Absolution

Forgiveness. Yes. It's a concept. It exists. My recovering Catholic friends tell me that Jesus will absolve you of all your sins if you just admit them and say you're sorry. And it's not a one time thing. You can do the same bullshit over and over again and still get right with the Lord. Though I am not sure if they even really believe that. And Jesus is usually not the person I feel like I need forgiveness from anyway.

Here is my deep dark secret. I have hurt people, really cool people, people I love. And I realize that intent is irrelevant. I realize it because they have hurt me too, sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident and the end result is exactly the same-total suckage.

So now what?What happens when you have confessed your sins and apologized? How do you move forward? How can you trust those other people not to hurt you again? How can you trust yourself not to hurt them either? They say scar tissue is the strongest tissue in the body, but no one talks about the fact that it is rigid, that it doesn't bend the way the unwounded areas do, and there is strength in flexibility. So I have started to pray, as though this might stretch my scars. I pray for true mutual forgiveness, for freedom from suckage, for protection from future hurts, for unicorns, and winning lottery tickets. And so far, no lotto.

How long does absolution take? Is it coming? Can I put my ear to the rails and listen for the rumble like an oncoming train? Just wondering...

Love and Guatemala: The Launch

Thanks again to everyone who came out for my book launch. It was an awesome experience to be able to share my work and little of what went into it. Love and Guatemala is a collection of poetry and one not very short story written over the course of several years. The Guatemala section was written as a part of one of my five trips to Guatemala. The love section are just my from time to time poems. The story was inspired by David Levithan, one of my favorite authors and editors. Here is the video of my launch. Special thanks to Jeff Jordan for filming and of course to Rev Allen Mosely and the Amor Spiritual Center for hosting not only my launch, but also my monthly writer's group.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2vCH4AkpgE

My Evening With The Missionaries

Last night I went to a friend’s house and met some missionaries. As a rule, I tend to avoid any situation that involves religious proselytizing, but I really wanted to see my friend and her baby and if that meant hearing the spiel so be it. It was actually very interesting. The missionaries were a husband and wife who had “so much love in their heart for the Cambodian people” that they moved to Cambodia 12 years ago to spread the message of Jesus. This is usually the time when my more sarcastic, social justice self righteousness kicks into hyper drive and I am internally sermonizing about the objectification of brown people and the fallacy of the great white savior come to heal the brown heathens. But as I said, I was in the home of a friend, so I chose to suspend my skeptical annoyance long enough to really consider the merits of what this couple had chosen to do with their life.


They started by trying to help Cambodian Christians strategize for how to get the word out about Christ, but through their work they realized that there were other pressing issues facing the Cambodian people, such as lack of literacy, basic hygiene standards, and the proliferation of human trafficking. They talked about how other White people had visited areas of rural Camobia theoretically to provide the community with food and clothing, then they asked the villagers to sign letters verifying they had received the donations. Being illiterate, they were allowed to simply ink their thumbprints, but in doing so they were not signing the documents that had been explained to them, they were signing away their land rights. A few weeks later, they were forcible removed from their homes by White People using their very thumbprints as evidence that their land did not belong to them anymore. Familiar story?

So the couple began hosting literacy classes and eventually started their own orphanage. They also teach adults how to lead groups and they prep Cambodians to educate other Cambodians about the dangers of sex trafficking.

While I may not agree with their need to Christianize Cambodia, I have to admit that I was touched by their sincerity and also it sounds to me like they might actually be making a difference. They are following a calling, but I suspect it is one that is much deeper than spreading religion. They are spreading literacy and self empowerment, which to me seems even more important and special.

Why is it so hard to see your own footprint? To have a genuine understanding of the ripple you are making on the world? As I am preparing for my book launch tomorrow, I have been in long conversations with a number of supportive friends. I have come to realize that what I am doing, in choosing to self publish my work and teaching others to self publish, has already had a much greater impact than I ever anticipated. People are telling me that I am inspiring them to follow their dreams. I don’t know about all that, but it is my hope that I can walk through my life with some measure on integrity and that even my mistakes might somehow make sense in the long view of things. I guess we’ll see.

Wal-Mart: Seeing evil for what it is

I start my morning most days by reading everything that has been written in the last 24 hours about Wal-Mart. Needless to say it's often not the most upbeat way to start the day. This week it's been bribery scandals in Mexico, empty shelves here in the States, and of course their lawsuit against UFCW for helping workers to stand up for themselves. The articles change, but the core thread the runs through all of them is that here in our country exists an entity, a multi-billion dollar company that is so vast it has literally saturated the US rural market and additionally become such a huge part of the supply chain that it actually dictates what standards of pay and condititions will be set internationally. That is almost unfathomable power. And to quote Uncle Ben from Spider Man "With great power comes great responsibility."

