Carpe Diem: It's Time, Stupid....

Just got back today from the funeral of a friend, a 37-year old mother, who died tragically trying to save her 8-year old son who also perished in the fire.  No words ... except, perhaps, "gone too soon"....


A month or two before, I had attended the funeral of a former protégé, a young man in the prime of his adult life at not-yet 43 years old, who succumbed to cancer.  Also gone too soon....


The month before that, someone who was a new friend whom I had recently met but who seemed to be a kindred spirit and with whom I shared a deep interest in emotional intelligence and wellness and spiritual development passed away suddenly and unexpectedly at 49.  Also gone too soon.


As much as I grieve, I can only imagine the depth of the sorrow, hurt, loss and absence being experienced by their families: in one case a father whose ex- and effervescent son were lost without warning, in another a spouse who was really just beginning to live the good life with her soul mate before he became ill and in the last a mother whose daughter was reaching the zenith of her professional life and seemed to be in a great place personally, too.


At times like this, how does one wrap one's head around this grief, this aching loss, this painful sensation regret and of what could been?  As far as I can tell, the answer is a difficult one: simply put, you don't.  Nothing can explain tragedy or illness.  Like so many things in life both good and bad, they happen.  And we are left with the struggle to accept them, coming as it does after the grieving for the life that could have been in the absence of adversity.  And sometimes we just never quite learn to accept them, but move forward because life forces us to do so....


Unfortunately - or fortunately, I now understand the poet Robert Frost, who so memorably observed, "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."  Yes, it does....


It goes on even when we don't want it to, when we're grieving and still hoping against hope that fate turns out differently than it has.  At the other end of the emotional spectrum, it also goes on even when we want it to stop for a moment so that we can savor a particularly transcendent moment.  And as every parent who's seen his/her infant become a very different and yet wonderful young adult in seemingly no time, it goes on too quickly....


I guess what the passing of my friends is teaching me anew is something that I know but haven't fully internalized, try as I might: that I/we must live fully today and each day, that tomorrow isn't promised and that opportunities postponed voluntarily are sometimes made permanently so by fate.


We all know plenty of things.  What we've internalized, however, is typically an appreciable but modest subset thereof (at best).  As a former colleague of mine has put it:  There are three levels of agreement: the intellectual, the emotional and the behavioral.  In order for us truly to "get it," we have to process what we know (the intellectual) fully from an emotional standpoint so that it shows up in our behavior.  Until we process it fully emotionally, we know it but we really don't.  Only when our behavior changes based on what we know - in essence, showing that we've gone beyond knowledge to learning and wisdom - can we truly claim to know something.


I know that I should seize the day.  I just don't do it as often as I should.  So I really don't know this after all, as my friendships with each of these three unique, gifted and impressive people suggest:


I had always intended to get in better touch with my devoted mom friend: we were both raising spirited young men - my two just a little older than hers - so we had our shared deep commitment to parenting in addition to our aligned professional interests to explore.  But we were both too busy raising our kids or working or....  We'd see each other from time to time and "threaten" to get together, as I jokingly described it, but we never quite pulled it off.  No more....


I had always intended to reconnect with my former protégé now that he was "all grown up" and living up to being the very pillar of the community that we had all projected and expected him to be.  And he also worked at my former firm but in a different division, so I also wanted to learn about his experiences with this, too.  We would bump into each other occasionally - usually at an event for the not-for-profit organization that had brought us together in the first place more than two decades prior - and pledge to catch up.  No more....


I had intended to get to know my new friend better as her infectious enthusiasm for some of our shared interests made her seem like one of those kindred spirits with whom it would be a pleasure to develop a meaningful collegial relationship.  In just our first few interactions - the initial one at a presentation that I made and subsequent ones via various electronic media channels - we really hit it off, so I was looking forward to learning more about how she had leveraged her (television) media experience to become a published author and columnist, among many other things.  We kept agreeing that we had to set a date to get together to talk more substantially but never did.  No more....


