An Internal Tiny Shift with Potentially Large External Results

One of the emphases in my graduate program has been a strength-based approach to counseling. The idea being you can aid your clients more effectively by focusing on and highlighting strengths they possess or times they have triumphed over struggle in order to help sustain motivation and, more importantly, hope.

Today I was watching Happy Feet with Ariana and started thinking about difference and socially perceived weakness. Which led me to think about ostracization and group behavior in which those who are perceived to be other, different, weak, or strange are separated from the majority of the group.

Those concepts of seeing someone from a strength-based perspective and treating others with compassion (which is certainly present in the Unitarian Universalist tradition, as well as among many other faiths) strikes me as being an inherently constructive approach to interacting and living with others.

Perhaps it is a good mindfulness exercise... to approach every situation with another human being as an opportunity and a challenge to find and embrace the positive. By seeing beauty, accepting frailty, and connecting with strength, we may be able to feel less isolated ourselves while being an encouraging and affirming source for others.

Impossibility

The story that caught my ear this morning on NPR was about the cyclone that hit Myanmar on Saturday. The death toll is expected to reach at least 10,000, and there are thousands of people with no homes, no place to go, and in danger of getting sick (or worse) due to contaminated drinking water.

Sometimes you'll hear people remark that things could always be worse... that there are always people who are worse off than you are - the logic being that you should therefore count your blessings and stop your grousing about your own discomfort or sorrow.

I prefer to reframe it a bit: There are always people out there who could use some prayers (blessings, good thoughts, good energy) as much or more than you can. There are always people in need of help, compassion, love, and good will - whatever spirit you are able to give them.

There really is so much suffering in the world, it is sometimes staggering to take in. And when a disaster like this occurs, it's overwhelming to realize how many individual lives will be forever changed by one crisis.

I see "elimination of all suffering" as an impossible task. Which does not mean is should not be attempted - quite the opposite. I think it's very important. Important to ruminate and meditate upon, important to discuss with one another and make part of a larger social discussion and collective consciousness, important to attempt throughout our lives in whatever way we can.

Sometimes impossible tasks are necessary. Cervantes called it tilting at windmills, the Buddhists call it enlightenment, and UUs have woven it into their seven principles, seeing it as inherently connected to broader human goals serving as a promise to all people.

To me, faith, belief, hope, and love are all tied to impossibility. They are all celebrations of finding possibility where none seemed to exist... particularly in the midst of suffering.

LackLustre

Andy came across a news story last night about a man who had kept his daughter prisoner in his basement for 24 years. She, nor any of her 7 children (he was the father), had not seen daylight of any kind since her kidnapping at the age of 18.

I was trying to find a link for the story today and came across another story about a man who had killed his infant child. Blunt trauma and suffocation.

These things make me not only question my belief in God, but also my belief in humankind. Now... to be a UU you don't necessarily have to believe in God - you can be agnostic, atheist, or any other kind of yea/nay God-sayer out there. And, I suppose, you don't even have to believe in the goodness of human beings. Believing in the possibilty of reason surely helps, but I don't know that it's a firm requirement.

The idea is to live with the seven UU principles in mind. To promise to live with certain things in mind (these are taken from the UUA website):

We affirm and promote...

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Which I suppose is the point. Despite the lack of some of these elements within the world... my goal - my purpose - as a UU is to faithfully affirm and promote these principles myself. To respond to hatred, fear, violence, etc. with compassion, respect, acceptance, etc.

One of my instructors talked about using approach statements with group work; in essence, the point is to respond to any conflict with openness and moving in, rather than moving away or shutting down. Not always the easiest thing to do... but it's such a wonderful way to conceptualize response to any negative response or behavior one might encounter.

And to me, it does connect back to God, or my concept of God (albeit somewhat shaken at times). To me, all seven principles relate to an inherent belief that all people are divine. A piece of a larger, interconnected whole that - on a very basic level - must be accepted with openness and an attempt at honest connection or communication.

It connects to counseling too: everyone has a story; everyone comes from a unique past that is unlike any other... and paradoxically, on that insane level of multiplicity and diversity, we are universally linked in ways that make us one.

And some days that is more joyful than others.