Author Archives: Jeff Brunson

About Jeff Brunson

After a career in the corporate world, I began my practice encouraging the confidence in our leaders. The 21st Century belongs to the aware, focused, and loving leader; leaders acting on the power of their own authenticity while leading others to their own confident contribution.

Justice: A Participation Essay

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If Jesus were to come to earth today, as human as before, we would find him already rounded up and deported to El Salvador.

In no way do I intend humor with this thought. It saddens me to even think such a thing. But I have every right to say such. And I now struggle with where to act from such sadness. Several years ago, thanks to my diligent study in Fr. Richard Rohr’s writings, I actually found comfort in accepting my deep sadness.

“Anything less than the death of the false self is useless religion.” —Richard Rohr

Richard Rohr, of the Center for Action and Contemplation, this year released his book, The Tears of Things. Accordingly, and very appropriately, a participative course was created based on the book; based on the need for us to do something. I am participating in this course as I complete this essay. The course, and the interaction with other students, is further helping with the deep sadness, and allowing me to also better understand and move through my anger.

“Anger hardens, while sadness saves.” —Richard Rohr (p 147  in  The Tears of Things)

Anger
I don’t remember where I heard or read this: You are not your opinions. It impacted me greatly. Moving consciously away from my own opinions—superfluous mind clutter—made me a better listener, and a better coach while still working with clients. Moving beyond opinions, collectively, is crucial to rebuilding the health of religion. In healthy religion, justice is about Distributive Justice—earth belongs equally to all, no matter what (for Christians, this is biblical).

Earth belongs equally to all. How does that make you feel to read that?

Do you get it. Or do you feel some form of anger that someone is getting more than you; someone who doesn’t deserve it? I’ve been there. That’s part of the deep burning of complicity I regret. But what about injustice? If you do some searches around the word injustice, you will basically find references to a lack of fairness or equity. Equity: There lies the rub; at least in America.

The damage we’ve collectively allowed by our political, and religious, misunderstanding of justice burns deep within me; mostly because of my own complicity along my journey. In our Western society, justice has very unfortunately taken on the narrow definition of ‘bring the responsible party to justice’ or ‘justice will be served’ or … well, you get it. When the word justice is used, it’s usually about crime and punishment. Or in the current political climate in the U.S., retribution and vengeance.

Collective Complicity
My slot car racing buddy and I, in between our competitive bouts, go onto his screened porch and talk, about anything from movies to racing movies (we try to stay narrowly focused on the hobby). We try not to talk politics due to our common anger at our current environment. On occasion it’s religion, of sorts. He has often stated that religion has only one purpose, to control us. He ain’t completely wrong, but he’s not completely correct either.

As Richard Rohr has so often stated in his many writings, healthy religion is about a bringing together (re-ligio means “re-ligament”). The religion my friend has observed is a false/unhealthy religion. Such religious activity is about just what he said; to control each other, and to justify the false self. This ego driven, narcissistic self leans on a self-created small god misleading one toward a mode to be right, making one believe they are better than the other. And because this mode has been in control in Western Civilization, many have abandoned their respective religion. I believe it’s only going to get worse—unless we can learn to feel, hear, and see each other with love.

Hope
Participating in the course with the Center for Action and Contemplation has challenged me to reconnect with my Voice, and the Strength of my Voice. My Voice and its Strength: The one thing for me that must be present with every interaction for things to be the best they can, is Love. And when that is the case, then the one thing I cannot help but do, is Encourage.

In my corporate career, when given a new team to lead, one of the first things I did to give them a look into who I am was to tell them the following: I don’t expect you to become buddies who go to the movies and eat out of the same popcorn bag. But while you are at work, I do expect you to treat each other with dignity and respect. It was this foundation that led me to consciously work to become the best listener I could be for those I led. Little did I know during this learning and practice that I would later make my living listening.

One of my favorite movies is The Abyss. In one scene, Lindsey was responding to the fear of Lt. Coffee when she said to Bud; “You have to look with better eyes than that.” What if we learned to look with eyes void of fear? What if we then allowed love to clear our eyes to reality? If we learn to look past fear, division, and not participate in dehumanizing others who are different, what reality might we see?

“The endless divisions that we create between us and that we live and die for— whether they are our religions, our ethnic groups, our nationalities— are so totally irrelevant to God. God just wants us to love each other.” — Desmond Tutu

Collective Grace
When inept individuals hold positions of supposed leadership, those of us who have the ability to act must join together and collectively speak firmly from love while committed to coherent, nonviolent methods. It is such individual and collective action that is what true justice is about. Otherwise, the incompetent will continue to undermine those on the margins, while they work to add us each and all to that space outside what they deem as acceptable and valuable. 

The needle has been pointing to serious for far too long in this world. It is disgusting in America, where we claim such greatness, that the dashboard reads just the same. Our supposed leaders at the top of the political spectrum, in the very week I type this, joked about humans being surrounded by and eaten by alligators.

So yes, I really do believe if Jesus were to be here today, he would be shoved into the margins of the forgotten, deemed unworthy of life in a misguided, meritocratic society. If we pay attention to the very life and words of Jesus, it would be clear as crystal that the very ones we shove to the margins would be the very ones with whom he would spend all his time. He would simply do what he did before! And his message of the Kingdom of God within would still be the same, and even those at the top would still be threatened by such Good News.

Simple Presence
When we moved into our community six years ago, there were three white ducks in the main lake (American Pekin ducks I believe). My wife named them Duncan & Hines (she gives funny names to critters she loves). It got to the point where we couldn’t drive by without looking to be sure they were there swimming together safely. Nature takes its course. Six years later we were down to one lone duck. We were saddened when it got to two, and really down when it got to the one. We held such compassion for this one. Then a couple of weeks ago, a young white duck appeared at the lake. Without realizing it too consciously, I’m sure we said a prayer that the two would find each other. Recently, my wife and I came home from dining out and passed by the lake. And sure enough, there they were, in the rain, swimming happily together. Yes, this gives me hope.

So … now what? What is being asked of this tired and retired leadership coach?

The Reality of Experience

A long and loving look
at what is before me
a page-turner of a book
a beautiful picture of reality.

Precious is my time
in the stream to be still
in the flow-of-it-all metaphorically
metaphorical not meaning not real
quite real it is
in what I see, hear, and feel.

Yes, in the stream splash trout
indeed a noise resounds
and if no one to hear is about
beauty still issues and abounds.

To flow is to be still
to be still is to flow
the holding makes me real
and releasing causes me to grow.

Yes, long and loving
is how I must continue to see
and still and flowing
is the experience of reality.

Notes & Influences:

Cameron, James. 1989. The Abyss. Twentieth Century Fox.

Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage. New York: Convergent Books, 2025.

Tutu, Desmond. God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time. New York: Image Books, Doubleday, 2024.

For a better look into Distributive Justice (vs. Retributive Justice), invest some time with this book:

Crossan, John Dominic. How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian: Struggling with Divine Violence from Genesis through Revelation. New York: Harper Collins, 2015.
from p. 19
“From House through Land to Earth it should always be a matter of distributive justice and restorative righteousness.”
from p. 78
“I emphasize that in the biblical tradition nonviolent distributive justice is not a command by God but is the character of God.”
from p. 169
“For Jesus, therefore, nonviolent resistance to evil is divine before it is human and should be human because it is divine.”

Grace: A Participation Essay

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One Word.
Beginning each essay around one word has been my way of seeding the thoughts—sparking the contemplation required for my style of processing and ultimately getting it together to do this thing called writing. Select any one essay, with any one word associated, and I can guarantee one thing, I am most likely not very qualified to write about it; but I do anyway.

In the essay entitled Compassion, I wrote about three masters of unconditional love; Snoopy, Freckles, and BB. At that time, BB, our daughter’s Yorkie Terrier, was 13. That was four years ago. He left us in his 17th year. Once his mom found her own house, he still stayed with us during her work day. He and I loved to watch Drew Carey on The Price is Right (CBS). BB’s physical condition had come to the point where he could not be left alone. If his back legs gave way, he couldn’t get back up by himself. And every time I picked him up, I would get a kiss. But at the end, his heart weakened and breathing had become labored. Even though our days had become restrictive for his care, I miss him so much. The Price is Right just ain’t the same. Sorry Drew.

The unconditional love of a dog is one fine way of being known by grace.

Grace, a Way of Being
As Parker J. Palmer has written on many occasions, we will have our heart broken. He encourages the individual to not allow the heart to break apart, but embrace that it has broken open. What I hear in there is that broken open can now allow more to come into our heart, into the core of our being.

Four weeks after the heartbreaking goodbye with BB, grace appeared to our daughter. Macy came to live with her. She is an 11 year old, full of energy, sweet and cuddly Yorkie. Macy’s owner passed away when Macy was about 6. She went to live with Teresa (daughter of owner) and family, including big dogs and horses. For some time, Teresa kept saying to Anna that Macy should come and live with her. Of course Anna was very dedicated to BB’s needs and last years. Teresa delivered Macy and her belongings on Anna’s birthday, saying it was okay to be on a trial basis. It was love at first sight—trial over.

