Wednesday, April 02, 2008
disciplines for difficult times
This blog has been quiet lately because I am taking another break form my prison work, this time for the birth of grandsons expected in April and May. Ive been at a Spiritual Directors International conference and am now retreating at a near friends home outside of Washington DC. My meditations this morning inspired me to read some of Quaker Healer John Calvi's writings on his web site ( johncalvi.com) and what I found was a great recipe for folks like me, in times like now:
"Friends today are called to put out so many fires of injustice; cruelty, militarism and poverty; it may be that we haven’t been so busy since the days of King Charles and Cromwell. If this is so, then Friends should be called to greater spiritual disciplines than ever before – spiritual disciplines because the crux of our faith is to listen for the Divine message and at upon it. Listening and acting have become more difficult as the noise of the world from suffering and deceit has risen.
So, what disciplines should we attend to? Perhaps these:
- enough silence, listening for the Divine, trying not to hear yourself
- enough rest and nurture to be clear vessels to receive Light
- enough stillness to feel our humility as fragile carriers of Light
- enough comfort to offer our best effort
- enough strength kept up for the long haul
- enough concentration to focus while listening
- enough love of life to see beauty while surrounded by pain"
from "A Call to Spiritual Discipline" Friends Journal May 2007
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Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Praying for our enemies
Funny how truths collide. In listening to one of my inside students last week speak about his difficulties with his work supervisor, I responded with a teaching that had a mere glimmer of a thread into a teaching I had once received.
He did not need to feel helpless. Nor did he need to turn to his habit of stoic resentments and stubborn justifications of his actions. He had some active, prayerful steps he could take. He could stay clean of resentments and judgments. He could activate his own connection with the spiritual support field. He could know deeply that they were both loved unconditionally by God.
Most importantly he could release, with his prayers and attitude, her (his supervisor’s) personal healing journey to the higher powers. Her work was her work. His work was his. They were bound together by the challenges of their relationship (the triggers and mirroring they were for each other); as well as the healing energy of God’s unconditional love and regard for them both. As his awareness was active in that larger energy of healing, it would support (without obligating) her participation in the same field. Invite the healing for himself. Invite the healing for her. Then watch for Grace, listen and follow.
Today, as I am combing my journals for poems, watching the rain fall quietly outside my window, I find the same teaching in my own journal. In 2005 I had been reading Walter Wink’s Powers that Be (p111). He wrote of how praying for your enemies submits them to a power greater than their oppression of you. This does not deny their power to enact injustice, but proclaims a greater overarching power of justice to which both sufferer and oppressor can turn to for inspiration, salvation and forgiveness. This style of prayer calls upon the “angel” of the oppressor to accountability of Divine Truth.
Then a few pages later on Valentines Day I wrote: The key to freedom is meeting oppression with love. Not escaping oppression by rejecting or fleeing, but engaging oppression with the dynamic of love.
In the prison system all kinds of us/them relationships exist. Staff, inmates, and guards see their lives and actions as negatively defined by those around them. Everyone suffers, everyone oppresses. Another way can open!
May all of the potential facets of this diamond in the rough learn how to pray for the light to shine through themselves and each other. For surely the potential is there for the friction to merely be the hands of the Holy chiseling out a diamond.
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Friday, November 30, 2007
What am I doing here?
Am I teaching the men coping skills so then can "go with the flow" of all the violence dished out at them -- by their fellow prisoners, by the nature of their confinement, by themselves, by the institution, by society?
Am I teaching skills to roll over, expose your belly and take all the treading upon with an inner smile?
QiGong practices will provide tools to endure the harsh, violent dehumanizing time of incarceration. QiGong connects with a bigger field of harmonized energy filled with potential.
QiGong shifts the human body, psyche and soul in overt and obvious ways as well as subtle and subversive ways. To bring your body into a state of harmony and balance has consequences that you may not choose deliberately. Ripples vibrate flowing out from the center of awareness we cultivate, shifting our essence and relationships and surroundings.
I teach QiGong in prisons as a process essential to my personal journey. As I learn to serve those who seem so different from me, I know them as essentially the same as me. The ability to be change, to be peace, and the motivation to change violent behaviors, institutions, traditions arise from an internal place. When we know personally the place where peace and change dance as brother and sister.
When the impulse to become an instrument of change, and instrument of peace, comes from that core connection with the root of all life – with moving stillness – it is emerges from a source much greater that the self – then our service rolls out on the flow of God’s love and reaches amazing places.
Revolutionary change, such as what is needed to turn the prison system and cycles of human violence and alienation inside out, will not come from anger or fear– even though anger at prison conditions and fear of violence is a natural response. It will come from insight into the nature of human violence by those who have been there, someone who can see the path out, because they have suffered inside the belly of the beast.
Someone like Victor Frankle who in watching his comrades in concentration camps loose their sense of purpose quickly die, while those who founds scraps of purpose, stayed alive in their souls, and could live off moldy crusts of bread.
Someone like Nelson Mandela who could lead a nation through tribunals of reconciliation because he knew, and yet could see beyond, the poison of human hatred that had held them captive for years.
One of the highest visions I hold is that my coming, and the tools of movements of balance that we share, will quicken (catalyze/nurture/stimulate) such leadership – and the comradeship and internal support essential for systematic change as well as personal change.
I trust that as we cultivate balance and harmony within the chapel, it does not begin and end with our class. There are thousand sparks of divined light in any prison – God flows on the human kindness that operates even clandestinely undercover.
The truest revolution is a revolution of the heart. The healthiest change is one that happens from within, organically seeking the greater potential we all have as our human birthright.
QiGong moves us into a state of fluid participation with universal energies of a greater wisdom, love and harmony than our own. As we move our various dimensions of being into harmony we emerge transformed. This deeper level of participation with the life force that knows nothing of lockdowns, cell bars, guards and gates, and will carry us towards a time when prisons are a thing of the past.
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Monday, October 08, 2007
Living with your crime
Sometimes when I speak of going inside Folsom Prison, people on the outside have a hard time with the fact that I am moving, laughing, sharing and meditating with murderers, rapists, drug dealers and car thefts. And also those who are in on parole technicalities and a few who have been falsely accused. For the most part I do not know their crimes, (and they do not want me to know). Up until now it has been easier that way; easier for me to know each one as just as I find them that day in the chapel. I don’t ask. It’s my business to teach meditation not to pry into their pasts.
Occasionally, their crime or sentence, directly or indirectly, arises during a conversation. Or I have a chance to read something they have written which speaks about the road they have taken. One man, who I see quite regularly, has “lost count of how many people he killed.” Whether this statement was for shock value or for real, I still don’t know.
Outsiders will ask, “How do they live with themselves?”
Some of the men inside lock it away, or bury it all under a tale of self justification or self victimization. Most keep silent, preferring not to speak of their past with people like me. Some learn to tell their story in different ways as they shift perspectives during the journey of their personal and spiritual transformation.
Two men have spoken directly with me about this over the 9 years I have been going inside. Their approach spoke of years of self reflection and healing, and as I have journeyed with them their actions have been in alignment with their words.