Here lies the problem. Wal-Mart does not take responsibility, not for it's workers stateside, and certainly not for it's workers internationally. My grandma and I have often argued over the fact that she shops at Wal-Mart. She says as a senior citizen on a medicare budget, she simply cannot afford to shop elsewhere. This makes me sad, partly because Wal-Mart's brand is so strong that my own grandma, a highly educated woman will not do the research to discover that prices are comparable at other stores, but also because in shopping there she has become complicit in maintaining a class of working poor. Wal-Mart markets itself an advocate for the working class...a place where the fiscally challenge can find everyday low prices, but at what costs.

Here are somethings I have learned from my daily Wal-Mart briefings:

• The average wage of a Wal-Mart worker is $8.81 an hour. (compare to Costo which pays $11 starting)
• The majortiy of employees are part time.
• Scheduling is done by favoritsm and is not transparent making it difficult for people to arrange childcare or attend school.
• Wal-Mart has lost of settled lawsuits totalling in the billions from employees who have been discriminated against on the basis of their race and gender. (Side note: Just yesterday I met a man who was a manager a local Wal-Mart for 2 years and was asked to fire a black female employee who has been exemplary in every way, and even sold $200,000 worth of jewelry the week prior. When he refused, he was pulled into an office and berated. The employee he refused to fire was attacked with racist epitaths. They both quit.)
• Wal-Mart has also been sued (and lost) by customers who have been racially profiled...there was a case in one Alabama store where Mexican American customers were being asked to produce docements to prove that they were legal residents before being allowed to shop at Walmart.
• The majority of Wal-Mart employees are not eligible for healthcare due to their part time status and those that are can't afford it due to astronomical premiums.
• Wal-Mart employees make up the greatest population of people draining our social resources within the state of Washington. That's right, they are paid so poorly that they qualify for federal assistance. This is actually a national issue, not just local.
• Workers internationally are paid even less and do not have OSHA regulated working conditions as evidenced in the Tazrene fire that killed 112 Bangladeshi workers whose families have still not received one dime of remuneration...not to mention those who survived.

I could go on at length, but the picture is pretty clear. So now what? We have the David and Goliath battles. There are employees and organizations not affiliated with Wal-Mart who are coming together to try to raise awareness about these issues, but change is hard fought and not easily obtained. Every few days I read something positive about Wal-Mart. They are bringing grocery stores to food deserts, hiring Veterans, buying products from women owned businesses, but I can't erase the rest of it. Because while these things are happening, Wal-Mart has invested more money in frivilous lawsuits and meaningless PR than in listening to it's employees. While Costco and Trader Joes are advocates for a higher minimum wage, Wal-Mart has done everything it can to lobby against it.

And what it all comes to down to for me is compassion. Behind every organization or corporation, no matter how large, are simply people. Wal-Mart was started by one man, Sam Walton, who had a vision of helping people save a dollar. And it is being continued by his family and the board of trustees. So just this once, I want to put aside the adversarial tone and implore that we get beyond greed and defensiveness to the basics of human necesities. We all need food, water, and shelter...and in this wealthy country, we have the capacity to provide this for every single person. Moreover the majority of us aren't asking for these necesities to be free. We are willing and able to work. But another basic right that often goes unstated is respect. The members of OUR Walmart, more than asking for just economic compensation for the work that they do which makes the Waltons their daily billions, are also asking that they be treated like human beings. And the evil I see, the sadness of my morning reading is that they have not been met with compassion. They have not been met with basic humanity. They have been severly mistreated then told that if they don't like it they should just get over it because that is the cost of low prices.

I guess, for me, it's just too expensive to shop at Wal-Mart.

Lessons learned from my magnolia tree

Last week we had that one sunny day. In Seattle this is akin to Jesus coming to visit. There is that kind of buzz. People don't even say hi to you, they say "Oh my God isn't it beautiful," as a greeting. And if you glance around the office, you will notice that you are probably alone or stuck with some pretty miserable people, because everyone else is outside. It's seriously that deep.
And then it went back to that colorless sky, on again off again chilly rain that is our perpetual default. I would be annoyed except, if you've ever been here you know it's not an ordinary gray. Seattle is too beautiful even on a blah day, that perfect alchemy of green with water and mountains and a killer cityscape skyline. I digress.

