Love Them Into Transformation

My self-defense, my protective reactions, work hard to protect me. It's just that they aren’t always very skilled at it. They’re rather like a typical child writing her first poem.

When your child shares with a poem she's written, you don't say, "The metaphors are mixed; it's full of cliches; some of the rhymes are off; and on line 7 I think you mean 'hermeneutic' instead of 'hermetic'." No, you don't say that. You say, “That’s wonderful.” You’re interested. You talk about the feelings expressed. If the child would like, you put it on the refrigerator. You take a few moments to beam proudly at the poem and at your child. And then you move on. You don’t get carried away and start calling up publishers to insist that your child's work be included in their next anthology.

My inner protector is like that child. It needs my love and attention. It doesn’t need me to get all carried away and devote my life to its glorification.

Is my protector flaring up to protect me when I’m not really in danger? Am I encountering a situation that triggers my protective mechanisms, when, in fact, I am encountering something or someone completely unarmed? I try to look more carefully at my triggers. Maybe that thing that’s scaring me is actually just a bag of skittles. I try to honor the protective mechanism, show it compassion, thank it for trying so hard to protect me, and ask it to trust me: to trust either that there’s nothing here that will hurt me, or to trust that the risk of harm is a risk worth taking for the sake of greater connection and compassion.

Yes, we live in a country, and in a state, that demonizes the darker skinned: Hispanics and African Americans. We don’t conquer the demonizer by rejecting it – scourging and excoriating -- but by looking with compassion at where it’s coming from. My guess is that it’s coming from insecurity. From fear. And if that’s what it is, I can understand that. I, too, have insecurities and fears.

Let us wear hoodies and stand and rally in solidarity with Trayvon’s family. At the same time, let us understand that our society will make no progress unless the insecurity is reassured. There are a lot of people out there who, in the right circumstances – or, I should say, in the wrong circumstances -- are prepared to do what George Zimmerman did. There’s a larger question. Demanding that fear and insecurity be arrested and locked up won’t make it go away. The larger question is how to love. How do we love so fiercely, so deeply, so courageously that we love even fear, that we love even hate -- and we love them into transformation?

We do now need to stand in solidarity with groups that are threatened because they are perceived as threatening. That’s what the hoodie is about. It’s a call for solidarity. We need to make that stand. And: we need to look at the larger question of this insecurity in our land.

It’s a legitimate thing to want to protect our homes. It’s also a legitmate thing for members of minority groups to want to be able to stroll safely through any neighborhood they may happen to be legitimately visiting while wearing a hoodie and carrying skittles and iced tea.

Our call is to a path of healing and wholeness that recognizes and honors all the voices in our hearts and all the voices in our society.

Our call is to love -- and stand on the side of love -- and recognize and honor all the colors: the colors of fear, of revulsion, of defense and protection; the colors of affection, of bold risk-taking for the hope of connection, of calling ourselves and others to accountability; the colors of tribal identity as well as the colors of delight in diversity.

Our call is to love -- and stand on the side of love -- and recognize and honor all the diverse voices and colors within us and all the people and colors around us. All the colors.

"De Colores"

All the colors, yes, the colors we see in the springtime with all of the flowers.
All the colors, when the sunlight shines out through a rift in the cloud and it showers.
Al the colors, as a rainbow appears when a storm cloud is touched by the sun.
All the colors abound for the whole world around and for everyone under the sun.

All the colors, yes, the black and the white and the red and the brown and the yellow.
All the colors, all the colors of people who smile and shake hands and say, "Hello!"
All the colors, yes, the colors of people who know that their freedom is won.
All the colors abound for the whole world around and for everyone under the sun.

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Part 5 of "Evil."
Previous: Part 4, "Baptists, Bootleggers, and Self-Defense"
Beginning: Part 1: "Tragedy, Spring. Fractals."

Baptists, Bootleggers, and Self-Defense

When we approach our parts, our inner voices, in a spirit of humility and a friendly desire to understand them, we begin to understand why they cause the trouble that they do, and we can regard them with compassion.

So often, however, we don't approach our parts with that humble and friendly curiosity. Instead, we demonize them -- we call them our demons. (I referred to our parts as demons myself in the previous post. It's nice to "embrace your demons;" nicer still to see that they aren't really demons at all.) Then we call upon one "demon" to fight another. This makes both personae more demonic. Before long, a kind of internal corruption sets in. You called in one goon squad to fight another, and the two can end up going into cahoots with each other.

