Category: growth into humanity

Ms Regina Brett and her 45 Life Lessons

On By MaryIn growth into humanity, happinessLeave a comment

I love the internet and its ability to expand, amplify and exaggerate. Urban legends can be kind of interesting and intriguing, and maybe even a good source of blog inspirations. I received the material for this blog in an email attributing it to Regina Brett, who was said to have written it when she was 90. Imagine my chagrin when I discovered that Regina Brett was born in 1956, making her 4 years younger than I am! Since I am not especially a math wizard, for a very brief moment, I pondered if that meant that I was 94!! But I got over that quickly enough as I read further and discovered that she wrote this column when she turned 50, not 90!! Ah, typos can take on a life of their own on the wonderful wide web.

But for all of that, have a read at Ms. Brett’s 45 life lessons … Originally published in The Cleveland , Ohio Plain Dealer on Sunday, May 28, 2006

Ms. Brett wrote: “To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most requested column I’ve ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short – enjoy it.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye, but don’t worry, God never blinks.
16.Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful. Clutter weighs you down in many ways.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19.  It’s never too late to be happy. But it’s all up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ‘In five years, will this matter?’
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative of dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have, not what you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.”

As I think about this blog, I think about lessons that will help each of us become the kind of individuals, families and communities that will more fully honor the dignity of each human being, that will more deeply respect and life lives of fairness that honor justice. Ms. Brett’s life lessons seem to have some resonance with those goals.

Exploring the Cave of the Blue Dragon: Fear and Fearlessness

On By MaryIn Choices we make, growth into humanity, Koan1 Comment

Maybe because I was born in the year of the dragon, I love dragons.  Blue is so much my most favorite color that there are moments when I think of the rainbow is variations of the color blue! So imagine my delight when I came across a Zen Koan (meditation on a paradox) called “the Cave of the Blue Dragon.”

Roshi John Daido Loori begins his discussion of this Koan with the story of a great teacher and the emperor of China who in a great time past were walking the palace grounds when they came across a great stone dragon. The teacher said to the emperor, “Your majesty, would you please say a word of Zen, something profound, about this dragon?” The emperor said, “I have nothing to say. Would you please say something?” And the teacher said, “It is my fault.”

Roshi Loori tells us that the teacher was taking responsibility, responsibility for the all of it. Now, on the surface, at first this can feel either masochistic or arrogant. But think about it for a few minutes. As we move through life and encounter challenges and frustrations, we can be a victim and become overwhelmed by fear or we can take responsibility.

Roshi Loori tells us that the prelude to this koan says something like:

When you are up against the wall, pressed between a rock and a hard place, if you linger longer pondering your thoughts, overanalyzing and planning, holding back your potential, you will remain mired in fear and frozen in inaction. If, on the other hand, you advance fearlessly, you will manifest your power, finding empowerment in your liberation. Here you will find peace.

Pema Chodron reminds us that we will find peace, safety and security only when we are willing to not run away from ourselves. That means being honest with ourselves, not running away from ourselves or our mistakes, to be accountable to yourself without being blameful.  From great suffering can come great compassion – or great hatred – the choice is yours.  From great frustration can come victimization and overwhelming fear, or responsibility and fearlessness.

Now, there is fearlessness and then there is fearlessness. This is not to advocate idiot fearlessness: if you can keep your calm when all around you are loosing theirs maybe you really don’t understand the problem. It is not fearlessness born of anger. It is not the fearlessness of youth marching off to war. Nor is it the fearlessness of youth who feel invulnerable. It is rather fearlessness born of conscious, cognizant, conscientious fear. It is compassionate, generous fearlessness.

So, how do we do this fearlessness? Well, there is, of course, a poem at the end of the koan that points us in the direction. My paraphrase of the poem is

The cave of the blue dragon is ominous.

It is the cave of our stuff, our baggage

Where only the fearless dare to travel.

Here the maze of our entanglements

Is rendered into a labyrinth.

Traversing its path and ways we are amazed

Liberation free of the enigma of mystery.