Their philosophy goes something like this:
A life for a life. My friend/enemy/victim/wife no longer has a life. My actions took away his life from him and took him away from all his family and friends; it took away the contributions he would have made in the world. That’s a permanent-no-going-back fact. I am still alive. I owe/dedicate/offer my life energy in return for the loss; it’s all I have to give and is still not enough. I dedicate my life to service; however I can find the opportunities, right here in prison. May I contribute to the worlds betterment times two – to honor him and to make honorable my own life.
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Visiting Room Beauty
Moments of beauty are precious inside the prison walls.
One evening I heard tales of how shocking it was to come into the visiting room for the first time. Each of the two men I was listening to had stories of coming off right out of years of solitary confinement and suddenly finding themselves in the presence of women and children. Neither of then knew what to do; they literally went into shock and had to be helped to take the next steps to find their visiting families.
Tears came to their eyes speaking of the happiness that comes with being present to children, watching them play, laugh and cry. They sighed and spoke softly when telling of how it is to see all of the beautiful women. "Women are all beautiful when you haven’t seen one for years." "The energy is so different in the visiting room, so real, so full of variety."
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All I want is to be useful
One of the biggest heartaches of being locked up is not being able to contribute. There is a long waiting list for the job of reading books for the blind and only a couple of positions available. Chapel clerk jobs are coveted. Most of the jobs available are full of down time; very few intail what we would call meaningful work.
Finding meaning in your life, having purpose is fundamental; and a fundamental challenge for prisoners. Two conversations recently brought forth examples to share.
One older man, who has always been a tinker and go-to, fix-it kind of guy, is now lost without his workbench. His last job was fixing guitars so others could make music. He knows that he will die here in prison because of some stupid mistakes (he did not elaborate) and he finds it such a waste not to be able to work, not to be able to fix things, not to be able to contribute. “They can keep me here for the rest of my life if they need to,” he said, “just let me do something useful!”
Another recently was privileged to tend the Native American’s garden while they were on lockdown. He was so full of joy and satisfaction when he spoke of the gift of being able to get his hands in the dirt and pull weeds, and to watch as birds came for the water, and the plants grew under his brief time of tending. He was getting hassled by other men and the guards for “going Native,” but found those easy to bear in exchange for the blessings of entering into the cycle of Nature for a tiny period of time.
The Sacramento Tree Foundation used to have a program where 1st and 2nd graders sprouted oak seedlings as a science project; and then the seedlings were cared for my inmates at Folsom until they were big enough to plant out in a park or school. The project was canceled years ago.
The men I come in contact with are hungry for meaning in their lives. There must be a way.
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Tuesday, May 29, 2007
State of the Ministry 06
This past January I filed this report with my Oversight Committee. Recently published in the Sacramento Friends Meeting newsletter I realized that it belonged here too. The first State of the Mnistry Report began this blog in 2004.
Since 1998 the Call to be actively engaged in supporting the men inside prison find access to their divine core essence, while cultivating a sense of communion with the flow of God through out all they are and do, has guided my life. Sacramento Friends Meeting has inspired, counseled, nourished and supported me as this Concern has grown over the years. Having an active Oversight Committee has given me a sense of companionship and supervision in what otherwise would be a solitary effort.
Hospice Chaplaincy: In January of 2005, I sensed that my work as a Hospice Chaplain had ripened, reached its fullest potential and I resigned in March. I felt spiritually called to re-center on my prison concern, understanding that if I opened up more space in my life, more would be asked of me. Quickly my programs for the men inside grew from two each week to six. My five years of Hospice and Hospital Chaplaincy added a great depth and sensitivity to my understanding of the vastness and variety of human potential and spiritual beliefs. I am very grateful for those experiences and the families that share their journeys with me.
Blog: http://chifully.blogspirit.com What began as a feedback opportunity for those who were praying for the men and my work in the prison has shifted over the past two years and 151 entries. It began with stories of the journeys inside the prison, the openings and the difficulties. Then it came into my heart that speaking about the men with out their being able to read it was out of integrity. I got permission and the blog was shared with my more serious students inside. About this time there was also a call to “let my life preach” and the blog content shifted focus to the journey inside me, the openings and the difficulties. It feels ready to shift again, and I am listening for the “how.”
Cell Visits: Fall and winter of 2005 I experimented with cell visits to my students. Some went well, other’s didn’t. I stumbled through a good deal of re-evaluation of my assumptions, cultural expectations, issues of privacy and respect. If I am to return to this practice, I must do it from God’s perspective rather than my own. Greater spiritual maturity will be required.
Programing: My own evolution as a Qigong and meditation teacher has taken some serious leaps inspired by challenges at the prison. I have also lead two different 9-month spiritual groups in worship sharing style. I keep experimenting with spiritual authority, how to mentor and stimulate inner discovery with men of a variety of backgrounds and learning styles. The Quaker in me focuses on empowering, which is different from the authoritarian approach most of the men are use to.
In April of 2006 I hosted nationally known prison speaker and spiritual elder Bo Lozoff, for 6 prison and 2 community programs. His spiritual clarity moved me, the men and the other volunteers in ways I am still hearing about. He reframed the prison experience as a gift, and offered up a model of self-less service done with great joy.
Personal spiritual challenges: I asked to be taken to a new level, and God has been answering. It is difficult to summarize this inner movement of the spirit, let me offer a few phrase: releasing my anger at injustice; rebalancing the nature of giving and receiving in my life; bearing witness - bearing burdens- facing towards; seeking undefended courage; giving up the known for the unknown; seeing the face of God behind everything; accepting helplessness; letting go of spiritual efforting; finding the difference between praying and being prayed. Scheduling rest days after prison days, helped ease the ebb and flow of my own energy. Answering to Sage advice and teaching my classes in silence for the last two months before my retreat, helped me cope with a rising sense of pride in being a spiritual teacher by turning the classes over to the true Teacher.
Weekend Retreats: I offered workshops focused on the query “How do we walk cheerfully when answering to suffering” at Quaker Center (Dec 04) and Pendle Hill (March 06). The months previous to each event were tumultuous spiritually as I struggled with the very questions I would latter support others in exploring. Despite all the preliminary personal chaos, the events themselves were full of the movement of spirit, facilitated with deep listening to the needs of the participants and plenty of grace.
Sabbatical (s): Consistency, which is so valued in prison programs, is always difficult with the men as their level of intention shifts, their housing shifts and their lockdown status shifts. This year for the first time my own consistency has been an issue. An accumulation of stressors and spiritual urgings lead me to take a three month break (July – Sept) and completely lay down the Call. Laying down the Call was heart wrenching and yet felt necessary to honestly allow full opening to the Divine desire for my life to rise above the chatter of my own desires. Sitting inside a giant cedar tree in meditation, I heard the voice of the Holy in the tree say to me, “ You belong in the prison just as I belong next to this creek.” Confirmation of the best kind!
