a thousand different ways

i'm fond of saying, "there are a thousand different ways to raise a healthy, safe child" in the child protection classes i teach. (we have this discussion in the context of balancing legal and governmental intervention with the cultural values, personal rights, temperament and level of capacity of the parents we serve.)

in the past few months, i find myself muttering a different version to myself as i scroll through my social media: "there are a thousand different ways to be a social justice activist."

there are members of the human race for whom social justice activism is not a choice. it is required for their survival, to save the lives of their children. for the rest of us, who are at any level of awakening that is short of forced awakening due to discrimination and fear of death, we must remember that our activism is the privilege of our lifetimes. (i saw a perfect protest poster that read, 'if you have been scared since 2016, that is a privilege'.)

and we show up to activism differently.

i worry when i see posts either explicitly preaching to or softly shaming others for the type and level of engagement they can do. or for taking a break from the action, to soak up some lightness for a moment. i worry when activism carries a hint of trendiness. stating opinions is encouraged, but silencing those who are feeling their way through this newness is not okay. i worry that i have unintentionally done these things myself. these things threaten the sustainability of the movement.

so many of us are learning to use voice and power, even if we have had the privilege of it our entire lives.

we are learning to move from the outdated and harmful notions of charity and the savior/hero complex.

we are learning to listen to voices different from our own. really listen. with mouths shut and hearts open, in a state of full-on humility.

this is the process of consciousness raising, a recognized stage of activism.

we need to listen for and guard against divisiveness in the cause; divisiveness can halt the process of consciousness raising.

today, some are stunned into silence. we must remember that this may be due to a trauma being triggered. shame and judgement merely entrench the trauma.

other voices have hints of paranoia and/or feel really angry. this may also be trauma triggered.

some are naturally quiet and lend support to those who aren't.

some move fast and hit hard, their words carry immediate power and cut through the fog of overwhelm.

some have the ability to engage in calm, intelligent conversation with the opposition.

some have to cull their facebook friends (and maybe even their real-life friends) to feel safe and able to focus on the work ahead.

some feel overwhelmed by the abundance of BIG THINGS TO DO, so instead they collect needed items for homeless folks in their neighborhood.

some curate and screen credible news and literature to share with the rest of us.

some people are idea people. others are action people.

some teach fifth graders tolerance and mindfulness, ways to self-regulate all the hard emotions.

some make art and write poetry to raise the consciousness of others.

some wear a safety pin because they want to let others know they will not harm them.

some quietly take care of those returning from the front lines of action.

some have day-upon-day when every waking hour is consumed with working two jobs or tending to sexual assault victims, child abuse victims, an immigrant family, or the wounds in their own homes, their own marriages, their own children.

there are a thousand different ways.

all of these things are needed, necessary. thank you for showing up.

some people experience some or all of these things within their own lives, depending on the day. i get this. some days i have superhuman energy and motivation to fix this shit. some days i am overwhelmed by the hatred and lack of thinking and i want to do yoga and eat soup and maybe read a little. some days my words are smart and quick and powerful, flaming arrows landing in just the right spots to burn through hatred or ignite change. some days i am afraid to say anything, to push post or publish, not because of the opposition, but because i worry i will be publicly mocked by the white mean girls at the popular activism table in the high school cafeteria for not wearing the right jeans. some days they silence me. other days they make me want to scream, "you are not the fucking queen of activism."

some days i have to sit with my feelings of anger, and it is really uncomfortable.

some days i have to sit with my feelings of vulnerability and fear, and it is really uncomfortable.

some days i worry i offended someone i did not intend to offend, and it is really uncomfortable.


wherever we are on the spectrum of activism, we can ask ourselves each day:

was my contribution genuine and effective?

did i check in with my privilege, my voice, the words i am using?

how can i leverage my privilege for the cause?

am i ready to take the next step into more/different action?

how can i cultivate more courage to openly listen/speak up/walk out?

what are some other strategies i can learn about and try?

how can i do better tomorrow?


this shit is messy. we keep moving boldly/quietly/softly forward.