Well, it says something like that. But the point of it is, of course we will all be afraid. Fearlessness is facing our greatest fears with awareness, compassion and action. So, go be fearless even while you are shaking in your boots.

with thanks to Roshi John Daido Loori, Shambhala Sun and Omega Institute

On Solitude and Forgiveness: imagine a world of compassion

On By MaryIn Cloister of the Sisters of Mary Magdalene, compassion, forgiveness, growth into humanity, solitude1 Comment

Back at the cloister of the Sisters of Mary Magdalene, they tell a story of one of the Mothers of the Dessert (yes, I mean to have 2 ‘s’ in the word) who was living a life of prayer and solitude.  The Sisters of the Dessert committed their lives to celebrating the sweetness of all creation. In those days, the Sisters saw their cloister as a place of solitude, and as a milieu for learning and deepening respect for justice and for the dignity of all sentient beings and for the ecology which nourished and nurtures us. The good sisters also believed in teaching through their example.

According to this story, one of the Sisters had committed a fault, and a council was convened to determine what should be done. The Mother was invited to participate in the council, but she declined to go.  Eventually one of the younger Sisters came to her and said, “Mother everyone is waiting for you.”

So, the Mother got up and found a leaky water skin. She filled it to its capacity with water, and carried it to the place where the council was meeting, with the leaky spot over her left shoulder. When she got to the council, the sisters there said to her, “Mother, why are you carrying that old water skin?”

And the Mother said to them, “My sins run out behind me, and I do not see them. And yet, today I am coming to judge the error of another.”

When the sisters heard this, they said no more of the fault of the young Sister, but forgave her.  The example of the Wise Mother was all the lesson they needed to be reminded that each of us is in need of forgiveness. In their solitude they learned to see themselves as they truly are, unvarnished, unadorned. In their solitude they took the time to look to their center, into their hearts and find the core of love that nurtures the soul of each of our beings.

For the Sisters of the Dessert, solitude helps them to find the place where they were balanced, gentle and caring. In their solitude they became compassionate through their realization that nothing human is alien to us. They stopped judging others, stooped evaluating themselves and became free to be compassionate.

And so the Sisters of the Cloister of Mary Magdalene practice solitude. We too might take up the practice, each of us in our own small way. Ten to twenty minutes in the morning is not an impossible pathway to solitude. Solitude can help to mould each of us into gentle, caring, forgiving people as we acknowledge our own faults and become aware of the mercy and compassion that have graced our lives. Imagine the world of peace, justice and respect for dignity we might envision and build from a place of solitude. Meditation is not just for navel gazing. It is for healing the wounds of oppression and discrimination. It is for clearing our vision and opening our hearts to the more that is possible. Imagine!

The Blind Man and the Lame Man & The Chicken and the Egg

On By MaryIn growth into humanity, stories for social change, vision and perspectiveLeave a comment

Every time I am certain that I have things right and that I KNOW something, sooner or later (and often it is sooner), something comes along to show me (if I am paying attention) that maybe, just maybe what I was sooo certain about might just be a bit of an other way. As I have searched for stories for this blog, as I thought and taught in the past, I was fairly sure that individuals and small groups needed to change, grow, develop, evolve to create a more loving, just and compassionate base before we could adequately and effectively build more just and humane social structures. Well, I kind of thought that. I do remember enough Buddhism most of the time to know that the solid ground we stand on is mostly ephemeral quicksand.

But we live in a rational, linear world don’t we? OK. I know we don’t really. But we have been socialize to think we do. Many folks have been raised with the American koan that asks: who came first, the chicken or the egg. Many have pondered it thoughtfully and deeply. … Until the around 2009 when the answer was revealed in this joke: “A chicken and an egg are laying in bed together. The chicken is all happy and has a big smile on it’s face while the egg is irritated and looks a bit disappointed.  The egg turns to the chicken and says, ‘Well, I guess we solved THAT riddle.’”

So, chicken or egg? Individuals or structures? It is a bit of a koan in a conundrum in a riddle in an enigma.