For example, the way that bootleggers and the evangelicals have worked together while apparently being opposed has become so well known that a model of politics has come to be named the “Baptists and bootleggers” model. In the paradigm case, preachers demand prohibition on alcohol sales in their county, while criminal bootleggers also work to keep alcohol sales illegal -- so that they can maintain their illegal business. The bootleggers help the preachers by ensuring that alcohol continues to be available – which means the preachers will always be able to pack their pews with periodic rousing denunciations of demon liquor. The preachers help the bootleggers by preventing competition from alcohol retailers. Sometimes the bootleggers themselves are devoted tithing members of the church, supporting the wonderful work the church does in ensuring the bootlegger’s income.

That kind of corruption can happen at the social level, and like a fractal pattern, can recapitulate within our hearts, as our inner parts put on a big show of fighting each other while actually they depend upon each other.

“Choose your enemies carefully,” the saying goes, “for you will become like them.” Alternatively: befriend them instead, and they lose their power over you.

Which brings us back to the Trayvon Martin case. George Zimmerman was concerned about crime. He spent time going door to door in his neighborhood urging his neighbors to be on the lookout for “young black men who appear to be outsiders.” The community reportedly did have a number of burglaries, thefts, and one shooting during the previous year. Zimmerman himself had called the police 46 times in the 14 months before his encounter with Trayvon Martin. In his battle with the forces that he saw as threatening, he became a perpetrator of the very thing he feared and hated. In the Sanford police department we may be seeing the same dynamic recapitulated on a larger scale.

Zimmerman claims he was acting in self-defense. Whether or not his action meets the legal criteria for self-defense, there was some kind of defensiveness at work. Remembering that whatever evil we see out there is also in here, in each of our own hearts, the question for each of us is: "What do I do in self-defense?" The things we do out of a felt need to protect ourselves often lead to harm, to ourselves and to others. When I get self-defensive, I know I shut down the possibilities for connection and love in the moment.

I’m not saying, never take protective action. I’m saying watch the protective habits, the protective impulse and urge. Just watch them, with compassion for them as they try to do their job of protecting you.

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Part 4 of "Evil."
Next: Part 5: "Love Them Into Transformation"
Previous: Part 3: "Breaking Old Ground"
Begginning: Part 1: "Tragedy. Spring. Fractals."

Breaking Old Ground

Psychologist Richard Schwartz says:

“As clients embody more Self, their inner dialogues change spontaneously. They stop berating themselves and instead, get to know, rather than try to eliminate, the extreme inner voices or emotions that have plagued them. At those times they tell me, they feel ‘lighter,’ their minds feel somehow more ‘open’ and ‘free.’ Even clients who've shown little insight into their problems are suddenly able to trace the trajectory of their own feelings and emotional histories with startling clarity and understanding.”

The basic point here is an ancient one that, today, is popping up in a number of places. I like Richard Schwartz’s work not because he breaks new ground, but because he brings a clarity and vividness to very old ground. The basic teaching is one that Lake Chalice readers have been hearing from me -- and very likely other sources -- for years. My own personal work has been to understand this basic and ancient teaching better and better and to take it more and more deeply to heart.

Religious traditions have taught this point for millennia. Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, all teach – or have strands within them that teach – that we are sparks of the eternal flame, manifestations of the absolute ground of being. Christians call it the soul or "Christ Consciousness." Buddhists call it "Buddha Nature," Hindus "Atman," Taoists "Tao," Sufis "the Beloved," Quakers "the Inner Light." Once we step back from the part of us in conflict with another part of us, we have access to compassion for all our parts. We have access to who we really are. Rumi, in the 13th century, was making this point when he said that being human is guest house, so whoever comes – joy, sadness, dark thoughts – meet them at the door and invite them in. (click here)

I’ve often quoted Philip Simmons from a UUWorld article of about 10 years ago:

"There’s nothing our demons enjoy more than a good fight – nothing that confuses them more than our embrace." 

