Thanksgiving, 2015

                  Finding Thankfulness and Gratitude in My Life

            “Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude.  Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words.  Gratitude is shown in acts.”

 –Henri Frederic Amiel, Swiss philosopher

            The harvest is in, the garden has been put to bed, and the weather has turned cold.  The days are growing shorter; winter has arrived. It is the season of a comfortable chair, a warm blanket, a mug of tea and a good book. 

            It is also a time of being thankful and grateful.  At Thanksgiving, we gather around the table, sharing food and companionship.  It is a time of quiet celebration.

            Thanksgiving is a quiet, contemplative holiday with few expectations.  Simply being together and sharing a meal is all that the holiday seems to require of us.  Oh, and the obligatory giving of thanks. In the rush towards the consumerism and frenzy of Christmas, it seems easy to slide right by this time of giving thanks, and plunge into the next holiday. 

            And, when we do that, we forget to pause and reflect, and to be truly thankful.

            The real holiday, the real celebration this week is a time to go inward, to truly appreciate what we have in our lives, and how we are to live, to truly be children of God.  Thanksgiving is all about love, in all of its dimensions.

            This year there is much to be thankful for: the necessities of life, purposeful work, time with friends and family, health, and being able to serve, to be of service.

            People in my life this year have achieved much.  One friend is moving into a new home, his first, very own, this is really mine, home.  A year ago, he was adrift, unemployed, unsure of himself.  Today, due to his hard work and his belief in all of his possibilities, he has a rich, purposeful life.

            Another friend is casting aside distractions and old misery, and healing old wounds.  He’s taking charge, doing healthy things, putting his life in order.

            Another friend passed a test in school.  He conquered his fears, his self doubts; he has conquered his sabotage of a future of rich possibilities.  He is ready to move on, and he has shown to himself that he can grow, and learn, and be successful.  He has climbed his own mountain, and can believe in himself.

            I am recharging my own creative energies. I am writing a serious book that gives voice to those who are less fortunate. I am immersing myself in creating music and art, and being an advocate for others.  I am pausing to look at the beauty of the world, in this very moment, to appreciate who I am and where I am going.

All this is scary, terrifying work.  What if I actually accomplish what I dream? Are there really no barriers, no limits to what I can accomplish, if I put my mind and my soul into the effort?  I might be successful? Me? But, then I will have to take on even greater challenges, and be responsible for my effort. Really? Little old me? 

            Yes, me.  I am the one.  I am the one who can change the world, one little step at a time.  Changing the world is really my job.  And, I can do it. 

            We all have our obstacles.  And we are all capable of success, and believing in our strengths, our possibilities. 

I am a citizen of the world and I pay attention, I learn, and I try to apply my energies and my awareness to being an instrument of positive change.

We live in troubled times.  Yet that has also been true in years past.  Every generation has faced that challenge, and had to answer that question, can I really accomplish my dream?

I choose to be an agent of change, and to not retreat into silence and indifference. I believe we are called to respond and to act, to be proactive, to be God’s instruments of change.

Maybe I can’t wave my magic wand and achieve world peace. But, I can move in that direction.  I can bring myself and my work into a state of constructive peacefulness.  I can work to nurture that energy into my family, my neighborhood,  and my community.  

I can make a difference.

I can join with other like-minded people, and consistently do good works. 

Each of us is a peace-maker.  Peace making has to start somewhere. 

“Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me,” the song says.

We all have our story.  Be a listener, and hear someone speak their truth,

perhaps for the first time. Let everyone’s story be told, and be heard.

Each of us can do an act of kindness and compassion.   Pay an act of kindness forward. Buy a stranger a coffee, help an elderly person with a package, talk to a friend, visit the sick, the lonely, the imprisoned.  Maybe bring a meal to a sick neighbor.  Volunteer. 

Strike up a conversation while waiting at the grocery store check out.  Ask the clerk how they are doing and listen to their answer. Hear them, deeply and compassionately.  Hug a friend who seems upset, lost, without hope.

In any of that work, there is kindness and compassion.  You are giving of yourself, and you are showing others how to be human, how to be kind and loving.

            “Be the change you want to see in the world,” Mahatma Gandhi said.

            Our example, just something simple, can change one person’s life.  And in that, we change the world.  We make our planet just a little better. 

            Isn’t that the Golden Rule? Isn’t that what the prophets, the scions of great religions have preached?  Isn’t that being an instrument of God’s love for every one of us?

            Each of us is special, unique.  We are here for a reason.  And, isn’t that reason to show love and compassion, to be kind, generous, thoughtful of others?  By our example, we show the way, we demonstrate how people should really live, how we really are the children of God. 

            Today, I give thanks, and I am grateful.  And, in my own, small way, I am making a difference, I am changing the world, one small act of kindness at a time.

