A Hospice Chaplain's Field Guide to Caregiving
  • Home
  • Resiliency Workshop Signup
  • About
  • My books
  • Blog
  • Taking Care Signup
  • Sound Meditations
  • Privacy Policy
  • sacred space

RE: renewable caring

For those who show up...however they can for love

…caregiving of yourself and your others …and the world

to be better gardeners of our ONE WILD AND PRECIOUS LIFE….

LISTENING: the privilege of witnessing

1/24/2021

0 Comments

 
The United States has a new president…and a country to heal.

How do we do that?

As a hospice chaplain, I have a few superpowers…the first and foremost one is listening. This post and its sound meditation is the second of three…in a series on listening.

David Whyte lent us a quote or two (again) about friendship’s “privilege of witnessing another’s whole self over time” NOT JUST THE NICE PARTS…but also (and especially) in crisis…” when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence….”

I call these the our tender human trenches…which this country is in. I’d say we need to be friends now more than ever…

• to our principles &
• to our constitution &
• to each other.

How do we listen with our hearts open?

So How do we do this? How do we listen with our hearts open?

I am heart centered. It is my practice to listen to the ‘the still small voice’ of Divine Guidance in my own heart…but I read too.
"Finding the information given to me from the cranky, and well-intentioned is not easy. The linkage that makes me renewable is being able to course correct. This is fertile soil…”  - EM Hager Feed Me Feedback No. 30
I believe in the “Feed Me Feedback” of the world …that is, in the muck and from which the lotus blossoms. I believe in feedback of others…but it is my own mind and heart that decides what to use and what to give back to the muck...

MEDITATION CHORUS REFRAIN

Friendship is the great hidden transmuter of all relationship.

Not seeking to change anyone…but listening we listen to the tree through its fruits. …we don’t have to eat those fruits.

Second in series on Listening
We REMAIN IN SIGHT of our friends (…and family) the ultimate touch stone of friendship (and listening) is not improvement, but the privilege of witness.

Keep your heart Open; stay connected.

Personal Experience of God & the Muck

I trust Spirit to speak.  I know it by its voice of wisdom and love…and it is above all kind…not coddling…not easy… but good.I speak a lot about this direct experience WITH OUR OWN Higher Power here. It is oddly, something the spiritually progressive mystics have in common with the thoughtful but more traditionally religious evangelicals.

Prayer and Meditation is a conversation with the Divine.  Meditation is about getting still and LISTENING to Spirit...so we can witness our friends and even those who we do not yet (or perhaps might not ever) call a friend.

So it was particularly troubling when I read a CSM article last week about the militant evangelical conservatives who guided the “Stop the steal” JERICHO  Washington March in mid December and rioted at the capital on Jan 6th. The article says it is a new 'Christian Nationalism' which is reminiscent of the South after the Civil war.

Apparently, they think they are listening to God too...

Here’s the quote from one of its leaders that is most troubling to me:
 
“When God gives you a vision, you don’t need to know anything else.” 
             - Eric Metaxas, A prominent conservative writer and Jericho March’s Emcee.
 
It’s an interesting and well-balanced article…as is usual from Christian Science Monitor. December 11, 2020

How can I know that the voice to which I am listening is Divine guidance or one of fear?  i.e. the inner 'devil'

That is the question for this meditation...
How can I know for certain that the voice inside which I am listening to is Divine Guidance or one of fear … (the small personality, my ego or the inner devil whispering)

Gratefully, Jesus has some clarifying thoughts here:
 
You shall know the tree by its fruits… LUKE 6:44-45

LUKE 6:43 … figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor grapes from brambles. 45 The good man brings good things out of the good treasure of his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil treasure of his heart.
So that’s clear. If you want grapes, plant a vineyard.  If you want love, sow it.  Common Grace? Goodness? You have the seeds readily available…

I listen to the tree through its fruits…
I don’t have to eat those fruits…

But how do stay in witness to that which we disagree? to that which disturbs us ? ….How do we listen and get past the us vs. them mentality?
Not seeking to change anyone…but listening

David Whyte says to simply be a friend…

‘Friendship is the great hidden transmuter
of all relationships.

...Remain in sight of my friends

...The ultimate touchstone of friendship (and listening) is not improvement but the privilege of witness”


How to stay open & witness that to which I disagree?

Keep your heart Open; stay connected.
No matter how great the distance that exists between me and the people I care about,
if I LISTEN to the connections of love and friendship, I can stay in sight of them.

I do that by staying close to the voice of kindness…and let it guide me.


KINDNESS: the fruit that we all want to eat.


ATTRIBUTIONS:
1. CSM Dec 16, 2020; Humanity behind the Headlines: New York; Will election be a new ‘lost cause for evangelical conservatives?
2. David Whyte, Consolations- Friendship
3. Feed Me Feedback – CH 30- Hager, EM. A Hospice Chaplain's Fieldguide to Caregiving: Finding Resilience on the Frontlines of Love (p. 151).
4. Love fr Richard Rohr Newsletter - Inner and Outer Freedom: Freedom to Love. 6.16.2020
5. Background video LOTUS from Pexels

0 Comments

Listening: Curating with our Focus

1/17/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
The only choice we have in how we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability.