sunday grace: this border is not hospitable to hatred

souvenir shop, nyc, c.2013

yesterday was a dark day (in a months-long parade of dark days) in my country.  that man, person, whatever he is who occupies the white house signed an order effectively starting a border ban based on race, ethnicity and religion.

yesterday i initiated my own border ban.  unlike his, my decision was thoughtful and purposeful and specific, intended to nurture values, rather than destroy them, while maintaining a commitment to the greater good. it was a personal boundary to keep out the hatred in certain circumstances. for months i have felt a strong desire to protect my personal spaces from the vile racism and hatred spewing forth from those who support the direction our country is heading.  my home is already a sanctuary, an environment of serenity, empathy, joy, learning, intelligent discourse and compassionate (sometimes uncomfortable) debate.  yesterday i felt a strong need to extend the border of protection to my social media space.

being inclusive and navigating diversity of thought are values i hold dear, so decisions to establish boundaries need to be based in (real, lived, truth-based) evidence and purpose, not just feeling.  i did a good deal of soul-searching and values clarification before i landed on a decision to secure my border.  i admit that i am struggling with some "all _____ are _____"  beliefs that got our nation here in the first place.  unlike others, i recognize that in myself and it disturbs me.  in order to change and prevent these biases from going further, i must set some boundaries.

• my facebook, twitter, instagram are not my citizenship or my work, they are personal spaces.  
• the energy it takes to internally manage others' entrenched beliefs and hatred distracts me from the work necessary to fix this shit, to stand with others for social justice and stand against racism, bigotry, human rights violations and so many other areas of hatred that are commonplace right now. 
• i do not believe that peace, love, understanding, and prayer will solve these problems.  they have important places for many of us, but this is a fight against violence.  violence doesn't give a flying fuck about those things.
• i do not hold the delusion that the example of my life or some kind of magical words will shift another's heart or worldview if they haven't already, especially if others are firmly grounded in fear and hatred.  
• personal boundaries are required in life.  sometimes they hurt people's feelings.  they absolutely hurt people's feelings when they are loosely and arbitrarily established on the down-low, when one is afraid to state a boundary clearly and unequivocally.  
• i fully understand that this level of boundary-setting, this seeking balance between the work and the rest, this component of self-care is a privilege.  and i will leverage that privilege in order to focus on getting the work done in my public spaces.

i will continue to engage in meaningful discourse with others who hold views different from my own in those face-to-face spaces where we can see each other and can begin to explore our vast and varied views on what it means to have a human heart.  this engagement is necessary for good citizenship.

and mostly, i continue my work helping others gain access to safe quiet spaces where they can rest their minds and souls from the work of being human in this world.

sunday grace: the beauty and mess of the process

process, by lisa parks

i met a young woman this week who was strong and vibrant and creative.  she told me, "i like to do art, but i'm not very good at it."  after spending some time with her and observing the vast imaginative way she walked through her world, i told her i thought she was quite amazing at art. together we unpacked how the world judges us by our product over our process.  while she may not yet be producing (what the world defines as) art (paintings, music, literature, etc.), her life and relationships and work and the way she is in the world are absolutely art.

i once again recognized my glaring love for process over product; how i appreciate the time and effort of the planning and development and evolution, rather than the end result.

take art, for instance.  if i was attached to the product, i would have given up years ago.  because so much of what i've artistically produced can be objectively judged as crap.  but my love of fingers in paint, the scratch of the pencil on paper, and expression of layered emotion on the canvas bring me back over and over and over again.  staying present for and trusting the hard parts of art, the learning, the risk, the starting over, these are the ways we become art.  the life and love of the final product is always in the process.

and yoga?  the popular western culture of yoga is almost entirely about the product, the perfected pose.  we completely miss the purpose of yoga when we struggle and contort to nail the instagrammable crow.  we bypass the beauty and the pain of the measured process of yoga, we miss that yoga teaches us how to be in the world, how to fly and how to fall.

