The Perils of Hubris and Avoidance

Tuesday, June 17, 2014


What could be a profound insight came to me this morning while working.  A society filled with people unable to do deep listening is a society that will be prone to violence.  Exhibit A: The United States of America.

Here in this wondrous nation children get to go to school and silently suffer needless anxiety about whether they will be gunned down on the grounds of a property that should theoretically be safe.  Yes, we have long since moved beyond the days when schools being forcibly integrated with the help of the federal government made for shocking news.  At least that degree of racism is apparently now extinct in our nation.  But having an African American president does not mean that we here in the USA became a "post-racial" society.  Not by any means is this true!  One only need explore how many threats have been made against this president in which the hatred expressed has contained an undertone of racism to know we are still far from being a nation in which everyone enjoys equal opportunity.

Despite my desire to the contrary it is difficult for me not to reference our ongoing issues of gun violence in this nation.  I have already written more than once about the personal impact gun violence had on my life.  I nearly lost my father at the age of eight years old when a teenager shot my father in our home in Texas.  Fortunately for my own safety I was hundreds of miles away that night.  But my father essentially survived that night only because of dumb luck.

It's no wonder I feel anger rise inside me when I see that Texas culture has apparently remained as backwards and regressive as it was thirty years ago.  Exhibit A for this topic: The people participating in Open Carry in Texas.  How anyone in their right mind can imagine that openly brandishing weapons in public places such as restaurants and shopping malls is going to go off well for all who become unwitting witnesses to such behavior boggles me mind.  Exhibit B for this topic: Rick Perry.  That anyone takes this man seriously as a governor amazes me.  His tacky ridicule and disparagement of gay people is pathetic.  But then again because plenty of people somehow believe Jesus taught that we should hate and exclude those unlike ourselves I suppose it makes sense in their warped little worlds.


Our national capacity for hubris has also been on display recently in regards to Iraq.  More than eleven years after the United States invaded Iraq in March, 2003 we here in the United States are still dealing with the consequences of that fateful choice that George Bush made even in the face of global protests against the very idea.  And Iraq is certainly dealing with the horrors as well.  Plenty of civilians have died in Iraq.  And although the United States did rid Iraq of a nasty dictatorship I can't say I am convinced what followed has been much better.  Did some people benefit?  Yes...especially if you count corporations as people as our nation has bizarrely allowed to stand as a valid legal construct.  A few 'corporation people' have done quite well for themselves.  Meanwhile the genuine people made of bone and flesh haven't made out like bandits.  Instead some of them have been killed by bandits.  Oh the glories of freedom on the march across the world!  Do I sound cynical?  I am.

Despite the clear ways in which other people's hubris and capacity for denial have adversely impacted my own life I nonetheless still struggle to grasp how some people can be so dense, irresponsible, self-absorbed and the like.  I find myself grow nearly dizzy when I contemplate the mindset that informs the behavior of people like those I referenced above participating in Open Carry.

I wish I had more well placed confidence that our nation is charting a truly good long term course.  But I don't.  The many issues of this nation seem to be persisting...or even growing worse.  And such concerns certainly make my journey of healing all the more arduous.  I feel as if I ought to move abroad.

......

On my return trip from my therapy appointment I found myself once again marveling at how beautiful this summer evening is.  We are in between our most recent barrage of stormy weather and our next bout which should arrive Wednesday night. 

I again noticed myself noticing the varied textures of the world.  I noticed the reflections of light in countless windows in downtown Minneapolis.  I noticed so many different shades of color.  I saw the interplay of light on the leaves of trees underneath streetlights.  I noticed the lighting along Nicolett Mall.

Even now I am still adjusting to the pleasure of clear vision and full presence in my body.

While visiting with my therapist I pulled out a photograph taken in January, 1999.  It’s a picture of me smiling with the icy edge of Lake Michigan behind me.  I lived in Chicago at the time.  I was a mere twenty-five years old.  I had no idea what was awaiting me when I would later move to California in May, 1999.  I was seeking adventure.  And I certainly did discover a whole new world for myself when I arrived in San Francisco that year.

Now it’s fifteen years later.  Somehow fifteen years have passed.  I found myself marveling at how quickly the time has passed.  How did I wake up and discover myself to be forty years old already?  What happened to that smiling, very young man in the picture?  Where did he disappear to?

I am grateful that it is summer now.  But the grief remains with me.  I feel the grief still thick inside me.  It has been with me throughout my life.  Now it’s time to purge it and truly live.

I told my therapist that lately my life feels a bit as if it resembles a tree that was in severe need of pruning.  I have excised so much of my old life to make way for a new life.  The tree of my life needed to be cleared of a lot of deadwood.  That is what I have been doing these last twelve months.  I have been clearing my life and making a new space such that something new and beautiful can grow.

I try each day to be patient.  I want to believe that one day the new growth will completely fill up the space that my old life occupied.  But perhaps that will not happen…at least not entirely.  Maybe instead of thinking of what will come to be as new growth filling an old space I should imagine an entirely new space…both inside myself and out there in the world.

I want to believe that I have a place in this world.  I want to feel that I belong.  I want to be appreciated for the gifts I have to offer.  And I am determined to find a way to offer them.  I just need a bit of help from the magical Cosmos.