How do we become larger and more courageous
and more compassionate in our
intimacy with disappearance?
                  – David Whyte


How we become larger and more courageous
and more compassionate in our
intimacy with disappearance?

Friendship transcends disappearance
REMAIN IN SIGHT of our friends.

The ultimate touch stone of friendship (and connection) is not improvement, but the privilege of witness.

Keep your heart Open;
Stay connected
Begin again. 

The Three Superpowers:

I talk a lot about the power of gratitude in these sound meditations- it is one of the three major superpowers we use;
• Breath

• Sound

•Gratitude

FIrst in the sound meditation on LISTENING
In the Gratitude project, its director, Dr Robert Emmons at the University of California at Davis,  says:
“It is precisely under crisis conditions when we have the most to gain by a grateful perspective on life. IN the face of demoralization, gratitude has the power to energize . IN the face of brokenness, gratitude has the power to heal.  In the face of despair, gratitude has the power to bring hope. …He goes on to say “ But the sense that there’s real skin in the game – real potential for loss – is important. Sometimes, maybe, actually experiencing loss is what has to happen to wake us up.”

Loss & change is chaotic and noisy…

As a hospice chaplain, I have the honor and privilege of witnessing the edge of loss for many… sometimes the ultimate loss.  It is. chaotic and noisy…

How do we listen to the guidance of our hearts amid the noise of the world…and most particularly…loss?We curate…we chose what to focus upon…Meditation and prayer, of course are the path to  that practice…a good life…as well as wise, curious and brave questions.

Questions in the Muck...&
under the lotus?

There are interesting question in the muck of loss and stress…. for a good life.and  for innovation…on any leading edge, cutting edge…or even bleeding edge of business or technology or life...what are the opportunities that present themselves here …in the muck? under the Lotus…

More importantly how do we hear them?How do we hear the lotus…in the muckI think …it is not an either or proposition…but yes and…we have a choice in how we observe this life and its challenges and opportunities…BUT we must first feel safe.  We need to feel our connection to Presence…and to our community and friends.  Then we have access to our inner worlds.

In my intimacy with disappearance,
I try and ask good questions.


How can we access what is under the words? or rather how can I access what is in my own heart? Here's the poet on friendship:
The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life: a diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence…

A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs- even when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them….Friendship transcends disappearance: an enduring friendship goes on after death, the exchange only transmuted by absence the relationship advancing and maturing in a silent internal conversational way even after on half of the bond has passed on….

But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touch stone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.

–David Whyte Excerpts from his book Consolations- Friendship


Lets take that into our meditation today
Let’s take those connections into meditation today…
to ground into Spirit, and the muck
and ask interesting  questions of the Lotus

…together and in friendship.

There is a love which itself has the power to free the human heart.
Whoever arrives at this place looks at the world differently. The distinctions on the surface no longer exist.
Love does not come as theory. It moves in bodies, in nature, in the ground beneath us and the space between.
True Love is not emotional. It is a different nature, waiting in us like a secret seed
…this is the truth we all must find. The profound problems of …the inner and outer world… will be solved by love, and love alone
-Richard Rohr - Inner and Outer Freedom:
Freedom to Love.
6.16.2020

 
ATTRIBUTIONS:
  1. CSM November 23, 2020 ; p 26. Finding Uplift in a Dark Year  
  2. David Whyte, Consolations-  Friendship
  3. Gratitude project, its director, Dr Robert Emmons@ Univ. of Calif at Davis, 
  4. Fr Richard Rohr Newsletter - Inner and Outer Freedom: Freedom to Love. 6.16.2020
  5. Background video LOTUS from Pexels
0 Comments
    Picture

    EM Hager
    Author, Bereavement & Spiritual care, Sound meditation guide.

    "Look deeply into nature and you will understand everything human"
               – Albert Einstein

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    February 2022
    September 2021
    August 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017

    Categories

    All
    Bereavement
    Caregiver Coping
    Caregiver Health
    Caregiver Stress
    Caregiving
    Caregiving-and-post-traumatic-growth
    Caregiving And Sleep Deprivation
    Care Of Self & Others
    Change
    Death With Dignity Legislation
    Grief
    Hospice Chaplain
    Hospice Life Lessons
    Medical Aid In Dying
    One Minute Meditation
    Rachel Naomi Remen
    Resilience
    Ruth Bader Ginsberg
    Serving V. Fixing
    Seth Godin
    Sound Meditation
    The Marketing Seminar By Seth Godin

Sustainable Caregiving in sweet small steps...and two books:

"I read it all night.  It was funny and useful." - A.W.        
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
                         TWO BOOKs AND AUDIBLE Recordings:
     BEGIN AGAIN has the first 8 gifts...                                                           The Field Guide has ALL the gifts... 

Both are about caregiving as a circle of care & that includes you.  
© COPYRIGHT 2017-2023 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PRIVACY POLICY

  • Home
  • Resiliency Workshop Signup
  • About
  • My books
  • Blog
  • Taking Care Signup
  • Sound Meditations
  • Privacy Policy
  • sacred space