My life is graced with spaciousness, choice, comfort, the love of friends and furry companions. I have more than I need. I live in a kind climate, where extremes in temperature and precipitation occur occasionally, but are more often than not easily managed.

For all of these and so much more, I am grateful.

My life is also burdened by chronic illness, fears and self-doubts, debt and concerns over things I have little control over. I have habits that have contributed to health challenges, and beliefs that too frequently corner me, triggering reaction and reactivity.

For all of these, and so much more, I am grateful.

I live in a country that is bountiful and produces agriculture, energy, ideas, and goods that have met not only my needs, but the needs of others across this globe. I live in a nation that rose out of conflict, evolved into a representative democracy, and implemented laws to care for and protect the most vulnerable.

For this and so much more, I am indebted.

I live in a nation that is currently facing the darkest of times in close to 70 years. Where families are divided because of differing loyalties. Where other families are separated because of abuses of power and authority. And where communities are under siege because of racism and fanaticism.

For this, I am indebted.

How Do We Find A Way Forward?

That I can be grateful and indebted for both the good and the bad may seem strange. I am choosing to look at the current state of things using both these lenses because both are instructive. Gratitude opens me up for seeing what is good; debt demands that I participate and “pay the price” of being a citizen and being human.

I am not talking about looking at things through rose-colored glasses. I am not suggesting that we blindly adopt a stance of naive optimism or pessimism. I am suggesting that whatever is in our present is all we have to work with anyway.

I am not adept at staying in the present. I am actually well-skilled in flying off to the future in some imagined scenario that freezes me and demands that I make a decision, (any decision!) so that I can make this uncomfortable feeling go away. And I can easily drift into the past, enjoying happy memories (as edited by me), of days gone by or remembering friends and lovers who brought me joy.

I am grateful for the opportunity to change my relationship with this part of me, so that I maximize my time in the present and deal with what actually is in front of me.

Asking for Support

My most recent lessons in this area lie in asking for the support of others and practicing mindfulness – what Marsha Linehan calls radical acceptance – returning again and again to the feeling of discomfort and accepting it for what it is: momentary.

Things really are bad right now. Denying that does not empower me. Accepting they are bad gives me a moment to make a different choice. How am I going to manage my discomfort?  Do I need to seek comfort in the company of others?  Can I decrease my distress by listening to music, or unplugging?  Maybe I can double my benefit by spending some time out in nature, or snuggling up with a good book.

These are luxuries that not all of us may have ready or safe access to. In those cases, the invitation to just sit still and breathe, even for just a few moments, may be the greatest gift we can give ourselves.

Paying My Debts

I really don’t like being in debt. I have an irrational fear of becoming a bag lady, in spite of every indication that I will be able to maintain an excellent quality of life. That fear is the interest I pay on the debt I carry from a belief that somehow I am not enough. That there isn’t enough to go around, and like Dicken’s Oliver Twist, when I ask, “Please sir, more?”  I will be denied.

But the real debt I owe is to change the generational messages of worthiness that have been passed down without challenge. That because I am a woman, or didn’t go to the right schools, or grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, or didn’t get the breaks, that I will never be debt-free.

What being debt free truly means is not being attached to the metrics that society or family or others have for who I am. To valuing myself as is. To realizing that, as Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

The tag line to all of this is “share.”

The misers of the world have us under their spell right now. They would like us to believe that our fear and mistrust is grounded not in them or what we are actually seeing and experiencing, but in some fantastical reality that only they can provide.

What Topples Me Today

What topples me today is my feeling disconnected from a world I no longer recognize. My feeling unable to believe what I read. From doubting friends. From not having reliable sources who will reassure me that everything is going to be all right.

What topples me today is my having to be so vigilant that I am exhausted, and can no longer appreciate the sun rise or the food on my plate or the sounds of children playing. What topples me today is realizing how quickly time is going by and wondering if I will live long enough to see things return to what I hold dear and treasure.

I am grateful for all this, and so much more.

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The Second Coming

William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   
The darkness drops again; but now I know   
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?