                                    ---Neal Lemery, November 24, 2015

Really Listening

                                                Really Listening

I listen to the quiet between the words.  In that interval between the sounds of us talking, the true, deep meaning is to be found, if only I am gentle with myself, and the speaker, moving into the space of the depth of true understanding.

If I listen to myself and to you, truly listen, then I will hear your true voice, and mine.  I will hear the message that I need to listen, deeply, intentionally, and with love and understanding.  In that lies my intention. I will connect with the heart of our true conversation.

Yes, the words have meaning, and stories are told from the words, and then some.  More.  I listen to the sentences, the rhythm of the speaker, inflections, the rising and falling of the cadence of the words.  I am led gently down the path of the storyteller, and shown the meaning of the words.

What is really being told here, I wonder.  There is more, there is always more.  My task is that of the explorer, the miner digging for the gold in the midst of the rubble, the ordinary chit-chat that often passes for conversation. Herein lies something even greater. So, truly listen.

Go deeper, I am sensing.  There is more to this than just what I am hearing, what is being said.

Underneath this, there is more.  I can feel it deep within me.

There are many layers to this tale, and I listen harder, taking in the silence, strewn among the spoken words, wanting everything that is revealed. I am seeking the message of the silence, exploring its vocabulary, its nuances.  What are you really saying here? And, what am I being called to really hear?

We feel the silence now; the spoken words uttered.  There is tension, the tension of the anticipated, the expected, the comforting patter of more words, more sounds. 

I am on edge; we both are.  This space between these words is new, irritating, literally dis-quieting.  I find myself yearning for a word, a phrase, to keep the banter going.  Part of me is reticent, to not really listen.  Do I prefer banality? Being on the surface, and not going deep.  Can’t I stay here, gliding on the mere surface of our conversation? Then, I won’t have to ponder the silences, and hear in my heart the real meaning of what your heart is saying.

Now I hear your breath, and mine.  There are other sounds, too.  Clothes, papers rustling, air moving, the ordinary background noises of whatever kind of place we are in, the place of normal, everyday conversations, the detritus of our daily lives. 

Yet, when I go deeper, beyond this ordinary sound clutter, my mind literally opens up, expands, so that I can take in all that you are expressing to me, the stuff beyond conversation, beyond the plain words of everyday conversation.

My senses broaden  ---  feeling, seeing, hearing, touching, and yes, even smelling all that you are offering me, in this near vacuum of experience between us. Yet, it is rich and full, and not vacuous, a contradiction.  Or is it? This is rich territory, and, so often, new to me.

If I would only truly sense what you are offering me, I would understand so much more.  You have so much information, so many ideas to express to me, if only I would be open to you, truly open. If I do this right, my senses, my intuition, the entirety of my entire array of sensory neurons would be on fire, overloaded with all that you are telling me.

You share with me in so many ways, ways that we both would agree would be of such enormity that neither of us would be deemed to be competent to assess, even measure.

Henri Nouwen wrote: “Somewhere, we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening, speaking no longer heals; that without distance, closeness cannot cure.

He calls us to visit that “somewhere”, which is beyond our daily, mundane experience, and open ourselves as far as we believe we can go, into new territory of our existence, our humanity. 

He calls us to embrace the silence, and truly listen, to stake out that space between us, and let us be able to reach out to each other within that emptiness, and finally grow.

Now, I can’t reach any further out and listen harder, for the harder I work at this, the more difficult it becomes.  Another conundrum.  But isn’t that life?

The more I try, the less I succeed. No, I need to be now, just be, in all my humanity.  I must listen more gently, easier, more fully with all of my senses, with all of my feelings, on the edges of my soul, my very being.  On the rim of my existence, I must stretch further, letting the experience become in and of itself, beyond mere thought.

In that, I will truly listen to what you are telling me, and I will, at last, hear you, in all of your wonderful mystery and beauty.

                                                --Neal Lemery

                                                11/11/15

A Day to Explain

A guest blog from a young poet...

A Day to Explain

When the day is to exhale

The dead of night will sail

On an airplane one flies

Some might prevail

From comfort to pain

I see heaven and hell

A state of mind it is

But a reality to tell

It feels like an illusion

When fact his reality

Full of wonder it is

So most answer with deity

No judgment to others

But a question that’s unclear

Maybe all this thinking

Is the reason I’m here.

--Samwell Manjur

November, 2015

For a society we live in

For a society we live in

Demands for every citizen

For the ones who stand out have the courage to face difference

Two heads are worse than one

One is best to change

We stand here in silence until one does something strange

We wish for the better

And we acknowledge we commit pain

For the pain we cause others is an action in vain

We are a superior race

But we are scared to face the unknown

But if we knew the answer to life

Society would be overthrown.