In each of these cases, I was left stunned, hurting and wishing "If only I/we had...."  Overcome the inertia in relationships that "busy people" often have so that my late friends and I could have made better use of the limited amount of time that it turns out we had, that is.  No more....


Life moved on while we were still planning to get to know one another better, to catch up and keep up and to be more meaningful presences in each other's lives.  And now we have no time left to do so.  A harsh lesson, but one that must be learned lest it be repeated.


So, today, after my devoted mom friend's (and her son's) heartrending funeral, I actually followed up with the handful of people who gave me cards or to whom I gave one.  I hope that indeed dates will get set, gatherings will occur and something(s) positive will come out of the depressing and deflating tragedy of our mutual grief.  If so, then it will be clear that I/we really do know the value of time in life.  To paraphrase the singular former presidential advisor James Carville, it's time, stupid.  And if I am more mindful thereof and take advantage of more of the opportunities that life suggests, then I really will have learned its value and thus truly know it.  And I will live a lot more and better along the way....


Or, as I noted in a previous recent installment of this blog,


(I)n reality, if death has any lesson to teach us in life, it's that we must live life to the fullest now.  In the words of the incomparable Bishop John Shelby Spong, we must "live fully, love wastefully and be all that (we) can be."


Good-bye, my dear departed friends.  And thank you for the smiles, memories and lessons with which you gifted me during your too short time on this earth.  Your spirits live on and continue to guide me and the many whose lives you touched, though we wish we could have shared this learning with you during our time together.  Because I/we didn't, we'll remember you and pay forward your gifts to us, thankful for having been enriched and instructed by both your presence and by your legacy....

It's Easter: All Rise....

In the spirit of the season, a disclaimer to start: I am, as far as I can tell by modern standards, a Christian heretic (in part because I actually consider myself more of Christian-Buddhist-Taoist), so what follows is, well, likely to be somewhat heretical, too.  I offer it with the confidence that the Divine One is big enough to withstand my spiritual exploration and musings, so I hope that you will be so as well (and, perhaps, find some value/meaning herein).

It's the Easter season, ostensibly the holiest time of the Christian year, so it's natural for us to reflect on our faith (i.e., what we believe about God, the Divine, etc.).  Each year, I find this to be a particularly rewarding exercise because, frankly, I am often surprised to realize what I have come to believe and how this has changed over time.  This year, a challenging one for me from many perspectives, I find myself surprisingly less surprised.  Though I have been through a lot, my sense of the Spiritual has evolved less than I would have expected, yet I do perceive that this sense is clearer: I haven't come to believe that many new things (even though I've been exposed to numerous new spiritual ideas and concepts), but I am clearer about what I do believe and how these beliefs can inform my ever-present desire to live as fulfilled and meaningful a life as possible.

For example, I continue to believe that Bishop John Shelby Spong has developed an incredible philosophy for life: to live fully, love wastefully and be all that we can be.  I am ever more persuaded that this should be my objective every day, to be open to and experience all that life has to offer (and to be thankful for the inevitable variety that this will entail), to be loving in every and all situations (especially those in which I am not naturally inclined to be so) and to operate as closely to my own limits as possible while, hopefully, expanding them over time.

What I'm also clearer about is that I have continued to fail miserably at this daily goal, both over time and in the past year.  Among the many ways that I have underperformed my chosen goal recently is that I have too often given in to fear - especially the fear of being uncomfortable - and thus not pushed myself out of my comfort zone enough.  For example, while I consider myself to be a loving, giving and supportive partner and friend, I suck at asking for help.  Sometimes this is due to my appreciable but overly healthy ego and sometimes it's just the fear of being a burden.  Truth be told, I have gotten so used to and good at figuring things out in life that I have a hard time admitting to myself that I can't work my way out of some challenge and thus have a hard time asking for the help that I need to do so.  I also realize that one of the legacies of having been raised to be an independent person is that I feel uncomfortable asking for help because I don't want to impose upon others.  This is all the more surprising to me because I have a wealth of life experience in which I have felt the appreciation of those whom I've helped, so I know how much it means to them and to me to be able to help.  And yet I have trouble returning the favor, so to speak, and allowing others to help me (even though I know that there are many who would be willing to do so).