I came back in October to lockdowns and volunteer troubles that allowed for very few programs to actually be held. At one point I had only been able to hold 4 of 40 classes. Those issues eased in December and January and I was able to teach most of my classes (currently 5 a week) before I left traveling in February and March. All my programs had to stop as I have no substitute available.
Possibilities: The position of Protestant Chaplain at Old Folsom has opened up and I have applied. Meeting has graciously supported me with a Traveling Minute and PYM with a letter explaining Quaker process.
God has been very much at work in my life and the life of this Call. This grace has not always been graceful. Yet even as I have been turned inside out and held upside down, my presence to the men God uses me to serve has remained sincere and healthy. I am deeply grateful for all the “grist for the mill” that this call has offered and for Meeting’s tender care of me throughout this journey.
Judy Tretheway, January 16, 2007.
Addendum: The Protestant Chaplain position never truly became available, yet the process of applying and listening deeply to the Call, has led me to step up in a bigger way and offer additional spiritual programs on each yard.
My travels this spring to SE Asia and India gave me good time away, perspective and opportunities for spiritual growth that are showing up in the classes and circles. We are dropping deeper, faster and with profound consequences for all of us involved as we engage the spiritual energy of the group (QiField) in a dynamic and conscious way, inviting the healing ripples in and sending the healing ripples out.
Sacramento Friends Meeting is hosting a potluck to share in the fruits of this ministry on June 17, 2007 about noon.
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Sunday, November 19, 2006
Turning over my voice
Written April 2006….
At Old Folsom there is one man S. who has been coming to class almost as long as I have. He is very sincere and dedicated. His practice has brought about incredible transformation in his nature, manner of interaction and spirit. He is a great support for me in class and always eager to help the newer men. When he leads the practice, his moves are good, but he has needed coaching about cueing, and projecting his voice.
When mentoring him briefly after class this spring, I asked inwardly, “How do I do it?” All of a sudden I caught myself saying, “Give the dan tien your voice.” (The dan tien is the hub of the chi in the personal physical body.) That’s it isn’t it! Give the voice to the chi.
My husband and mother always are complaining that I mumble and drop my voice; they can’t imagine how my students can hear me. When teaching, I have checked in with my students, and every time they have been able to hear me, even when I am facing away from them towards a curtain or a cement block wall with a noisy fan in the background.
Perhaps it is the sincerity of my students pulling my voice forth, perhaps it is my prayer to be of service to both them and the chi. I trust my voice teaching, in a way that I am only just beginning to practice outside of the class setting. It happens naturally for me when leading people in Laughing QiGong and occasionally when I surrender while chanting or singing.
A half dozen years back training to become a Chaplain and Spiritual Director, I learned when listening seriously, spiritually, to give my ears to my core-self (which in QiGong language is often “found” in the dan tien). From this place I seem to hear the spiritual level or universal level of what’s being said.
If my goal is to turn my life over to this Integral Wisdom, it would be good to practice at home as well as in the classroom, and with my voice as well as my ears!
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Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Commissions, assignments, duty
When I was a Hospice Chaplain, I would often hear patients proclaim hopefully, “God won’t let me die just yet, He has plans for me.” or I can’t go yet, I haven’t done what I have come here to do.” I would invite them to tell me what their purpose for living was, or how they saw God’s purpose for them, and usually they didn’t know, but somehow thought it would be made apparent, even though they spent little energy on their spiritual lives.
At it’s simplest and perhaps finest, I feel our purpose is to love and be loved. Leaving no stone unturned, to learn and practice the art of loving unconditionally. We don’t have to wait for a angelic message to begin.
Some seem to get more clearly articulated commissions from on high, and I feel my “work” in the prison is such a commission. I was journaling today, reflecting on an I-Ching reading that spoke of letting our duty prescribe our limits. I wrote ... “What is my duty? To do my personal spiritual, emotional and physical homework so that I am an open and clear spiritual teacher. To live my teachings grounding my students with my own practice. To recognize the small part of the puzzle that is mine to illumine and leave the rest to God. To optimize the potential for grace in my classes and life.”
Then wouldn’t you know it, I open up this week’s Heron Dance email Newsletter (http://www.herondance.org/pause_subscribe.cfm) and Ann lead off with this quote:
I ASSIGN YOU to be a beautiful, good, kind, awakened, soulful person, a true work of art as we say, ser humano, a true human being. In a world filled with so much darkness, such a soul shines like gold; can be seen from a far distance; is dramatically different.—
… Anything you do from the soulful self will help lighten the burdens of the world. Anything. You have no idea what the smallest word, the tiniest generosity can cause to be set in motion. Be outrageous in forgiving. Be dramatic in reconciling. Mistakes? Back up and make them as right as you can, then move on. Be off the charts in kindness. In whatever you are called to, strive to be devoted to it in all aspects large and small. Fall short? Try again. Mastery is made in increments, not in leaps. Be brave, be fierce, be visionary. Mend the parts of the world that are "within your reach." To strive to live this way is the most dramatic gift you can ever give to the world.
Consider yourselves assigned.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D., "http://www.mavenproductions.com/estes.html"
And then followed that with another powerful set of words from Martha Graham, choreographer which quickened me in a big way the first time I read it:
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening
That is translated through you into action,
And because there is only one of you in all of time
This expression is unique.
And if you block it,
It will never exist through any other medium,
And be lost.
The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is,
Nor how valuable, or how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly,
to stay open and aware to the urges that motivate you.
May you rest easy when your time to die comes,
knowing that you have lived and loved fully!
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Monday, September 25, 2006
Written upon my heart
Checking out another Quaker blogger's site (left sidebar, scroll down...Zach...) I encountered this quote which spoke directly to my condition:
I am separated, as to bodily presence, from you; but I cannot forget you, because ye are written on my heart, aI cannot but desire your peace and welfare, as of my own soul.
And this is my present cry for you. Oh that ye might feel the breath of life, that life which at first quickened you, and which still quickeneth, being felt; and that breath of life has power over death; and being felt by you, will bow down death in you, and ye will feel the seed lifting up its head over that which oppresseth it.
-- Isaac Penington
At first I latched onto this Penington quote, because it seemed offer divine insight to the "puzzle" of the Heart Quickening stories of my July post. Then it began to offer insight into my sabbatical experience and questions.
It hasn't been easy to truly give over to God whether or not I continued with this work -- to lay all the cards on the table and wait to know which to pick back up. Releasing. Letting go. Teachings of the very QiGong practice I share inside. As I near the end of three months of separation from the men and the prison, the dust has settled, and I can see more clearly. I can not deny the powerful connection that I have with the men, yet it is not the men, not specific men, as much as it is the experience of God that happens inside our experience of moving prayer together. It is the value that my efforts have in the grand scheme of the human journey into becoming loving vessels of spirit. It is the grace of a unique opportunity. Even these I offered up to God.
