I See From Where I Stand
I usually limit my exposure to television news. Yet this week, I find myself unable to turn my back on the suffering in the South. And as images flash across the screen and we all try to make sense of it, the Haitian proverb rings in my ears: “I see from where I stand.”
I talked to a man this week who told me, “Whoever didn’t get out of harm’s way, deserves to be stuck in the water.” He sees from where he stands: comfortable home, three cars in the garage, a supportive family to take him in and a stint in Vietnam in which he coped by hardening himself to human suffering.
I read a news story in which a young mother, who has never stolen anything, walks into an empty grocery to gather supplies for her family. The poor feel abandoned in this country of plenty. Leaders wonder why blame is being dumped at their doorstep, insisting they could never have predicted such mass destruction. The scientist shakes her head as she remembers unheeded warnings.
I see from where I stand.
I am discouraged by the defensive tone I hear on television. I am tempted to abandon my optimism.
Yesterday, at the local Red Cross, the phones ring with offers of help. A group of seventh grade girls from Evanston offer to donate $700 from their weekend car wash. Yvonne, from a local clown troupe, offers to entertain the children at the hurricane shelter. Marty, the weary Red Cross volunteer rolls his eyes, “Who needs clowns,” he says. “Just send money.” Sue, the student nurse, shrugs her shoulders, “Bless their hearts-they all want to help. Bring in the clowns.”
I see from where I stand. It is hard to see where you stand because your world is not mine. I have not seen what you have seen. The truth is, I am often blind. Blind to you and blind to me.
Wake up, every religious and wisdom tradition teaches. Wake up. To what? To yourself. To your assumptions, your biases, your limited perceptions. To your deepest center that is often hidden even from yourself. The spiritual path is always in invitation within. It is an invitation to mystery-assume nothing about anyone or anything… especially yourself. Wake up.
Richard Rohr says we are a “circumference people, with little access to the center. We live on the boundaries of our lives, confusing edges with essence, too quickly claiming the superficial as substance.”
So how do we move from edges to essence, from superficial to substance? How do we reconcile the incongruence of good and evil of human experience without becoming cynical or naive? How do we discern between ignorance and innocence and openness?
Awareness. Consciousness. Know that our reality is always limited. Know that we always may be wrong. Know that we see from where we stand.
Where do you stand? What is your reality? How does your life experience shape the way you receive and respond to the world? These questions are an invitation to respond to our lives with conscious intention. The good news is that a conscious response is a moral response. The bad news is that you could be wrong-limited by your lack of awareness of the whole.
Confusing stuff and it is precisely the reason that groupthink has such appeal. Tell me what to think, Ms. Newscaster. Tell me what to believe political pundit. Tell me how to dress, fashionista. Tell me who I am dear partner. Define my life wise teacher. Tell me who God is Preacher Man. Shape my reality because I am tired of grey. I long for certainty.
Perhaps we can admit this longing for black and white even as we choose the road less traveled in which we ask deeper questions that help us open our eyes about ourselves and others. Consciousness is simply an inward attentiveness. We awaken from this unconscious sleep state by turning inward.
I think this is why I am so taken by the Enneagram system of personality types because it nails our anger, pride and sloth. It outs our envy, gluttony and greed and unmasks our lust and deceit. It is startlingly true. The wisdom of every spiritual tradition is hidden between every line.
When I read the description of my personality style, my face grows hot. “Who knows this about me?” I wonder. How did she know about my chronic overscheduling, my intellectualizing to avoid painful emotions, my fear when my ideas about my self worth are challenged?
Face to face with my own shadow self, I am less likely to hide. There is a sort of freedom in this. I have seen the enemy and it is me. A little less “holier than thou” and a lot more, “I know where you stand.”
The move from circumference to center takes us beyond what is comfortable. It’s disconcerting at times, illuminating at others. Yet, it engenders humility and compassion-I’m a bit less likely to nail you for that speck in your eye as I have this plank in my own. We’re in this together. We can even laugh at ourselves. We can look into each face and look in the mirror know there is an untold story that we can’t even begin to fathom. Wake up, wake up, wake up so we can see where we stand.
Where I stand is in a place where I am sometimes afraid of this unpredictable world. I long to make meaning out of it all and wrap words around painful events so I can avoid the hurt of sadness and loss.
I stand in a place of privilege where I never go hungry, or wonder whether my children will have a home, and where I face minimal discrimination for the religion I practice, the color of my skin, or the language I speak. I stand in a place that has been touched by loss.
I stand in a place that is mine alone. My deepest hope is that more consciousness can come to our wounded world so that your place and their places and my place can, for even a brief moment, connect in a way so that allows enough closeness to hold one another’s heart in compassion and enough space to allow the freedom to be who we are called to be.