When I was a very young man, my maternal grandfather, as he met the end of his life, said to me that he had no regrets. I determined to be able to say that in my later years. This year, I hit the ripe age of 70 and I have to be honest, I do have a few regrets. Recently one of those regrets came to the surface—that I did not find a way to pursue Veterinary Medicine. The lack of money stopped this aim in my sophomore year in college. I love creation and the Creator’s creatures. If you listen, creation and the creatures speak to us about a Oneness that is very real with The Mother—this wonderful earth, and throughout the universe.

At the same time, I don’t regret my settling (maybe) for a degree in Accounting; it has served me well. This knowledge and experience provided me opportunities of connection and camaraderie that I treasure. Most of it just memories now—remembered in the stories I tell when needed. Maybe I’m ever more free to love creation, and from the love returned to me from same, love others. But I currently feel the confrontation of tangible love and political sensibilities.

Conscious Oneness
On November 5th of this birthday year, my country, by majority, chose clearly to move further down the path of violence and hate. I’m afraid I will carry this deep disgust and disappointment in my spirit for the remainder of my life. My daily walks since have been challenging; meditation circumvented by the processing of disbelieving anger. Normally I’m rather consistent with being with nature and the oneness of all creation as I walk. As I say, this has been a struggle, but on November 11, something happened—something difficult to describe. But here, I try.

It is not uncommon on my walks to see deer. There is one deer in particular that I’ve labeled as “my girlfriend”—a lovely doe who never seems disturbed by my presence. While others that may be near raise the white flag of tail and bound into the trees, she stays and just looks at me, and often will simply go about grazing on grass as before I arrived. On the 11th, it had been quite a while since I’d seen her. Have you ever had the feeling that someone is looking at you, or that there’s the presence of another suddenly close by? It’s the feeling I get just before seeing her—and let’s be clear, she always knows I’m there before I see her.

On the morning of the 11th, the feeling of presence was abrupt. I had been walking along with my hands clasped together behind me, making my heart center very open, a physical posture not normal to me. I stopped cold in my tracks, looked to my left into the trees, and there she was, those beautiful eyes gazing intently, her ears perked, and not a single movement. As usual I spoke to her, reminding her of her beauty and sweet spirit. I had the feeling she was not alone, but the Creator’s camouflage made it hard to determine any others; I would not have even seen her but for the power of her uniqueness.

I decided to leave her to her purpose for the morning, took a few steps and found myself stopped again and looking right back to where she was. She had not moved and I then saw the other two, their eyes gazing intently and ears perked just like her. It was if all three were not real. Then it happened. My hands were still at my back and my center exposed, when directly from the three some form of energy hit me square in my center. Everything I’d been mentally processing left me, I began to breathe deep breaths, and my eyes filled with tears. After a few moments all I could think, and say, was Thanks. I continued on my walk and about 2 or 3 minutes later felt it all over again.

I honestly do not know what I experienced, but it was real—a tangible communication gifted to me directly from these three creatures. It was if she were three in one, one in three, and by such grace I was gifted this oneness. As the hours went by, I found myself wondering if something had been given to me or had something been taken away from me. Or could it be both?

Love is the Answer
Somewhere along the way with writing, I talked about my writing in coffee shops. As a Coach, being an excellent listener was the skill (and care) that made me into a Coach many years ago. However, I still listen in those coffee shops, hearing anything said around me; it drives me nuts—which is why I listen to music from my phone as I write. And many times, to get it all flowing, I listen to Todd Rundgren’s Love is the Answer. I love this song for many reasons, but mostly because it fires up my voice in the writing.

And so now I’m faced with re-firing my voice in the world—in a world where I am increasingly tempted to give up hope and at the same time determined to hope against hope. So I pray—without words—that when tempted to give up, my doe friend-girl will continue to stop me in my tracks, Macy will continue to wriggle with excitement when she sees me and continue to enjoy our rides together, and lick my hand and neck incessantly. It will be the creatures and creation, without a shadow of a doubt, that keep me going.

There is no other way. It cannot be done with hatred. It can only be done by people who have compassion and awareness of their own lives in the light of creation.
—James Lawson

So let us one-by-one detach from any and all we may have been taught that allows any form of violence in thought, talk, or task. May we forgive ourselves, and one another, for individual and collective complicity in this hateful flow.

I’m grappling with the reality that I may not live to see this prayer answered in a collective realm. But maybe such prayer breathed is the very essence of hope against hope for me as an individual on this earth treasure.

The soul does not attach, nor does it hate; it desires and loves and lets go.
—Fr. Richard Rohr

The First Shall be Last

For way too long, and since it first began,
to put oneself above another man.
In this country, free as we say,
we put our differences on display.

Holy seemed, to put America first,
only to present ourselves at our worst.
And once again, now disguised as maga,
we continue the disgusting saga.

Innocent are almost none
and I not the least of one.

Symbols of hate,
stands you’ve been given.
The same dark slate,
I too have striven!

Love’s opposite is not hate,
its contrary is fear brutal.
To hate a deadly state,
to love a state fruitful.

Fear to rid, love to ride,
on a wave of spirit
we must learn to abide.

History, knowledge lacking,
not what sets us to the brink.
It is learning not backing
one’s ability to think.

So hate won’t
make America great again.
So please don’t
make America hate again.

So first is not the path to great,
nor is hate the patriots way.
For only love will clear the slate,
and bring us to a better day.

From here, where do we go?
For me, now, all I know,
I shall quietly proceed.
Relishing silence indeed.

For love is our destiny,
compassion our call,
charity our legacy,
and justice for all.

Notes & Influences:

Palmer, Parker J. Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2024

Rundgren, Todd. Love is the Answer. Album: Oops! Wrong Planet, 1977.

Lawson Jr., James M. Revolutionary Nonviolence: Organizing for Freedom. Oakland: University of California Press, 2022.

Rohr, Fr. Richard. Daily Meditations: The Grace of Powerlessness. Center for Action and Contemplation, July 15, 2024.

(The poem, The First Shall be Last, was written in early 2021 and not published, or shared, until now.)

Liminality: A Participation Essay

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Here I am in a liminal space, possibly in between, yet again. The work that I did is done, and the most important thing to remember is what that work did to me and for me. I do believe my experience with the work brought me deeper into my own Trueness, and to this place where I now walk. I was good at what I did. What made me good? Short answer, diligence. And that diligence was critical in the forming of a methodology to which I gave my energy; a methodology built on the foundational commitment to the individual’s Trueness.

After finally completing the last essay entitled Seeker, I was feeling rather certain it would be the last of my writing. Even journaling seemed to wane, and when I did make entries they seemed to resemble Dear Diary scribblings. Anne Lamott’s writing made me hunger for regular writing again, as well as providing great comfort in my own humanity. It seems I need writing more than ever. There’s no doubt journaling over the years has been a release and a processor for my mind/heart and soul/spirit. The result has been an evolution in the work of a calling, the letting go of belief systems, practicing breathing prayer, and a more contemplative way of being. This essay has been hanging on to me. I’m truly in a space that feels the tension of being in between. But it’s probably more accurate to say—borrowing Connie Zweig’s term—I’m moving from role to soul.

A Literal Threshold
I’ve stood at a threshold or two in my life, some significant, some maybe not so significant. At the beginning of the second semester of the fifth grade, I was about to enter the fifth elementary school that I attended; Florida, then Mississippi, back to Florida, and back again to Mississippi. I’ve never forgotten standing at the literal threshold of that 5th Grade class.

My mother had taken me to the office for new student processing, and then a staff member walked me to a classroom. She left me standing there alone, the door at the rear, so that I was looking at the backs of all the students, until the teacher said, “Class, we have a new student.” At that point they all turned around and looked as I stood there in Sunday shirt and pants, wingtips, and trench coat. All simply stared, except one. He got up, walked back to where I was, took my coat, hung it up, and led me to the nearest open desk. Steve became one of the best friends in my entire life. He walked me across that literal threshold into an open space in the row and a wide open space in his young, pure heart.

Liminal Space
When I think back on my early writing, or when my desire to be a writer morphed into an actual commitment to write, I’m a bit amazed at the quantity of words placed on pages, not to mention those assembled into books. The biggest surprise in all this, and tremendous blessing, was the poetry that issued forth; rhythmic expression that I suppose was within all along.

In recalling all this I must honor the loving and supportive individuals as pen moved across page. There is Becky first and foremost—loving partner in life and all things. Fellow writer Mayra who reads and encourages in one swath of love. Dan—spiritual brother—who is the spark demanding more poetic flame. And of course, at the beginning of the commitment were Pam and Susan in our small and caring writing group.

