Looking for Someone

We see ourselves in others.  Isn't that why we turn?

We see our hopes and dreams unfulfilled.  Isn't that why we hurry by?

We see our frailty, our vulnerability.  Isn't that why we, ever so carefully, step over?

We fear the other, the stranger.  We shrink from the odd clothes, the strange behaviors, the obvious oddities...and we become less and less and less.

Until we are hardly human at all.

Recently I read, in fairly religious terms, that "God doesn't make strangers, we do."  I felt power in that phrase, mostly because I've experienced it myself--the sideways glance, the unreturned smile, the blank look.  I've felt diminished by a lack of connection and I know you have too.  And I wonder if...no, I know...if we were to simply acknowledge the full humanity in others...even of those we fear...if we were to really see them and let them see us, this world would become better--connected, fearless, loving.

Isn't that what we all want?

Ism & Ogy & Ity?

She stormed in, fit to be tied.  She was angry and argumentative.  She was demanding and demeaning and derisive. 

We just listened. 

After a while--after the spew of poison slowed down to a trickle--after the walls came down--behind them we could see the stress, the anxiety, the fear. 

No one ever said it would be easy.  Believe me, that was no sin of omisssion.

It's not a religion.  It's not a creed.  It's not a doctrine.  It's not a philosophy or an organization or a methodology.  It's not a law or a rule or a guideline.  What carries us all through, what gives us all strength, what ties our tongues and opens our hearts so that compassion flows even as the venom spews, is--simply and unequivocally--love. 

It scatters the darkness.  It is our only hope.

Is there hope for you today?

"Love never ends."

So glad if you enjoy reading these...please feel free to share!  If you're reprinting, it's always nice (and legal) to ask. (c) 2015, Steve Fiechter

Too Late, Baby?

Omi.  It's a diminutive form of a German word for grandmother.  That's funny, you see, because to us she loomed large.  Our Omi was stocky and headstrong and orderly and insistent, only selectively sentimental and with little time for nonsense.  The framed cross-stitch on her wall said it for her:  "Cleanliness Adorns the Kitchen."  

She loved us a lot, but didn't tolerate us much.  There were certain ways one should behave and, once told, that was that.  We were welcome to visit, as long as we sat and listened. 

Don't slam the door.  No elbows on the table.  If you have so much energy that you need to run around, I'll be happy to show you the lawnmower or get you working pulling weeds or painting a fence. 

That was our Omi.  Alles in Ordnung....everything in order....even you.

She loved us.  She adored our Opa.  Later on, "I had the best husband in the world" would lead her mantra.  When he died rather suddenly she found solace in her orderly world, but from then on something was missing.

Always a bit of a prude, our Omi looked disapprovingly on any public displays of affection.  "Nah!" she would say.  But one day, long after our Opa died, she surprised us: seeing a young girl sitting in her boyfriend's lap, our Omi said, "If he were here today, I would do that."

Love conquers all--our stubborn habits, our ingrained ideosyncracies, our greatest inhibitions.  Love opens the door to a life of no regrets.

Hopefully, for you, it's not too late.

Enough is Enough

He can't help it, really.  After all, there was a time when he was all alone and on his own--scavenging, starving.  There wasn't enough.

But now his brain is stuck in that place, a place that screams "shortage." He spends most of his time reacting to the screams.  He's never far from the potential for satiety, the refill, the handout.  He's an addict.

I've thought about ways that I might help him overcome his insecurity and my own feelings of pain and frustration at his fathomless fear--I've thought about some kind of therapeutic intervention, some new gestalt. But there is no reason here. There is no reason to doubt that there will be a next meal, a safe harbor, a home....and there is no reason to overcome the doubt.  It is survival.

To some degree, we are all survivors of trauma, and victims of our own ensuing insecurities.  We may not hover around our food dish like Thomas the cat (who in the years since we took him in hasn't missed a meal or snack, has grown big as a turkey and rightfully earned the title "Fat Boy"), but we do hover.  We hover around that which will address, however temporarily, our shortages and shortcomings: the holes in our souls.  Food or clothes or shopping or politics or religion--the lofty and the lowly--we all seek to satisfy that which will never be satisfied.  It works for a while, whatever it is, until it doesn't work and we're back, hovering, hoping, longing.