Then I was prowling the internet looking for parables from Poland, the homeland of my grandparents. And I found this poem by Ignacy Krasicki (from his book Fables and Parables)

 

The Blind Man and the Lame

A blind man was carrying a lame man on his back,

And everything was going well, everything’s on track,

When the blind man decides to take it into his head

That he needn’t listen to all that the lame man said.

“This stick I have will guide the two of us safe,” said he,

And though warned by the lame man, he plowed into a tree.

On they proceeded; the lame man now warned of a brook;

The two survived, but their possessions a soaking took.

At last the blind man ignored the warning of a drop,

And that was to turn out their final and fatal stop.

Which of the two travelers, you may ask, was to blame?

Why, ’twas both the heedless blind man and the trusting lame.

 

So, you might think its settled! These guys need to change, get over their issues and learn to trust or we will never be able to build a better world. Ah, but Wikipedia to the rescue! Because there we are reminded that Krasicki wrote this around 1779 just after Poland had been taken over partitioned by Russia, Prussia and Austria, an action that ultimately abolished the commonwealth of Poland until after World War II. So, the social structure shaped and constrained the experience, view, imagination and dreams of its inhabitants. Which leads me to re-member: both/and indeed is better. Who came first the chicken or the egg? Life would be so much happier if they both come together. Who changes first the individual or the community/social structure? Life would be so much happier if they both changed together in consort and harmony!!

 

 

Martha Nussbaum and the Power of Stories

On By MaryIn change, growth into humanity, happiness, stories for social change, strong empathy1 Comment

I found this in Brain Pickings. If you don’t know it, Brain Pickings is a wonderful weekly blog. You should check it out at http://www.brainpickings.org/.  The quote is by Martha Nussbaum is from James Harmon’s Take My Advice: Letters to the Next Generation from People Who Know a Thing or Two (public library) – an anthology of thoughtful, honest, brave, unfluffed advice from 79 cultural icons, including Marth Nussbaum, Mark Helprin, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, and William S. Burroughs.

Martha Nussbaum is a philosopher who writes about human capabilities. I have been infatuated with her ideas for a long time, so I was pretty happy to find this quote from her. In the quote she writes about the importance of cultivating a rich inner life by by understanding and embracing our feelings. She highlights the power of storytelling as one pathway to a richer inner life and a fuller, more empathic human community.

Do not despise your inner world. That is the first and most general piece of advice I would offer… Our society is very outward-looking, very taken up with the latest new object, the latest piece of gossip, the latest opportunity for self-assertion and status. But we all begin our lives as helpless babies, dependent on others for comfort, food, and survival itself. And even though we develop a degree of mastery and independence, we always remain alarmingly weak and incomplete, dependent on others and on an uncertain world for whatever we are able to achieve. As we grow, we all develop a wide range of emotions responding to this predicament: fear that bad things will happen and that we will be powerless to ward them off; love for those who help and support us; grief when a loved one is lost; hope for good things in the future; anger when someone else damages something we care about. Our emotional life maps our incompleteness: A creature without any needs would never have reasons for fear, or grief, or hope, or anger. But for that very reason we are often ashamed of our emotions, and of the relations of need and dependency bound up with them. Perhaps males, in our society, are especially likely to be ashamed of being incomplete and dependent, because a dominant image of masculinity tells them that they should be self-sufficient and dominant. So people flee from their inner world of feeling, and from articulate mastery of their own emotional experiences. The current psychological literature on the life of boys in America indicates that a large proportion of boys are quite unable to talk about how they feel and how others feel – because they have learned to be ashamed of feelings and needs, and to push them underground. But that means that they don’t know how to deal with their own emotions, or to communicate them to others. When they are frightened, they don’t know how to say it, or even to become fully aware of it. Often they turn their own fear into aggression. Often, too, this lack of a rich inner life catapults them into depression in later life. We are all going to encounter illness, loss, and aging, and we’re not well prepared for these inevitable events by a culture that directs us to think of externals only, and to measure ourselves in terms of our possessions of externals.

