War!

I watched a war take place this morning. While reading the newspaper with a cup of coffee (that grammar makes for an interesting idea: could an electronic eye be embedded in a coffee cup & used to scan the paper to a speech program for people with sight disability?), I glanced out the sunroom windows to see a war in progress.

This bird, the acorn woodpecker, lives year round with his flock in the oaks outside:

Acorn Woodpecker, from Wikipedia

He and a flockmate or two were harrying a couple of cedar waxwings, who migrate through here in the winter on their way south to Mexico:

Photo source: NatureWorks.org

The cedar waxwings love my neighborhood because of the luscious red berries of the cottoneaster shrubs in my blog header:

US Fish and Wildlife

So the small flock of cedar waxwings was under attack by the small flock of angry acorn woodpeckers. As the waxwings tried to swallow a berry or two, a woodpecker would dive-bomb them. This made the waxwings nervous, and they either would duck and hunker down or would fly off. Having won the skirmish, the woodpecker would then retire to the big oak, where it would raucously screech its triumph with a wing display. Whilst it was doing the victory dance, the cedar waxwing or two would return to gobbling berries, hungry as hell from its long flight from the northern reaches.

I'm a fan of both birds, but I was a bit ticked off at the woodpeckers. The cedar waxwings were not stealing their food supply. Acorn woodpeckers eat insects and acorns, for Pete's sake, which they store for year-round cuisine in the oak, in lovely holes they drill and reuse just for that purpose.

On the other hand, maybe woodpeckers don't know cedar waxwings from a hole in the ground. What they DO know is the terrible starlings who periodically attempt to take over the oaks, and then a real battle ensues between the woodpeckers fighting for their home of decades, maybe centuries, and the starling squatters. The woodpeckers, fighting for homeland, always have won, so far. Their vigilance has paid off. So, dear waxwings, flutter onward, where other berries are in abundance nearby.

My lesson today, then, is to choose my battles carefully, lest I drive away a harmless body merely hungry for kindness and a rest from life's travails.

Don’t Say What You’re Thinking

Anger was the topic of our Tuesday meeting, and I heard good stuff, from people whose thought processes I can understand. I share more commonality with the Vietnam-vet biker who says, “Rage is the wind that blows out the candle in my mind,” than I do with the average 50-something I meet on the street. One of the things I love about AA is the wonderful cross-section of purposeful, thoughtful, flawed, and honest humanity I’ve come to know because of meetings.

I got to share that last year I took on the F’d Be I, the Dept. of There-Is-No-Justice, the U.S. Secret-ary of Health and Inhuman Services, the Attorney Generality, and the health-care-not industry over the moral and civil-rights outrage perpetrated on my defenseless 79-year-old demented mother [is that bitterness I hear?], and nine months of misery later, this caped crusader for Truth, Justice, and Human Rights for Alzheimer’s Victims was a sad piece of a work, drowning in her outrage, and my mother was dead, free at last. I got very ill last winter, and by early spring it was clear that my outrage over injustice was harming only me, and I was going to have to change myself so I could live in an unjust world.

Resentment, says the book Alcoholics Anonymous, is poison to the person who nurtures it. How are we to make peace in a life where people and institutions do wrong and suffer no consequences? How are we to live serenely in a world where sh*t happens to innocent people? The fellowship of AA has devised many brilliant means of doing just that.

Mostly, they all boil down to what Gandhi said: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Start with giving grace, unearned forgiveness, to people who wrong you, as you have received grace from the loving God in your own imperfect life. Practice restraint of tongue and pen. Do not retaliate, argue, fume, or chew on arguments in your head. Instead, go do good work, own your own part in the shit, and be grateful for the ordinary miracles in your daily life. Work with a mentor. Wash your floors. Reach out a friendly hand to someone in need, and in general, learn to stay out of the bad neighborhood that is your own selfish head.

I am ceaselessly surprised that these things work. They work, in that they build a level of inner peace with the ebb and flow of life. Even if you choke on what you know is hypocrisy as you pray for the person who has offended you, doing it on your knees with your teeth gritted every day for two damn weeks, just because your sponsor suggested you try it, by God, it works! The one who changes is you, not the world, not your neighbor, just the one you live with day in and day out ~ that person becomes someone kinder, calmer, thankful, and a little more honest.

An aging ex-gangster at the meeting said his morning prayer is simple: “Hi, God, I’m awake, good luck.” Laughter is like tapping anger in the back of its knees: down it goes, toppling over like the great pretender that it is, mostly smoke and mirrors, self-justification and often fear masquerading as righteousness. Laughter heals a lot of wrongs, including our own. I’m grateful to be part of a community that laughs at itself and goes to sometimes great lengths to help others.

