There once was a good king choosing an heir

There once was a good king who wanted to ensure that there was an heir to his kingdom. He didn't have any children, and he was growing old. But being a democratic type, a kind of egalitarian, he decided that he would invite anybody who was interested in the job to come to the kingdom. in order to really make it equal, before they were to come up and be interviewed for the job, he provided an amazing wardrobe room for everyone to choose from. Everyone could wear whatever they wanted to wear; no one was going to be shown up as less than someone else; they could appear as their best.

So the great day arrived, and a huge stream of people came through the gates, excited by the idea of being king or queen. The king and his minister were waiting patiently in the upper chambers as people first enjoyed the bathhouses, then enjoyed special perfumes if they chose, then the dress and the jewelry. Of course, the king didn't want them to go hungry as they waited, so they were graciously supplied: all the food that they might like. All the people were milling around, flirting, admiring themselves, and also criticizing. And again, the king didn't want them to go bored, so they were also enjoying puzzles, games, and so on.

Hours went by. The king and the minister wondered why no one came up. They could hear the sound of people having fun, fighting and playing and the whole deal.

Finally, it got quiet. The king sent the minister down. When he came back, he reported that sadly, everyone had left - and they had taken the remainder of the food, the clothing, and the jewelry. They were full, they were tired, and they forgot why they came.

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This is a story about us. Every day - maybe every hour. We forget why we're really here. But every moment is an opportunity to ask ourselves and remember.

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- from a talk by Tara Brach, "Realizing Your Deepest Intention", dharmaseed.org

the way the world is, the way I wish it would be

the news has been terrible lately, with an awful mass shooting and much depressing politics. you know what I want to do at times like these? I want to tell stories.

not to escape. the opposite. the arts allow us to go to a dark place and sit with the feeling of it. I want to imagine how hard it is to face the worst, real and possible and impossible. I want to put myself in other's shoes and put people in mine. I want to come through the other side and sometimes not. I want to explore the universal and the particular, the understandable and the baffling, the parts where we stay strong and the parts where we break down, the times when we learn and the times when we don't.

I want to tell stories about the way the world is and the way I wish it would be, the way I fear it could be, the way it never will be. I tell them to others and I tell them to myself.

I tell them whether I want to or not.

Because we are telling stories, but these times can feel like listening to each other having nightmares, crying out in the dark. when you're caught up in moments of pain you can forget there's a before and after. there's not just this terrible moment, not just me alone. but the stories we tell ourselves whether we think about them or not teach us who we are, what direction we're going. we all have this hand in shaping that, consciously and deliberately or unconsciously. I want to do more than stumble in the dark. I want to live my life guided by more than crying out in my sleep.

Politics & keeping your sanity

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, so before I get into anything else, this is always a good share: Ask Take This: how to support a friend with depression and more. (Thank you, Bill!) Mental health challenges come in a wide variety, and this is a great article on being a good friend no matter what someone is dealing with.

Second, last year about this time I started a pushup challenge for Mission 22 from a friend and started conversations about taking better care of our veterans. Still very relevant today. What I like best about this kind of challenge is (in addition to donating and working for better social services) raising awareness can help directly: the more people think about what they can do, and dispel the myths and stigma around mental health, the better we will tend to be toward each other. 

Which brings me to today's thoughts. This year I'm focusing on a hard lesson for me personally: staying engaged with civic dialogue and civic action in a healthy way.

How the heck do we even read the news and just take care of our mental health? Problems piling on from "staying engaged" can seem to strain our capacity for empathy, patience, and just dealing with difficulty. It feels like this year is particularly bad in the United States. Even if that were just the impression we were getting from TV, social media, and Thanksgiving dinner, we've still got some tough questions to face:

• How would we like to be treated by friends and family who disagree with us?
• How are we treating them? Is the Golden Rule enough?
• What would we like kids to learn to do to resolve differences, reach compromise - or react when things don't go smoothly, or they face intolerance and unfairness?
• What are we doing to take care of ourselves when things get to us?
• How do we keep from confusing venting (or "winning points") with trying to actually share understanding, improve our relationships, or build support for good ideas?
• How do we keep from shutting down when we're needed - by our friends, family, community, world?

I don't know how to say how urgent this all is to figure out, except this way: Politics is people - government is people. I can't imagine we'll get far without acknowledging that the whole thing and how the world works is tangled up with our day-to-day relationships, our day-to-day impulses, differences and how we deal with them, disappointments and wrongdoing and what it does to us.

If age-old aggression still finds a place to be nurtured in my own heart, how can joy and peace in this world ever be found?

I am working on remembering that I need to both take care of myself, and not shut down to the troubled world. Improving the system isn't a far-off concept, separate from us. It's the same as improving all these things that happen between me and other people. Both inching us towards a better society is needed - and also dealing sanely with inevitable human mistakes, wrongdoing, not living up to what we wish others to be and what we wish ourselves to be. Our processes, plans, rules and culture aren't separate from us and our messiness, The System was never some other entity. It's friends, families, strangers. Kids watching you.

It's you, and me, dealing with things that seem overwhelming, frustrating, never-ending - sometimes needing a break, or support, or forgiveness, or a change - and deciding to return and keep trying to do something good anyway.

I am working on upholding what I feel is most important (compassion for others, not letting frustration and anger consume me) and at the same time, fighting for what is right. On one hand, there's an impulse to be very righteously angry, and I feel that is understandable - hot things burn, injustice hurts. On the flip side, my guess would be, for someone to say "I don't care about politics" is a defensive impulse, when people are trying to protect themselves against this overwhelming feeling about what's going on by shutting off. Understandable as they may be, I think these extremes - getting addicted to anger, hardening, shutting off - would be a mistake. They would ultimately wear us down and cut us off from doing anything useful, or what may be more important, from living whole lives open to all the good we can do and see that's wrapped up with the experience of living, of relating to other people who are inherently imperfect. What can we do deal healthily, one step at a time, with both the wonders and the troubles of humanity? How do you take care of yourself, and get back up to keep going?

"We can help this troubled world. If these teachings make sense to us, can we commit to them? In these times, do we really have a choice?" - Pema Chodron

Things I'm Grateful For, 2016

 There have been worse years.

There's a funny saying in Minnesota. At least, it makes me grin, when in a bitter 40 below wind chill, someone cheerfully says, "at least you're not being stabbed." That Midwestern understatement is often a gentle, wry counterbalance to hyperbole. It's the worst it's ever been, it hurts more than anything, I have to fix everything... sometimes we need to vent. But after too long, that feels like avoiding getting down to business - avoiding doing anything about reality. It isn't all death or rainbows, it just is.

Zen Dogs & The Wisdom of No Escape

I went for a walk with a friend to the book store on the Sunday before Election Day 2016, and I happened to pick up two books. One was a photo collection of relaxed puppies called Zen Dogs. It rested on my coffee table, rode peacefully with me in my backpack, then made a therapy visit to the break room at work. I called it "psychological first aid." Try this one out:

The second book has seen a lot of use these past three days as well: