It is never fun to be sick, and even less so to be sick at the start of the new year. One thinks: "Bad juju." And, of course, this new year happens to have in it Lucky Number 13, which portends, only for the superstitious mind you (wink, wink), its own brand of negative juju. Lucky me, then, because I got the flu just after the new year began. This means that all of my plans for the new year have been on hold. They weren't inoculated either from the seasonal blight. Recovery has been painstakingly slow, but maybe only because the world seems to move so fast. Or maybe I have just gotten too comfortable with the expectation of being outpaced.
Toward the end of 2012, I wrote extensively here about hurting my back during practice. I managed a good recovery, and, better still, I thought I gained some wisdom from the injury. My practice resumed and flourished. Then the flu. Curse or reminder? What is the saying about ''after they've seen Paris?" It's the same thing with respect to our expectations about time and energy and everything that hasn't been accomplished yet. Forget the tortoise, we've become more and more like Sally, "doin (our) piece work too fast." We're moving beyond the concept of fast enough into a realm where it could always be faster.
One of my favorite lines in movie dialogue comes from the 1997 film Contact. Jodie Foster stars as a brilliant scientist who has devoted her research and her life to the search for extra terrestrial intelligence (SETI). When Foster's character--Elinor Arroway--is a young girl, she is shown learning about the world almost exclusively through conversations and explorations of outer space with her dad. The movie begins with young Ellie seated at a desk, headset in place, talking into space by way of a short-wave radio. We see her briefly frustrated at the dials at not being able to contact anyone. Her father offers a gentle reminder: "Small moves, Ellie. Small moves." Et voilà . A slight move of the dial finds a fellow traveler of the sound waves. Ellie is hooked, and her life takes her on a journey that, despite her intelligence and accomplishments, she could never have planned for herself. All because her father had the wisdom to remind Ellie of a fundamental truth: Progress is made one step at a time. Small moves. Small moves. Small moves.
How else are we supposed to learn how to listen?
Small moves. Small moves toward resolve. Small moves toward enlightenment. Small moves toward relinquishing the limitations and assumptions and elusive controls of our collective past. Sometimes we have revolutions. Sometime we need them. We change our lives all of a sudden, and, then suddenly, change returns to its incremental march, only our dial might still be set on full-speed ahead. Ultimately, however, when the dust settles, there we are again. Square One.
We should be relieved.
And yet. What is it about Square One that we find so unpleasant? Maybe we should consider replacing, say, Labor Day with Square One Day, if for no other reason than to resurrect the idea that our humanity resides in our ability to endure our brushes with humility.
On the front page of today's Los Angeles Times is an article about California's gay community and its reactions to President Obama's inauguration speech yesterday. In part, it reads "..., Stan Mallard thought about how far this struggling country has come--and the great distance still ahead to achieve anything like progress." Sounds as though Mr. Mallard has visited one of my ashtanga classes. Or maybe he knows something about being in a relationship, or raising children, or teaching students. Maybe he's decided to get better at paying attention. Small moves. Small moves.
What if we all got better at listening?
I was glad to hear President Obama tell us yesterday in his second inaugural address that "our journey is not complete." That leaves a lot of room for hope and change and the work still ahead that we must all commit to get up again to do tomorrow. Small moves. I, for one, think it's time Atlas shrugged.
Before the November election, I gleaned the following lesson from an interview with educator and author Parker J. Palmer that was printed in the November issue of The Sun. I shared this part of the interview in an e-mail with my siblings after Obama won the November election. And, this, after one of my brothers, while happy with the election outcome, warned that we still faced significant challenges, most importantly with regard to getting Wall Street out of our national socioeconomic discourse, and, likewise out of the pocketbooks of our elected officials. Obama included. The lesson I learned is all about the importance of small moves.
According to Palmer, "big problems are solved by a million little solutions," and that the road to those million little solutions involves a "tragic gap." The gap refers to the distinction between reality and possibility. "As you stand in the gap between reality and possibility, the temptation is to jump onto one side or the other." Too much harsh reality, and you become cynical; maybe you do nothing. If you take the side of too much possibility, the danger is getting stuck in idealism that is irrelevant. While these extremes are very different, they have the same effect. They remove us, Palmer says, from the gap. And the gap, he says, is where all the action is.
In this gap stood Martin Luther King, Jr, Nelson Mandela, Dorothy Day, and many others who have understood that the gap represents the inevitable flaw in the human condition. The gap may persist, but that is where the work is. The gap is where the gold really lies. Buried treasure. Palmer explains that "no one who has stood for high values--love, truth, justice (think the Buddha's simplicity, patience, compassion) has died being able to declare victory, once and for all." In other words, Palmer says that if we embrace these values, we're in it for the long haul. We must be willing to accept that we will die without having achieved our goals.
Our journey is not complete. Our journey is not complete. Small moves. Our journey is small moves. Not complete. Never ending. For ever and ever..... Amen.