Until we find the reason.

My NAY-bor

Mark this one "easier said than done."

I swear he's a walking oxymoron (with emphasis on the "moron").  He's generous and uncouth and caring and stubborn, at once as wise as Solomon and dumb as a stump.  He'll show up unannounced with his arms overflowing with gifts and then launch into a scornful Trump-like rant about immigration.  He'll snark about a friend behind her back but then be the only one to visit her when she's in the hospital.  He'll make fun of anything intelligent you have to say but never let your birthday go by without bringing you a bagful of gifts.

I know, it's not (always) easy to love your neighbor.  But here's the thing: the love we need to share is not a love based on good behavior and a generous spirit.  It's not a love to be withdrawn when the snarky comments fly.  It's just love--unconditional.

Except for one...the only condition...that we must.  There is no choice.

But something tells me that in the end it won't matter anyway...the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly...just the love.

"Faith, hope, love abide, these three.  But the greatest of these is love."

Always glad if you enjoy reading these...please feel free to pass them along.  Sign up to get future posts from Acorns.

(c) 2015 Fiechter
 

Stunned

When he said it, I was stunned.  And then I practically had to bite my tongue to keep from crying.

I'm privileged to work in a program that provides support and assistance to people who have been living on the streets longer than many of them can remember.  Some have serious physical or mental health problems.  The system labels them "chronically homeless."  We just call them people.  They are people who have been marginalized by a culture that glorifies the strong and villifies those who have had the deck stacked against them from the get go.  But don't get me started.

Not long ago, we decided that we would recognize the birthdays of each of our program participants. 

"What a nice idea," I thought.

Today one of our participants celebrated his 62nd birthday.  When we gave him his card he was delighted.  And that's when he said it.

"It''s been 31 years since anyone has given me a birthday card."

I can hardly wrap my brain around that...let alone my heart.  Thirty one years?  He hasn't gotten a birthday card in 31 years?   For half of his life he hasn't received so much as a simple birthday card--a note to tell him that someone cares that he is alive, that someone is celebrating his life on this planet?  Not one?

I'm so sick and tired of living in a world where people are tossed aside like trash.  I'm so sick and tired of living in a world where human beings are left to fend for themselves for decades without so much as a card to let them know someone gives a damn about them.  I'm so sick and tired of watching as people of privilege treat their pets better than they treat their neighbors.  And I don't care how weird or angry or cranky or stinky they are.  What really stinks is how badly we treat the people we should be loving.

Just a card, a note, a hand, a vote.  You can change the world.

One thing I know for sure, I'll never look at a birthday card the same way again.  Will you?

That's the Spirit!

Yesterday I listened as yet another person shared how essential his faith in a "higher power" had been in his journey from chronic homelessness toward a more fulfilling, healthy, stable and happy life....and I started to wonder.  

Spirituality has been defined in many ways, and certainly is expressed and embraced in a variety of fashions.  Some follow a very traditional route, via established religious codes.  Others forge a path that samples from different traditions (a friend describes himself as a "Jew-Bu" reflecting on his Jewish roots and Buddhist sensibilities).  Others create their own path, acknowledging their spirituality while avoiding or even rejecting traditional ideas about God.  Some reject notions of spirituality altogether.  Yet, even so…

What seems to be true across this spectrum of belief is an innate human desire to understand ourselves and the world around us--to create meaning out of our own experience.  We want to make sense out of our stories, and we want our stories to make sense.   But when our stories don't make sense, or they are too painful or difficult for us to embrace--when we we feel disconnected or ungrounded or struggle with mental illnesses that are a barrier to our finding positive meaning, that's when the opportunities arise for other elements to take the place of the meaning we all desire--things like drugs or alcohol or other numbing or distracting behaviors.  Ironically, the things we turn to in order to find meaning become the very things that keep us from finding it.

This opens up an opportunity for us, as people in the privileged places of helping others: how can we encourage people to explore their spiritual natures--to find meaning in their stories and continue on their journeys toward richer, healthier and more meaningful lives?  How can we help open up avenues of healing and hope for those we serve?

I'm not suggesting we promote any particular religion, perspective or path.  What I'm saying is that the paths are already there--and one way we can help people grow and break free of destructive patterns is to encourage their exploration; invite people to walk down a new path of meaning.