"Toxic empathy" and the need for spiritual practices

We are just over the halfway mark in the 40 days of Lent, and so it seems about right that I feel lost in the dark right now. Things feel like … sludge.

Luckily I understand that now is the time to push. Not to quit. To keep going. Regardless of how it’s feeling.

Our feelings cannot be our motivations or we’ll never do anything challenging enough to really evolve in any important way.

(Talking to myself there because oy…)

So I keep doing the things: I keep reading the books and I keep filling out the journals.

In the meantime, as I struggle, the grass is greening and the lilacs have tiny, tight, purple bud clusters and baby leaves. The hyacinths in our front bed have tight buds also and you can tell their colors already.

Things are happening. The earth is awakening whether I am lost in the dark or not.

I will catch up. Eventually.

A moment of wakefulness

I was feeling all of this as extra heavy weight the other day, and I went outside to sit on the stoop and do some midday reading. It was quite warm and the sun was out.

People in just t-shirts were happily walking their dogs The birds were singing.

And when I tilted my face to the sun filled sky, I could feel the warmth in my bones. Something I crave all winter.

I started to read and felt that familiar, “What’s the damn point?” nagging at me from the part of me that too easily gives into despair and apathy. (The part of me that I wrote about over on Substack as my inner Frodo.)

From down the block, I could hear a bike coming and I could tell it was pulling something because it sounded so rickety.

I looked up as a man rode by. Things looked rough for him. And I just about burst into tears.

I went back to my book and immediately read this line:

“Bonaventure reminds us that the human person is the temple of God where the spirit dwells.”

— From Franciscan Prayer, Ilia Delio, OSF

And that just floored me: to read that just as that man rode past me… a man whom this ugly administration would gladly allow to disappear. A man this administration does not see any reason to help. (And so many like him or near to like him whom they see as undeserving.)

In the ugliness of evangelical Christianity, this man must be doing something wrong and his life is a sign of some sort of judgement. My feelings for his dignity, my conviction that he is as deserving of all good things as anyone else would be seen by them as “toxic empathy.”

Fuck that.

Our current culture is demented.

That man on that bike (and all humans who suffer or struggle) are the responsibility of all of us.

My point

To most of you, my point is obvious.

The work I’m doing for Lent is important because it is the necessary work of allowing our hearts to be broken by this broken world.

Because every time we allow that brokenness, the heart expands in its capacity to sit with and witness the pain of the world.

And one thing we need more of: People who can sit with the pain of others and not be overwhelmed by it or, like for too many, to be repulsed by it.

War, Snicker Bites, and Joy

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that, for the first time in a long time, I was going to do some things for Lent. When I was more of a practicing sort of Catholic (though in my own wonky ways, as you all know), Lent was actually one of my favorite times of the year.

Which sounds like a weird thing to say but I loved the 40 days set aside for deep diving into our own inner dark caves (as a priest in Erie put it one time). This was a time for me to seriously up my daily spiritual practices and to explore the shadow sides of me that had maybe taken over a bit too much.

Over the last few years, I’ve been drowning in a sort of existential despair that has dragged me into total and complete atheism — a place that is really dangerous for my mental health. I know some people create a really happy and meaningful life as atheists. There are many paths in this life. So I’m not knocking atheism but admitting that it is harmful to my own particular psyche.

The world is too dark for me to not believe in anything. My own brain is too dark, actually. I need a place outside of myself to place and practice devotion. For me, that’s usually Our Lady of Guadalupe and other forms of Mary, but it’s also the writings of Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day and writings about Saints Francis and Claire and Hildegarde and Teresa, to name a few.

For this Lent, my first really in many years, I am doing daily morning reading and writing that is focused on this time. I’m trying to be more mindful about my own inner world.

And though I’ve not succeeded, I am, as I wrote, attempting to let go of apathy and lethargy.

Then there’s…

Sugar

This one seems silly and trite, right? Like when we were little and we would give up something we loved. Or how some people see Lent as this weird time to backdoor some toxic eating habits and maybe lose some weight.

I wanted to give up added sugar and chocolate because I was feeling like it was too much in my life. Like I was no longer in charge of it. Like it was no longer a treat.

Also, my family has a lot of diabetes so this was, for me, a reset for my health. Again, a pretty self centered Lenten practice but I felt like I needed that added motivation.

Then Craig said something to me the other day that made me stop and think. He was teasing but it hit me deeper: “What’s gonna happen at the end of Lent? Will you just eat ALL the chocolate?”

If I’m really wanting or needing a reset for my health, then this all or nothing thinking is not helpful, because eventually, I will just land back at ALL.

War and Joy

I had already reevaluated my lenten practice at about day 12, and then this vile and stupid administration decided to put the entire world at an elevated level of danger by starting a war in Western Asia (a more proper way of referring to the Middle East, which is a colonizer term).

There are a lot of reasons to be extra afraid about this war. I won’t go into that all here because that’s not what this space is for. But suffice it to say that this is way worse than is being talked about in mainstream media.