Once I had deeply offered up even my devotion to this Call, the Call was confirmed. I was sitting inside a old growth cedar tree a few weeks back at Lake Tahoe meditating. My thoughts kept drifting to potential prison projects, and I would quietly bring myself back to the center (of myself and the tree). Praying once again to set aside such wandering thoughts and truly lay it all down; I heard an "voice" of wisdom come from the tree. "You belong in the prison, just as I belong next to this creek." Doubting, I endeavored to set aside that thought as well, I was reproached with a voice of even greater certainty repeating the message once again: "You belong in the prison as I belong here next to this creek." Oh my, what a clear message, I breathed, scrambling internally to take it in. Later the tears of gratitude, for the clear sign of what has been written upon my heart, came.
So I will be returning. I may or may not see the men I have been teaching inside Old Folsom again. The potential transfer of all my students that was pending three months ago is now 'anyday'. At New Folsom all volunteer ID cards have been recalled and our unescorted entry under scrutiny.
Despite the 'inconvience d'jour' the seed has been planted within my heart, and that will give me the strength to lift up my head and find the way.
Thanks be to God.
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Friday, July 21, 2006
Heart Quickening Stories
I never knew how much I loved you
How could I?
All I know is that you and I stood at the edge of the river
Deep inside Folsom prison
Surrendering into its flow
Together we were swept away
Finding each other in the infinite chi
Losing each other in transfers and lock downs
Years later I find you
Locked up in Avenal
And once again we dive into the river
Surrendering to the joy in our hearts.
Have you ever felt, like I have, your heart bursting with emotion, joy, sorrow or just energy, like wings flapping or water swirling, or an inward melting? I like to use the phrase heart quickening when I think of these times when my hands intuitively rises to cover my chest, as if to keep the vastness of the universe from escaping. It reminds me of the use of the word quickening to describe those first felt stirrings of a fetus inside your tummy. This energy seems to have a life of its own, indicative of such vast potential and yet so intimate. When I feel it in myself, when I feel it in another, I am tuning into a vibrating, magnetic and ecstatic fullness that swells in the heart and rises up into the throat.
I suspect you have felt this way when hearing your lover’s voice after an absence, watching your child graduate, or even in a special communion with the Holy. Have your hands too reached intuitively to cover your heart or your mouth when aroused by a sentimental story, or vision of profound beauty? Ah … the sweet fullness. Who are we to contain all this love? Words are impossible to find and our eyes leak.
To be speechless in moments like these is normal. However, if we experiment with talking and writing about these experiences perhaps our heart wisdom would become more of a collective wisdom. To this end, I’d like to offer some stories that are not about a lover’s love, or pride of a parent, nor are they moments of awe and rapture as we normally experience them. Because these are moments with relative strangers I feel they are pointing to a deeper wisdom offering evidence of the web of inter connective ness that holds us profoundly and links us one to another.
What can these stories have to teach us about the heart’s energy, spiritual bonds and relationships? Perhaps in their sharing, the next steps in understanding and wisdom will arise.
Let me tell the stories:
Scene: Avenal Prison, second visit 5 months after the first.
Nov. 2004.
The chaplain and I slip in the back door to the chapel area, he holds the door open for me so I enter first. There sitting quietly on a bench is M, with his head hanging, eyes on the floor.
My heart recognizes him before my brain even registers the familiar face. There is such a crashing and excitement in my chest. Tears come to my eyes and my brain kicks in quickly to remind me of the restraint appropriate in greeting an “insider”. My hand grips his shoulder and I lean over to look in his eyes and tell him how wonderful it was to see him again after all this time.
He welcomes me back with his energy and eyes.
A hug would have been just what we both needed but is not permitted between volunteers and inmates.
I haven’t seen M. for maybe 3 years. He had been a regular at Old Folsom, a close friend of one of my senior students. We hadn’t talked much; I didn’t know anything about him or his story. I didn’t know what had happened to him when he no longer came to class. I didn’t know he was transferred to Avenal. Yet years before, we had moved together in that deep space of the QiGong practice (Tai Chi Chih) over and over. My soul had recognized his and was jumping for joy inside my heart.
His assistance in the class that followed was powerful, as the moves came back quickly (he had stopped practicing after being transferred), and he returned to the feelings of wholeness and peace that they provoke. It did not take much encouragement for him to share with the men about the transformative nature of the movements and the inner peace they bring.
I have not seen him since, but remember vividly the energetic response of my heart energy to his.
Scene: Prison Chaplain’s conference. Motel in Visalia. Fall 2005.
I was standing with a few other Buddhist volunteers at our tables promoting meditation practices in prison. Bounding up with great enthusiasm comes a man very eager to see me. His energy leaps out before him catching me up in his excitement. His eyes are alive with joy and gratitude.
My own heart is flipping inside out which my mind observes and is puzzled. What’s this all about? Who is this beautifully tattooed man my heart recognizes but my mind does not?
He is eager to be recognized and says so, “Don’t you recognize me?” he asks.
“I recognize your eyes” is the response that comes straight from my heart. What did my heart know what my mind did not?
“Avenal” he said.
“You were there when I went in?”
“Yes” he says reaching out his hand to shake.
I instinctively reach forward with both arms (He is free now). It was an excited hug, hearts jumping up and down, but not a long one. We are man and woman who don’t really know each other except spiritually. Thrilled to behold a student free, I relish looking at him. He has a beautiful Kwan Yin tattoo on his arm that I touch lightly. “How long have you been out?”
“Almost a year, I have a job now with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship guiding the prison program.”
Standing in the middle of a group of Buddhists, I fumble finding the right words to ask, “I don’t want to sound attached to results, but I am so wanting to know … did practice groups happen?”
“Oh, Yes!” he said, amazed that I wouldn’t have known what an impact my two classes had had on the men and the Yard. The Muslim group was practicing as well as the Buddhist group and some of the others. All visitors and the regular Buddhist volunteer had been stopped from coming. He was not surprised that I had not been able to return.
Later, Helen who had been standing next to me told me that she couldn’t remember when she had witnessed so much love, devotion and gratitude flashing between two people. “If I ever doubted the efficacy of my efforts, I should remember this moment,” she counseled me.
For days after, just to remember the reunion and his gratitude would bring so much fullness into my heart that I could only cry out in the wonder of it all.
Scene: Old Folsom walking out after class in front of five tiers of cellblocks, guards and other inmates all finding their way back to their cells before the four o’clock count. 2005.
That day in class a new man had come. We had had a short conversation, perhaps a handshake, but no particularly unique one-on-one interchange. Perhaps a half hour had passed since class had finished.
I was walking up behind a group of men. My pace was quicker and I was closing in, but still about four feet away. One of these men startled and whirled suddenly around to look at me. I recognized him as the new man from class.
He was reassured once he saw me, but obviously shaken by something that had just happened for him.
I merely smiled and offered an open, curious look.
“What just happened?” he asked.
“Tell me.” I responded, not willing to guess.
“Just now, as I was walking, I was overcome with a deep feeling or peace and contentment. It felt just like I was back in class. I couldn’t fathom why that feeling would happen here in front of the cells. What happened to me?”
“My guess is that your energy felt mine as I got closer and triggered the memory.”