When I first began writing with regularity, I admit I felt as if I were acting, playing a role as a writer—faking it a bit, or maybe a lot. When I dedicated the year 2009 to a daily process of creating my first book, it was in large part because of Gordon. Gordon is a minister with whom I was privileged to work when I coached a group of pastors in honoring their own Trueness in their respective calling. In 2008, Gordon challenged me to go off alone somewhere for a few days and find the topic calling at me, and consequent flow that would give me that first book. His graciousness did not end there. As I worked on the manuscript throughout that year, Gordon met with me, reading sections and encouraging my voice.

I vividly recall one of our meetings, where upon completing a reading, he handed it back and said, “I don’t hear your voice in this. Go and rewrite it.” I thought the first time someone (other than Becky) would do such would crush me, but I was thrilled. Love was tangibly exhibited in straightforward care. Clearly, I am my own harsh critic. But then I haven’t met true crushers as my books have been self-published.

So what does writing have to do with liminality, or liminal space? For me, a great deal. Whether it’s been through personal journaling, blogging, or writing in five volumes of what I called my Business Journal, the act of writing has assisted me in processing through many changes. The studies associated with the experiences about which I write have taken me deep into my own being. I have used what I learned to assist others through work I allowed to evolve. So, is now the opportunity to contemplate what is next? I’ve resisted answering this question because of any obsession with doing. But maybe it’s okay to hold for a bit what I now know about my own Trueness; holding these two commitments:

Peace and quiet in being (mind/heart & soul/spirit).
Care (Mother Earth—all creation & Love—anti-violence).

Study to Show …
When I was in the corporate setting, I studied to be prepared for what was to follow: training on something new; kicking off a project; process improvement; trying to become better as a leader. But now? I suppose my study is about being more present to what is … reality. In corporate life, there’s this thing known as due diligence. In my experience it was used mostly around migrations, consolidations, and mergers. After all these years I believe it basically meant get your act together before you do anything really stupid. 

In writing, I suppose the lack of due diligence would be not honoring the writing process. That is how I began. I thought someone who launched out to do what I did was supposed to write a book. Anne Lamont teaches about shitty first drafts. My first attempt didn’t even qualify for that label. So I quit, for a while. Thankfully I discovered Write by Karen Peterson. In her instructive book I learned the importance of the writing process—having little to do with producing a manuscript. So I focused with what was more natural for me, study. Study and practice.

As Anne Lamont says, good writers are also good readers. This is where diligence comes in for me. As Becky once answered, when someone asked if Jeff reads a lot, “No, Jeff Studies.” To me, diligence and study are one and same. And clearly in my experience, it has been study that has given me the strength to move words from the journey onto the page. This act may never mean anything to anyone else, but has been life sustaining for me. However, in reading Cole Arthur Riley’s book, This Here Flesh, I’ve been brought to the realization that my study/diligence has become an act of savoring; tasting the flavor and spice in a writer’s ability with word and page.

Up to this point, I believed my study was, at least in part, about discovering what is still left for me to do. I remember telling my dear friend Dan that what may be left to do will have to come to me. I will not journal—or study—my way to it. And then it occurred to me that I’ve given quite enough. If I never do anything else, I did good work. I gave up security to a calling, narrowed my focus, and loved individuals. So, if nothing comes to me, fine. But if it does, that’s fine as well.

I have been reminded that my own center is timeless, and of the work I’ve done (study & practice) that led me to a more vivid consciousness of this timelessness. I know I am ready to get back to writing, for it is important to my journey. And somewhere, someday, it will be important to someone; I hope.

I’m not sure there’s a Steve to lead me to where I need to be. Maybe standing in this liminal doorway is where I need to be.

Trust the Mystery

The mystery of impact,
a paradox hard to hold,
being who I am
doing what I do,
to what end?

The answer held truly
by the one, herself
by the one, himself
read aloud in their own lives.

In the theater of my life,
I stand somewhere between
the second and final acts,
scenes replaying and lovingly teaching.

Youth now walks behind me,
but deserted me it has not.
Its diligence dutiful and due,
its design served adequately.

From the words of life & living,
a manuscript evolving,
my impact unfolding in the chapters,
written by others
finally by me being read.

And read I do
often and openly.
no longer hiding,
impact embracing,
the mystery holding,
the mystery holding me.

Notes & Influences:

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor Books, 1994.

Peterson, Karen E. Write: 10 Days to Overcome Writer’s Block. Period. Avon, Massachusetts: Adams Media, 2006.

Lamott, Anne. Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage. New York, New York: Riverhead Books, 2021.

Zweig, Connie. The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 2021.

Riley, Cole Arther. This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us. London: Holder & Stoughton, 2022.

Seeker: A Participation Essay

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For more time than seems proper to confess, I’ve struggled with the ups and downs of a somewhat depressive state. And, it’s been several years since I had, what I label as, my spiritual breakdown. It was at that break where I rejected most everything I’d been falsely taught about Christianity. I was angry, resentful, hurt, and simply thoroughly pissed off.

Since then, I’ve devoted massive amounts of energy to study that released me from such false teaching and belief, and redirected my consciousness to Truth; and Trueness, my own and others.

The breakdown occurred right in the middle of the span of years so important to my evolution to where I am now. The importance has to do with moving away from Mississippi and all rhetoric that surrounded me. I was not born racist, but I was raised within racism. It was not a natural thing to see difference, but I was taught/influenced to do so throughout my growing years. I do not like the truth this exposes; I resent this. I do not want to be resentful—of anything—so it’s time to truly let it go.

After almost 30 years away, we are back in Mississippi. It was my home. Is it again? I do love it; like a friend you know is very good at heart but has a history that so unfortunately includes hate. There is so much opportunity for so much better. But will we get there? And, what is my role now—in a so-called evolved state?

Caring friends providentially directed me to several trusted teachers (in print) in the years since the spiritual break: Green, Rohr, Keating, Merton, Crossan, McLauren, and others. My point is that I now question what to do with all to which I’ve been opened, to all I’ve learned through diligent reading, and how I’ve allowed what I’ve experienced to influence my writing. Who have I become? What does all this mean? What have I learned about myself? About God? About Jesus? About the Great Spirit? About the Great Mystery? About The Word?

And, am I still being called forward into … something? I don’t know.

“The highest revelation of divinity (on Earth) is through the natural world—Earth is physical divinity—the divine feminine principle of God. To honor nature is to honor God.”

—Mayra Porrata

All this processing set the stage for something that happened on one of my daily walks. But first, let me add that I know two things: One—There’s something calling at me about being a part of peacemaking (anti-racism) and reparation. Two—Finding a role in reparation with the Mother; our wonderful Earth. Now to the something that happened.

I was on that morning walk along my normal trek on a hot day. For the most part, if I meet or see someone along the way, they are familiar. But at one point I looked up and saw a man coming toward me I didn’t recognize. It was, in my reflection, almost like he just appeared. As he came closer I noticed his gait was a bit off and that he reminded me of a service recipient of the organization where I was on the Board; serving adults with intellectual and mental disabilities. When near enough, I fixed my attention on two specific things, his crooked teeth and the engaging smile that made one look past the crookedness.

As he got to me he stopped, pulled the earbud from his left ear, didn’t say hello, but straightforwardly asked, Do you like the sun? What a strange question I thought. I didn’t know how to respond, so I said, No. I felt uncomfortable with my abrupt response, so I explained that I preferred a sunny day when it was not so hot. At this point it’s important to note that this gentleman is an African American. He then began to tell me how creation had begun in Africa. The first people were black, that they went into the caves when it got cold. As they lived in caves for generations, their melatonin lightened and that’s where white folks came from—from black people.

All through this he constantly pointed at his skin on his left arm. But here’s the thing I cannot forget, what he said to me with each pointing; “It’s not your fault.”

I think he was real. The experience was, and remains, very surreal. He also said to me as he ended his sermon; “Your mood is Saturn.” This sort of freaked me out. I had to look that up to fully understand why. Now I’m not one to be into astrology, but Saturn is in retrograde, and what I read about definitely described my mood, and my depression. But, back to It’s not your fault. I’ll never forget this experience, this meeting along the path. I’ll process the possible message/meaning for a long time. I’m certain this sudden encounter holds meaning for the call I feel toward peacemaking, anti-racism, reparation, and creation.

There’s an encouragement in this encounter. I just have to find it.

Seeker

Along a path known,
meeting a soul not known,
or maybe always known.
For the knowing, not of mind
but of heart, preexisting oneness.

Both black and white
skin equally shimmering
in the heat and humidity
of our summer morning
in this, our Mississippi.

At the specific gazing,
seeing better the whole.
At the whole looking,
cherishing more the one.

As normal as anyone,
always seemingly looking
everywhere but the present,
I need to be special,
simply who I am.

