Thornton Wilder's Wounds

Without your wounds where
would your power be? The
very angels themselves
cannot persuade the
wretched and blundering
children on Earth as can one
human being broken in the
wheels of living. In love’s
service, only the wounded
can serve.

--Thornton Wilder

Selfish People are Happier

I know, we are not supposed to be selfish; we are supposed to be getting better and more caring and we have to give it away to keep it etc. But really. This week I seem to have to learn again: When I take care of myself and take care of my needs instead of expecting someone else to or waiting for someone else to do it then I am happier. The past two days I have been pissed. I have been trying to take care of and be very accommodating to the man in my life who is sick. And today I am mad. I feel unappreciated and I can count—and name for you—all the supposedly selfless things I did for him—and I can tally also all the places where he could have done something for me and did not.

So I think selfish people are happier because at least they get their needs met and they are smarter because it’s way more efficient to say “I want…” and “I need…” than to do for others hoping they will reciprocate.

But here’s the clincher: I think selfish people are nicer because they get their needs met, and so they do not get all pouty and pissy and withdrawn and moody. They are easier to be around.

Projection

I was reading an old journal today and I found this. It was from a book about Jung and facing one’s shadow:

When you find yourself having a strong reaction to another person or their behavior use this sorting criteria:
If something informs you it is information.
If something affects you it is projection.


Ouch! In the course of a day I notice a lot about other people, and yes, I am often affected: “She is never satisfied” “He is so selfish.” “She is just trying to get everyone to like her.” “He must be thinking about another woman.” “She must really want to beat me at this.” Then I use the criteria above and I find I have all of that in me. Is it true that we are most bothered by other people who have the characteristics we do not want to see in ourselves?

Willingness

What I heard on retreat:


Willingness is showing up.
Willingness is leaving the door slightly ajar.
Willingness is freedom.
Willingness is a slight movement of energy, a shift inside of us, a softening of our attitude or position.
Willingness is a grace.

Become willing to not know.
Become willing to entertain the possibility that I may not know what is right.

Facing the World with My Real Face

I was at a retreat on the weekend and as happens when I have these times away I wore no makeup for three days. Day one I think I look tried or strange but by day three I think I look pretty and natural. I come home and decide to leave the make up off for a few more days. That feels more risky at work and in the day to day life in city and suburbs especially with people who know my made-up face better. Several people tell me I look tired even though I am more rested than usual. Concealer and mascara really do make a difference. But I want to know I can face the world with my real face so I go more days with no make up.

Can I face the world with my real face? Can I allow make up to be an option, an accessory that is not required? Can it be a choice and not a mask? I want to dress as me and show my real face to the world. Leaving make up off one day at a time is an experiment in facing the world.

Relationship Notes

I wrote this in my notebook this weekend:

What good is preserving a relationship that doesn’t allow me to be who I am?
If I have to edit me or show less and less of me then who is it that the other one loves?
If I make myself smaller ad smaller to get love then I am not really being loved.
Can I be me and be loved?

I have to be OK without him to be OK with him.

I don’t have to minimize or demonize who I was to become who I am. The cocoon wasn’t wrong or bad or a misstep; it was part of becoming who I am now.

Baseball and Our Spiritual Life

The first thing I learned about baseball is this: If you raise your hand a man will bring you food. I learned this at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, and in my first year as a fan I spent most of the game facing the wrong way. Raise my hand, get ice cream, raise my hand, get popcorn, raise my hand, get peanuts. It was 1958.

Two years later I understood it was a game. On summer afternoons I’d beg my brothers to take me with them to the ball park. I was falling in love with baseball.

If baseball has taken hold of you too, you know it’s about more than your team winning. Sports, like religion, offer consolations: A diversion from our daily routine, heroic examples to admire and emulate and a sense of drama and conflict in which nobody dies. But even now, in the midst of watching Olympic sports on television, we know that one click away on another channel our truest cultural contest is being played out.

John Gregory Dunne wrote that, “Baseball is the couch on which we examine our psyches”. George Will said, “Baseball is the universe”. And catcher Wes Westrum said, “Baseball is like church, many attend but few understand.”

We have these sayings and many more because baseball is one of the greatest sources of metaphor in American life. And understanding metaphor is important because having and using metaphor is what allows us to talk about intangibles like spiritual life.

The historian, E.H. Gombrich, wrote, “Every culture has its favored sources of metaphor which facilitate communication among its members. Any cultures religion is what provides the central area of metaphor. The Olympus or Heaven of any nation will offer language and symbols of power and compassion, of good and evil, of menace and of consolation”.

Americans live so far inside the institution of baseball and so deeply in its metaphors that we can’t even see it. You say you’re not a sports fan? But have you ever said: “She’s always in there pitching”. “You can’t even get to first base with him.” He’s out in left field.” “She was born with two strikes against her.” Listen to people speak. We are talking baseball all day long.
Michael Mandelbaum, author of The Meaning of Sports says baseball is important to Americans because it comes directly from our agrarian past before the tyranny of the clock. Bart Giamatti, former President of Yale and former Commissioner of Baseball said, “Baseball has no clock and indeed moves counterclockwise, so anxious is it to establish its own rhythms independent of clock time.”

Baseball is one of the few sports that remain timeless. A game can be fast or slow. In this one area of our lives the clock isn’t driving; we surrender the clock to the event. But there is something else in this game that asserts the primordial and the spiritual: In baseball we begin and end at home. Home plate is not fourth base. The goal of the game is to get home and to be safe.

We all want that: Home is a concept not a place. Home implies safety, accessibility, freedom, comfort. Home is where we learn to be both with others and separate. That’s what baseball players are: individual athletes with distinct areas of responsibility but also and always a team. We crave this in craving baseball. That is why even while we watch the Olympics and celebrate those athletes we also change the channel and cheer for our team. We are keeping the faith.