What's this got to do with Easter, Resurrection and spiritual reflection?  Well, my experience at being able to live as fully, love as wastefully and be as much of the person that I can be suggests to me that I, too, am in need of the renewal and rebirth that the Resurrection represents.  Are you also in need of this?

Let me deal a little of what I mean about the Resurrection, because, truth be told, I have a somewhat unusual view of its symbolism and significance.  Like many non-literal or liberal or _______ (insert label here) Christians, I no longer believe in the Resurrection that I was taught as a child: that Jesus died on the cross, was buried in a tomb for two days and nights (even though we most often attribute the number three to this period) and then rose again/came back to a fully animate human/earthly life before ascending into heaven.  (As the late Carl Sagan pointed out, if the Ascension were literally true, based on what we now know about the size of the universe, even if He were moving at the speed of light He'd still be going today.)  What I do believe is that Jesus was put to death because He threatened the established order of the day - especially that of the Jewish community and thus by extension that of the Roman authorities to whom they answered - and that sometime after His physical death His spirit became a powerful, enlivening presence in the life of those who had known and followed Him.  (These early disciples - broadly conceived - then spread the message about their continuing, present experience of Jesus' Spirit and this movement - first known as "The Way" - grew into what eventually became the Christian religion that we know today.)

[N.B:  I have come to believe these things not because I've conceived of them or because they were 'revealed' to me but as a result of my extensive study of modern Biblical and Christian historical scholarship, including the works of Bishop John Shelby Spong, Rev. Dr. Obery Hendricks, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, Bishop John A.T. Robinson, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the members of the Jesus Seminar, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, Karen Armstrong, Stephen Prothero, Reza Aslan, Russell Shorto, Rev. Robin Meyers, Henri Nouwen, Dale Allison, Rabbi Harold Kushner and others.  I can't claim that any of the beliefs or insights that I share is original, though I can suggest that they are unique in that they are idiosyncratically formulated and assembled.  As far as I know, no one believes just as I do (which I consider to be a good thing).  In fact, I suspect that, though many of us may believe many things in common, our individual faiths are as unique as each of is.  So, it's in the spirit of sharing what I've come to believe that all of this is offered.  I have no belief whatsoever that mine is the only or even a better way to believe.  I do believe that the process by which I have come to believe what I do may be informative and thus helpful to others, which is why I share it.]

So, for me, (Jesus') Resurrection is spiritual in nature, not physical.  I do not believe in His post-Resurrection appearances in a literal sense, especially given that the Gospels that chronicle them are so symbolic in nature (and, of course, not eyewitness accounts of the events that they purport to describe).  And it's in this spiritual, symbolic sense of Resurrection that the Christian celebration of Easter has come to have great meaning for me.  I don't need to believe that Jesus rose from the dead physically to know that a loving spirit can be eternal and manifestly enhance and elevate another's life.  And it's this example of loving so completely and powerfully (or wastefully, to borrow Bishop Spong's term) - of being so loving that His legacy of love continues to affect and inspire us today, two millennia later - that I seek to re-commit to each Easter and to emulate (better) going forward.

Jesus loved so profoundly that the world as we know it was indeed changed.  To me, this raises the question of whether we, too, can learn to love in this way.  And by loving in this way, I mean having an appropriate amount of self-love to complement a primary focus on being wastefully loving with others.  This is what Easter means to me now: it is the time to reflect and challenge myself to renew my commitment to being more loving and thus to become a renewed and better person whose presence is profoundly enriching and elevating to others.

