Heavens which are a shade of red, red the color of shed blood; blood like the blood from two huge hands mangled by the nails of working His Boat and sailing The Ocean like no One has ever sailed it before or since, though we who know are supposed to have tried. And I am afraid. And I am uncertain I even know which direction to go. And The Great Sailor and all those before me who have managed to sail in His Wake are calling me to set out, while the sirens of safety in the numbers docked on shore make more and more knots in the ropes that tie me down.
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What will my story’s end be? People call that a legacy, but most of us just leave with an unfinished story. I will not be leaving a beautiful houseboat, or massive warship, or richly outfitted yacht behind for those who carry on in The Ocean, those few who sailed close enough to my little craft to say, “I knew her” “My boat sailed for a time with hers” “I saw her boat on the shore”. I will have no lasting control over what becomes of those who carry on my boat’s DNA or those who may have learned something about their own boats by the teachings I have done or failed to do on “How to Sail”. But one thing I am learning. If I leave my little boat safely moored to this shore; if I am tethered to the sandbars of cares and needs and self and greeds; if I keep setting sail only to turn back again to dock my fears and doubts and insecurities and failings, instead of facing them head on, sailing into The Wind; if I do not daily, moment by moment, cure and polish and then test the seaworthiness of my little boat, I will never actually be in the boat. I will spend my Time, looking at my boat from outside of it. I will spend my Life, looking at my Life, from outside of it. If do not let the Winds fill its sails, my boat will never be what it was crafted to be. If I don’t let The Wind fill me, I will never be what I was Crafted to Truly Be.
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A boat that is moored to the cares of the shore, can’t leave a wake. A boat leaves a wake when it is moving through The Ocean. We are each uniquely created by The Great Ship-Crafter to live life in the Ocean. We are given the ability to calm the waves and quell the storms, if we only have enough faith to start sailing, and once we start, to not look back at the sirens, and not look ahead at things that are mere mirages, but to point our little boats Due North, and let The Wind sail us towards what we were meant to call “Home”. Because if you are sailing The Ocean, one day you will wake up and realize that all along, you have been carrying your true home with you. Your little life’s boat has always been your Home.
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Despite what any of us try to tell ourselves, none of us has ever seen the Far Shore from this shore. It is only when we are in The Ocean, that we understand that we were neither created to stay safely on this shore, nor were we created to try to reach the other Shore. We were created to row as hard as we need, to crew alongside those who sail within our latitudes and longitudes, to drift when we can’t feel The Wind and wait for Her to fill us again, to float and enjoy the beauty that is above us, below us, and all around us as we travel; to navigate with both honest fear and wise courage, and above all to be at Home when we Move and keep Moving within in and upon The Great Ocean.
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What will I leave in the wake of my life? I pray that the flotsam and jetsam of my poorer decisions and weaknesses in sailing, will be carried away by The Great Ocean’s grace. I pray that my wake will leave a clearer sense of direction for those who sail behind me. I pray that there will be a small wake from my life’s little boat; a wake that leads others Due North, a wake that I leave when my boat is no longer seen by any but those on the Far Shore. I pray that above all, my wake will send waves to both near and far shores that swoosh with something that sounds faintly like something The Ocean would breathe, something like a person who had dipped her hands into the water and made small little circles of waves, something that sounds like what water would sound like if it were breathing in and out, ebbing and flowing. I hope that I will set sail enough times that my life-boat will leave a small little wake that sends waves gently lapping towards the world’s shores, and the children’s little life boats; a sound of waves in my wake that whispers something like this:
Shhhheeeeeee loooooved. Sheeeeeee whoosshhhh, llllllloved whiiiisssssh. She loved. She loved. She loves. She loves. Love….. Love……Love……..
Jane Tawel 