Don't Worry.... Music Friday

A treat for you:

Another Year Older

Image by BrianWestChest via Flickr

There's nothing better than a hand-made birthday card from your daughter.

Here's the card Shayna (my 9 year old) made for me this year:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3630/3567319002_aa1b67e7c1_o.jpg

It reads: Happy Birthday Daddy! 48 is pretty old....But rest assure (sic), you're still young at heart! (kinda)

Pros of getting old: You're wise, you're experienced and you've seen the better, simpler times (picture of a penny and candy).

Cons of getting old: grey hairs, wrinkles, and all the thrills of your life are over (at least most are).

In the Name of Jesus

I watched this story in horror last night on Nightline.  Never has a story made me more ashamed  about what  happens in the name Jesus or sickened me more.  Some of the images are pretty graphic.  But, everyone needs to know this is going on.  Children are being tortured by "pastors" and abandoned by their families "in the name of Jesus".  Click on the videos on the right hand side of the page you're linked to see the video of what is happening to children in the Congo.  Where are the churches that brought Christianity to Africa now?  Why aren't they helping to put a stop to this barbarism?

If the first link doesn't work, try the second.

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=7652348

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=7613395&page=1

The Light That Reveals

Image via Wikipedia

This is a very subtle and (I think) profound teaching from Zencast (a Buddhist Podcast I listen to). I guess it is an example of synchronicity that I discovered it as I am reading Thich Nhat Hanh's "No Death No Fear". It's about the nature of reality, who/what we are and just what is death. The idea is we are not what most of us think we are- our thoughts, feelings, emotions, our body. That I get. What it leaves me struggling with is just "what am I?"

Just when I think I'm grasping this, it seems to elude me. Parts of it are clear as a bell. My guess is this teaching will seem like pure nonsense to some. But, for others, I think it will be very helpful. It's about 40 minutes long.

http://amberstar.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=433506

Namaste,
Brian

YOUR American Idol- Kris Allen?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I admit it. I am a huge fan of American Idol (and a bunch of other reality TV shows). It's great entertainment for the family. This season, there was an abundance of uniquely talented people on the show. IMO, for the most part, America got it right. Until last night when Kris Allen was chosen over Adam Lambert as the winner. Kris was deemed the "dark horse" a few weeks back. And, last night in a result that shocked Kris himself, he was declared the American Idol.

I wasn't a big fan of Adam at the beginning.  I still don't care for a lot of his music. I don't care for his screaming. I was a Danny fan. I love Danny's story. I love his voice. And, I love his attitude. Danny is the kind of guy who I could see leading a contemporary Christian group, the kind of music I listened to a lot, back in the day. But, as the weeks wore on, I had to admit that Adam not only was a little better than Danny, Adam had lapped the entire field. When you look at stand out performances for the season, each Idol may have had one or two, while Adam had several. When you look at the ability to take a song and "make it your own", Adam clearly blew everyone else off of the stage. When you look at the range of emotions the contestants were able to display, Adam could croon an old soul song, do a killer remake of "Mad World", do Steven Tyler proud or mix a Johnny Cash with an Indian feel in a way you'd never imagine it otherwise. Slowly, I had to admit that Adam deserved to win.

I heard a rumor a few weeks ago that Adam is gay (or bi-sexual). I don't know if it's true and I don't care. There was speculation about whether that would hurt his chances of winning. I don't know if it did or not. I sure hope not. After Danny was the last to be eliminated, there was speculation that Danny's clean cut (Christian?) fans would all side with Kris Allen. Is that what pushed Kris over the top?

Anyway, it's just a title. Adam will be fine. More than fine. Adam will have a stellar career. But, last night, America got it wrong. Adam Lambert should have been the American Idol 2009.

p.s.- the finale show last night was fantastic.  My favorite performance was (surprisingly) Cyndi Lauper and Allison doing Time After Time.  That was awesome!

