To speak up or not to speak up....that is the question

Recently started a new job where I was immediately immersed in training events.  While I enjoyed the content, the presentation wasn't really suited for adult learners.  By this I mean that to engage adult learners, as a presenter/teacher, one has to be interactive, inclusive and elicit the participation of adult learners by asking them to share their own intrinsic wisdom and experiences, both life and learning experiences.  I realize that perhaps this is an approach that I have because I have been educated in adult learning theory through my Masters degree program in Adult & Higher Education at USM, but I also think that this approach to teaching and learning in adulthood is very intuitive, and in all honesty, much more interesting for the presenter/teacher.

So, in my feedback to the training department, I gave them very specific ideas and suggestions about how they could improve/change their way of presenting even basic orientation material.   Well, the shit hit the fan as soon as I sent an email to the Training & Development Manager!   She immediately shared my email to her with my direct supervisor who called me and basically chewed me out and gave me a lecture about how the way they do things is "necessary" for the material in orientation.  Yikes! Why is it that people get so defensive when you hit a nerve of truth in them and their way of doing things??!  Why bother to give honest feedback when you get that kind of reaction?  Now, I feel like I have a "black mark" on my record....Catherine is that upstart, uppity smarty-pants that wants to rock the boat!  Story of my life!  I take my personal power and intelligence and power of observation and critical thinking and apply it, and where does it get me?....in the corner, as if I should be in detention for thinking for myself and sharing my ideas with others!

So, my question to any of you out there is:  what do you do?  Do you speak up about your opinions and observations in any given situation, or do you just eat it and shut up to leave the status quo?

I'm tired of being silent, shutting up and putting up....with the status quo!  I want to speak my truth and be respected for that and taken seriously, with acknowledgement and acceptance!  Maybe it's a pipe dream....but I'm not going to give it up!  Thanks for listening :)

Love II

Love protects us from nothing, even as it unexplainably sustains us in all things....

Love

"You, O Love, are the eldest of all, altogether mighty.  To you we pay homage!" - Vedic hymn

What frightens us....

“Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”  - Rainier Maria Rilke

On Suffering (from Richard Rohr)

Suffering

Transforming Pain
Wednesday, October 17, 2018

All healthy religion shows you what to do with your pain, with the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust and the undeserved—all of which eventually come into every lifetime. If only we could see these “wounds” as the way through, as Jesus did, then they would become sacred wounds rather than scars to deny, disguise, or project onto others. I am sorry to admit that I first see my wounds as an obstacle more than a gift. Healing is a long journey.

If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably become cynical, negative, or bitter. This is the storyline of many of the greatest novels, myths, and stories of every culture. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it—usually to those closest to us: our family, our neighbors, our co-workers, and, invariably, the most vulnerable, our children.

Scapegoating, exporting our unresolved hurt, is the most common storyline of human history. The Jesus Story is about radically transforming history and individuals so that we don’t just keep handing on the pain to the next generation. Unless we can find a meaning for human suffering, that God is somehow in it and can also use it for good, humanity is in major trouble. Because we will suffer. Even the Buddha said that suffering is part of the deal!

We shouldn’t try to get rid of our own pain until we’ve learned what it has to teach. When we can hold our pain consciously and trustfully (and not project it elsewhere), we find ourselves in a very special liminal space. Here we are open to learning and breaking through to a much deeper level of faith and consciousness. Please trust me on this. We must all carry the cross of our own reality until God transforms us through it. These are the wounded healers of the world, and healers who have fully faced their wounds are the only ones who heal anyone else.

As an example of holding the pain, picture Mary standing at the foot of the cross or, as in Michelangelo’s Pietà cradling Jesus’ body. One would expect her to take her role wailing or protesting, but she doesn’t! We must reflect on this deeply. Mary is in complete solidarity with the mystery of life and death. It’s as if she is saying, “There’s something deeper happening here. How can I absorb it just as Jesus is absorbing it, instead of returning it in kind?” Consider the analogy of energy circuits: Most of us are relay stations; only a minority are transformers—people who actually change the electrical charge that passes through us.

Jesus on the cross and Mary standing beneath the cross are classic images of transformative spirituality. They do not return the hostility, hatred, accusations, or malice directed at them. They hold the suffering until it becomes resurrection! That’s the core mystery of Christianity. It takes our whole life to begin to comprehend this. It tends to be the wisdom of elders, not youngers.

Unfortunately, our natural instinct is to try to fix pain, to control it, or even, foolishly, to try to understand it. The ego insists on understanding. That’s why Jesus praises a certain quality even more than love, and he calls it faith. It is the ability to stand in liminal space, to stand on the threshold, to hold the contraries, until we are moved by grace to a much deeper level and a much larger frame, where our private pain is not center stage but a mystery shared with every act of bloodshed and every tear wept since the beginning of time. Our pain is not just our own.

Gateway to Presence:
If you want to go deeper with today’s meditation, take note of what word or phrase stands out to you. Come back to that word or phrase throughout the day, being present to its impact and invitation.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, A Spring Within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations (CAC Publishing: 2016), 199, 120-121.

Rilke

 

Gott spricht zu jedem nur, eh er ihn macht

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,

then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,

go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

Flare up like flame

and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you:  beauty and terror.

Just keep going.  No feeling is final.

Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

I, 59

Rainier Maria Rilke

Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

Translated by Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy

On Art and Artists

Adapted from Martha Beck:

A lot of artists – filmmakers, writers, painters – specialize in showing how people land in hell.  Their work plumbs the recesses of human depravity and despair, shows lives disintegrating into chaos, unsparingly depicts the madness of relationships and societies gone awry.

Big, fat, hairy deal.

I’ll tell you this for free:  anyone can go to hell.  Most of us do so regularly; it’s a very short commute from ordinary life.  No one has to tell me that pain is ubiquitous and we’re all going to die.  I respect the talent of artists who dwell on this message, but they are worlds away from wayfinders, artists who Form creations that take their audience to hell and back.  Bad artists ignore the darkness of human existence.  Good artists often get stuck there.  Great artists embrace the full catastrophe of our condition and find beyond it an even deeper truth of peace, healing, and redemption.