Real Strength

We’re in the midst of a crisis. Many of us have mistaken cruelty for strength, bluster for wisdom, and bullying for courage. It’s time to place the wisdom of our own hearts at the center of civic life. The hard-edged extremism that passes for discourse these days has withered the gentle growth of our perennial humanity. But the good news is there’s hope. There is always hope.

            It turns out that real strength, real wisdom, and real courage have at their core vulnerability, that is, the willingness to humbly reveal our own humanity flaws and all. And when we do, something miraculous happens. Those around us lean in, listen, and join together in loving community.

            Every teacher, minster, coach, parent, or leader worth their salt knows this is true – that when you show up authentically, honestly, openly, and risk it all, a wave of electricity moves through the room. And then you hear it – the hinges of a hundred cage doors swinging open. When you model your own freedom, you give people permission to find their own. Boldness begets boldness.

            When we misread strength as force we close ourselves off from the inexhaustible spring of the universe. In our isolation fear, tribalism, and aggression take over. When, however, we come to understand strength as resilience, fluidity, and allowance we move into accord with the sacred source. The universe shimmers with possibility and abundance.

            The simple-minded think that victory is the opposite of surrender – they praise one and mock the other – but the wise know that these are two points on a circle, forever bound together in cycles of arising and fading. The sea surrenders to the cloud, the cloud to the rain, the rain to the stream, the stream to the river, and the river to the sea. Water does not see these changes as defeat. It neither seeks nor resists these transformations. They are simply allowed.

            Look how the flowers leap from the field, offering their petals to the wind and hail. They are not afraid of what’s next. They know that their strength lies not in rigidity, but in vulnerability. It is not praise or permanence they’re after – it’s the holy joining, the prayer of playing your part, the surrender into oneness.

            Vulnerability is the face of real courage. It’s the willingness to be seen, finally seen, for who and what you really are. It is the ultimate manifestation of trust – trusting the other, and trusting yourself – knowing that who you are, how you are, is enough. Nothing to add, nothing to fix, nothing to find. Sure, room to grow. But in this moment, perfect as you are. Perfect in your imperfection. Just like everything else.

            And when you can finally let go, and be bold like this, it feels as though years of weariness slip from your frame. You had not realized how exhausting it was to maintain the façade, play the part, and dutifully read the script written for you by your fear and pride.

            The final reward of vulnerability is the shroud of safety it weaves around you. You know in your bones that wherever you go, wherever you are, you belong, and the world belongs to you. No more strangers. No more strange places. You have let all of that drop. Lightness fills your being. It illuminates the path before you, and lights the way for others. Your vulnerability is your greatest gift to the world. 

[A version of this piece first appeared in the March/April 2020 edition of Unity Magazine, and is reproduced here with permission.]

The Fear of Courage

Fear is not a weakness. Nor is it a childish indulgence. Fear plays an essential role in the unfolding of our lives. Fear keeps us from touching fire, swallowing razor blades, and kissing rattlesnakes. Fear in and of itself is not the problem. It’s the misapplication of fear that causes all the damage.

For the ancient Greeks courage was the most important of virtues, for without it, none of the other virtues are possible. How can we be compassionate without the courage to love? How can we be strong without the courage to push past the limits of our endurance? And how can we be smart without the courage to admit ignorance and press onward into new areas of learning and mastery?

            But courage is frightening. It asks us to risk everything.

I think we’re afraid of courage because courage asks us to abandon the supports we have worked so hard to construct. Courage asks us to sacrifice our safety and comfort. To be brave is to venture out beyond the reach of our protections, into an unknown field where none of the old rules apply and everything we know is irrelevant. To be courageous is to be vulnerable.

Courage begins with the willingness to let go. Courage and renunciation are two sides of one coin. Not only do we have to let go of our old support systems, we also have to let go of the idea that we are not enough. To be courageous we have to come to understand that there are qualities and strengths within us that have not yet been realized. Renouncing our old, limited, and limiting self-definition goes hand in hand with courage.

Courage is also an affirmation of the goodness of the universe. Fear, on the other hand, is often a misguided overreach of the ego feebly asserting its so-called power in an attempt to control everything. The fearful mind believes that we are not enough, and the universe is not enough either. Courage, on the other hand, means letting go of control and trusting that if the means are pure, the ends will take care of themselves. We must learn to use our egos, and not let our egos use us.

This then is the metaphysical foundation of courage – the view that all is one and that our lives are sacred expressions of the formless ground of being beyond all thoughts and forms. Debilitating fear is only possible when we have forgotten our original relationship with the divine. Again and again Jesus counsels his students to “fear not,” because anxiety and fear sever our delicate tether to the eternal. Coming out of fearfulness and into courage opens the portals to higher consciousness.

In the world’s hero journey tales the hero must face the monster again and again to be tested, and even more importantly, to have everything about them that is underdeveloped and inauthentic stripped away by the ferocity of the ordeal. While we may not literally be fighting monsters, the underlying truth remains. There are obstacles between us and the life we were born to live. Without cultivating the courage to face them, we rob ourselves and the wounded world of the healing elixir our transformation would bring both to our own lives and the lives of innumerable others, for when we heal ourselves we take an enormous step toward healing our families and communities. Instead of running away from fear, we should be running toward it. As Joseph Campbell wrote, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” Without courage we will never know who we really are. Only courage unlocks our sacred potential, latent within us and, for now, hidden behind a fog of fear. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the willingness to act in spite of the fear – to feel the fear and do it anyway.  

[This piece first appeared in my column "A to Zen" in the March/April edition of Unity Magazine, and is reproduced here with permission.]

The Broken Places

When a bone breaks and heals, the newly grown bone material at the fracture is stronger than the intact bone around the break. If the bone breaks again, it won’t be there.