“Oh”, he said, still struggling with the experience.
“I hope you come back to class,” I said quietly, “you have a natural ability to feel the energy flow.”
He smiled having relaxed with my positive validation of his experience.
I continued on towards my car awed by the experience.
Scene: New Folsom Prison, C Yard. Chaplains office Summer 2005.
I am sharing with the Chaplain when and J. walks in. The previous week, we had spent 15 minutes in meditation together enjoying the communion of stillness and our common trust of the Holy that pervades our lives. We had each have had deep spiritual experiences with the same Swami. He is not one of my QiGong students. Standing to greet him, I get only half way up before my heart starts scrambling inside my chest.
Whoa, I think, surprised at the energetic exchange happening between our hearts as mine comes closer to his (I am still several feet away). I sit back down, looking at him, and say with my eyes, “Did you feel that?” He says something like, “the Guru has got us.”
We laughed together and I left to let him speak to the chaplain and get my class started.
I know only little of this man and his story. I do know that to meditate with him is easy and peaceful.
What’s going on?
These stories illustrate the deep bonds that form quickly within the communion of meditation, especially a body practice such as our QiGong (Chi Kung) classes. We have surrendered to a communal pulse of energy, sharing ourselves from a place deep within, where there are no words, no judgments, no expectations. In that we have known each other as the Holy knows us. Not a knowing of the mind, with thoughts in the brain, but a knowing of the heart, of the core. We have met each other in the “neutral zone,” in liminal space, the unconditioned void. Sufi poet Rumi said it best, “There beyond right or wrong is a field, I’ll meet you there.”
Trusting that more “scientific” explanation would come along, and I received a hint as I read, “We are all Savants” in the December 2006 issue of Shift: At the Frontiers of Consciousness, the Journal of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Diane Powell in writing about quantum processing in the brain discussed a phenomenon known as “entanglement”:
“Physicists have found that two particles can be entangled, or capable of influencing one another instantaneously while separated at vast distances. Entanglement provides a means for consciousness to be coupled to other locations in space-time or for consciousness between individuals to be coupled – in short, a mechanism for telepathic communication.”
Perhaps the memory of spiritual intimacy of the deep resonance and synchronizing of two “separate” beings forms a lasting bond in a spiritual dimension. When the hearts get close enough again physically to recognize the vibrational pattern of its spiritual friend it moves spontaneously into an ecstatic state. These experiences with prisoners shows me that this spiritual bond can potentially be formed within the QiGong state even with just one class. It does not need any participation from the personality or mind or “standard” memory.
So what do you feel is happening?
How would you put words on this Truth from your own experience?
15:50 Posted in Journal - my journey , Qi-Field Writings , Reflections , Testimonials | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Heart bonds
It’s a month into my spiritual sabbatical, and I miss the men inside.
Home now, suspending the Seattle time with my mother, to tend to my husband who had a chainsaw accident, I knew after it hit our local political gossip column (RE_GRASWICH_7190_1_.pdf), some of my students would find out, wonder what was happening with me, and add their prayers to my own for his healing.
Thinking of this as I was falling asleep last night, I noticed that my heart was stirring, aching, empty, lonely for the feeling of fullness that came from the journeys inside. An ache I recognize from lockdowns. An ache that’s still very present today as I come inside out of the garden and the heat to formulate this blog update.
I wonder about all the wives, mothers and children of these men and their loneliness, how profound a sorrow must lie in their hearts as life events can not be shared. But my heart’s ache is not as personal as this. It is a spiritual ache.
I am blessed to find communion with G-d opening easily for me in many venues recently: exploring ridge tops staring into the face of Mt. Rainer, sweet moments with family, quiet reading by a fire in a log cabin retreat, dreams under the stars camping just last week, and healing hands, blogging Quakers and grateful students at the Friends General Conference Gathering the week before. I treasure the sacredness all around me, always; but there is a rawness, an edge to the communion that happens in prison. The contrast of exploring true spiritual freedom with incarcerated men taps into a deep place inside me that I cherish.
The sharing that I have come to treasure with these men inside the prison walls, is a intimacy that comes from meditating together, finding the common thread of spiritual meaning in life that unites us all. Even though I have come to know a few of the men better than others, our conversation is limited to spiritual practices. Rarely do I come to know anything about their families, their pasts, their dreams; nor they of mine. Yet there is a intimacy that comes with knowing each other in the silence, in the sincerity of our surrender to the QiGong practice together. It’s a wordless, story-free, nonjudgmental place of freedom where we know each other not in our fragile, frustrated incarnated selves, but in the bigger picture of our divine potential. We know each other in that awareness of Truth flowing within and between us.
I made a spiritual commitment to leave the whole issue of my Call to the prison work in the hands of G-d during this retreat, including the option to be finished or diverted. It is VERY difficult for me to leave it all in Divine hands. Yet I feel that is the most important practice for me now. To keep emptying and keep listening.
Listening and exploring the ache in my heart feels like the right thing to do in this Holy Present Moment.
It’s not just today, I have been querying the universe about this energy that binds hearts that have known the Holy together for several years. Once joined hearts seem to remain connected without regard to time or space. This seems to be one aspect of the spectrum of energy that facilitates the working out of our prayers for other people, and the knowing we have, before the phone rings, of who is calling. Many of us know of this perpetual link from romantic or deep friendships. Experiencing this energetic bond with men very different from me that I did not know other than in a spiritual context has intrigued me.
During some of my last classes inside, we talked together about this connection. I shared how inevitably when I am in a beautiful place and or in spiritual practice of one sort or another, I think of them, I pray for them, I remember them. As they seem always to be with me in spirit, so too could I be with them. They could re-activate what we know together from our practicing and return to the QiGong state and the truths we know whether we have talked about them or not, when I am not coming inside. As my spiritual teachers guide me from a distance, I too could be there for them and they for me.
I told them a couple of stories of my own experiences with other prisoners that have helped me to respect this heart/mind energetic connection. Rather than retell them here in this entry, I will try and finish up an essay I wrote quite a while ago and share it as a separate blog entry.
Until then I invite you to listen to your heart too. What threads, what connections with other people feel full, and which feel empty, twisted or knotted? Let us listen not just the messages in our own hearts, but in the connective energy that binds us one to another. I doubt there really is any way to separate ourselves out from our web of relationships anyway.
21:40 Posted in Journal - my journey , Qi-Field Writings , Reflections | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Turning it over to the silence
Swamiji and I had tea with Baba Hari Dass a few weeks ago. When I had my one-on-one time with him, I told him I taught meditation in the prisons and asked if he had a teaching for me to take inside. He wrote back on his tiny white board that hangs around his neck, ” Do they come to pass time or to meditate?”
I answered. “both, some to pass time and others are sincere.” Then he advised, “Make silence a rule during class,” looked me in the eye, nodded and went back to handing out goodies to the children present.