These days, I practice a lot of not saying the judgmental things I think about others. To a trusted few, I say whatever I think and laugh at it. My head, says one friend, is for entertainment purposes only. When the serious stuff that warrants deep thought crops up, I go to someone who has the kind of faith and wisdom I want, and I sound it out.

A line in a humble little book changed me this year. I found it in AA’s “12 Steps and 12 Traditions” under the discussion of the tenth step, in which we make a practice of honest self-examination and prompt admission of wrongs done. In a paragraph advocating a more merciful view of others, the writer says, “it is pointless to become angry or to get hurt by people who, like us, are suffering from the pains of growing up.” The italics are mine.

If I can recognize that my life is a series of adventures in growing up to be the person I want to become someday, if I am in the process of becoming and haven’t yet arrived there, how can I not grant you the grace of your own suffering?

You too are on a journey. I might enjoy thinking, in the private entertainment center of my mind, that you’re damned far behind me thanks to your stupid behavior ~ enjoy thinking that privately for, say, ten minutes max. Okay, twenty, AND I get to tell a trusted friend. Anything more than that is a resentment, otherwise known as beating myself with a hammer and hoping you are the one it hurts: a habit to avoid.

It’s easier to eat crow warm while it's warm

I made a mistake in one of my magazine articles last month and I had to write an erratum for the upcoming issue. For fun I looked up quotes on the subject of being wrong:

“When you realize you've made a mistake, make amends immediately. It's easier to eat crow while it's still warm.” This is attributed to a gent named Dan Heist and seems to be the only thing he’s noted for. I couldn’t find anything else about him.

And then there was this from Yogi Berra, who knew whereof he spoke: “We made too many wrong mistakes.”

I especially liked this one from British broadcaster John Peel: “I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones.”

My blunder was just sloppy research, not clever, but it got me thinking about a recurring topic in my household: How can two people with opposing viewpoints hold a courteous discussion, supposing one of them thinks the other is mistaken?

After two decades of discussing things with me, my husband, Joe, has a viable answer. In fact, he often is asked by friends if he will perform marriage counseling services for them (he politely declines). “The four most important words in a marriage,” he says, “are ‘Honey, I was wrong.’”

He’s right. I’ve forgiven him countless times. And vice versa. I know his method works because we celebrate 19 years of wedded bliss next week. Ogden Nash put it this way: “To keep your marriage brimming, With love in the loving cup, Whenever you're wrong, admit it; Whenever you're right, shut up.”

Mistakes can be useful in personal relationships. They give us the opportunity to be wrong for a change, which is restful since we all work so hard to be right all the time.

I’ve noticed we’re pretty quick to tell somebody he or she is wrong, especially when it concerns politics, religion, and family matters. This is based on faulty logic, that two people can’t both be right at the same time. It’s the gunslinger in us. “There’s room for only one opinion in this town, and that’s mine.”

In an AA meeting last week, a friend of mine said, “I often mistake my values and judgments for the Truth.” I think we’re all very nervous about ourselves, and we soothe those anxieties by insisting we harbor our beliefs because they are “true” in terms of reality or fact. If our views are right, then views that differ from ours are wrong. We even feel led to convince each other of such verdicts.

We mistake our opinions for facts. We also don’t know how to coexist with divergent perspectives. Even our language reflects this adversarial thinking. People have “opposing viewpoints” and “conflicting opinions.” From the get-go, we’re opponents in a boxing ring. Starting out as adversaries doesn’t bode well for discussions between husband and wife, parent and teenager, or any other duo. Pretty soon everyone will be blaming everyone else for being wrong, and dedicated to proving it.

I think we all need lots of reassurance, and we all find reassurance hard to give. It takes enormous effort to put our defenses on the back burner and encourage the other person. And getting both parties to do it at the same time? It’s a wonder our relationships survive. Many times Joe and I have tried to talk to each other about a prickly thing, each of us trying to choose our words wisely, but then I interpret something he said in the light of my own defensiveness, and immediately I stop being willing to reassure and become devoted to proving him wrong. Many times I have carefully used “I” words but he heard those blaming “You” words, and we wound up in the boxing ring again.

But I’ve learned that if I work at it, I can suspend my commitment to being right just a little bit more. We human beings respond well to loving reassurance that what we feel and think is important. I’ve got to give that reassurance if I want to get it. I’ve got to model it in my own behavior. I’m talking with someone I care about, for Pete’s sake. You’d think it would be easy to remember that affection even when we’re in conflict. But no. I’m too busy mistaking my opinions for facts again.