Transformation continues,
way before past regret
and well beyond future fear
into now of who I am
and who together we are.

What did I miss?
A few days after the encounter with the man and his question and message, and still contemplating both, I was once again walking. I ran across yet another person I’d never seen. She was about to set up some devices for either video or survey, I couldn’t quite tell. I spoke and she asked me if her setup would be in the way for anyone. Due to my familiarity with the park, I assured her she would not be in the way where she was. Once again, there was an engaging smile. Our brief interchange was delightful. I felt as if I could’ve stayed a while and talked with her. And once again, I must point out that she is African American.

As I walked away, the question came at me like a bus; What did I miss?

Should I had taken the time to talk with her, what might I have learned? As I walked I asked myself about many others with skin of another color. If I could go back in time, ask and listen, what would I discover that I missed? I thought about how we enslaved Africans, gave them Christianity, and watched them become better Christians than we. What if I talked with those of color and deep faith? Would I learn what I have missed, and would such knowledge enrich my path? I know it would.

I hadn’t seen Sophia, one of my regular friends on my daily walks, for several months. I was in the local grocery just the other day and turned down an isle and practically ran into her. I was elated. Sophia was a parks and recreation employee. She had resigned six months prior and I did not know. Seeing her reminded me of that experience of the gentleman telling me that it’s not my fault. That was almost a year ago as I finalize work on this essay. Sophia’s kind presence reminded me just how fantastically blessed I have been to have known through my work the beautiful souls from most every color on this, our Earth.

It seems strange for me to type what follows, but the truth of the moment is that I feel like getting lost somewhere with the Earth, and not participating any longer in society, or societal issues. The further truth is that effectively, since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve already become somewhat of a non-participant. The question then becomes, Will this change?

Notes & Influences:

Good Feather, Doug. Think Indigenous: Native American Spirituality for a Modern World. Carlsbad, California: Hay House, 2021.

Magee, Rhonda V. The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness. New York, NY: Penguin, 2019.

Hanh, Tich Nhat. Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Bantam, 1991.

Perry, Imani. South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2022.

Return: A Participation Essay

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After my last essay fifteen months prior, I began working on this. Basically the only thing produced—properly composed—in this time span was the title and the poem at the end. What does return mean? My dear friend Mayra says it well:

“… I want to share some information regarding the larger spiritual transformation that’s upon us—and how this will radically alter how you think, as well as naturally expand your ability to operate from love (not fear).” —Mayra Porrata

From love, not fear. And this was our beginning, your beginning. Our only hope, for anything good, is a return to love. As Mayra makes clear in this newsletter issue, the return is a transition that will include pain, disorienting spans of time, and grief. It should include these things. The return must be navigated intentionally with these things.

Return home to the You that has been since the beginning.

Pure Presence (Going Home)
All my life, here and there, I’ve heard it said, “You can’t go home again.” I’ve assumed this means that if you return it won’t be the same home you left. In that sense I would have to agree. I’ve gone home to my claimed hometown more than once. And yes, a lot changed. But was it enough change? Was it the right change?

A return to the love from which you came is a return home. It may be the only going home where one can find all just as it was left. Sit with that for a bit.

My journey back home, my return to love, began when we left that geographical home. I was 36. We lived away for 29 years, and in that span new challenges in my work, fresh experiences, and most of all, beautifully diverse interactions and relationships took hold on my seeing.

Cultural conditioning began to unravel as my view expanded beyond myopic ways of looking at many wide-ranging subjects. While some of this was indeed freeing, I would be a liar if I said some of this was not also threatening. Of course the only thing in danger were old beliefs serving nothing of value, narcissism, an ego fighting for its existence, and fear-driven expectations blocking truth.

“Isn’t this the 21st Century?” (A Violent Flow)
Watching the news about Putin’s violence and the invasion of Ukraine, I saw a brief interview of a young Ukrainian woman. It was her incredible question that I cannot get out of my head and heart; “Isn’t this the 21st Century?” Yes, have we learned nothing? Unfortunately, it would seem so.

This reminds me of something I wrote in the Essay on Compassion:

Becky and I were coming home from a pandemic-get-out-of-the-house outing, driving home via the beautiful Natchez Trace that runs right by our neighborhood. I was looking straight ahead as I drove, seeing a paved Parkway curving through lovely land and beautiful trees declaring the season. It occurred to me all this was built, and made, on a sphere suspended in the space of a galaxy, itself spinning and moving within a great Universe. Followed by a thought of how stupid we as humans behave on this tiny round speck in a grand Universe — a magnificent, sprawling territory of infinite possibility; possibility squandered by our lack of ability to see miraculous beauty and endless opportunity.

And yet we still ‘war’ and squander opportunity to be at peace with each other.

My Return to the Mother
June 2005 is the month I’ve labeled as my spiritual breakdown; an angry rant seemingly against everything I’d been taught. Truthfully, not quite everything. But honestly, a whole lot I’d been led to believe within a compromised and narrow understanding of Christianity. Blessedly for me, and those served through my work, we have a wise and wonderful friend. Beth is not just a wonderful friend but also a loving pastor. In that very month of June, she shared with me some reading to console me in my broken state. As my wife once said to one of my employees, “Jeff doesn’t read. He studies.”

In my contemplative studies of the past 17 years I’ve been very mindful of what I’ve come to believe is the ‘sin’ of the world, violence. And thanks to some of those I’ve studied, like John Dominic Crossan, I’ve become very conscious of the flow of this sin: Ideological violence—Rhetorical violence—Physical violence. If one uses God to justify violence—be it ideological, rhetorical, or physical—then that one doesn’t worship God, that one uses a god he’s created to serve his own ignorant, narcissistic means.

If one prescribes to one particular religion, or one way to worship, because it justifies the exclusion of others, then this one doesn’t understand religion at all. While religion has been used to control, manipulate, and keep others within borders (real or perceived), true religion is based on inclusion and bringing together.

And if you’re a Christian, as I remain with great grieving difficulty, and you support hate, war, and any other form of violence, then you do so in direct opposition to Jesus who came to show us our freedom in love. While it would be convenient to justify myself by placing blame on something, or some others, for my own complicity in violence—be it in thought, word, or deed—that would only deepen the false protection in the Cult of Innocence (see Brian Mclauren’s book in Notes & Influences).

When the beginning is right, the rest is made considerably easier. —Richard Rohr

So as I’ve deeply considered the love from which I came, I’ve been recalling many scenes from my life; the beautiful ones always containing my organic devotion to nature. I walk every day that I possibly can, and when I can, I hike for miles in the woods along the Natchez Trace Parkway. When living in Northeast Tennessee, Becky and I hiked stunning trails in the Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina mountains. I fly fished the many streams and rivers. Most every day that I walk I see in my mind and heart the wonderful pasture sloping gently upward behind our house when I was a child on that dairy farm. While the world may be frustrating for all and dangerous for many, I love the Earth. I love the Mother.

So I’ve decided to return to the Mother to know and be one with all that is, that was created as Good. For my life & living in the world, I’m navigating back to the beginning; a child who understood Earth’s goodness and was shown the loving, non-violent, unlimited inclusive ways of Jesus.

Mississippi 

Summer cicadas
a chorus pass
tree to tree
In June
it’s rehearsal
by July
it’s performance
in August
it’s celebration

And so it goes
beauty
one form or another
available
on what I choose
to behold

Attention I do pay
it’s the remuneration
of presence

The pottery of presence
is still being purified
in the furnace fire
of suffering, grief, joy

To a land
one can belong
selected it seems
from the beginning

And those in the land
can be led awry
by a narrative false
away from the story true

Ignorance blissful
I now doubt
’tis just ignorance

Stands taken
on ground unreal
blind inhabitants
dangerous to all

With guilt I must release
the stupid complicity
and opinions misleading
in directions away from truth

This particular land cares not
it is one with the Mother
one with each of us

This particular land
a name given
from a great flow
and a divine, earthly people

This illustrious home
where Mississippi Kites
fly high
beauty and grace
demonstrably abound
patiently soaring far
above who we think
we are

So, a choral presentation
beautiful song without words
a most meaningful verse
the golden in silence

Notes & Influences:

Porrata, Mayra. TheFlourishingWay.com – Ohio: Copyright © 2022 Mayra Porrata, LLC. (You, only better! Newsletter, Issue #13)

Rohr, Richard. Center for Action and Contemplation

Crossan, John Dominic. How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian: Struggling with Divine Violence from Genesis through Revelation. New York: Harper Collins, 2015.

McLauren, Brian. Do I Stay Christian?: A Guide For The Doubters, The Disappointed, And The Disillusioned. New York: St. Martin’s Essentials, 2022.

Moore, Osheta. Dear White Peacemakers: Dismantling Racism With Grace And Grit. Harrisonburg, Virginia: Herald Press, 2021.