What is the remedy of these ills? A kind of self-love that does not shrink from the needy and incomplete parts of the self, but accepts those with interest and curiosity, and tries to develop a language with which to talk about needs and feelings. Storytelling plays a big role in the process of development. As we tell stories about the lives of others, we learn how to imagine what another creature might feel in response to various events. At the same time, we identify with the other creature and learn something about ourselves. As we grow older, we encounter more and more complex stories – in literature, film, visual art, music – that give us a richer and more subtle grasp of human emotions and of our own inner world. So my second piece of advice, closely related to the first, is: Read a lot of stories, listen to a lot of music, and think about what the stories you encounter mean for your own life and lives of those you love. In that way, you will not be alone with an empty self; you will have a newly rich life with yourself, and enhanced possibilities of real communication with others.

 It seems to me that this is sound advise for us all — read lots of stories, develop deep empathy — with our selves, for other, open our hearts to the possibilities of the world, love widely and wildly … and see what happens. Too much for you? Try walking down the street and smiling at the people you pass. See what happens then. It is a worth while experiment.

Cape Cod Dreams and Memes and Change

On By MaryIn change, growth into humanity, vision and perspectiveLeave a comment

Cape Cod is a most wondrous place. September arrives and graces the soft sands of the Cape’s endless shores, and while so many others have returned home to work and school, I remain, reading and napping and bearing witness to the day’s gentle surf and warm breezes.

As I nap, I read Paulo Coelho’s “Manuscript Found in Accra” 

in the cycle of nature there is no such thing as victory or defeat; there is only movement.

The winter struggles to reign supreme, but in the end is obliged to accept spring’s victory, which brings with it flowers and happiness. The summer would like to make its warms days last forever, because it believes that warmth is good for the Earth. But in the end, it has to accept the arrival of autumn, which will allow the Earth to rest. . . .

Within that cycle there are neither winners nor losers’ there are only stages that must be gone through. When the human heart understands this, it is free and able to accept difficult times without being deceived by moments of glory. Both will pass. One will succeed the other. And the cycle will continue until we liberate ourselves from the flesh and find the Divine Energy.

And the cycles will continue until we find enlightenment, eternal rest, nirvana, moksha, until we find that for which we search. But as human’s we seem destined to search, even if it is for justice and rights, for fairness and dignity, the search goes on. We are creatures on a pilgrimage, a path. Perhaps it is not that we are strangers in a strange land, but pilgrims on a pilgrimage. For us humans, the journey is home. Lots of folks have plotted the shape and direction of that path. And, it is important to know where you are going – otherwise, how will you know when you get there? One of my favorites path tracers is a largely unsung fellow named Clare Graves who wrote about memes that mark the flow of human and cultural growth.

Now, meme (pronounced meem) is a fun kind of word that is not (yet) part of the common daily verbal lexicon.  It was probably coined by Richard Dawkins in his book “the Selfish Gene” as a concept useful for explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. So, a meme could be a melody, catch-phrase, fashion, idea, symbol or practice that is spread from mind to mind through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other ways of being that we can imitate. Meme’s self-replicate, mutate and respond to pressures.

 Clare Graves wrote about eight memes or themes for existence that human beings and cultures seem to embrace and develop as we move in the world. For Graves, each meme is essential and important and is incorporated and integrated into the ones that follow even as subsequent memes work to solve personal,  social or ecological problems that emerge as a consequence of ways of being consonant with earlier memes. Then the new meme catches on, and becomes a ‘normal’ way of living, thinking, being in the world. On an individual level, think here of crawling, walking, running for example, each remains important in its own rights, even as we build our ability for more complex forms of movement. For Graves, human cultures develop and evolve new, more effective, more complex ways of structuring and organizing communities and cultures, even as we continue to incorporate earlier ways of being.