It’s not the demon that is the evil. Evil – or neurosis, or dysfunction, or depression, or unhappiness -- is what manifests when we try to push down or ignore or banish a part of us. We cannot become centered in the deep ground of our being by trying to flatten, suppress, deny, or destroy the feelings we don't like in ourselves or others. With humility, and awe, and gratitude, we can become centered in our selves by welcoming our parts.

Certain parts of ourselves aren’t easy to be welcoming toward: hatred, rage, despair, fear, addictive needs (for drugs, food, sex), racism and other prejudice, greed. Nor are we proud of such parts of ourselves as ennui, guilt, depression, anxiety, self-righteousness, and self-loathing. We must learn to listen to and ultimately embrace all these parts if we are to move ourselves toward healing and wholeness. If we can do that instead than trying to exile them, then they transform. This is where psychology and faith meet, because we don't know how they'll transform, and we don't know when -- our parts make their own schedules. Faith  is our ability love and trust. Love your parts, trusting that your love will allow them to transform.

Every time we try to fight against a part of ourselves, we do so by generating or calling upon another part of ourselves. Diane called upon the Pusher to fight against the Pessimist. Or we call upon the Hate Hater to fight against the Hater. Now we have two personae that are giving us problems.

Treating our parts as if they had a life of their own -- as if they were, in effect, real personalities in themselves with a point of view and a reason for acting as they do -- helps us be present to them with compassion. When we approach them in a spirit of humility and a friendly desire to understand them, we begin to understand why they cause the trouble that they do. And we’re able to reassure them that the purpose they serve will be met.

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Part 3 of "Evil"
Next: Part 4: "Baptists, Bootleggers, and Self-Defense"
Previous: Part 2: "Know Thyself. Know Thyselves"
Beginning: Part 1: "Tragedy. Spring. Fractals."

Know Thyself. Know Thyselves.

"Know thyself," said Socrates. And to know it is to love it. Much that we might want to call evil comes from failure of compassion for all the parts of the self -- which, fractal-like, recapitulates as failure of compassion for all the parts of family, tribe, society.

Psychologist Richard Schwartz describes how he began to work with clients through their peronae.

“I had one client, Diane, ask the pessimistic voice she was describing why it always told her she was hopeless. The voice responded that it said she was hopeless so that she wouldn't take any risks and get hurt; it was trying to protect her. This seemed like a promising interaction. If this pessimist really had benign intent, then Diane might be able to negotiate a different role for it. But Diane wasn't interested in negotiating. She was angry at this voice and kept telling it to just leave her alone. I asked her why she was so rude to the pessimist and she went on a long diatribe, describing how that voice had made every step she took in life a major hurdle. It then occurred to me that I wasn't talking to Diane, but to another part of her – [a part she had spoken of before] that pushed her to achieve and that constantly fought with the pessimist who told her it was hopeless. [Her Pusher was mad at, and fighting with her Pessimist, and at that moment, I was talking to the Pusher.] I asked Diane to focus on the [pushing] voice, and ask it to stop interfering in her negotiations with the pessimist. To my amazement, [the Pusher] agreed to 'step back,' and Diane immediately shifted out of the anger she'd felt so strongly seconds before. When I asked Diane how she felt toward the pessimist now, it seemed like a different person answered. In a calm, caring voice, she said she was grateful to it for trying to protect her, and felt sorry that it had to work so hard. Her face and posture had also changed, reflecting the soft compassion in her voice. From that point on, negotiations with the inner pessimist were easy.”

In another case, Dr. Schwartz is working with Margie, an anorexic. He asks one persona to “step back” to allow attending to another persona. He asks “Margie where she finds that voice of anorexia in her body and how she feels toward it. She closes her eyes and says it's in her stomach, and she's angry at it. She says that it tells her that it's going to kill her and that there's nothing she can do about it. . . . "

Dr. Schwartz says, "It makes sense that you're angry with the eating disorder part, because its avowed purpose is to screw up your life or even kill you. But right now, we just want to get to know it a little better, and it's hard to do that when you're so angry with it. We're not going to give it more power by doing that – just get to know more about why it wants to kill you. So see if the part of you that's so angry with it is willing to trust you and me for a few minutes. See if it's willing to relax to maybe watch as we try to get to know the eating disorder part."

Margie says okay. Schwartz asks how she feels toward the eating disorder now. Margie she says she's tired of battling with it. Schwartz asks that part to relax and step back too, and then another part that was very confused by the disorder. Each time, Schwartz asks "how do you feel toward the eating disorder now?"