Postlude (if you’re interested):

This is how I say what we know as The Lord’s Prayer (thanks to my study with John Dominic Crossan, and of course the likes of Fr. Rohr, Fr. Green, Fr. Keating, etc.). Here is that prayer with my mind/heart knowing in parenthesis:

Our Father
(Householder of Earth — to me, Mother and Father)
who art in heaven
(Jesus’ message is that the Kingdom of God/Heaven is already here)
Hallowed be thy Name
(Our mere breath in and out speaks this unspeakable name – YaHWeH)
Thy Kingdom come
(Distributive Justice and Restorative Righteousness—earth belongs equally to all, no matter what)
Thy will be done
(Love, pure and simple)
As in Heaven, so on earth
(Heaven is ours to live, Now)
Give us this day our daily bread
(In this Kingdom, this earth, and in a community of Love, we must want/worry not) (The Earth, and all on it, is not Rome’s, it is God’s)
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors
(Forgiveness of debt was a command in Judaism—the land is God’s—this had nothing to do with sin … rather, Jubilee years)
And lead us not into temptation
(Keep us from counter violence)
But deliver us from evil
(Violence IS the evil; and the flow is Ideological Violence to Rhetorical Violence to Physical Violence)
For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, for ever.
Amen

 

Pianissimo: A Participation Essay

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Four years my senior, my brother was very athletic and team oriented as he navigated his school years. I was not. He played virtually every sport offered and available, and was good at each one. At some point along the way he decided to be musical as well. That, however, quickly ended with a trumpet stored away in a closet. When I entered junior high our dad came to me and said, “You’re going to take band, and you’re going to play the trumpet.” He pulled the quieted instrument out of the closet and handed it to me.

So I played trumpet in the band throughout my junior high and high school years. I remain grateful for the opportunity. Music was something I enjoyed, the playing of it. I loved to play new pieces placed in front of me as part of sight-reading exercises. While I may not have realized it then, I now know those times of intense exercises as practice in being present with the piece and navigating with the guides of the musical terms placed throughout.

Navigating
Pianissimo is a dynamic term in a score of music instructing the musician to play softly and proceed quietly. Yes, there are many other such musical terms while navigating a scored piece, but this one has always stood out for me. In a particularly well written score, I always loved the change toward soft and quiet that highlighted the previously stronger play or the section about to follow. It was pianissimo that set up my learning to use silence and quiet in my work as a salesman, coach, and consultant. And now, silence continues to implore me to walk more softly and proceed through the quiet of spirit.

On morning meditative walks, I’ve been cycling through thoughts about work, both from the past and into the future. And there lies the rub; the future. My last coaching session was in August of the year prior. I entered that year with only a handful of sessions to complete, work that had begun in the year before. I backed away from pursuing new gigs as COVID-19 began its worldwide threat. So, Retired? It would appear so.

Almost a year after the beginning of the pandemic, I was compelled to pick up, once again, David Whyte’s, The Heart Aroused: Poetry and Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America. After reading chapter one I realized I didn’t pick it up to seek guidance on the future, but to better honor the past.

“Looking over the centuries of human struggle commemorated in poetry, a man or woman often seems to begin the journey to soul recovery in this very lonely place of self-assessment. The uninitiated might call it depression.” — David Whyte

Out of retired boredom, I suppose, I’m on the board of our homeowner’s association. I chair its maintenance committee. I also led the search for a new maintenance supervisor for the buildings and the grounds. A perfect fit was found in a young man who grew up in the neighborhood. As part of his on-boarding, we were able to keep the retiring supervisor on part time for the next year. Within the new supervisor’s first three months, there was a particular issue that would set up an important conversation.

A resident asked for a tree on common ground (that the HOA maintains) to be removed. The tree was old, damaged, with limbs threatening the resident’s home. I told the new supervisor to bring in our outside tree people to remove it. The retiring employee talked him into doing it themselves. The home was damaged. Our new supervisor was not happy. So when he and I had a chance to talk, I told him that we live and learn, and I talked about transition; how our former supervisor was in transition to retirement—a challenge I perfectly understood—and how he also was in transition. Seven years earlier he transitioned from college to his first job, where he was until coming to us when the organization he worked for closed. Now he was in yet another transition, and I challenged him to be more conscious in the navigation. 

Rhyme and Recovery
Pianissimo is about transitioning. Too often, when something ends, we rush into what it is we perceive as new. We are ready to move on, to get on with it. We are smart, right? We should know what to do, especially if we are older and more experienced.

Trueness. Such was my work for the past 20 years, maybe longer. Some days I miss the work around this purpose of Trueness that pulled and pushed me forward. But the work of Trueness in me still goes on, and I suppose it will for the remainder of my days. As I’m rounding through all this thinking about work, I know I’m only a couple of steps away from declaring depression. But it really doesn’t feel like depression (coming from someone who has been there). It simply feels empty.

I know I’ve had a good run at work, a run with many different experiences. I’ve had varying and diverse experience with relationships along the way; some close (at least for a time) and some not so close, but meaningful nonetheless. I’ve had a positive impact on many an individual (I also know I stumbled relationally now and then). And I realize work has been instrumental in my full evolution, allowing learning all along the way. I’ve navigated one transition then another.

The path toward Sage
Time I cannot stop
Paused, I can make it feel so

But important it is
To know time
Not as an enemy
But a friend

For in time
There is experience
The building of knowledge

In a series of novels I read, there is an old, wise Native American named Henry. I long to be like him. My hope for quiet, steady days is really desire for a quiet, steady spirit within myself; to move among my days remaining as slowly, deliberately, kindly, gently, and most of all, lovingly as the fictional Henry.

In my work as a coach I know I became, for some, a sage; at least of sorts. But what about now? Questions about work I keep asking. Is there more work for me to do? Is there something left of this call that guided me for many years? This sense, maybe even desire, I have of a sage; what do I do with it? Am I being called into a new work? A new level of work? Is it a call and movement into deeper participation? I’m not sure of much right now. Or am I?

It’s difficult recovering from a calling and a career. I think they call this retirement. I think this is known as transition.

Following is a poem with rhyme. I don’t normally write such, as free verse seems to be my better fare. Rhyming often feels forced. But this one seemed to need rhyme to speak properly, or maybe I needed the work in finding rhyme and rhythm as the poem worked on me. It would seem so.

The Path’s Score

Life’s score, now at a place
deep within instructed.
Play at a calmer pace
freedom, less conducted.

Melody once sought
to purchase, once thought.
The play, now demands
calmness in commands.

Written in the score
the values implore,
and spirit proceeds.
And my soul agrees.

It is time for meaning
in everything that’s done
acts of love, redeeming.
Believing all, as one.

All As One
Dan, my father-in-law, can do anything. Literally, in my view, he can do anything. I’ve seen it; welding, refrigeration, electrical wiring, and especially the elite woodwork of a craftsman. He can do it all, all self-taught. I’ve known and watched him for 47 years now. Over the years I’ve not only watched him, but been a helper on many occasions. And throughout all the work, we’ve shared observations, and stories. He is now 88 and I’m 66, and recently he shared a story that I couldn’t believe I’d not previously heard.

My wife’s parents live outside the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. It is known as the bluff city, hilly with, what we know as, gullies (mountain areas have valleys, hilly areas have gullies). One day, many years ago, he came home from his work at the International Paper Company, where he performed many of his diverse, skilled miracles. The outside edge of their garage was a shear drop of at least six feet. The siding of the garage rested on the ledge of the concrete footing, and on that ledge was a large dog. The dog had somehow managed to get onto that footing and obviously couldn’t get down. He perched there shaking like a leaf, terrified.

Dan went and got a board from his lumber stack, placed it at the ledge so the dog could have a path to safely come down, which he did. Upon hitting the solid ground, he trotted off down the road. Dan headed to the backyard on normal after work business. He heard something behind him, and turned to find the dog had returned. The dog simply stood on his back legs and placed his front ones on my dad’s chest—as if to say, Thank you. And once again trotted off home.

Notes:

Whyte, David. The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

Krueger, William Kent. The Cork O’Conner series. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009-2021.

Compassion: A Participation Essay

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Three Masters
Best I can remember, I was about ten years old when my Dad came home with her. She was a mixed-breed, black, brown, and white beauty. I named her Snoopy. Yes, I actually taught her how to lay on top of her doghouse. She was an ‘outside’ dog and followed me everywhere. She was a well-known entity around the town. One day she and I were cruising a neighborhood street. A little boy whom I did not know came running out to greet her. His mom called out, “Don’t touch that dog, it might bite you.” Without missing a step he called back, “That’s ‘Noopy! ‘Noopy won’t bite me.”