And then there is Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Black Swan theory to add to the mix. Black Swans are rare events that have an extreme impact and that are retrospectively but not prospectively predictable (no one saw it coming, but looking back it makes sense). I’m thinking that Black Swan events help shift values and ways of being as they become dominant culturla memes.

Now all of this is pretty heady thinking for a day dream day on the beach, and as I thought about all of this I felt myself drifting off for a bit of a nap. And as I napped, I dreamt of nomadic cultures and communities struggling for survival living on their instincts. And then I woke and thought about tribal cultures and spirit quests and their search for kindred spirits. And I thought about how cultures grew from a sole focus on basic needs and survival to include spirituality and connections with family and kindred spirits.  And I thought about how democracies evolved creating space for individualism and spawning revolts, aggression and warfare – identity and independence seem to be linked with power and assertiveness and aggression. Traditions and religions seem to have emerged as one response to aggressions, but their structure and discipline that help to control chaos and to connect individuals and cultures to a higher ideal come with a call for self sacrifice that can be overly sacrifice freedom for security and tradition. The progress of modernity brought with it technology and material wealth and convenience, entrepreneurial growth and wealth – for some, but at a high cost to others and to the environment. There is the hope of green societies that offer compassion, community and equality, but these remain tender buds in the growth of communities. Perhaps we will see even further evolution toward more self actualizing cultures and communities, where survival, security, authority, structure, networks, systems and organic wholeness each and all find place in a dynamic balance and wholeness. And I found myself wondering where we will evolve next as human beings, as human communities. Perhaps memes of hope and healing (personal, social, cultural, environmental healing) will emerge and grow? I found myself wondering what a world free of oppression and discrimination would be like? What would we value? How would we organize family and education and care giving and wonder and awe and mystery and science and, and, and. And the joy of a sunny afternoon on Cape Cod is that I could wonder widely and wildly.   

So, now I am dreaming of love, compassion, and generousity exploding into our ways of being — as a black swan that becomes the next meme. It could happen. We could yet have a world where fairness reigns and dignity is respected.  I know my dreams will continue. The cycle will evolve. Indeed, change is the only constant. And amidst all of this change and wonder, there is the wonder and joy that Cape Cod is indeed a most wondrous place.

Philippe Petit and Doves that don’t fly

On By MaryIn Choices we make, growth into humanity, stories for social change, vision and perspectiveLeave a comment

Philippe Petit is a French high wire walker.  In his lifetime his has walked across high wires strung between the Twin Towers in NYC, Notre Dame Cathedral, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Cathedral of Saint John the Divine and many other breath taking locations. And what does this have to do with justice and human rights? Well, just as stories are important, so too is symbolism. Symbolic acts can help to transform our hearts and minds in ways that create a space for more open hearted, compassionate actions. And THAT is what Philippe Petit has done to advance justice and human rights.  Here is an excerpt from his TED talk that speaks to his high wire walk in Jerusalem. His talk is called “The journey across the high wire.”  I hope you enjoy it and that you find yourself thinking a bit more expansively …

http://www.ted.com/talks/philippe_petit_the_journey_across_the_high_wire.html

Philippe Petit says:  Faith is what replaces doubt in my dictionary.

So after a walk when people ask me, “How can you top that?” Well I didn’t have that problem. I was not interested in collecting the gigantic, in breaking records.

Each time I street juggle I use improvisation. Now improvisation is empowering because it welcomes the unknown. And since what’s impossible is always unknown, it allows me to believe I can cheat the impossible.

Now I have done the impossible not once, but many times. So what should I share? Oh, I know. Israel.

Some years ago I was invited to open the Israel Festival by a high-wire walk. And I chose to put my wire between the Arab quarters and the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem over the Ben Hinnom Valley. And I thought it would be incredible if in the middle of the wire I stopped and, like a magician, I produce a dove and send her in the sky as a living symbol of peace.

Well now I must say, it was a little bit hard to find a dove in Israel, but I got one. And in my hotel room, each time I practiced making it appear and throwing her in the air, she would graze the wall and end up on the bed. So I said, now it’s okay. The room is too small. I mean, a bird needs space to fly. It will go perfectly on the day of the walk.