Because I still believe in what sometimes truly feels like my languishing ashtanga practice, I know there are many small, though significant, moves on the horizon. Those moves, put together, are the path. They are the journey I am journeying toward.
Toward the end of 2012, I wrote extensively here about hurting my back during practice. I managed a good recovery, and, better still, I thought I gained some wisdom from the injury. My practice resumed and flourished. Then the flu. Curse or reminder? What is the saying about ''after they've seen Paris?" It's the same thing with respect to our expectations about time and energy and everything that hasn't been accomplished yet. Forget the tortoise, we've become more and more like Sally, "doin (our) piece work too fast." We're moving beyond the concept of fast enough into a realm where it could always be faster.
One of my favorite lines in movie dialogue comes from the 1997 film Contact. Jodie Foster stars as a brilliant scientist who has devoted her research and her life to the search for extra terrestrial intelligence (SETI). When Foster's character--Elinor Arroway--is a young girl, she is shown learning about the world almost exclusively through conversations and explorations of outer space with her dad. The movie begins with young Ellie seated at a desk, headset in place, talking into space by way of a short-wave radio. We see her briefly frustrated at the dials at not being able to contact anyone. Her father offers a gentle reminder: "Small moves, Ellie. Small moves." Et voilà . A slight move of the dial finds a fellow traveler of the sound waves. Ellie is hooked, and her life takes her on a journey that, despite her intelligence and accomplishments, she could never have planned for herself. All because her father had the wisdom to remind Ellie of a fundamental truth: Progress is made one step at a time. Small moves. Small moves. Small moves.
How else are we supposed to learn how to listen?
Small moves. Small moves toward resolve. Small moves toward enlightenment. Small moves toward relinquishing the limitations and assumptions and elusive controls of our collective past. Sometimes we have revolutions. Sometime we need them. We change our lives all of a sudden, and, then suddenly, change returns to its incremental march, only our dial might still be set on full-speed ahead. Ultimately, however, when the dust settles, there we are again. Square One.
We should be relieved.
And yet. What is it about Square One that we find so unpleasant? Maybe we should consider replacing, say, Labor Day with Square One Day, if for no other reason than to resurrect the idea that our humanity resides in our ability to endure our brushes with humility.
On the front page of today's Los Angeles Times is an article about California's gay community and its reactions to President Obama's inauguration speech yesterday. In part, it reads "..., Stan Mallard thought about how far this struggling country has come--and the great distance still ahead to achieve anything like progress." Sounds as though Mr. Mallard has visited one of my ashtanga classes. Or maybe he knows something about being in a relationship, or raising children, or teaching students. Maybe he's decided to get better at paying attention. Small moves. Small moves.
What if we all got better at listening?
I was glad to hear President Obama tell us yesterday in his second inaugural address that "our journey is not complete." That leaves a lot of room for hope and change and the work still ahead that we must all commit to get up again to do tomorrow. Small moves. I, for one, think it's time Atlas shrugged.
Before the November election, I gleaned the following lesson from an interview with educator and author Parker J. Palmer that was printed in the November issue of The Sun. I shared this part of the interview in an e-mail with my siblings after Obama won the November election. And, this, after one of my brothers, while happy with the election outcome, warned that we still faced significant challenges, most importantly with regard to getting Wall Street out of our national socioeconomic discourse, and, likewise out of the pocketbooks of our elected officials. Obama included. The lesson I learned is all about the importance of small moves.
According to Palmer, "big problems are solved by a million little solutions," and that the road to those million little solutions involves a "tragic gap." The gap refers to the distinction between reality and possibility. "As you stand in the gap between reality and possibility, the temptation is to jump onto one side or the other." Too much harsh reality, and you become cynical; maybe you do nothing. If you take the side of too much possibility, the danger is getting stuck in idealism that is irrelevant. While these extremes are very different, they have the same effect. They remove us, Palmer says, from the gap. And the gap, he says, is where all the action is.
In this gap stood Martin Luther King, Jr, Nelson Mandela, Dorothy Day, and many others who have understood that the gap represents the inevitable flaw in the human condition. The gap may persist, but that is where the work is. The gap is where the gold really lies. Buried treasure. Palmer explains that "no one who has stood for high values--love, truth, justice (think the Buddha's simplicity, patience, compassion) has died being able to declare victory, once and for all." In other words, Palmer says that if we embrace these values, we're in it for the long haul. We must be willing to accept that we will die without having achieved our goals.
Our journey is not complete. Our journey is not complete. Small moves. Our journey is small moves. Not complete. Never ending. For ever and ever..... Amen.
Because I still believe in what sometimes truly feels like my languishing ashtanga practice, I know there are many small, though significant, moves on the horizon. Those moves, put together, are the path. They are the journey I am journeying toward.
Gazing up at the stars from the Gap (or was it the gutter) -- nice to have that bright inspiration.
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