Unfortunately Snoopy’s freedom ended when our town instituted a leash ordinance. Dad and I set up a wire run where we could attach her leash. She was miserable. And so was I, having to travel on my purple Schwinn® Stingray without her alongside. Consequently, after much thought, we loaded her up and drove to my Grandfather’s property about 125 miles north. The two of them became the best of friends. My Grandfather swore Snoopy could understand his every word, and that she, in her own language, conversed with him. She lived the last years of her life very happily. She remained an outside dog cruising the pastures and nearby homes until her peaceful death at a ripe old dog age.

While I’ve had many dogs in my life, Snoopy and two others have had the most impact. Freckles came along as part of our daughter’s fifteenth birthday. Freckles was a liver and white Springer Spaniel. We met her in Youngstown, Ohio when she was six weeks old. Love at first sight is an understatement. She was with us for over 13 years in three states. She was a wonderful family dog, but she and my wife Becky were inseparable, and ridiculously close friends. Like Snoopy, she was always glad to see you. Heck, you could leave the room, come back, and her sweet little tail would wag like you’d been gone for days. Her passing impacted us so that we haven’t ventured another dog since.

However, we’ve been blessed with a third sweet spirit. BB is our daughter’s pup. He is a 13 year old Yorkie Terrier, and blessedly, because our daughter is temporarily living with us, we get to share in the cuddly love this little 7 pound pup offers throughout each day. He just walked in to check on me as I type this.

“Reality cannot be controlled, but it can be lived fully, or it can be unsuccessfully avoided in fear. Animals are the masters of living and dying fully.” —Martin Prechtel

I begin an essay on compassion with these three dogs, three beautiful spirits, because of what is obvious to me; unconditional love — free compassion and present gentleness.

Gentle Disclaimer
Being gentle with self, quieting the thoughts (allowing them to float on by), and with tenderness touching one’s own spirit, is the way to gentleness with others. At the same time, gentleness with another is also beautiful support of gentleness with one’s own being.

“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.” —Agent K (Men in Black, 1997)

I lose my balance on the wire of thin tolerance for what I believe is stupid. This usually occurs  upon hearing opinionated words issuing from narrow thinking and identification with one group or another. Such is the reason that, for many years, I’ve focused my efforts on the individual. One group or another can only accomplish good and right things when made up of individuals who act on what is good and right for them to do.

I began writing this essay and then stalled. What stopped me was self-judgment, a self-assessment of my level of compassion. I didn’t see myself as a compassionate individual. Eventually I called BS. I am compassionate. Like anyone, I often let opinions and feelings get in the way of how my compassion shows itself. But when it comes down to it, when the rubber meets the road, I act on what I know is good and right for me to do — what is good and right from the core of my Trueness. What I’ve realized over time is that what I’ve failed to notice is the compassionate flow. Compassion comes from the inside and expresses itself externally in gentleness.

A Compassionate Sphere
I come to this essay months since the one previous. I really have no words, but here I continue regardless. I suppose I arrive here with frustration, and other feelings. About what? I really don’t know. Yes, specific things could I name, but in reality I know such things are products, creations, of a deeper something at play. So I must let go of the things and sit with the energy behind it all.

This energy doesn’t have a name, and I will not assign it one. Naming is a distraction and allows one to be pulled away by the feelings. Feelings are reactions to emotions that are brought about by the story in which one is trapped. I’m not sure if this is helping or not. Maybe it doesn’t have to. Maybe writing this is simply part of sitting with the energy. Yes, there are world events and issues, and conditions in our country that are concerning, but they are not any cause of my own uneasiness. I take complete and full responsibility for this dis-ease in my spirit. And I pray for ease.

Becky and I were coming home from a pandemic-get-out-of-the-house outing, driving home via the beautiful Natchez Trace that runs right by our neighborhood. I was looking straight ahead as I drove, seeing a paved Parkway curving through lovely land and beautiful trees declaring the season. It occurred to me all this was built, and made, on a sphere suspended in the space of a galaxy, itself spinning and moving within a great Universe. Followed by a thought of how stupid we as humans behave on this tiny round speck in a grand Universe — a magnificent, sprawling territory of infinite possibility; possibility squandered by our lack of ability to see miraculous beauty and endless opportunity.

Quiet Energy
Silence, I’m learning, is a spiritual energy critical to truly let go—releasing the grip I have on old ways of thinking and old thinking’s grip on me. The story now in control is one of grace. Yes, the story now in control is one of grace, not old storylines from either early childhood or false teaching along the way. In this story of grace is the strength of compassion, a gentle, loving-kindness shown to self and therefore to another. It is hard to give to another what you don’t hold for yourself. This is a basic principle behind all my work and writing of the last twenty years.

Stepping back, as it were,
one by one,
letting go of things,
bit by bit,
enjoying the silence.

But in the quiet, in the beginning,
of stepping away,
a constant hum noticed.
It’s insistence not ignored,
nor persistence pursued.

Now for some time, silence operates
just above the steady, vibrating hum;
like the low song of cicadas early
on a Mississippi morning.

And now realizing, thanks to
a collaborative heart of friendship,
the hum is recognized rhythm;
the heartbeat of who I am.

Further realized
in the rhythm
compassion, love
for oneself,
and all, as one.

I pray I will no longer hope (wait) for a reality other than the one that is. I pray I can learn peace in the moment, a peace that allows me to stand in the space of reality, with the energy present in and with each opportunity. I’m a stellar listener—to other people. But I must be a stellar listener to opportunity presented in any given moment. It is such opportunity, that when truly heard, informs what action I must take, what I must do, even if that is nothing. Then, to let that go, and move on. All this in love. That is my prayer.

“The basic ground of compassionate action is the importance of working with rather than struggling against.” —Pema Chodron

When one does what is good and right, gently informed by one’s Trueness, and places such action into the flow, this becomes a demonstration of trust. This is a challenging level of trust, a level that says you are okay with maybe never even knowing the outcome of your action.

If I Could See the Wind

The movement
of things invisible,
if my eyes could see,
present amazement
I might behold.

But truth, if known,
and visible the movement
of all things now seen,
the fears I carry,
heavier made
by the new things
that would be exposed.

And now seeing,
most likely
I’d step aside,
dodging the unknown
now made known,
missing the blessing
of these things
once blowing
right through me.

Notes:

Prechtel, Martin. The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2015. (P. 129)

Men in Black. Directed by Barry Sonnenfield, Columbia Pictures, 1997. Film.

Chodron, Pema. Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion. Boulder: Shambhala Publications, 2018. (P. 54, #48, Slogan: Change Your Attitude, But Remain Natural)

 

Fading: A Participation Essay

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On November 1st, I began writing in a new journal. It was my 65th birthday. In that entry I wondered what might this number mean for my writing? More depth? Expanding reality? Ever closer movement into the walk with simplicity and love and contemplation? I hope yes to each question, and more.

Withdraw to Give Way
“Commitment to healing oneself and making a commitment to liberation for self, others, and the world is an essential part of spiritual transformation.” —Michael Lerner

While I may not feel it, I know my work as Coach of authentic confidence has been about spiritual transformation; for myself, others, and therefore for, and in, the world through those individuals with whom I’ve had the privilege to work. What will this year bring in light of this work? I don’t know. As this is the year of my official, full retirement (according to government and societal norms), at least I can know a bit more freedom with what can possibly come this way. And, grateful I will receive.

In one way, 65 was a long time coming. Yet, in another view, it got here far too fast. But it’s here, this number, this thing known as sixty-five; with all its implications and societal assumptions. What shall I do with it? What might I allow? I suppose I’m going to find out, one moment at a time. I am determined to learn to be more present, in the presence.

In the peace of this frosty
November morning light,
consciously I keep a commitment;
to presently sit in grace,
with gracious heart.
Mindful am I, at this age,
of journeying, and more
present I’ve become to
the traveling itself, in
grace and gratitude allowing
a pure light on remembering;
for what was, thankfulness
for what is, gratitude.

It has been six months since my last essay. This is the longest period I’ve gone between compositions in over ten years. Yet, I know that writing is not done with me. Part of the allure to composing this particular essay has to do with this being, and turning, 65. I need to explore something I’ve been feeling at this turning; a fresh and powerful permission. I need to get a better understanding through expression, and go from there. Sounds like writing.

Still I wonder if there’s much left for me in this work. Well, not really. Here’s what I mean: I find myself in a sort of withdrawing mode—I’ve been here before due to frustration and feeling ignored. But this is different. To be blunt, I just want to be left alone … and, not really.

I no longer have energy for all the exposure that we now seem to believe is all important; LinkedIn®, Twitter®, Facebook®, Instagram®, etc. Even the email messages I’ve been good at sending to keep top-of-mind status with past clients have dropped off the radar. But I still love each Coaching session and each individual in each of those sessions. So, whatever is left for me to do, or whatever is next for me to do, will present itself to me. I trust.

