Help Wanted! And I'm the Help.

As I've gotten older I've come to see that every day we are given chances to do the right thing. As Jungian Psychiatrist Jean Shinoda Bolen notes in her book Crossing to Avalon, we are constantly presented with opportunities to help someone else move forward, and we are free to accept or reject these opportunities. If we refuse the offer, another will come along shortly. Right now I'm hoping for my second chance.

The first two chances came several weeks ago. One weekday as I drove home from work, I saw a kid who looked like he was 15 or 16 standing at the I-5 North entrance at Mill Plain, thumb out in the hitch hiker's familiar gesture. This particular intersection always has someone with a sign, so the reason I noticed this guy was that he looked like my son at 15 - skinny, lanky, long floppy blond hair, wearing a dirty coat. The expression on his face looked sad and discouraged, like he'd lost any hope of someone offering him a lift, or anything else.

Statistically, most young people who are on the road or homeless are in that position because of an abusive situation at home. I remember thinking what would make this kid stand out here in such crappy weather? and concluding that he must be running away from an intolerable situation.

He looked just like my kid four years ago. In other, less fortunate circumstances, he could have been my kid. But I didn't stop. Why not? Conditioning? Having been raised in a comfortable middle-class background that assumes that anyone hitchhiking by the freeway is bad news?

Later that week as I was driving to a local shopping outlet to pick something up, I passed a young man by the side of the busy 6-lane arterial holding a sign that read "Diapers, formula, food - anything will help." Like the blond boy by I-5, he too wore a disheartened look. As I sped along toward the frantic intersection I noticed a battered pink backpack on the sidewalk by the stoplight.

Along the major boulevard on which I was driving was a shopping strip with an urban mega-church whose name I recognized from stickers on local bumpers. Along with me, everyone zipping out of the parking lot was barreling right past the young man. To be fair, rain was pouring down in sheets and visibility was bad. But still, someone besides myself must have seen him.

As with the boy on I-5, I didn't stop. The irony is that I'd just come from a meeting for volunteers who had signed up for a shift at the Winter Housing Overflow (WHO) family shelter in my city. I was ready to help homeless families at the temporary shelter at St. Andrew's but apparently not ready to offer unplanned help in the midst of my day.

I still think about the blond boy because in other circumstances he might have been my boy. And I think about the young man asking for diapers and formula because in other circumstances he might have been me.

If I'd stopped for either of them, I don't know what I could have done to offer long-term relief. But maybe that isn't the point. Maybe the point is the offer. Stopping and inquiring would have let both young men know that they weren't alone. Something as simple as giving a ride to the nearest warehouse store like Costco and a making a quick stop inside to buy a few items might have only been a band-aid in terms of material needs but it would have let the guy know that someone noticed him.

I vividly remember one dark wet January afternoon in Seattle. I'd graduated from college and was looking for a job - any job, not just one in my field. Even McDonald's wasn't hiring. This was 1982 and someone had put up a billboard on the outskirts of the city reading Will the Last Person Leaving Seattle Please Turn Out the Lights? I didn't know how I was going to get food for the next few days, let alone pay the next month's rent. As I walked along I suddenly saw a $5 bill on the pavement. It was close to midnight and no one else was around. I took it. With it I was able to buy 2 weeks' worth of really basic food (rice, lentils and potatoes) which lasted until I finally received a paycheck from a temp agency.

Most often, bills don't appear on the sidewalk. In that case, if someone doesn't offer help, the person needing help may lose whatever foothold he has. Maybe I'm called to be someone's $5 bill, the person whose help gets him or her over a particularly bad hump.

Next time I'll be paying attention. Especially if it's a skinny kid in a grubby coat.

Being, Having and Doing: How Much is Too Much?

I've been reading a book with an important message that's especially timely now, as the holiday season approaches. The book, A Life of Being, Having and Doing by Wayne Muller, encourages the reader to examine just how much of anything - activity, stuff, stimulation - we really need to create a life worth living. Sometimes I need to be reminded that I can decide what to let in; I'm not obligated to take advantage of something just because it's there. I suspect that a lot of other people out there are in the same situation.