So today, my first time to teach inside since his blessing, I took up the challenge. After a brief explanation about levels of listening and learning during a silent practice we began. I had several new men, a dozen beginners and just a few with much experience, but it worked well. What was special was that I was engaged in a very different way. I was engaged with the QiField, engaged with my own practice, but I surrendered my students to the Qi, (Chi) the vital force, the Holy flow. In giving up responsibility for the men's experience, I lightened, the room lightened and the quiet held us all as we flowed through the moves. The men spoke positively about their experience.
After the silent practice, we sat on the floor and S. and I answered questions, about the moves, about Chinese Healing practices, ... about religious implications. Everyone seemed relaxed and surrendered, including myself... I good sign.
17:30 Posted in Journal - Folsom Prison , Journal - my journey , Reflections | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Friday, May 19, 2006
What changes?
Yesterday cleaning through some old papers, I found this essay I wrote in 2000! Just when I think all is changing, I get reminded of how it is still the same!
Why I come to Folsom
While I was reflecting on the day and Craig's presentation to the new students, I drifted into a interior discussion. In my mind Craig had turned to me and asked, so tell the guys why you come here? I imagined saying:
I believe that every person has a core essence, a truth, that is content and compassionate. A power that, if known and honored, can provide each of us with the internal strength and guidance to embrace any external circumstances to become our best selves.
I come because when people learn Tai Chi Chih they learn how to move from this central core within their bodies. Through careful attention to slow, gentle, flowing movements they develop self control and patience. The relaxed state of both the body and the mind allows you to connect with the essence of who you really are and bring those positive qualities to the surface of your activities.
Everyone deserves this state of peace.
Personal change can occur that is entirely self directed from the inside out.
Tai Chi Chih is about bringing our lives into balance, into harmony with everything –
seen or unseen -
inside ourselves and outside ourselves.
When we saturate our mind, body and spirit with a consistent flow of harmony and balanced energy, we become that.
I believe everyone should know and be able to live from the sense of peace and love that abides within them. The way I discovered this within myself was through Tai Chi Chih. So I come to Folsom Prison.
I come here for my health. I benefit greatly practicing with you. I have become a stronger and more peaceful person. I am more open and compassionate. I am deeply concerned with issues of justice, but I am finding new ways to allow them to be reflections of my love, not my fear.
I come here for your health and well being. When we heal ourselves, we help heal our society. What a blessing it would be if when you left here you were able to help heal our sick society . that creates places like this and puts people like you here.
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Friday, February 24, 2006
Applied QiGong principles
Yin and Yang: On B Yard this week, we watched a segment of the Bill Moyers PBS special explaining Traditional Chinese Medicine and Qi. We paused just after the calligrapher explained about Yin and Yang.
Wanting them to embody the information they had just heard, we focused on just the weight shifts for some time introspectively watching the energy move from one leg to another; feeling the need for one leg to release in order for the other leg to receive; feeling the impulse to return to emptiness even in the fullness.
Then we stopped and stretched the concept out a bit wider… here I was a lone white ‘free’ female, in a Level IV prison chapel with a class full of African- American men inside the worst yard in the California state prison system – a tiny dot of yin inside all this yang. I spoke of how our own practice contributes to the cultivation of peace and could begin to bring the energetic balance of the prison system into alignment. Some of them gave me the “you’re crazy, white lady” look; others nodded, knowingly participating in this subversive intention. Playing with opposites brings forth balance.
Flowing from the Center: Our classes are held in concrete cinder-block, ugly, uninspiring chapels, devoid of art, lit with florescent tubes, air circulating with very noisy fans. This is the spiritual center, the Yard is the center for the physical activity and violence, and the Watch Office is center for control. When I first came a year ago, the chapel energy was very stuck, murky and dismal. I was nervous and new to these men. I choose to believe that there was positive, healing, life force energy (healthy Qi) here, and with intention, our classes could tap into and nurture its flow.
I had described the place to Sr. Antonia before she got there, (see The Gift of Presence entry) and once there she said, It's not that bad, a little stale, but it’s shifting.” It was then that I recognized that it was my perceptions that needed shifting, I was stuck in my first impressions. Five months of meditation practice, plus greater care by the Clerks was having an impact. This week I was more conscious about seeing the efforts the men were making, and watching it flow out the door with them. Several guards came into talk, attracted by “something”.
We have a QiField-setting series of movements we do to see ourselves in the middle of a infinite sphere of energy, grounded, expanded, centered. This sequence finishes with a simple flowing gesture I call “Pebble in the Pond” that speaks to the ripples of energy each of us send forth from our lives.
Softness and Continuity. Effortless Effort: Yield and Overcome is a difficult Taoist concept in this place. The 'reality' is yield and be dominated. To stay alive, as J. writes (see All the Protection I need entry), the men and guards hold ourselves in tightly, defended, suspicious, and prepared for the worst. Stress is what keeps everyone alert and prepared. Many of the men keep their eyes sheltered, their bodies constricted and controlled.
For the most part I ignore their struggles, thinking it would not serve to draw attention to stiffness, but would serve better to provide an opportunity to experiment with other choices. It is much easier to “just keep moving” than to make a big deal about it. So we stay on our feet, keep moving and slowly the softness sneaks in and the smiles come, and by the end of class I have a lot more eye contact as we say good-bye. When the challenge–du-jour comes I remember to practice flowing. Water moves around rocks. If we can soften and flow here, what potential might be released?
Continuity is essential. For some reason if the men know you are just coming in once in a while they are reluctant to make any effort to come to the program. From my perspective it seems to take at least three months of consistency to melt a little ice melt. Lukewarm has taken at least a year. The flow starts sooner with the men then the guards. Just now, after 8 years, I am getting comments for a guard or two such as, “oh you’re a regular, its ok.” I make the effort of consistency, and allow the rest to flow forth in the moment. It’s all a practice.
18:55 Posted in Journal - Folsom Prison , Qi-Field Writings , Reflections | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Belonging
An awareness surfaced as I was walking in the Oaks a couple of weeks ago, seeking to let the last “leaves” of one prison stress or another drop from my branches....
That I belong inside New and Old Folsom prison, just as much as any of the men belong, as the captains and wardens belong, as the guards, staff and pigeons belong.
It was a new awareness of a very deep kind, quiet and subtle. Different from the past where I have always felt like a guest, an interloper, a hassle, a outsider wanting to do good, a visitor who was both welcomed by some and put up with by others. This feeling came in relation to New Folsom.
The past two weeks I have walked in differently, taught differently, and treated both the guards and men differently. Its been a healthy shift into a greater confidence. A greater realism that includes the possibility of me making mistakes, of recognizing more and more of the assumptions I have been making and letting them go. Less defended against “what are they thinking of me”, it now seems O.K. To be ‘more of me’. I am vulnerable inside, and that is not going to change by pretending otherwise.
Some of this has come by living through the traumas of the past months and gaining a greater perspective. Some has come from the men themselves as they have read this blog and come to see more of my story in relationship to their story. Primarily, I feel it as a spirit based shift. Dropping deeper in the collective nature of our journeys together, rather than the surface comings and going in and out of the gates and their lives.