Now comes the day of the walk. Eighty thousand people spread over the entire valley. The mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Kollek, comes to wish me the best. But he seemed nervous. There was tension in my wire, but I also could feel tension on the ground. Because all those people were made up of people who, for the most part, considered each other enemies.

So I start the walk. Everything is fine. I stop in the middle. I make the dove appear. People applaud in delight. And then in the most magnificent gesture, I send the bird of peace into the azure. But the bird, instead of flying away, goes flop, flop, flop and lands on my head.(Laughter) And people scream. So I grab the dove, and for the second time I send her in the air. But the dove, who obviously didn’t go to flying school, goes flop, flop, flop and ends up at the end of my balancing pole.

You laugh, you laugh. But hey. I sit down immediately. It’s a reflex of wire walkers. Now in the meantime, the audience, they go crazy. They must think this guy with this dove, he must have spent years working with him. What a genius, what a professional.

So I take a bow. I salute with my hand. And at the end I bang my hand against the pole to dislodge the bird. Now the dove, who, now you know, obviously cannot fly, does for the third time a little flop, flop, flop and ends up on the wire behind me. And the entire valley goes crazy.

Now but hold on, I’m not finished. So now I’m like 50 yards from my arrival and I’m exhausted, so my steps are slow. And something happened. Somebody somewhere, a group of people, starts clapping in rhythm with my steps. And within seconds the entire valley is applauding in unison with each of my steps. But not an applause of delight like before, an applause encouragement. For a moment, the entire crowd had forgotten their differences. They had become one, pushing me to triumph.

I want you just for a second to experience this amazing human symphony. So let’s say I am here and the chair is my arrival. So I walk, you clap, everybody in unison.

So after the walk, Teddy and I become friends. And he tells me, he has on his desk a picture of me in the middle of the wire with a dove on my head. He didn’t know the true story. And whenever he’s daunted by an impossible situation to solve in this hard-to-manage city, instead of giving up, he looks at the picture and he says, “If Philippe can do that, I can do this,” and he goes back to work.

Inspiration. By inspiring ourselves we inspire others.  By believing in ourselves, by seeing the possibility of the impossible, we believe in others and together we grow the discipline to build the impossible.  The road to the impossible is not an easy one.  It is never straight forward. It is never smooth. It is surely not a level playing field. But there is a road, there is a path that we can create.  Sometimes we must build that path together. Sometimes we walk that path together. Sometimes the path must be forged by the solitary pioneer. But there is a path to freedom, to dignity, to justice.  On August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Junior delivered his “I have a dream” speech. His dream became a defining moment of the Civil Rights movement. Let us continue to dream wildly and wantonly. Let us continue to walk the path to freedom, dignity and justice – together and as pioneers ever forging new visions of dignity as we sing the old songs of freedom and hope.

From Paul McCartney on Writing “Let it Be”

On By MaryIn compassion, growth into humanity, music of lifeLeave a comment

I’ve always resonated with Paul McCartney’s song, “Let it be,” probably because of the “Mother Mary” lines in the song. It has a nice soothing feel to it, even while it acknowledges the frustrations of life and work for a better world, even while it encourages us to press on.  So, one day in a moment of aimlessness I did a bit of searching to find the story behind the story.  Here’s what Paul McCartney seems to have to say about writing “Let it be”

McCartney says that he was going through a really difficult time around the autumn of 1968. It was late in the Beatles’ career and they had begun making a new album, a follow-up to the “White Album.” As a group they were starting to have problems. McCartney thought he was sensing that the Beatles were breaking up, so he was staying up late at night, drinking, doing drugs, clubbing, the way a lot of people were at the time. He was really living and playing hard.

The other Beatles were all living out in the country with their partners, but he was still a bachelor in London with his own house in St. John’s Wood. At the back of his mind he says that he was also thinking  that maybe it was about time he found someone. This was before he got together with Linda.