A sign posted in one of my former workplaces read "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." These days, we all receive so many opportunities, requests, news sources, email messages and information that some of us feel guilty when we turn anything down. Some parents feel guilty when they limit the number of extracurricular activities a child can participate in; maybe the child will be at a disadvantage later on. Some of us dislike turning down requests for volunteering even if we really are booked up. And some people I've met face gifting expectations that exceed their resources.

The holidays bring on an overabundance of nearly everything. I used to experience a twinge whenever I decided not to attend an event or when my group turned down a performance opportunity. I tried to stuff in as much as possible. Then, a few years ago, I realized that I wasn't enjoying it anymore. Now I plan more carefully and keep my limits in mind.

If you're feeling overwhelmed already (and the holiday season hasn't even officially started!), it helps to come up with some guidelines for involvement. Here are questions I find useful:

• Do I really want to do this or am I motivated by guilt?
• Is my gut reaction a "Yes!" or "Oh, alright...I guess."?
• Do the expenses associated with the activity make me uncomfortable? Will I have to overspend in order to participate?
• Am I needing more time at home, alone or with my family instead of going out?
• Am I tired enough to fall asleep as soon as I get home tonight? Seriously, if you're fantasizing about sleeping for 24 hours straight, you're not being "lazy."
  
• Does this contribute to what, for me, would be a meaningful holiday season? Use your own definition of meaningful. No one else can tell you what gives you a sense of purpose.
• Who are the people most important to me? Will this help or hinder those relationships?

After you've been asking yourself these questions for a few years, you'll develop a stronger sense of what you really need and want. At that point you'll be, have and do enough.

Personal Saints: Who are Yours?

When I was a girl I had a neighborhood friend whose family was Catholic. Her stories about her church fascinated me. The Gothic-style building had high stone arches and richly colored stained glass windows, there were candles and incense, and church members sang nearly the entire service. Having been raised in a fairly spartan protestant environment whose churches were strictly utilitarian and where services consisted of long sermons and little music, her version of church sounded wonderful.

However, it seemed to me that the best thing of all was her church's numerous saints. There was a saint for every occasion, occupation and time of year. I reasoned that if people were supposed to pray to God for help, the more superior beings we had for praying to, the more help we'd get.

In the Catholic calendar, November 1 is All Saints' Day. Probably not coincidentally it falls during the same cluster of days as Halloween (or its Celtic ancestor Samhain) and the Mexican Day of the Dead - all days for observing loved ones or special people who've passed on.

Many years later another Catholic friend told me that in her mind, saints represent certain specific energies or aspects of God, and she could call on whichever aspect she most needed at the moment. Another friend says she has her own collection of personal saints, some of whom aren't part of any church or religious organization at all.

For me this last idea rings a bell. I too have a large group of people - friends, family members, teachers, mentors or even strangers - who have been saints to me at some point, by helping or inspiring. Some of these are people I know well, such as the instructor of the improv class I took at the local community college several years ago. Others I've never met, such as the authors Cheryl Richardson and Thomas Moore. and a few are historical figures such as Gandhi.

Who are your personal saints? Who has continuously been there for you, helped you out of tight spots, taught you something important or served as a guide? November is a good time to thank them for their gifts.

Thank you, Marge, Janice, Marsha, Mary Helen, Catherine, Bill, Tricia, Karen, Kifleab, Bashir, Loan Le, Tim, Marci, Trisha, Chris, Joye, Margie, Laura, Eva Mae, Arline, Rick, Jo, Jared and all the rest of you - you're too numerous to name.

What the Spirit Knows

What the mind thinks,
The spirit knows.
The questions may continue
But the door is never closed.
Stephen Revel


If God is God, he will understand. And if he doesn't, he isn't God and we needn't worry.
The Kingdom of Heaven (2005, directed by Ridley Scott)

I was raised to believe in God. But somewhere, lost in the midst of a dark wood, I stopped believing. It's taken me several decades to find my way out. And the irony of it all is that my skepticism resulted from an overdose of certitude.