And just like I believe that Jesus is physically dead but his Spirit is eternal and present even now, I also am ever more persuaded that this is what eternal life means for us, too.  I can't get to that fairy tale Heaven that I was taught as a child, but I do believe that our spirit can be eternal in that its influence and presence can continue to enhance and elevate long after we are gone physically.  For example, I feel the loving presence of my parents daily even though they have both been physically dead for almost two decades now.  Their love as I experienced it during their earthly life lives on and I continue to be enriched and elevated by it today and every day.  Their love is eternal and will continue to impact the world even long after I'm gone, as some part of the love that I share with my own children, family and friends (and, by extension, with the world more broadly) is directly passed on/paid forward from them.  It's only in this sense that I can conceive of eternal life now: that our love lives on in the lives that we touch during our earthly life and that this legacy grows over time, as Jesus' example demonstrates.

So I wish you all a Happy Easter and hope that you are renewed in love and in your commitment to being as loving as Jesus was.  And may your legacy of love also be eternal, inspiring, enhancing and elevating others' lives today and two thousand years hence....

For Richer or For Poorer: the 'Forgotten' Martin Luther King....

In his President's Address to the Tenth Anniversary Convention of the SCLC in August, 1967, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said,

We've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society.  We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's market place.  But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

Now that he is a national icon - the only 20th century American to have a national holiday celebrated annually in his honor, in fact - we tend to remember the inspirational King of the Civil Rights Movement and of the I Have A Dream speech and less so the tired and intrepid warrior whose last years were spent fighting less successfully for economic justice and world peace.  In fact, King's career had two very different phases, the first decade being focused on the social and political emancipation of Blacks in the South (with the attendant gains for the rest of the Negro community assumed therein) and a second one, far shorter (i.e., from approximately 1965 until his assassination in 1968), in which his focus shifted to the economic structure of American society and the need to achieve liberation and peace for oppressed peoples throughout the world.

Ultimately, because it was and is hard to argue that Blacks should not receive their full complement of the civil rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution, the Civil Rights Movement - crowned by the I Have A Dream speech at the March on Washington in 1963 and followed and reinforced by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - is considered a success and its most visible (and influential) leader, Rev. King, is now viewed, in effect, as a secular saint.  By contrast, the Poor People's Campaign and the economic- and peace-focused work of King's last years is largely forgotten or, if not, typically underappreciated in terms of its true significance.

To me, it's this second phase of Dr. King's work that matters most ... in no small part because the work that he began almost a half-century ago remains largely unfinished today.  And as the issue of entrenched urban poverty re-enters our public discourse from time to time - however 'coincidentally' in election years and most often raised by politicians looking to make political hay with it (as opposed to evidencing any sincere or deep concern for those so afflicted) - it occurs to me that Dr. King's vision is ever more prescient and pressing today.  As we reflect on the fact of the widening income and wealth gap in our society (both nationally and globally) and the reality that social mobility has greatly decreased (if not all but disappeared) in the past thirty years or so in modern America, we do need to begin to ask questions about "an edifice which produces beggars" and whether it does need some "restructuring."

Before this questioning leads to a reflexive suspicion that I am a Socialist - a sobriquet with exceedingly negative connotations in modern American society - I want to state for the record that I am in fact a firm believer in Capitalism ... but a capitalism that is conscious of its own natural limitations and thus practiced with a corrective intent.  (And, I feel compelled to note, this is an area in which Dr. King and I differ appreciably from a philosophical standpoint.)  I have no qualms with great wealth, but I do have grave concern that it is so concentrated and that the levers of our society have been geared to make this more difficult to address and ameliorate in recent years (which is an area in which Dr. King and I align completely).  And, even worse from my perspective, we have grown more comfortable with efforts that perpetuate and exacerbate this uneven allocation of access and opportunity (and thus lead to an even more skewed allocation of income and wealth over time).