Joe and I get the best results out of our “discussions” if we give each other plenty of strokes, like admitting I am overreacting, admitting I am overly worried about myself and forgetting to think about him, admitting my flaws and my vulnerable feelings, admitting my love, my ignorance, and my desire to understand. It’s hard work, being loving, isn’t it?

About the photo: Yes, it isn't a crow; it's a blue jay. But it's eyeballing a crow, a warm crow, just out of camera range.

Rested and Refreshed

A crazy week came to a close yesterday. In quiet happiness I watched with the rest of the world as the trapped miners stepped into freedom, one at a time, emerging with a relief I can’t even imagine into the open sky with bear hugs and joy.

First thing, we got my husband resettled after an early-morning medical procedure and got a little food in our bellies, and then I stayed glued to the Web all day. Every other pressing issue was laid aside. I had turned in the last of my assigned magazine articles the night before. Like the miners, I could take deep breaths at last.

I’d had to shut out the world for three days between Sunday morning and Tuesday night so I could do the work I was assigned to do. The emotional eruptions that developed late last week were still in process but they went on without my help. The phone was off, literally and figuratively.

A couple of dramas have been unfolding, and it’s curious to see how hard it has been to step away and not participate in the anxiety and speculation. On Tuesday morning, the hospice bereavement counselor made me stop talking about the issues. She had me put my feet flat on the floor, close my eyes, breathe in and out, and become aware of my physical self centered in my seat. After a while, she sent me home with instructions to engage only in the things that took care of what I myself needed. Like finishing the articles I was responsible for.

Now it’s a new day. I can check in with my loved ones and see what I can do to help today. I can encourage and listen. With a little respite from the drama, it’s easier to see that of course I’m powerless to fix anything, and I don’t need to wail and wring my hands over it. All the people who worked to rescue those 33 miners helped each other to explore solutions one step at a time. What I CAN do is stay calm, surround myself with a good team, and do whatever is in front of me to do today with graciousness.

Today’s meditation started with a quote from Galileo: “The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.”

I’m going to take it easy today and see what I can do to help ripen a few grapes.

Waiting

double hollyhock

Blue today. Nothing to say. Waiting for it to pass. As it always has.

Better than thoughts are flowers. Here is a glimpse of my garden.

fennel

dahlia

feverfew

rose

a daisy-type like gaillardia

Are you having a good day? I hope so. If you're blue, what do you do?

The comment moderation thingy suffers today from a Blogger Bug. I'm attempting to post your comments but alas, not all go through, and the comment link is off. Mr. Blogger refuses to reply to one's notification that not all is well. That's one way to deal with the blues: refuse to take note of them.

I Want Patience Now!

Yesterday morning, I read some posts where people were commenting on the God -given gift of experiencing love and tolerance toward our fellow man, woman, AA member, you name it.

Everyone acknowleges that this is hard but it grows with maturity. As the old-timers say, aging in sobriety has given them a great deal of patience and tolerance. These two important qualities don't drop into our lap at --oh, ninety days--and become part of our spiritual took kit forever.

Yesterday I commented on someone's post: someone who faced as I did, a meeting wherein some folks would drone on and on, never minding anyone else's right to speak. The blogger asked for patience and tolerance to realize that we never know who plants the seed in the alcoholic's head. At the end of the meeting, a newcomer woman stood up, and she said: "I have heard exactly what I needed here this morning, and I'm ready to stay sober today."

That was awesome, and I took that lesson into my women's meeting yesterday morning. We read from the Big Book and then go around the table sharing our comments or our realities. There are about 20 of us in an hour and a half meeting. If we all share briefly, we make it around the table.

I prayed for patience and tolerace as woman after woman talked at length about sobriety. having babies, dealing with using friends, having bad dreams, their ex husbands, their lives as problem drinkers, and on and on it went. Our long-time members were two beacons in the fog, but they didn't say anything about people shortening their talks. The story we had read was "Doctor Bob' nightmare" and I wanted to hear about that, to talk about recovery from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.

But I remembered the girl who stood up somewhere else and said thanks, this will keep me sober today. So I kept my mouth shut when I wanted to slap some people with the book and cry out anything after three minutes is ego!!!!

There were two minutes left for me to speak at the end of the meeting. I have no idea what I said. But I practiced patience and tolerance for and hour and a half, and when it was over, I heard several women say to one another, that's just what I needed to hear.

I have a lot of patience and tolerance to learn. I asked to learn it. Where better to pick it up in the rooms of AA.

The photo here is of my brother and his grandson, learning out to blow blubbles. This is patience and tolerance in action, and I love it!!!!!!