Hopeful Thinking

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City and the birth of the modern LGBT civil rights movement. Back in the mid-20th century, police had made a habit of conducting regular raids of the city’s gay bars. On June 28, 1969 the gays had had enough. They fought back. For two nights the riots raged, and simmered for days after, bringing public attention to an issue that had mostly gone unnoticed by mainstream society. Each year during the month of June those nights of revolt are celebrated around the world with festivals and parades which use the word “pride.” For some it’s hard to imagine why that would need to be so. The argument of, “Why should there be gay pride parades? Why not straight pride parades?” is as equally a tonedeaf response to the LGBT movement as the reply, “all lives matter” in response to the statement, “black lives matter.” Of course all lives matter. Of course we should all have pride in ourselves. But that’s not the point. And ...

As a child I remember reading stories about people who had traveled the world, knew fascinating people and had learned numerous and interesting skills. Literary and film characters like Mame Dennis and Missy van Hossmere, among others, illustrated these qualities perfectly. They literally collected life. Long ago I made a pact with myself to do the same. It’s all in how you evaluate your choices which makes the difference. Poet Robert Frost, whether he meant to or not, taught us to choose the road less traveled by, assuring us that it would make all the difference. I’m not sure he was right. Beyond the fact that experienced readers of poetry recognize that the mainstream view of Frost’s words is entirely different from the actual words he wrote, we have gleaned a meaning for ourselves. We have declared a desire for lack of convention. But I encourage you to not be afraid of convention. In fact, I don’t think one should give convention any thought at all. What we should be on t...

I have sat at the bedside of dying friends and wished I could simply make it all better. I wished I could come up with a cure, a solution, a miracle. I have thought to myself, if only I could relieve them of this burden. It’s human to feel that way. In fact, I don’t think we would be very human at all without it. But we are so discomforted by our inability to control life that we sometimes miss the real purpose of our exposure to sorrow. Our job in life is not to fix, heal, or mend someone else. It is just to accompany them on their journey. Make their burden lighter by encouraging how well they carry it. You can’t carry it for them anyway. Don’t bother. Many have heard the term describing someone as having “the patience of Job.” This is a reference to the Old Testament narrative about a man who had everything taken from him by God in order to prove his piety. It was a test to see if he would give in to his misery and curse God. Job (pronounced jobe ) was patient, I suppose...

I knew a person once who always seemed to have something hanging off the end of his nose. It was very difficult to have a conversation with him. You’re not sure what to do, because you know it will embarrass him to point it out. Yet you also know it might quietly humiliate him to discover it later thinking back on all who must have seen it. What are the actions of a friend? I’ve always said that a friend will discreetly tell you when you have spinach in your teeth, dog hair on your dress, or if your fly is at half-mast. I should have told that man about his nose. Or maybe he preferred it that way. It happened so regularly he couldn’t be unaware of it. Could he? Is he absent of any real friend who would let him know? I imagine deep within a single living cell there exists a vast community of little components which comprise the whole. They each have a function. How do they collaborate with one another for the survival—and evolution—of their cell? What do they each do when faced with a...

We have a lot of thoughts about the word “way.” In religious terms, it refers to a deliberately chosen life path, or religion. In spiritual discussions, it can mean the way of your soul’s (and theoretically, God’s) deepest intent for you. We use the former to help keep us on the latter. Thank you for my way. Thank you for the way before me and the way I have come. Thank you for signs. I am grateful for taking the time to read them. This is how I frame my prayers when I don’t know exactly what it is I’m praying for, other than to simply feel better. This is how I ask God to show me what I’m supposed to be seeing. All of us have and will experience hardship in our lives. What is your emotional fitness in preparation for them? Our emotional fitness determines our ability to cope with grief and sorrow when it inevitably comes. How we feel about things now will determine the way we choose to heal ourselves later, or if we choose to find healing at all. Feeling better helps us fi...

Praying gets a bad rap. Especially since it’s a fairly effective tool when used properly. For many, however, prayer is so deeply tied to negative feelings about organized religion. Hurt, rejection, judgement, compulsory words recited as punishment. These feelings become entangled with the word prayer and work against it. But the word itself is neutral from all that drama. It innocently floats above the goings-on unaware. It cannot be blamed for anything. It’s just a word. The word means simply, to ask. It is distinct from the practice of meditation in that prayer is an act of reaching out toward a Something we perceive to be outside of ourselves. It is a deliberate connection-making. Meditation is another part of the process in that it reaches inward, preparing the being within for the task of reaching out. Meditation calms the fervent physical body so that we are better able to define for ourselves the focus of our prayer. Quiet waters are clearer. All of us have to decide...

Throughout my life, my brother and sister and I have marveled at the extensive list of peculiar expressions our mother has used. They are traditional for our family in many ways. Always using the same expressions for the same situations over and over. They became a staple of our lives. They didn’t rise to the level of wise aphorisms or even pithy quotes. They were just things to say. For instance, every time we came home from an excursion to the grocery store or from the mall, as we arrived in the driveway, she would exclaim, “Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig!” For no reason in particular. Just something to say in the moment. But I virtually never pull into my driveway without at least thinking it. Sometimes, when I’m alone in my car, I actually say it out loud. It always sounds funny in my own voice. It should be hers, really. I loved this little ritual. It felt homey and safe. Familiar. The repetition made it all the more so. Home was safe in my family. As I’ve come to le...