--Samwell Manjur (2015)

Planting Our Gardens

Planting Our Gardens

This was a week of planting flowers. 

A few days ago, I’m able to tend some flowers in our town’s community garden. Over a cup of coffee, a young man and I talk about changing attitudes in this community. Two street preachers have periodically shown up on Main Street, condemning homosexual love, accosting young people, telling them they are going to hell.  

One brave high school girl made a sign, and stood next to them on the street corner, contradicting their views. Her hand-lettered sign spoke of the idea that love is the highest human value, that everyone should be able to love who they choose to love, that homosexual love is an aspect of Christian love and compassion.  

She was joined by others, and a Facebook group was created, #TillamookForLove, its members now close to 3,000. The preaching and the counter demonstrations became the talk of the town. The young girl’s actions were mentioned around the world, tweeted by Ellen DeGeneres and becoming a featured story in the Huffington Post.  

The young man I had coffee with joined the girl and her supporters, taking a public stand on an issue dear to his heart.  As often happens in a small town, and across America, people criticized him, condemned him, telling him he’s a sinner because of what he is willing to say. His job was at risk for what he believed in, what he spoke about on his own Facebook page.

Yes, fear and bigotry and discrimination, right in his face.  Change his opinion or lose his job. The old beliefs, the old discriminatory, bigoted ways aren’t just something to talk about, not just some textbook First Amendment clash between freedom of religion and free speech. Now, it’s seeing the reality of imposing one’s own religious beliefs, and beliefs about who you can marry, to the point of crushing someone else’s right to their own opinion, to the point of getting fired.

Our coffee cools as we wrestle with his story, his pain and anguish, his moral dilemmas hitting his wallet and his conscience.  Being called out for what you believe in and threatened with losing his job, his challenges and choices aren’t just an academic debate. He’s on the battlefield, and the spears and the clash of swords on the front lines aren’t confined to a history book. The blood being shed is real.

Bigotry and fear run deep in our little town and across our country. He’s still in shock about how deep the cancer grows, how quickly the moral question got personal. The ugliness is something we both don’t like to see, don’t like to admit is thinking that is all too common. What is the price of his own conscience? 

Yet, he knows his own mind, and he knows his standards of ethics and morality. Quietly, firmly he speaks his mind, knowing that he can sleep well tonight, knowing he made the right call, knowing that his beliefs are truly his own, that getting fired for what he believed in was really the best response to his boss, his own epiphany for what we are facing.    

I shake his hand, seeing real courage across the table, feeling proud that he knows himself well enough to know his own mind, that he’s confident enough to follow his Truth, and live according to his own heart. 

This flower garden is growing well.  The weeds have been called out and named. Weeds are being pulled and beautiful flowers have been planted. Strong plants send their roots deep into the soil of this young man’s heart, his morality strong and fertile. 

Today, I plant some flowers of my own, going to a nearby prison and planting flowers inside the fence, behind the locked gate that slams shut every time I leave. 

The young men I visit, several other volunteers, and I weed flower beds. We work on setting the supports for a new arbor in fresh cement, finish the week’s projects, and tidy up the garden. This weekend, the young men will host a Family Day, with food and games, and tours of their garden. Proudly, they will show off their hoop house, their raised beds and chickens, showing off all the growing that has been going on.  

The youths clean up the garden and carry out their tasks, making the place shine, their flowers and vegetables thriving under their careful and meticulous gardening skills.  They are learning a great deal in their class, where they are studying a wide range of subjects.  I help correct their homework, and work with them, one on one, as they delve into the hands-on work of both the academic work and their hoop house and raised bed projects.  Their work is top notch, and their gardens reflect the pride they are taking in their agricultural work, and the rebuilding of their lives. It is garden work on many levels.  

We work happily together, asking questions, sharing our knowledge, expanding our curiosity about how sunshine, dirt, seeds, and tender care can produce vigorous growth.  The young men ask great questions, get their hands dirty, and do the weeding, pruning and fertilizing they need to change themselves, and move on with their lives, becoming healthy, and vigorous young men.

I’m given the task of adding several flats of marigolds to some bare spots in the flowerbeds. I create my own slice of Eden, being a role model for the young men, and adding some beauty to this world behind the fence and the barbed wire. A young man takes the time to admire my work, and ask me some questions about pruning. Our talk goes deep, until I answer what he is really asking.  

Lives are changed here. I’m thankful I’m able to dig my trowel into the receptive soil of these young men, and plant some flowers. 

This week, the gardens of our community have needed a great deal of work. Hard decisions have been made, and the spade work, hoeing and planting have made us sweat.  The gardeners have new blisters, some new aches and pains.  We’ve pulled the weeds and planted new flowers, and we are ready for a little more sunshine and truth in our lives.  

—-Neal Lemery, May 29, 2015