McCartney says that he was exhausted! Then one night, somewhere between deep sleep and insomnia, he had the most comforting dream about his mother, who died when he was only 14. McCartney described his mother, saying, “She had been a nurse, my mum, and very hardworking, because she wanted the best for us. We weren’t a well-off family- we didn’t have a car, we just about had a television – so both of my parents went out to work, and Mum contributed a good half to the family income. At night when she came home, she would cook, so we didn’t have a lot of time with each other. But she was just a very comforting presence in my life. And when she died, one of the difficulties I had, as the years went by, was that I couldn’t recall her face so easily. That’s how it is for everyone, I think. As each day goes by, you just can’t bring their face into your mind, you have to use photographs and reminders like that.”

So in this dream twelve years later, his mother appeared, and there was her face, completely clear, particularly her eyes, and she said to him very gently, very reassuringly: “Let it be.”

He said it was a lovely dream. He woke up with a great feeling. It was really like she had visited him at this very difficult point in his life and gave him this message: “Be gentle, don’t fight things, just try and go with the flow and it will all work out.”

So, being a musician, he went right over to the piano and started writing a song: “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me”… Mary was his mother’s name… “Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.” There will be an answer, let it be.” It didn’t take him a long time to write it. He wrote the main body of it in one go, and then the subsequent verses developed from there: “When all the broken-hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be.”

McCartney thought it was special, so he played it for the other Beatles and ’round a lot of people, and later it also became the title of the album, because it had so much value to him, and because it just seemed definitive, those three little syllables. Plus, when something happens like that, as if by magic, it has a resonance that other people notice too.

Not very long after the dream, McCartney got together with Linda, which he says was the saving of him. And it was as if his mum had sent her, you could say.

The song is also one of the first things Linda and Paul ever did together musically. They went over to Abbey Road Studios one day, where the recording sessions were in place. He lived nearby and often used to just drop in when he knew an engineer would be there and do little bits on his own. And he just thought, “Oh it would be good to try harmony in mind, and although Linda wasn’t a professional singer, I’d heard her sing around the house, and knew she could hold a note and sing that high.”

So she tried it, and it worked and it stayed on the record. You can hear it to this day.

These days, the song has become almost like a hymn. McCartney sang it at Linda’s memorial service. And after September 11 the radio played it a lot, which made it the obvious choice for him to sing when I did the benefit concert in New York City. Even before September 11th, people used to lean out of cars and trucks and say, “Yo, Paul, let it be.”

So those words are really very special to him, because not only did his mum come to him in a dream and reassure him with them at a very difficult time in my life – and sure enough, things did get better after that – but also, in putting them into a song, and recording it with the Beatles, it became a comforting, healing statement for other people too.

 From Paul McCartney

A brief mediation on chaos and anarchy

On By MaryIn growth into humanity, happiness, laughter1 Comment

 I have always been attracted to chaos and intrigued by anarchy. Needless to say my parents found this, well, shall we just say distressing, and my friends often found it a bit disquieting. Chaos and anarchy – I just found them interesting and kind of engaging, mostly in an intellectual kind of way, I must admit.

 One of my favorite social work jokes for example goes something like this: what is the oldest profession in the world? … most people will respond prostitution. But the rejoinder is that it is social work. In fact, it is recorded in the Christian Bible! There you will find that it says that in the beginning god created the universe from chaos. … And, who do you think created the chaos? Social workers of course! (that is where you laugh, please.)

Typically we think of chaos as a state of complete disorder and confusion or as behavior that is so unpredictable that it appears to be totally random. But then there is chaos theory in math, with  applications in meteorology, physics, engineering, economics and biology. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, think the butterfly effect. Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for such dynamical systems, all of this creates the possibility for long-term prediction impossible in general approaches to statistical analysis and correlation.  Chaos may not be as chaotic as it appears on first blush.

 Anarchy first brings to mind visions of a society without a coherent public government. I prefer to dream of anarchy as efforts to build a productive, creative society that honors the dignity of sentient beings, that deeply respects fairness through radical empathy even while avoiding the use of coercion, violence, force and authority. Quite a dream, yes?