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Anger- Book Review

Cover of Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames

A couple of weeks ago I gave you a sneak peek at a book I was reading "Anger- Wisdom for Cooling the Flames" by Thich Nhat Hanh. In case you don't know, Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who knew Martin Luther King and who has been very active in the peace movement for several decades. He writes in a very simple, easy to understand style (I think typical of practitioners of Buddhism) and has become one of my favorite authors. Anger is a short, easy read. But, I think is best read slowly. No more than a chapter at a time, maximum. It must be pondered over and reflected on as you read it. It's a book to be savored, not devoured.

I'm afraid to begin pointing out the highlights in the book because it's one of those where I could easily end up retyping the whole book over again. But, I'll try to restrain myself. A couple of keys to dealing with anger (or any negative emotion) is first of all to not deny it or fight it. This is counterintuitive and possibly counter-cultural. We are to embrace our emotions, acknowledge them and treat them like our baby. We turn our mindfulness to them and view each emotion, even the negative ones as something we can turn into something good. Thich Nhat Hanh equates negative emotions to garbage or compost that can be used to make a garden grow. Nothing is to be thrown out. But, the things that are negative must be transformed. We do this through mindfulness, focusing our attention on what our emotions are, calming and soothing them and through compassion for ourselves and for others.

Something that might bug some Christians are references to the spirit of the Buddha that is within all of us. But, this is a matter of semantics, IMO. The Budda nature, mindfulness, the mind of Christ, the Holy Spirit are all different words for the same thing. If hearing Hanh talk about turning to the Buddha within you bothers you, when you're reading his books, just substitute the word "Christ" for Buddha and I think you'll get the point. The point is the mindfulness that can transform our anger, our fear, our despair, whatever is accessible to all of us. Atheists, Buddhists, Christians alike can tap into this transforming power and change themselves and the world.

Nhat Hanh gives some great practical ways to deal with anger, including making a peace treaty with our loved ones. This is not a treaty made after you are angry. It is a standing agreement about how you are going to face your own anger, own your own anger, acknowledge your anger to yourself and your loved one, take ownership of your part of the misunderstanding and work to resolve your anger. He gives examples of how to write a peace letter to someone you are angry with and set up an appointment in the future to deal with the issue. There is a chapter titled "No Enemies" which lets us know that we are not truly separate individuals and that we can be neither happy, angry or anything else completely independent of others around us.

Some have accused Eastern religions of being too "me" centered and not focused enough on serving others. That is either a misunderstanding or a lie. But, it's not true. To love others, we first have to love ourselves. To have compassion for others, we must first be compassionate with ourselves. To help someone out of quicksand, one doesn't jump into the quicksand, one must be standing on firm ground. I love this passage from the book:

A pregnant mother can be very happy every time she thinks of the baby inside of her. The baby, although not born yet, can give the mother a lot of joy. Every moment of her daily life, she is aware of the baby's presence, so she does everything with love. She eats with love, she drinks with love because she knows that without her love, the baby may not be healthy. She very careful all the time. She knows that if she makes a mistake, is she smokes a lot, if she dinks a lot of alcohol, this will not be good for the baby. So she's very mindful, and she lives with the mind of love.

Practitioners have to act very much like a mother. We know that we want to produce somthing, we want to offer something to humanity, to the world. Each of us carries within ourselves a baby-- the baby Buddha, and it is the baby Buddha within us that we can offer. We must live in mindfulness in order to take good care of our baby Buddha.

As I was reading the book, I quickly realized that the practices Nhat Hanh was talking about can be applied not only to anger, which is not my biggest issue but to the emotions of fear, despair, etc. Any negative emotion must be treated with compassion, mindfulness and can be transformed. I also realized that dealing with anger in the way he prescribes requires a great deal of humility; humility that many of us lack. It's not easy to admit to ourselves that we are angry, let alone to our loved ones. As one who tends to be passive aggressive, it takes a great deal of mindfulness for me to do this practice. Taking ownership in our part of the disagreement also requires humility. Admitting what we did wrong and asking for forgiveness for our lack of skillfulness puts us in a position of vulnerability if the other party instead of reciprocating decides to jump on us with the blame game. While these things are extremely simple, that does not mean they are easy and practicing this way will be difficult for people who have not yet begun to overcome their egocentricity.