For example, one of the great things about America has been and is that one can become wealthy from successfully pursued innovation: if you build a better mousetrap, you can indeed become rich, and often fabulously so in today's global economy.  Yet, what is equally (if not more meaningfully) true is that the vast majority of people in this society - both the now-struggling middle class and the historically struggling working class - have no such real opportunity.  In fact, collectively speaking, their life chances have diminished appreciably over the past thirty years as real/effective wages have plateaued (and in some cases declined).  And the game is ever more skewed against them, in part because of their political participation or lack thereof.  Although it is a truism that the poor don't vote (in proportion to their numbers) and that many middle class voters tend to support policies that are not in their own economic interest (i.e., they tend to vote aspirationally), these things are also true ... and troubling.

And as the gap between the rich and the poor widens - especially as it leaves many in the middle class more vulnerable/likely to slide down the economic spectrum rather than up it - our public discourse has changed as well and in ways that exacerbate rather than ameliorate this challenge.  So often now the poor are demonized as "takers" when in fact the vast majority of them are working hard to overcome the largely structural impediments to improving their economic status, a reality that rarely if ever is acknowledged in our public discourse, let alone discussed/addressed.  And we are constantly encouraged to support policies that make it easier for the affluent and rich in our society to keep more of their earned rewards under the guise of their status as "job creators."  If this last fictitious and politically motivated construct were true, based on the significant tax cuts for the wealthy a decade ago (or those a generation ago), we would be awash in jobs opportunities at present, which, of course, is not the case.  And we can now identify that government assistance to corporations and the wealthy who mostly own their stock absolutely dwarfs the oft-decried "welfare" provided to those at the bottom of our economic pyramid in need of economic and social services support.  As one popular social media meme describes it, 

If a man has an apartment stacked to the ceiling with newspapers we call him crazy. If a woman has a trailer house full of cats we call her nuts. But when people pathologically hoard so much cash that they impoverish the entire nation, we put them on the cover of Fortune magazine and pretend that they are role models.

And if one raises the issue of this mal-distribution of resources and the system that has been created to produce it, one is immediately and pejoratively labeled, often as a "Socialist," as if this were some morally despicable thing to be.  In fact, to question the status quo in modern America is to risk both derision and demonization - which, historically speaking, is consistent with Dr. King's experience a half-century ago - because, ultimately, it is to raise the issue of power, as in who has the right to determine the 'boundaries' within which we choose to live and how those boundaries affect the life chances of all therein.  And as the great nineteenth century abolitionist and Reconstruction leader Frederick Douglass reminded us so poignantly over 150 years ago, 

Power concedes nothing without demand.  It never did and it never will.  Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both.  The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

Given the realities of modern American life, and especially the widening gap between the allocation of life chances that is beginning to tear our social fabric asunder, as Dr. King challenged us so long ago, it is indeed time to question the structure of our society because of the nature of the outcomes that it produces.  Does this mean that Capitalism must be dismantled and replaced by another mode of social organization that is more equitable?  No.  In fact, history has shown us that other systems, including Socialism, tend not to work as well (largely because the powerful decision-makers who lead them prove fallibly human, too).  What it does mean is that we need to take a serious and thoughtful look at how we (re-)structure our society, especially economically and politically, so that we can restore some meaningful measure of equality of opportunity (and not necessarily equality of outcome).  To make it plain, we need to consider how to make our society more equitable and open so that all may share more meaningfully in the incredible wealth and abundant experience of life that our country offers.


And we need to return to an ethic that celebrates the commonweal, not exceptional wealth.  For, as Dr. King (and Malcolm X) predicted years ago, the upheaval that will result once the poor feel they have no options will be even more costly than choosing to change proactively.  Many of us were not alive to experience the watershed societal shifts of the 1960s - and thus do not fully appreciate the attendant violence and disruption that the urban riots of that period revealed to the broader society as being a frightful consequence of economic oppression and a sense of powerlessness - but our history tells us that continuing down this path - where the few have disproportionately more and the many have troublingly less - is a road to (short-term) prosperity for a few, (medium-term) ruin and (long-term) re-alignment.


To paraphrase the great Frederick Douglass, in regard to the less fortunate among us, what we need is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.  If we commit to creating a more just society, we will also create a more sustainable one, as Dr. King envisioned so long ago....