 So, chaos and anarchy. But where does my attraction to them come from?  Well, the other day I was reading James Michner’s book Poland. And right there on page 203 I found this passage: “in 1786 there was an old Polish truism. Anarchy is the salvation of Poland. We have always thrived on chaos.”

 I read that passage an experienced it as a balm to my soul. I felt a soothing resonant connection to my roots.  There indeed is nothing quite like finding home and connection. Chaos and anarchy are deep in my cultural heritage and roots!

 And, what pray tell does this have to do with social justice and respect for human rights? I guess just that it is good to know who you are, where your roots are nurtured, and to respect the diversity of the differing grounds that nourish each of us.

 So, go bloom where you are planted, and celebrate vast diversity of all the flowers that grace this kaleidoscope of our world.

From NPR: A 40 year old photograph that stands as a counterpoint to Trayvon Martin’s murder

On By MaryIn Choices we make, growth into humanity, vision and perspectiveLeave a comment

I don’t often just cut and paste and repost here, but this one is an exception.

Last week the decision was announced in the George Zimmerman trial — he was found not guilty in the charges against him in the aftermath of his shooting teenaged Trayvon Martin in Florida.  I wanted to post something meaningful here, but words failed me. Most folks that I spoke with found the verdic abhorent and predictable.  My frequent response to such matters: ‘UGH’ seemed appropriate but inadequate.

then I found this story on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/07/17/203016331/the-40-year-old-photo-that-gives-us-a-reason-to-smile?utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=20130721&utm_source=mostemailed

it seemed about right. so … read on, please …

This 1973 photo of five children playing in a Detroit suburb has gone viral on the Internet. The children were Rhonda Shelly, 3 (from left), Kathy Macool, 7, Lisa Shelly, 5, Chris Macool, 9, and Robert Shelly, 6.

In late July 1973, Joseph Crachiola was wandering the streets of Mount Clemens, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, with his camera. As a staff photographer for the Macomb Daily, he was expected to keep an eye out for good feature images — “those little slices of life that can stand on their own.”

The slice of life he caught that day was a picture of five young friends in a rain-washed alley in downtown Mount Clemens. And what distinguishes it are its subjects: three black children, two white ones, giggling in each others’ arms.

“It was just one of those evenings,” Crachiola remembers. “I saw these kids — they were just playing around. And I started shooting some pictures of them. At some point, they saw me and they all turned and looked at me and struck that pose that you see in the picture. It was totally spontaneous. I had nothing to do with the way they arranged themselves.”

This week, Crachiola, who now lives in New Orleans, posted the vintage photo on his Facebook page.

“For me, it still stands as one of my most meaningful pictures,” he wrote in his post. “It makes me wonder… At what point do we begin to mistrust one another? When do we begin to judge one another based on gender or race? I have always wondered what happened to these children. I wonder if they are still friends.”

After several days when the world seemed to be reduced to one big argument about race, the elegantly simple photo hit a nerve — in a good way.

After his Sunday post, Crachiola’s Facebook page blew up — as many as 100,000 page views. Six thousand “likes” and thousands of shares. The Macomb Daily reprinted the photo on its Web page and sent someone to the archives to help identify the children, who are now middle-aged.

It’s hard not to smile while looking at this picture. Crachiola liked it so much himself that he printed a large copy and has it hanging in his dining room. Former Michigan Rep. Don Riegle reportedly also liked it so much, he got a framed copy and hung it in his office.

Crachiola says that learning of the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial reminded him of the photo and made him think to post it.

He’s been gratified by the response. Between Facebook and the newspaper, he has solid leads on where the children are today. “Someone emailed me saying he works with one of the guys who was in the picture,” Crachiola says. “He actually works for the Macomb County Road Commission.” And just before we spoke, Crachiola saw someone had posted an even more intriguing note: “This,” wrote Darnesha Taylor Shelly, “is my husband and sister in laws.”

Looks like a reunion might be imminent