So too our character is strengthened by the painful stresses and fractures life so readily affords. The healed places become our strong points.

Seen in this light, the disappointments, failures and miseries of our lives become irreplaceable, essential experiences. Without them we would be incapable of rising to our magnificent potential, fulfilling our larger purpose and realizing our deepest happiness. Nothing strengthens our core as much as heartbreak.

Armed with this information, a reassessment is in order. It’s time to look at our lives differently. Fear, it turns out, is not our friend.

Avoiding risk, playing it safe, carefully hiding from challenges and seeking comfort are the worst things you can do. Instead, identify the things you are afraid of and run toward them.

This is why growing older is so often associated with growing wiser. As you grow older life’s miseries inevitably visit you with increasing frequency. Loved ones die. Goals go unrealized. Things fall apart. And as these trials are endured, a dawning realization arises. Despite all of the tears, you’re going to be O.K. Beneath the suffering of the surface lays a deep and abiding harmony. Every spring in the forest, without fail, the flowers bloom and deer give birth to fawns. As Woody Allen said, “Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon.”

As our hair falls out, our skin begins to sag, our hearing fades and stairs get inexplicably steeper, there is a simultaneous expansion of our generosity of spirit – we no longer insist on seeing everything through the lens of “what’s in it for me.” We come to learn that none of us owns any of this, it’s all borrowed, and we grow defter at releasing our grasp and graciously accepting the transitory nature of all things. In this renunciation there is a deep and abiding joy – a joy reached no other way but through the acceptance of loss and the catharsis of tears.

As I write, my old dog Boone sleeps at my feet beneath the desk. He’s a handsome fourteen year old Brittany spaniel. Most of his hearing is gone, he falls down all the time, and the light is slowly fading from his eyes. I know that day is coming soon when I’ll lift him into the back seat of the car for one last, slow ride to the veterinarian’s office.  I’ll sit with Boone on the floor of the examination room and the vet and her assistant will come in and sit on the floor with us. We’ll look at each other without a word, and then I’ll nod yes as the veterinarian administers the lethal dose of anesthesia. I’ll hold him in my arms as he takes his last breath and his body goes limp. I owe that to him, to be there, to let him die in his favorite place – my arms. Sure, I’ll be bawling my eyes out. And I won’t enjoy it. But I’ll accept it. I already do. I have to. I knew this day was coming twelve years ago when we drove him home from the rescue kennel, a spry two year old, full of vim and vigor.

We know nothing lasts, but we fall in love anyway. It won’t be the first time I’ve put a dog down, and it won’t be the last. But saying yes to love means saying yes to everything else, and it’s childish to pick and choose experiences as if life were a simple consumer experience, a shopping trip where you only get what you want.

If you want any of it, you must say yes to all of it.

Our tears, our disappointments, and our failures are the engines of our emergence. In the end, we must have gratitude even for our suffering. Protecting ourselves from life’s vicissitudes stifles and ultimately extinguishes our spirit the way a shovel of dirt extinguishes a campfire. Besides, it isn’t possible anyway. No one escapes unscathed. Security is an illusion. The only choice left to us is moving forward with a yes on our lips instead of a no.

And suffering is not yet done giving gifts.

When we live consciously awake to our suffering, fully acknowledging the way our wounds construct the frame upon which our magnificence is built, we gain an unprecedented capacity for compassion. We empathize with a boldness the timid egotist dare not gamble. With new eyes we see the imperfections of others not as problems, but as opportunities. We still hold high standards and even higher aspirations for ourselves and others, but we accept ourselves and others as is. As the Zen saying goes, “You’re perfect just the way you are, but you could use a little improvement.”

We are now more readily able to forgive. We know that people are only as good as they know how to be. It isn’t moral weakness as much as cognitive error that drives the evil of the world – even the criminal believes they are actualizing their highest good as best they understand it. All of us are limited and bound by our current mode of thinking, our current concept of ourselves and the world. As we interact with others in the workplace, in our families, and in our communities, we soften our glance, stand firm, and sway to and fro like tall trees in high wind. Our flexibility is our strength. Our own woundedness and our own imperfection are the talismans that unlock our vision into the woundedness of others. We get better at hearing what isn’t said, seeing what isn’t shown and knowing what can’t be known. Yes it’s a paradox. But such is the mystery at the center of all things.

The last gift of our broken places is a deep and vibrant humility. Because we have been laid low by the body blows of grief and sorrow, we know full well that we are not in charge of any of this. We are merely witnesses.  We engage as effectively and powerfully as we can, intending to do good, aspiring to build great things and practicing our craft as consciously as possible.  And yet, no matter how flexible you are, a sudden gust can knock it all down. The ephemeral, transitory nature of reality humbles all but the most stubbornly ignorant among us. Wisdom understands its weakness in the face of larger forces.

The broken places, in us and in others, fortify us, teach us, and in the final analysis hold us all together. We are supported in all we do by the strength of our broken places. And there is still one final revelation. Not only is our strength, our empathy, our forgiveness, and our humility rooted in our wounds, but so is our love. Love is the flowering and the fruition of our strength, our empathy, our forgiveness and our humility – each of these experiences, each of these modes of consciousness leads us into the heart of the sacred fire, a fire that at once burns away everything about us that is inauthentic, while forging an unbreakable bond between all of the things that matter. From now on, every chasm bridged, every wound healed, and every longing fulfilled. This is how we grow whole from the broken places.

Afterword
Boone died on Wednesday, October 23, 2013 at 4:25 p.m., two days after I submitted this column to my editor for publication in the San Diego Troubadour. He faded suddenly, and as he struggled to breathe on that long last afternoon, we eased his passing with an overdose of anesthesia. Just like I promised him we would.