I’m paying attention but I’m also trying not to get too lost in the dark maze of frightening details about what is happening or what could happen.

Because there’s a point that that will just flatten me.

A little bit of compartmentalization can go a long way right now.

Back to sugar…

It struck me that I am living in this state of denying myself joy when we have no idea what tomorrow will bring.

That is always the case, of course, but right now, it feels more … real… more noticeable.

So here’s the conclusion I came to:

We must find bits of joy where we can right now.

For me, that’s a Snickers bite with my second small coffee after lunch. And maybe a second.

We owe ourselves good care. We owe those around us a certain level of care for ourselves too.

Most often that care looks like making sure you’re doing movement practices and spiritual practices and studying that supports your mental and emotional and physical health.

And sometimes that care looks like chocolate.

(Speaking of practices, a new session of Peony Somatic Dance and Quickie Yoga online starts next week so go here to see what’s up and to register.)

And check out my most recent Substack about my migraine journey, neurodivergence, and disability.

A few things you might have missed

I’ll get back to more regular blogs here next week, but this week has been filled with bad sleep and a lot of nightmares. I hope that’s not the same for anyone reading this.

First, I wrote another post over on my Substack, Gladiola. Remember that it’s free to subscribe and will remain so. I am doing deeper writing over there and it feels good. This current piece, Watering Begonias & Singing, is about the importance of having even just one witness when you’re little and things are hard.

Second, another session starts next week, the week of February 9th. I know online doesn’t necessarily feel the same as being in the same room, but I’m so grateful for people who are willing to tolerate that difference because the work means more to them than the tech. Our new Wednesday, 10:15 to 11 AM Peony Somatic Dance has been a successful experiment and will continue to be on the schedule.

And finally, here’s the most recent movement mantra (obviously). Last week someone let me know that they used it for their phone home screen so they’d see it and think about it all through the day. I love that!

Speaking of movement mantras… if there was ever anything I would say in classes that really hit you in a helpful or good way, I’d love to hear so I can maybe use that someday!

Gladiola: my grandmother's garden and a new offering

When I was little, we would spend a lot of Saturday nights at my maternal grandmother’s house and then attend Methodist church with her in the morning. She was a teacher in the Sunday school.

Wilda Vickery Peterson was one of the kindest humans I’ve ever known, and my belief in a social justice warrior sort of Christ really comes from her (to begin with. Later in life, I found Merton and Day and so many Catholic mystics but that’s another story).

My grandmother had a large kitchen and in one section there was a chalkboard, which everyone loved, and a small table surrounded by windows. It almost gave a small sunroom effect.

And I would stand at those windows in the good weather and stare out at her large vegetable garden. What mystified me was this: at the end of that garden, year after year, there were always a couple of rows of gladiolas.

October 1917

Wilda was born in October of 1917. She was born into World War I still raging. She was born as the Bolsheviks were completing their overthrow of the Russian government. She was born mere months before the Spanish flu would explode all over the globe.

She would spend a big chunk of her 20s living through and having her first daughter during WWII. She knew what a victory garden was through direct experience.

And she would live through the rest of the century — past her own century mark — seeing too much change to list here. She would not pass from her human form until June of 2020 at the age of 102 and a half.

I bring all of this up to say that she saw more than what many of us are seeing. She, too, lived through times that felt “unprecedented.” Over and over, actually.

And yet she was covered in and surrounded by flowers on her wedding day.

And she grew those few rows of gladiola every year until her oldest granddaughter could stand and admire them out her kitchen window.

Gladiola — a “magazine” of sorts in her honor

I have been thinking for a couple of years of writing over on Substack. There were reasons why I kept not doing it, but I have satisfied my own sense of what’s right and good and admire so many writers over there that I know it’s time.

I will still write here and will replicate some of what’s here to over there and there will be material over there there’s not here.

I will write about movement and the body, of course, but also my love of literature and flowers and anything else that is feeling like it must be written, anything else that I am geeking out about and need to share for the joy of sharing.

And that space will be called Gladiola: Move. Write. Plant. (Click to go over and check it out and it would be great if you wold subscribe. That space will always remain free of charge.)

I realized that those two rows at the end of that practical vegetable garden are the perfect metaphor for the times we’re living in, when we can sometimes forget that beauty for beauty’s sake still matters. When we can forget that we must also feed the heart and the soul and that sometimes the best food for those things are often materials and experiences we start to think of as “unnecessary.”

Gladiola is also perfect for its meaning. Flowers have carried meaning for as long as humans have loved them, and the gladiola is about strength, resilience, moral integrity, and remembrance. Perfect things for Wilda to have planted in so many ways and a perfect name for what I hope to share.

My larger garden

And for those keeping track, this Gladiola will be part of a growing garden of my work: Peony Somatic Dance, of course, is my core passion and my true work in the world and is named for my soul cat, but there’s also Lillian Rose Movement Project, the name under which I create choreographic community experiences, which is named for my paternal grandmother.

May this garden continue to grow and continue to nurture others.