Finally, Margie says in a compassionate voice, "Like, I want to help it." (Richard Schwartz, "The Larger Self" -- click here.)

As we become able to attend to, to hear, to be with a persona, then we're better able to stop being that persona – and we also stop being any persona that needed to fight that persona. What we step into when we step back is the true self.

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Part 2 of "Evil"
Next: Part 3: "Breaking Old Ground"
Previous: Part 1: "Tragedy. Spring. Fractals."

Tragedy. Spring. Fractals.

Trayvon Martin died on Sunday Feburary 26, four weeks ago yesterday. He had just turned 17 years-old. Trayvon’s parents divorced when he was four. Known as “Tray” or “Slimm” (he was 6-foot-3 and about 140 pounds), he lived with his mother and older brother in Miami. He was a junior in high school, where his English teacher said he was “an A and B student who majored in cheerfulness.” He wanted to be an aviation mechanic.

Four weeks ago, he was visiting his father and his father’s girlfriend in a gated community in Sanford, Florida: southeast of Gainesville, about 100 miles, as the crow flies. Tray was watching basketball on TV. During a break, he went out to walk to a nearby convenience store for a snack. He was talking on his cell phone headset to his girlfriend. He was returning to the house, when he was seen by George Zimmerman.

Zimmerman called 911 and said, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good.” The dispatcher recommended that Zimmerman not take any action, and informed him that police were on the way. Zimmerman reported that Martin was headed toward the back entrance. He said, "They always get away," and then muttered what sounds like a vicious racist slur. It’s under his breath, so it’s not perfectly clear, but I’ve listened to the recordings, and that's what it sounds like to me.

Dispatcher: “Are you following him?”
Zimmerman: “Yeah.”
Dispatcher: “OK, we don’t need you to do that.”

The dispatcher reiterated that police were on the way.

While Zimmerman was on his cell phone, Trayvon was on his, talking with his girlfriend, and expressing concern about a "strange man" following him. She advised him to run. She has reported that she heard Martin say "What are you following me for?" followed by a man's voice responding "What are you doing here?" She heard the sound of pushing; Martin's headset suddenly went silent. She immediately tried to call him back, but was unable to reach him. Shortly afterward, a number of other 911 calls were reporting a shooting, and Trayvon Martin was dead.

It’s taken a few weeks for the case to grow in public awareness because it took awhile for the 911 recordings to be released, and as day after day passed with George Zimmerman not being arrested, public outcry began to grow.

The Lake Chalice topic this week week is "Evil." And as our hearts reflect on the tragedy that killed Trayvon Martin, it’s an easy thing to invoke a concept of evil. It’s easy to see George Zimmerman as evil, to see the Sanford Police Department as evil. Too easy.

At the same time, spring has officially come. I mention this because there's a lesson for us in the beauty of the spring flowers. Springtime illustrates that goodness and beauty are manifest where no color is left out, no part of the raucous parliament of sensations is excluded. Evil is the suppression of voices -- the suppression of color -- and beauty is inclusion of all colors, all voices.

The tragic death of Trayvon Martin may bring us to anger. It may bring us indignation and a yearning for justice. Well and good. I just want to ask us to notice one thing: that whatever is out there that we don’t like is also in here -- in our hearts.

There’s a metaphor here from the field of mathematics: fractals. Fractal patterns were big a few years ago. As you zoom in, or zoom out, on a fractal pattern, you find that smaller scales or larger scales recapitulate the original pattern. Just as society is made up of many different people, every person is made up of many different inner personae.

Sometimes the families in a tribe don’t relate to each other harmoniously.

Sometimes the members of a family don’t relate to each other harmoniously.

Sometimes the inner personae within an individual don’t relate to each other harmoniously.

Like fractals: the pattern at one level of magnification is found again at the other levels. In society, in our families, in our hearts: the tensions and dynamics we find in any of these are recapitulated in the other two.

I've mentioned a terrible tragedy, the arrival of spring, and fractals. Which feels like the right sort of beginning. To understand evil we must sometimes be head-on, and sometimes look far afield for our clues.

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Part 1 of "Evil."
Next: Part 2: "Know Thyself. Know Thyselves."