and this morning, i'm mostly thinking about social justice activism.  yesterday our world lit up with millions of humans marching in or in solidarity with the women's march on washington.  it was an absolutely magnificent product to witness.  but the richness, the messiness, the excruciatingly slow process of true social justice is a long game.  how can we sustain this commitment over time?  how do we keep people interested when "being a part of history" is more about dealing with our own bias and privilege (uncomfortable), calling out injustice publicly (risky), and showing up as allies when the revolution isn't being televised?

sunday grace: the grace of the gita

yesterday i filmed a three minute dharma talk on the overall message of the bhagavad gita for a yoga teacher training assignment.  while that might sound like a moderately remarkable achievement which could take your average bear a few days to do, for me, it was a months-long challenge.

you see, once i cracked open and delved into the gita and began soaking in its history. metaphor, and meaning, i found it nearly impossible to distill its centuries-old vastness into one-hundred-eighty seconds.   so i continued to study.  i read and listened and read more.  i noticed moments in my real life when the lessons were applicable.   i wrote notes here and there, key words i wanted to communicate through the lens of the gita:  awareness, curiosity, service, presence, authenticity, integration.  i tried to choose just one as a focus in order to pare down the talk but discovered that the unpacking of one depended on all the others to stand along side it. one by itself felt incomplete and hollow.

weeks went by and still i could not imagine how i was going to deliver the assignment in a meaningful way.  and then yesterday, i tired of the struggle.  i tired of my insistence on being the slow and steady tortoise, of trusting she would always be more valuable than the race-to-finish-first hare. i tired of my need to avoid half-assness, or the ghastly fake-it-til-you-make-it mentality.

and i sat down and i did it.

and it wasn't half-ass.  or fake.  or choppy or incomplete.  it was pretty good.

it was as if krishna himself whispered to my inner arjuna, "both parts are necessary, the knowing and the doing.  and because you know, because you didn't skimp on learning or attempt to hotwire expertise, because the knowing was lived and is part of you, the doing flowed from your heart with ease.  you only had to decide to do it and sit your ass in the chair."

sunday grace: the hard season

bleeding heart liberal (work in progress)

the hard season
will
split you through.
do not worry.
you will bleed water.
do not worry.
this is grief. 
your face will fall out and down your skin
and
there will be scorching.
but do not worry.
keep speaking the years from their hiding places.
keep coughing up smoke from all the deaths you
have died
keep the rage tender.
because the soft season will come.
it will come.
loud.
ready.
gulping.
both hands in your chest.
up all night.
up all of the nights.
to drink all damage into love.
– therapy

{nayyirah waheed, salt}



i've got work to do.

recent events (the election, the murder of black americans, standing rock, to name a few) have left me angry with and ashamed of my country, my race, my gender, the religion i was raised with.  

angry with and ashamed of my self.

i'm unpacking the painful discovery that knowing and caring are not enough.  

i want to be a true and effective ally. 

i want to see and know the whole awful truth.

i want to come out of the soft denial of my own experience, privilege, responsibility, and responses to that whole awful truth.

i want to stand and speak and act against that whole awful truth.

grace will help, but it is not the whole story here.

i've got work to do.

sunday grace: thank you

hopeful me, circa 2008

on tuesday, november 8, 2008, i voted for the america i believe in.

the next day my friend meggan told me the story of how she fell asleep before the results were final, but left her radio on.  she woke hours later, in the dark, the voice of her next president, a kind, smart, dignified human being, in the near distance, graciously accepting his charge.  and she was filled with peace.

i've thought of meggan's story many times in the eight years since.  when i'm feeling half-asleep or in the dark or disoriented, and when i disagree with that very same president, i hear the voice of calm, the voice of kindness, the voice of humanity.

i've thought of meggan's story so much this week.

and i can hear the voice.

thank you, president obama, for your voice.

thank you, president obama, for your leadership.

thank you, president obama, for your dignified diplomacy, for reminding us that we all have a higher self and we need to use it.

thank you, president obama, for the way you laugh, the way you look at children, the way you father, husband, friend, and president.

thank you.

we are in the dark.  but we hear your voice.