Three other understandings have been building blocks in this sense of Belonging.
(1) I hadn’t been able to come in for the Circle of Life, spiritual direction group since Thanksgiving and was feeling disconnected. One of the men pointed out that really, this was our (Joanne and myself) problem. And was a problem of perception. They stayed in this place of canceled programs and random chances to share meaningfully. We came and went. We were disconnecting ourselves getting swallowed up in all the rest of our lives, understandably.
(2) In November I had started seeing the threads of connection that never seemed to drop away, between my students and myself in a valuable spiritual light. Quite suddenly I welcomed the opportunity to provide a 24/7 presence of peace in their lives. I prayed that if troubled they might remember the teachings I had shared, to reconnect in that moment with the stable, internally centered strength of peaceful presence that I aspired to represent to them, as the Dali Lama did for me. My psyche’s need to cleanse and detach from some of the toxic energy of the place (while still real), had been preempted by my spirit’s desire to remain a constant in their lives.
(3) My experiences with cell visits and stiff students is teaching me what a minefield of assumptions I carry, and how useless they are in helping me relate to the men. The only safe place for me to relate is spirit to spirit, soul to soul. And even there to simply flow and trust a greater story is playing out through our relationship.
Together with the events of the past few months, I have come to see how my fears of “getting it wrong, of making mistakes, of not being good enough” were keeping me separate. The men, hungry for what I bring in, have been generous in their forgiveness of my stumbling, and have help more than they know when they tell me, “How could you have known?”. The guards, are sharp sometimes in their corrections and generally are quite severe in the distance they keep, are unquestionably there if I need them, and watch over me, even if reluctantly. They expect me now, I have become a part of their week.
Meanwhile, back at Old Folsom
Writing the above, I realize that I had achieved this shift over at the Old Folsom prison (they are do different institutions on the same property) a few years back. But here this very sense of belonging is now showing its shadow side as entitlement. Strong feelings have surfaced when classes have been cancelled for four months now. I have been alternately sad, angry, frustrated, patient and persistent. Expectations unmet, my patience has kicked the walls a few times.
Next up: learning to belong without expectations.
16:30 Posted in Journal - Folsom Prison , Journal - my journey , Reflections | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Captives, Uncertainty and Laughter
Those of you who know me personally and not solely through this blog, will know that over the past couple of years I have had a great deal of fun spoofing this, that and the other thing with what I call “Laughter QiGong”. I have mentioned the Laughter ‘Meditation’ that freed up enormous energy while working as a Hospice Chaplain. Currently I am in the middle of a play with the opposite, a practice of grieving and crying daily for the sufferings of the world, my students, and myself. This great commentary by the Christian Peacemaker team in Iraq that is working for the release of 4 captives including Quaker Tom Fox (see Dec 9 blog entry) made my day! Tomorrow I’ll experiment with some of both...tears and laughter ... Tonight, I’ll just laugh. Please do yourself a favor and read this beautiful message.
Embassy, January 11th, 2006 FEATURE By Greg Rollins
Laughter in the Face of Severity
How do you laugh in the middle of something as serious as an abduction? How do you keep the enormity of it at bay? If you try to add humour to something like this you run the risk of looking inconsiderate, uncaring or thoughtless. At the same time if you don't laugh you run the risk of drowning in the severity of the situation. So what do you do? ... Continue by going to:http://www.embassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2006/january/11/baghdad/
laughter-captives.2.doc
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Friday, December 09, 2005
Tom Fox's message Lights my path
"Be patterns, be examples in every country, place, or nation that you visit,
so that your bearing and life might communicate with all people.
Then you'll happily walk across the earth to evoke that of God in everybody.
So that you will be seen as a blessing in their eyes
and you will receive a blessing from that of God within them."
-- George Fox, founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
(as quoted on Tom Fox’s blog - see right side bar)
I don’t speak often about my Quaker faith, background and beliefs. The practice is to live from the faith, not to preach it. With one of our own in the news, perhaps it is time to stand up and be counted along side fellow Quaker Tom Fox, one of the Christian Peacemaker Teams held captive in Iraq. His words, as I read them in context of his peacekeeping efforts, mentor my prison efforts.
My heart is full of prayers for him and his teammates, and his captors, and the spread of his message, as so many tune in, if just briefly, to this story. Tom, I trust, would ask us all to look into our own lives, our own callings and see how these same truths he has based his Call upon echo in the work we are each about. It is a beautiful thing to have your life illuminate the lives of others. Tom Fox is doing that for all of us. He is doing that for me.
Seeking to honor him, by applying the mentoring I receive from his written words, I offer these reflections on my own work that arose as I read a Salon article called “Love your Enemies”. My words are in green.
In this essay, Pearl Hoover, pastor of the Northern Virginia Mennonite Church and a member of Fox's five-person support team, says, "Part of his being there was to be a presence with people at their own level of risk.
"For [Fox] it was a very measured approach," she says. "He acknowledged it was a risky thing to do, but he wasn't apologizing for it, and he wasn't saying, 'Bring on the trouble.' He was simply saying, 'I want my life to be meaningful.' And I think that's something that someone who's not mentally balanced would not say. He wasn't looking to die. And that's where his message is completely different than people who choose war or people who choose suicide bombing. He went there because he wanted to look for peace wherever it was and to nurture that peace."
I have told my family and friends, when they fret about the dangers I face in the maximum security prison I visit weekly, that I have chosen this work knowing the possibilities of personal harm. If something should happen to me, they must remember that I was there willingly, that I would not seek revenge, but an increase in the type of efforts I stand for, an increase in the programs that bring healing and transformation, an increase in compassion for the dehumanizing conditions at the beginning, middle and end of the cycle of criminal behavior. Consequences for actions are part of our personal learning process and I know God works in Solitary, in the SHU, in Ad.Seg. I would NOT however, wish any death penalty on my behalf and a signed document stating such is in my files. Please do not use any mistake on my or my students part as justification for reducing the desperately needed spiritual programming that offers a way through the very despair that creates the need for prisons.
The Salon article later discussed
The litany of horrors Fox kept hearing -- coupled with all the other torments visited on Iraq -- clearly got to him. On his blog, he wrote about trying not to simply shut down in the face of so much anguish. "The ability to feel the pain of another human being is central to any kind of peace making work," he wrote. "But this compassion is fraught with peril. A person can experience a feeling of being overwhelmed. Or a feeling of rage and desire for revenge. Or a desire to move away from the pain. Or a sense of numbness that can deaden the ability to feel anything at all."
He continued. "How do I stay with the pain and suffering and not be overwhelmed? How do I resist the welling up of rage towards the perpetrators of violence? How do I keep from disconnecting from or becoming numb to the pain? After eight months with CPT, I am no clearer than I [was] when I began. In fact I have to struggle harder and harder each day against my desire to move away or become numb. Simply staying with the pain of others doesn't seem to create any healing or transformation. Yet there seems to be no other first step into the realm of compassion than to not step away."
