Sorrowful Buddha

There is a legend of the Sorrowful Buddha. While walking, Sorrowful Buddha came upon a tigress who was starving and too weak to feed her cubs. In an act of compassion, the Sorrowful Buddha cut himself in two, allowing the tigress to eat and her cubs to live.

For some reason, the image of Sorrowful Buddha came to me. I was sitting with my hands covering my face, just blocking out the light and noise and intrusions. I became aware of how my hands felt and how holding my own face was an act of comfort and compassion. And I became aware that I am exhausted.

I don't think that I am depressed. I don't think that I am hopeless. I don't think that I am self-destructive. I am, maybe, sorrowful.

Not in the sad sense, but in the sense of consumed and enervated. I am tired like the tigress and consumed like the Buddha.

People regularly describe me as larger than life: flamboyant and forceful and big. It may be that the largeness of being me - large ideas, big energies, enormous appetites, grand outputs, huge presence - is just tiring and I naturally seek balance by shutting down and resting. In the past, I would have used whatever energy I have in one of these periods to self-demand that I produce a reason for my listlessness. There simply had to be something causal.

In this one, though, I want to let it be uncomplicated and natural and sweet. I'm allowing myself this as an act of compassion. In the Gestalt of it, I am the Buddha - compassionate and giving, and I am the tigress, famished and weak and in need. The allowing will be an experience of growth and difference, but will be healing and is necessary. I commit to allowing it to happen, not forcing it or manipulating it, just holding my head in my hands and being.

Open Share

"The ego seeks to divide and separate. Spirit seeks to unify and heal." A Course in Miracles

I have a group of people that I meet with monthly. The purpose of the meeting is to coalesce faith-based organizations and people that are interested in social ministries - support groups, recovery supports, and the like. Given my typical suspicion of Christians in groups, I would generally be very wary.

But these people are really different. They are loving, and accepting, and real. They share their experience, and strength, and hope in a way that NEVER happens at churches and is practically anathema to evangelicals. I am real with them. I am out with them. I love them.

I was sharing with a friend that I would really like to have a regular group of support people where I can just relax and talk and listen. He attends a Celebrate Recovery group that he likes a lot. He recommended it. Unfortunately, no. I reminded him that gay is a rule out in groups such as that. Sadly, he totally agreed.

Celebrate Recovery is a 12 step recovery group started by Rick Warren and his Saddleback Church (I can't say that name without snickering). Warren is well known for his purpose-driven homophobia. There are days I just CANNOT get my head around how silly and hurtful and energy wasting the anti-fag frenzy is - it defies any logic and is a ludicrous drain on our humanness.

Another friend recently posted this on his Facebook wall:

"If you truly own who you are, no one can use you against you."

Shazaam! I can list hundreds of times when people used me against me. What a tragedy. I've always been a smart and creative and sensitive person. And because I was not able to own my identity, I allowed people to use my own personhood to bully me, make me anxious, depress me, and wound me. Thankfully, I really believe most of that is behind me.

The irony of programs like Celebrate Recovery (which has been touted as a reparation recovery program for people "recovering" from homosexuality) is that they purport to move people to an honest acceptance of who they are in the context of acceptance from God. And simultaneously, they inculcate their members - reinforcing their willingness to keep entire groups of people from doing exactly that.

It's clear to me, that left to develop in their natural state, without the intervention of the Rick Warrens of the world and all of his co-conspirators, most people would be decent or at least disinterested. My group this morning proved it. They are decent and real. I have no idea how some of them feel about people who are gay, but somehow, it just doesn't matter there. They, not the rest, are the church.

Long Time, No Blog

A friend from Facebook put out a call for blogs - who has one? Which ones do you read? Wanna read mine? So I gave him the link. With a caveat: "It's a bit dark - read at your own risk".

The best thing about my blog - and probably the best thing about me - is that it IS - I AM - a bit dark. However, most days my humor and general zestiness collar the black dog with a ravishing fuchsia leash. I have always been able to see the hilariously absurd in situations that would otherwise be without any possibility of survival.

I haven't written because I have lacked focus. I have been lensing everything else in my sphere of existence and spent very little time on introspection. I've just had too much to do.

And if I hadn't had too much to do, I probably would have created something just to divert my attention from all things interior. Sometimes, it's just too much.

My father used to say, "boy, you're a 220 wire in a 110 world". He's right - although he had and has no real understanding of what that means. And for the past few months, introspection would have been like wading through a puddle bisected by a downed power line. Electrifying, but not necessarily in a good way.

Dating has been completely unproductive. I had a torrid bout with a screaming male borderline - a crazy-rapid undulating of love me/hate me bullshit that was diagnosable in its intensity. I can't tolerate that - I almost projectile vomited him out of my driveway and my life at 4 am. Plus, he dissed my dog.

That kind of leaves me untethered right now. I have decided that I value autonomy and low acuity drama more than the idea of a relationship. I have great things in my life - great career, great friends, great home, and so much else. So why mess with the things that are working?

The remainder of this year, through the holidays, I want to redirect, reorganize, regroup. I need to relax and enjoy the intensity of my job, experience the peace of my home, and manage the many moods that come with family and holidays. I would like to go into the new year and my next birthday with a refocused perspective and hopefully some new direction. Maybe my new blog buddy can loan me some wisdom.