So it was another one of those gray days when I stepped out onto my back porch juggling all my work crap, trying like hell to make it to the car, when I noticed my Magnolia tree. Just the day before it had been barren. Now suddenly it was decked out with porcelain looking buds, silky white but blush wine colored at the base. It was enough to pull me out of my morning mania. When did that happen? How did I miss it?

One day it was winter and now, my grass is growing again and the blackberry bush is puffing out, threatening to take over my whole back yard. And I wonder about the comparable processes in my life, all the unseen unfelt evolution within me. I want to wake up tomorrow budding, ripe to bloom. I want to wake up with so much beauty within me that it can no longer be contained by any semblance of barreness. Rumi says flowers celebrate by falling apart...I don't want to get that far overjoyed, if anything I am hoping more to fall together, connect all the pieces of what I want, what I love, who I am and what I do to make a perfect blossom of divine right purpose and soul prosperity.

Satisfaction Guaranteed?

I get to this point in my day where all my meetings are finished, my high priority tasks are complete, and there is still work to be done, but it’s nothing that I can’t do tomorrow. That’s when I get into trouble. Idle hands you know…and internet access. But today instead of spending the next two hours killing brain cells on facebook, I’d like to pose the question: Is this all there is?

Seriously. I finished high school, then college, and kicking and screaming even made it through grad school, all with the mantra looping in my head that this was what I needed to do in order to have a successful career. I mean unless you’re Bill Gates or Kanye West, drop-outs tend to have some tough prospects. But here is the thing, maybe there is one thing they got right, both Gates and West made a choice to pursue their passions.

Me, I made the choice to go to school, even after years of re-discovering all the ways in which being a student is not my passion. But it was all worth it right? Just out of grad school I landed a prestigious job with a nice title, an office with a window, and even an assistant. But it was terrible and at the end of two years I transitioned into a less prestigious, but better paying job, which was great, for a while. But then I got bored and I got this nagging voice in my head that said “Is this really why you spent all that time and money on grad school?” So I went on my big vision quest, took 7 months to travel and lounge, meditate, eat good food, visit friends, work on my novel, and really decide what to do.

I came back and landed my “dream job” with better pay, a better title, free trips to Guatemala, and a chance to really be that international education nerd I had studied to be. In some ways it was awesome, in others it was not, and for the longest time I worked hard to really make it work. And it did, until it didn’t. And then once again I walked right into another job. And I like it. I’m learning a lot, I love my co-workers, and I have a lot of opportunities to meet different people. BUT. There is always a but.

Is this what the next 30 years is going to be like? Get up, go to the gym, eat healthy, go to my job, sometimes love it, sometimes be bored out of my mind, live for the weekends, get melancholy on Mondays. Repeat until retirement. Um, I might need some Prozac or a mojito…or a case of mojitos and some chocolate cake. I don’t know what it would take to make me feel better about this. But that’s life right? That’s what everyone says it’s supposed to be.

Still there is a part of me that keeps crying out for more. Not just more money or less time at work, just more…more joy, more excitement, more fulfillment. I want to make a difference and I feel like day by day I do things that resonate. I contribute to my community, but somehow even this isn’t enough. Am I the only one out there with this insatiable need to live a life that isn’t just about struggling to make it to 5:00pm?

Words in my mind

What is the power of my word? If you don't read this will I still write it? If I don't post it, will you still feel it? It was said that the entire Universe was called into being by one word, the word of God made manifest in a bang. If no one heard it, was there still a sound, and what was that first sound like with nothing to compare it to? What would anyone's life be like with nothing to compare it to, no sense of good or bad, right or wrong?

Last night I started a class called The Power of Your Word and it has left me thinking about words...the words I choose to say and the words I never say. I woke up in the middle of the night filled to bursting with words I wanted to say. So much and yet, even in the privacy of my own home I felt censored by my own judgement. I want to say what I mean. I want to mean what I say, but sometimes what I have to say isn't pleasant. It isn't clean and tidy. It isn't easy. Should I still say it?

We talked about affirmations, mantras, using words to sow thoughts into our consciousness like planting seeds of what we will want to say later. There were some beautiful words, deliciously juicy and powerful in their sequence, but as I lay there in the middle of the night, those were not the words that came to me. As I listened to my own mind run and ramble, my inner words betrayed my fears, my sadness, my shadows. Are these unspoken words as powerful as the joy I choose to speak? Sometimes I feel like they are, like even if I only say the "good" things, it won't erase the inside words.

So how do you change your word? Your world is an out picture of what you think, but how do you change your thoughts. Are mantras enough? Memory created through repetition? I'm searching for the magic words.