Fox didn't step away. The day before he was taken, he wrote a brief missive, posted on the Web site Electronic Iraq, titled "Why Are We Here?" He concluded, "We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization that exists within us. We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no matter how much they dehumanize their own souls."
Fox is speaking directly to my condition this past week. The cell visits last week brought me face to face with the ugly nature of on-going confinement, the challenges of lock-down and facing a life-time of bad food, disagreeable cell mates, the pornography, and a world without normal relationships with women or family. After just one difficult visit, I had to move away, angry at my student’s inappropriate behavior and shut down from all the porn witnessed over the half dozen earlier visits. How do I not step away? How do I find a way to request respect, not only for myself, but for all woman-kind. How do I shake the despair from my being.
Sometimes when I am walking in and out I hear the Guards talking, speaking of the men inside in the most dehumanizing ways. Their jobs too, often seem dehumanizing ... Endless hours in front of a cell watching over a sleeping inmate, picking through feces for drugs, watching for scams, always alert for the worst possible alternative, always alert for a threat on your own life, needing to beat on people to stop them from killing another.
Prison is the most dehumanizing place I've experienced, and I choose to go there. I choose to fret, weep, dance and loose sleep when my desires to move away or become numb well up. I see it as my practice -- to return over and over again to a personal state of well-being and balance, of joy and lightness — to allow the ugliness to open my heart further -- to the men, to the guards, to it all.
When God is ready for me to move on from this, I will leave. Until then the “hints,” out of the silence of prayer, ask that I return to my practice; to pull away from more cell visits for the time being, and to sink into a deeper relationship with God; to cultivate a stronger light within, that I may be more truly present to both the light and the darkness of this home of God we call Folsom Prison.
I pray to cultivate within myself a presence that will not retreat in order to feel better about herself, but can “hold fast to that which is good” in everyone while witnessing to all that is cause for great despair.
“Do not give to the poor expecting to get their gratitude
so that you can feel good about yourself.
If you do, your giving will be thin and short-lived,
and that is not what the poor need;
it will only impoverish them further.
Give only if you have something you must give;
give only if you are someone for whom giving is its own reward.”
-- Dorothy Day
14:20 Posted in As a Quaker ... , Journal - my journey , Reflections | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this
Friday, December 02, 2005
Integrity and accountability with our Callings
At a gathering of prison volunteers this week we discussed integrity and accountability. Some of us did have spiritual teachers (or an equivalent) that watched over us and to whom we were accountable. But many were accountable just to the prison chaplains, who pretty much allowed them follow their own course. This is an issue that any of us offering ourselves in service to others needs to address.
Even as deeply spiritual people we sometimes have a sense of indignation when someone suggests that there might be more to the process of integrity than our own honesty, and more to be accountable to than our own good ethics an personal relationship with the Holy.
We deflect, procrastinate, and feel ourselves above the process of reporting in to someone else; laying bare the weaknesses in our own practices; telling someone the stories of our struggles so that they might reflect back our growing edges; telling someone our stories of victories so that they might reflect back our assumptions or pride. This just doesn’t seem to be necessary. Aren’t we doing just find on our own?
Where do we find the time in the middle of all our service to the disempowered? Where do we find the money to compensate those who counsel us when we are volunteers ourselves? Besides, who is qualified to listen to us when we are out on the cutting edge? Who can hold the stories of grief and violence? Who is challenging themselves spiritually as much as we are?
Can you hear all the ego? I feel justified to go it on my own, because God is with me, watching over me, because my intentions are the highest I can imagine. I know where to get support if I can’t handle it, right now everything is under control. Can you hear all the pride? Do we grow when everything is under control?
Several years back now I was at a Quaker retreat for those of us following Calls. We shared together about going it alone, and having a safety net, or a leash. Powerful testimonies helped me come into the understanding that we get much farther with realizing our highest potentials of our Calls when we have oversight, when we have people looking out for us, watching over and seasoning our impulses. Those who had already walked this path spoke of how much further they felt they were able to go in taking risks, because they knew they were watched over and would get pulled back from anything out of line or dangerous. Without the support network they had been constantly attempting to self initiate the checks and balances and felt that so often they had not risked what they might have, and did not bounce back as easily as they might have when deeply challenged.
We were bemoaning the fact that our Quaker Meetings did not seem to have the skills to provide the quality of oversight and guidance that we needed, that we had to spend time, we could spend on our Calls, educating them how to take care of us, that our Meetings just didn’t understand. In worship that Sunday morning I rose to speak of the need to forgive our Meetings for being who they are, and offer up ourselves as tools for our Meeting’s growth and the development of the skills in Oversight. When we keep ourselves open and vulnerable to supervision by our Meetings, we were keeping ourselves open and vulnerable to God’s grace to guide our calls. No matter how healthy our personal discernment process, learning trust and vulnerability is essential and ultimately a blessing to both the Call and the community.
I now sit monthly with a spiritual director, as well as my Meeting Oversight Committee. The Sacramento Buddhist prison volunteers have a Sangha that welcomes my participation. I also have a network of mentors: former prison staff, former inmates, Qigong teachers, therapists and spiritual friends that are not afraid of the nature of my work or of challenging my ego. Weekly I open up to some part of this team and ask for guidance. I do this as a part if my practice, a part of the Call. It’s a good way to stay humble and to keep others engaged with my journey and their own wisdom. I can clearly see the impact that expanding the base of my accountability and practicing “asking for help” has made upon my prison work. Not only have the numbers of men impacted dramatically increased, but my own integrity, presence and offerings are several important levels deeper.
The key to “ask and ye shall receive” is that I must be willing to receive.
PS: One of the best guides to volunteering, motivation and integrity is Ram Dass’s book How Can I help? I believe it is essential reading for all volunteers whose intention is to grow spiritually and have our efforts come from the place of highest integrity within ourselves.
13:15 Posted in As a Quaker ... , Journal - my journey , Reflections | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
How do I do what I do?
How do you do it? People ask when I tell my prison stories. Fair enough question. The answer is always changing.
First of all, knowing that I prayed for all this helps. I prayed to know, to serve, to receive the challenges that would serve to cultivate my fullest potential. This leaves me with a fall back position of “You asked for it!”
As volunteer, I can always quit. As the men’s spiritual teacher, I must walk my talk, apply the practices, reach out for help, listen to my inner counselor and tend to my fears.
The spiritual resources I tap into would not be the same for someone else, but they bring me joy, bring me balance, bring me face to face with myself on various dimensions.
First of all I have the very QiGong practice I teach. Through these beautiful movements and meditations I have a very tangible, real sense of the Holy presence in my body, my heart, my mind, my spirit, my relationships and the world I move within. I have learned how to communicate with this very fluid and “verb-like” G_d, in a multitude of ways. It is not difficult for me to sense the Holy in any moment, place or time. Not that I always pay attention, but the access is there — I can dial in, or be dialed into with relative ease.
I have spiritual support teams – non-physical, non-local energetic sources I call upon. (Up close and personal aspects of G_d) When I go into the prison,