The Soul Hears
In my book, Participation: Falling in Love with Reality, I defined contemplation as “Compassion for oneself and all as one.” I know two forces for this participation. They are Trueness and Forgiveness. For many years I’ve contemplated the journey to the true self, a journey to simplicity and truth of what has always been present; one’s Trueness. Is the true self complex or simple? Is it complicated or easily understood? Here’s what I do know; we tend to make most everything in life and living too hard, and this brings me to total forgiveness.

Forgive and Forget:
Forgetting what lies behind.
Forgive and Remember:
Letting go while also knowing it all belongs to reality, the reality of the unfoldment of now.
Forgive and Act:
With all knowledge in the fullness of now, acting in and with love, always.

“Let love alone speak …” — Thomas Keating

I’ve always been comfortable in and with silence. Now, in these days of life, I desire silence more than ever. For it is only silence that speaks clearly. And, it must be that it is in silence where love is best heard. For only in silence can one remain still long enough to listen. In such stillness listening is active in its purest sense. The soul hears.

And now a time, a presence
filled with less talk, less words,
trusting silence, imbued
by love, to speak volumes
—from poem, Voluminous Silence

In the midst of this all, I am reminded that my most virulent anger has always been directed at myself. So, I must truly learn to act from self-compassion. So I commit to the steadiness, the silent stability, and power of let love alone speak.

“Surrender to the unknown marks the great transitions of the spiritual journey. On the brink of each new breakthrough there is a crisis of trust and love.” —Thomas Keating

Clearly I now know that I must release everyone from my selfish (and culturally learned) Pet Peeves. I must completely free myself from the false self’s expectations; requirements placed on self and others that don’t mean one damn thing. Expectations are of no value. Fr. Richard Rohr says that expectations are simply disappointments waiting to happen. Several years ago I watched an interview with Drew Barrymore where she said that expectation was the mother of deformity.

It just may be that I am now ready to not care, to truly be free to walk slowly and steadily, to speak thoughtfully only, and to be so comfortable with silence that I seek it and cherish its empowering presence.

“Or, be choked in the sediment of society, so tired of the world, here will your hard doubts disappear, your carnal incrustations melt off, and your soul breathe deep and free in God’s shoreless atmosphere of beauty and love.” —John Muir

What Remains
On a recent trip to our state’s coastline with the Gulf of Mexico, I sat one morning in the light of a wonderful sunrise and journaled. I wondered at the Live Oak tree
between me and the rising sun. How old it must be. How it enhanced the view. The memories it could share. I’m not as old, and I know not as wise, but such a tree encourages my own sharing from the experience of years banked in my memories. Whether or not I may be able to immediately recall one, each memory is there waiting to be used for good in this world. This I must remember.

Like a treasured photo or painting, memories tend to fade, especially when consistently exposed to the direct light of life and living. While there occasionally may be a way to enhance a memory, one can always hope that, although faded, what remains visible is the good and right.

Is the work done? Is the work done with me? Am I done with the work? If it is not done with me, or I it, then what is it? What does it become? What must it become? I capture this questioning from some recent walks. The only answer that has come to me so far says that the work must care for itself, that I must care for myself, and the two may meet again somewhere down the path.

Notes:

Brunson, Jeff. The World Needs You: Selected Verse−Contemplation, Poetry, Love. Ohio: Soul Publishing Group, 2017. (Poem, P. 75)

Keating, Thomas. The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living: Excerpts from the Works of Father Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O. (compiled by S. Stephanie Iachetta). New York: Continuum, 2007.

Highland, Chris. Meditations of John Muir: Nature’s Temple. California: Wilderness Press, 2001. (p., 77, Soul Breathe Deep)

Rhythm: A Participation Essay

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I crave the creative process of learning, and converting such knowledge into practice; a practice of what I do that is then taken by the individual and converted into his/her own authentic practice. This honors my own living methodology of gather, give, and grow (a rhythm honored in the intersection of my desire and my intent). My Desire & Intent is that you lovingly lead others to their own authentic confidence as you embrace the power of who you are and act on your Trueness.

The collision of the desire for you to embrace the power of who you are, and the intent for you to lovingly lead others to do the same, delivers me into the creative tension of how I do what I do. All I do flows through the creative and tense portal of my belief that I can encourage your confident Trueness. This is the energy of balance, my own unique rhythm. This is my Trueness acted upon. The tension is creative as I operate, holding the desire driving me out, and the intent drawing me forth.

“To rely on its own personal experience or knowledge would be a disaster for the butterfly. Instead it finds itself surrounded by voices of the past, of the other insects, of the wind and the rain and the leaves of the trees.” –Thomas Berry & Brian Swimme

What is Rhythm?
It was approximately 15 years into my management career when my manager’s boss made the unfortunate request. Somewhere along the way, and somehow within his less than logical manner with observation, he appreciated the way the team I was leading seemed to work well together; they certainly got good results and contributed positively to organizational outcomes. However, the unfortunate tone of his request, made to my manager’s peers, was in his word selection. In essence he said, “Tell your managers to be more like Jeff and build a good team like his.”

Such a command was not at all supportive of the relationship I desired with my peers. While the quality of his intention was lacking, the quality of his observation was good. My team was indeed excellent. The excellence was because the team was made up of committed, dedicated, and focused individuals. Naturally I felt I needed to respond to such feedback passed along to my peers. I simply shared with them what I knew as fact; the individuals in my care never heard me use the words team or teamwork. I had by that point seen those words used, overused, and misused for too often and too much for my level of buzzword tolerance. Instead, I gave my energy to building up each individual based on authenticity, what I now know as Trueness. I knew such a collective of individuals, focused together, would produce what should only be seen as outcomes: teamwork and being a team.

While I didn’t realize fully what I was doing back then in light of rhythm, I was conscious of the fact that I couldn’t help but encourage those in my care. Now I know encouragement as both the strength of my voice and the energy created by the rhythm given me. Rhythm is one’s unique methodology informing individual participation in the flow. Rhythm helps one feel, hear, and see Trueness (in self and others). Rhythm is the dance of human and divine. Rhythm is present and opens one to presence itself.

Although I wish I could remember precisely when and where, it really doesn’t matter how I came to my commitment to the individual. It may have begun with a basic belief grounded in the flow of the internal to the external. What I know is that it grew into a methodology of leading that made sense to me, at the deepest level. This commitment has allowed me abundant opportunity to live my rhythm, and to further ground my energy in something else I know; if an individual acts from Trueness−living her or his own rhythm−then this person is a leader. Our world so needs this leadership to come alive in each person, as much as individually possible for the collective good.

We must individually come to know the mystery of authentic integrity, not as something to be solved, but as something to be held, observed, and released into the flow of our Trueness. Now flowing, in authentic rhythm, integrity becomes the way your Trueness shows in the world. It takes great love to nurture and honor the internal to external flow.

“Even at the level of elementary particles we find this irreducible reality of the individual. The universe, in protecting the viability of an elementary particle, works to assure the particle of its place, of its role in the unfolding story.” –Berry & Swimme

Rhythm of Being
Commitment to one’s own Trueness begins the flow that unfolds into all productive, collective accountability. Trueness honors the uniqueness of each individual as the power to make the collective whole. It may seem that flow and rhythm are the same thing. They are, and they’re not. I speak of flow in the larger sense, that of which we are all a part. I speak of rhythm in a personal manner, that cadence within, given since the beginning, and key to knowing how we join the flow.

“Human being is not about an external command or a directive mandate, but about an internal destiny and constitutive identity. If we fail our identity and destiny, wouldn’t the result be human consequence rather than divine punishment?” –John Dominic Crossan

Working one-on-one with leaders, building individual confidence, has taught me much. These many individuals, through the generosity of their unique trust, opened me to what I’ve been teaching, and so desire to continue teaching, about rhythm. I teach about rhythm because I want the individual to know the journey makes sense, as it is traveled with conscious presence. I teach rhythm so the individual can be aware, focused, and loving on her/his journey, and in the larger cadence. I teach rhythm so the individual may lead in a needy world−leading from the authentic rhythm given since the beginning. I teach rhythm as a way to teach love−love for the individual’s work and love in his/her work−and how such love is profitable, not a business strategy but a way of living Trueness, embracing the larger cadence of the individual’s desire, intent, and resulting creative tension.

Rhythmic Impact
The Impact needed in this world must come from those who have learned to be then do. In any situation, ask yourself what you most desire. The substance of the matter−the truth you need−is right there with you. The substance is in who you are much more than in what you think you might need to do. Both be and do are important. If you feel the tension in the meeting of what you desire and what you intend, then you are standing in the right place. Your most powerful stand, as an individual, is not some future vision (although a necessary tool). Your stand is in the reality of the present. The 21st Century belongs to the aware, focused, and loving individual. A narrow focus, guided by desire, broadens intended impact and gives you a present place to stand. A focused individual has a method.

Impact,
is Trueness practiced.
Impact,
is in the flow of being to doing.