As a child, I always wondered about things: the Vietnam War and how our involvement jibed (or not) with the official 1960s church position on "the right to life"; the question of what happened to babies who died before they could be "saved"; the puzzling fact that many of the people I personally knew and loved were not, according to my parents' church, among the elect...and that some truly mean-spirited people apparently were.

I left childhood behind almost half a century ago. And I've long realized that in many matters, the adults were wrong.

During my teens and early 20s, much of what I'd been taught simply felt wrong but the tide of tradition was so strong, I had a hard time rowing against it. These days I have no problem with this. What has made the difference? Personal experience.

All spiritual (or for some, religious) belief is experiential. If you believe what your parents taught you, it's because your experience has confirmed it. If, like me, you don't, it's because your experience refutes it. During my early teens, I tried really hard to believe in a god who required that we believe certain things about him (it was always a Him). But try as I might, I couldn't convince myself that a power worth all this adoration would be so petty that he'd send someone to eternal doom just for having an "incorrect" image of himself.

I still don't believe that Spirit limits herself or himself to our small local ideas about her/him. That's why, even though I officially belong to a church plus several eclectic women's spirituality circles, I'm wary of certainty. We all have our ideas of what Spirit wants from us, but those ideas are almost always reflections of what we want.

The only certainty is that we are all loved. All of us. And that's mind-boggling enough to keep us, with all our "shoulds", occupied for awhile.

Are You a Wall or a Door?

This past summer during a customer service training session at work, a coworker pointed out that whenever someone comes to us for help with an especially challenging request, we have two possible approaches. We can erect a wall of reasons why it can't be done or we can try to create a door, using alternative options and resources. If the information is elusive, the answer may not be perfect or complete but it's better than nothing at all.

I thought about the wall-or-door image often during a recent trip to the Midwest to see family members and old friends. Whenever I get together with extended family (which, for me, includes what I call our family of friends), it strikes me how different we all are. Most of the time, those involved have been able to enjoy each others' company in spite of the political, religious or cultural gulf between them. In a few cases it hasn't been so easy.

Tom and I both tend to be live-and-let-live types. The only reason for shutting someone out would be that the person in question was behaving in a way that was intentionally harmful to others. We don't care what your beliefs, level of formal education, occupation, nationality or sexual orientation might be, as long as you're a good person.

Therefore, I find it disturbing whenever I hear about one person in our extended family circle giving another the cold shoulder because of such differences. Of course it's hurtful to the person being snubbed but in the end, it hurts all of us.

The one doing the snubbing misses out on an opportunity to learn about a different way of thinking or living, to grow out of the comfort zone. If the difference is over spiritual issues or religion (and in the U.S. this usually means a conservative version of Christianity versus everything else), he also misses the chance to be a good advertisement for his faith. As Albert Schweitzer said, "Example isn't the most important thing; it's the only thing."

And it hurts the rest of us when we feel tension at gatherings or are pressured to take sides. I've known families and circles of friends that have split apart over differences that could easily have been worked out or overlooked.

I think that in such situations, some of us are called to be door-openers. I've found that my best response is "I like both of you so I'm not going to choose one over the other. I want my house to be a good place for everyone, so you'll have to leave your differences at the door when you're there. And if you decide you want to better understand each other by talking it out, I'll help."

My own tribe of friends and family is a big sloppy mix of traditional, alternative, red, blue, green, fiery, easy-going, Christian, Jewish, Zen, Pagan, atheist (some of them seem to be a bit of everything), blue-collar, white-collar, artsy, businesslike, right, left, center and sideways. Like everyone else, I find that some people are easier to like than others. Some tend to rub me the wrong way. A few occasionally grate on my nerves.

But if I screened people out based on whether they agree with me, I'd be able to count all my friends on one hand. So I'll continue to work at keeping an open-door policy even though the results can be exasperating at times.

Am I being a wall or a door? It's a good question to ask throughout the day, whether at work, home or out & about.