I liked this book so much that before I finished it, I ordered "No Death, No Fear" by Thich Nhat Hanh. That will be the third book of his I've read, the first being "Living Buddha, Living Christ". I cannot recommend Anger too highly. Ty and I have made an appointment to study this book together (only the second one we've ever done that with). If we can both put into practice what this book teaches, it'll make us better partners, parents, friends and members of our community. So, we plan to read and discuss it together so that we can help each other practice. That's what a sangha does.

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War, No More Trouble

Anger

Image via Wikipedia

I'm about 3/4 of the way through Thich Nhat Hanh's book "Anger".  It's unbelievably good and I will be reviewing it here.  But, there is something I needed to share right away.  On Sunday we were discusssing an adoption policy I've written about here before.  It's one in our county that gives preferential treatment to "traditional" couples over singles and gays.  I've written about how I am not in the majority opinion in our church (in fact I might be in a minority of one).  I don't think the policy, as written is heinous.  However, that's not the point of the post.  What I heard from people at our church was a lot of anger and frustration over the policy.  That's cool.  I think there is a such a thing as righteous indignation and it's an important motivator when it comes to confronting injustice.  But, we have to be careful and this is where Thich Nhat Hanh's wisdom comes in.  He writes:

If you think compassionate people do not resist and challenge injustice, you are wrong.  They are warriors, heroes and heroines who have gained many victories.  When you act with compassion, with non-violence, when you act on the basis of non-duality (not seeing others as separate from yourself), you have to be  very strong.  You no longer act out of anger, you do not punish or blame.  Compassion grows constantly inside of you, and you can succeed in your fight against injustice. Mahatma Gandhi was just one person. He did not have any bombs, any guns, or any political party.  He acted simply on the insight of non-duality, the strength of compassion, not anger.

Human beings are not our enemy. Our enemy is not the other person.  Our enemy is the violence, ignorance and injustice in us (emphasis mine) and in the other person. When we are armed with compassion and understanding, we fight not against other people, but against the tendency to invade, to dominate, and to exploit.  We don't want to kill others.  But, we will not let them dominate and exploit us or other people. 

As we progressives go out into the world to fight injustice, we must be careful not to become the thing we hate.  We must be careful not to buy into the us versus them duality.  We must realize that the things we are fighting against are in all of us and that it's those things we must fight, not the people they happen to be manifesting through at the time.  We are all capable of incredible good and incredible evil.  We are not so very different, as much as we would like to think we are. We must have compassion for those who hold the policies we dislike.  We must try to understand where they are coming from and why it is they are doing what they do.  We must approach our "fight" from a non-violent perspective (and I do not mean just physical violence).

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Shayna's Poetry

Image by BrianWestChest via Flickr

Shayna read three of her poems for the arts day at Nexus a week ago yesterday. I couldn't be more proud of her. Most people don't get to see the Shayna we know at home. Here, she's always singing, dancing, jumping, joking whatever. In public, she's very shy. She wanted to share her poetry but was a little nervous. She tried to back out right before the service. But, we told her we thought it would be a good idea for her to go through with it. She did a great job!

Here's a link to her first poetry reading: Shayna's Poetry

Here are the words in case you can't quite make them out from the audio:

MY ORIGINAL POEMS, by Shayna smith.


ICE CUBE

Shiny and square that’s an ice cube for you.
Doesn’t taste like much, just water. Cold, slippery, I drop it on the floor, my dog laps it up, the ice cube is no more.


HIDDEN

There once was a girl who hid in the shadows, her parents sold lotion and some contained types of aloes.

Inside she felt like a star! But she didn’t think her talent would take her far.

She was afraid of what people would think of her, though she wasn’t sure of what she thought of herself.

Her sister didn’t give her much support; every time she showed her talent her sister would abort the area.


But she knew one day she’d be discovered; deep inside, she knew one day she didn’t need to hide.

THE PAGE

Once the page was blank and plain, once it had just red and blue lines. But now words run across the page, but now life has been brought to something lifeless and boring.