In too many organizations, of any kind, it doesn’t take long to observe behaviors of unhealthy competition, selfishness, and downright nasty interaction. We cannot focus properly on any larger collective mission when such energy is being wasted internally. It is the same for us as individuals. We cannot develop externally what we are not developing internally.

“When we operate from our essence life becomes drastically different. We find that ‘everything belongs’ (even the delusions of mind that brought us here!) and we learn to tune into the silence which we are, and there, is where we find personal peace. There is no agenda there, in this vast space, and the consciousness that you actually are. There is only truth.” –Mayra Porrata, TheFlourishingWay.com

When an individual is acting from the truth of Trueness, the path to impact is negotiated with the loving and mysterious movement of providence. In so many situations the pressure we feel is the shaping touch of a loving and providential hand. Change, one then another, assures we, as individuals, have ample opportunities for alterations, momentary modifications in doing which serve a transforming being.

Trueness
Who one is since the beginning is already present, with colors and hues on an original palette, simply waiting to be stroked into present being by the dance and dialogue of artist and canvas.

The world needs us to come alive as individuals. The world needs our truth, our authentic confidence, and our love. Is your voice flowing in your work? Are you doing work in a way that frees the love represented in your voice? Trueness honors the uniqueness of each individual as the power to make the collective whole. When you finally commit to lead, influence, and serve from the rhythm of your Trueness, you can grasp the reality that there is no priority higher than that of your love.

Finally, a reference back to my rhythm of gather, give, and grow. I recently sent a message to a few valued clients, those for whom much work has been shared through many years. I was letting them know of both the value I hold for our relationship and that I was taking some time in the last part of the year to reflect a bit. Here is the response from one of them:

“I was happy to read that you were taking some time to reflect on what you have accomplished and where you’ve been. You have touched a lot of people over the years and no doubt helped them all. The tools of your trade are internal / interpersonal things like communication, faith, trust, experience, and things of that nature. They recharge and strengthen differently than technical, physical and vocational skills. I’d call it processing and composing, not time off. No doubt you’ll hit 2020 better than ever.” –Kevin

I remain grateful for both spirit and opportunity that seem to consistently roam the surface and depth of experience, assuring this individual particle of his place and role in the unfolding story. 

Notes:

Berry, Thomas, and Swimme, Brian. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era –a Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos. New York: Harper Collins, 2015. (pp. 42 & 52)

Brunson, Jeff. In the Middle with Trueness: The Transforming Resonance of a Leader. Ohio: Soul Publishing Group, 2017. (Chapter One & Seven)

Crossan, John Dominic. How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian: Struggling with Divine Violence from Genesis through Revelation. New York: Harper Collins, 2015. (p. 112)

Porrata, Mayra. TheFlourishingWay.com – Ohio: Copyright © 2019 Mayra Porrata, LLC. (Truth has no agenda. Post from August 29, 2019)

Reflective: A Participation Essay

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At this juncture there’s one thing for sure about some particular things within my own experience, I no longer believe what I once believed. And as I enter each reflective time and each contemplative stance, I find each belief challenged down to the bottom, either reaching a base revealing falseness or a ground of being with truth.

More than forty years since the conversation, and I’ve carried his statement with me through these years. It was after a community sunrise Easter service, and a few of us were delaying departure and talking. The exact topic evades memory. One of the participants was an elderly and wise African-American pastor. At the end of the conversation, he made the statement, “I don’t understand all I know about that.”

From my very origin I was given a strength to go deep into things of interest to better understand them. As I’ve noted before in my writing, this strength of understanding can be easily overused, becoming an equal limitation if I’m not paying careful attention to the required balance with other core strengths. This gift will continue to serve me well if I allow the protective questions; inquiries that ground me in truth.

To believe something is to hold a certain level of sureness about that something, or at least a hopeful view that there is some truth worthy of one’s energy. However, such sureness can often be completely formed on feelings; responses that may or may not be based on reality. To know something requires one to go further, more in the direction of real trust built on the foundation of both observation and experiential inquiry. We have to do the work. I’m not posturing believing against knowing or knowing against believing. More appropriately, I’m expanding on a flow of process and methodology, from believing to knowing. Beliefs determine how one behaves. Knowing grounds one. Both are important. My beliefs evolve and my knowing grows. And I don’t understand all I know about that.

Contemplation of the Work; to this Moment
In my Essay on Sustenance, I identified purpose as a sustaining force in my years thus far, and that I had entered a six month period of contemplating this work to which I’ve been led. I’m one month into such contemplation; openness to what has been and what is yet to be. One of the questions firing off this time is this: Over the past twenty years, how has my work, me, and me in the work, evolved? In addition, I must surely ask, What beliefs are being challenged in order to be grounded into a more real truth? Do I believe that my work has had an impact on the individuals with whom I love to work? Here’s what I know; I love what I do, and those for whom I do it, and I know I’m good at it.

Yes, I love the individuals with whom I work, and I want to continue to be available along their journey into and with Trueness as they live and lead from their unique rhythm. So in this contemplative space, I must confidently live the questions.

This work somewhat quickly became different than originally envisioned. My vision was more in the sights of consulting. But I suspect the more I brought myself into it (Trueness), it became coaching; whether working one-on-one or with a group. From the beginning however, I was driven by a commitment to the individual, to the internal to external flow, and to the individual to collective flow. Along with this, and because of my commitment to the individual (not to mention the practicality of building a practice), I focused what I do on the individual leader. What this looked like was a brief statement, that in essence, answered the question, What do you do? My answer; I Build Confident Leaders. This was more than just a way of answering this kind of ‘dinner party’ question. For me it became the focus of my energy, my interest-to-energy connection; an energy that guided my choices and decisions as I did the work and allowed both process and methodology to evolve.

“All human occupations and professions must themselves be expressions of the universe and its mode of functioning. This is especially true of what came to be known as religion, for the term religion and the term universe are somewhat similar in their meaning. Both are derived from the Latin, and both have to do with turning back to unity. Religion, re-ligare, is a binding back to origin. Universe, or universa, is a turning back of the many to the one. Earlier peoples seem to have understood this.” –Thomas Berry

Reflecting on the work thus far, it becomes clear that there was something in my belief system that pushed/pulled me into this work. Was it purpose? For me, probably. I believed I had something unique, or at a minimum something missing, for those individuals with whom I worked at the time. So, before I knew I would become a coach, I coached. In truth, all I did was encourage. And I don’t understand all I know about that.

Building Confident Leaders
This statement represents my purpose as a coach, what I do, and just may be where the center of all evolution (unfolding) may lie. Certainly this purposeful focus has served me well. It has held Trueness and practicality together for me, and has held me in the work. My Trueness has been held by the confident, as my voice of Love and its strength of Encouragement were put to work in the building. While at this moment, leaders seems to be the piece most in question as I move forward, it is the piece that provided practical, tangible focus, allowing the intangible portion of what it is that I do, and represent, to become real for the individual for whom I do it.

My process/methodology is impactful. I was blessedly reminded of this recently when. in one day, two coaching clients each spoke to the value experienced in our work together, the presence we’ve thus far shared. There was a time when such comments were received and acknowledged by a too-quick, Thank You. Thanks to much guidance from valued colleagues I now allow such unsolicited feedback to soak in deeply.

Do I still want to encourage? Yes. Can it be called by another name? Yes. It already also has that name: Love. Just by the nature of encouragement, confidence is honored. I do recognize here that confidence is built by action. So then, maybe it’s encouragement focused on the Trueness of the individual that facilitates action that is good and right for the person and those they impact by their unique presence.

“Now that we are no longer bound by the constraints of probability, we must face the fact that we have a responsibility to own what’s possible. Opportunity abounds. And that’s both a scary and empowering thought. The onus to create the future we want to see for ourselves and others is on us. We get to own the story we want to live and tell.” –Bernadette Jiwa

To know fully the reality of the freedom we possess in how we are in our life and living is at the same time encouraging and discouraging; as we see possibility and feel the missed opportunities. It may seem that work is the most important thing in my life and living. This is not true at all. Working, in a general sense in our society, consumes upwards of two thirds of one’s waking hours; if you add to the time in the tasks the commute to and from for so much of the population. Work is a place where we can discover the opportunity to ‘play out’ who we are, or where we sadly avoid being who we truly are. Besides all this, I write to you about work not because I want you be successful in some occupation, but rather I want you to know your Trueness in a calling; a way of being that is true wherever you are and with whatever you do.

Back to evolution, specifically as it applies to my own true unfolding. It seems, as I also consider process and methodology, that process and methodology have evolved as I have. More real than ever, who I am has become inextricably linked to what I do, ever wanted to do, had to do. And I don’t understand all I know about that.

Notes:

Berry, Thomas. Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 2006. (p. 114)

Jiwa, Bernadette. TheStoryofTelling.com – Melbourne, Australia: Copyright © 2017 Bernadette Jiwa. (The Bounds of Possibility. Post from August 2, 2019)