Sacred Is Nothing Special

Sacred is nothing special. It's just life, revealing its true nature. Life's true nature is wholeness, Indra's net embracing every living thing, able to contain all unique expressions. In a sacred moment, I experience that wholeness. I know I belong here. I don't think about it, I simply feel it. Without any work on my part, my heart opens and my sense of "me" expands. I'm no longer locked inside a small self. I don't feel alone or isolated. I feel here. I feel welcomed.

That's from Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future by Margaret J. Wheatley. It's not a new book (2002), but I only became aware of it recently when someone shared it with me. I'm glad I did. Here's what I wrote for my review:

My only complaint about this book is that there's not more of it. I love everything about it except its short length. I could read more of these thoughts and themes all day. If we want things (anything) to be better, we need to talk to each other more--with honesty, openness, kindness, and listening. This book provides a philosophy, guide, and prompts for doing so.

Here's a big more from Wheatley (ellipses not included to create better flow):

I've noticed that many of us harbor negative beliefs about each other. Or we believe that there's nothing we can do to make a difference. Or that things are so crazy that we have to look out only for ourselves. With these beliefs, we cannot turn to one another. We won't engage together for the work that needs to be done.

I believe we can change the world if we start listening to one another again. Simple, honest, human conversation. Not meditation, negotiation, problem-solving, debate, or public meetings. Simple, truthful conversation where we each have a chance to speak, we each feel heard, and we each listen well. 

We each experience life differently. It's impossible for any two people to ever see things exactly the same.

To be curious about how someone else interprets things, we have to be willing to admit that we're not capable of figuring things out alone.

When we listen with less judgment, we always develop better relationships with each other. It's not differences that divide us. It's our judgments about each other that do. Curiosity and good listening bring us back together.

We can't be creative if we refuse to be confused. Change always starts with confusion.

As the world grows more strange and puzzling and difficult, I don't believe most of us want to keep struggling through it alone. I can't know what to do from my own narrow perspective. I know I need a better understanding of what's going on. I want to sit down with you and talk about all the frightening and hopeful things I observe, and listen to what frightens you and gives you hope. I need new ideas and solutions for the problems I care about. I know I need to talk to you to discover those. I need to learn to value your perspective, and I want you to value mine. I expect to be disturbed by what I hear from you. I know we don't have to agree with each other in order to think well together. There is no need for us to be joined at the head. We are joined by our human hearts.

Simple, truthful conversation where we each have a chance to speak, we each feel heard, and we each listen well. 

We each experience life differently. It's impossible for any two people to ever see things exactly the same.

To be curious about how someone else interprets things, we have to be willing to admit that we're not capable of figuring things out alone.

It's not differences that divide us. It's our judgments about each other that do. Curiosity and good listening bring us back together.

It's excellent. I have more to share below.

(And I'll note, in contrast to my normal practice, that when quoting this book I've left out ellipsis to represent the absence of a few words, sentences, or paragraphs for better reading flow, since I did it so often.)

A strongly related idea:

The instinct to judge other people's behavior as stupid, irrational, or crazy is very common, and it's also a sign that there's something you're missing. This is a point that top negotiators all emphasize: don't write off the other side as crazy. When their behavior confuses you, lean in to that confusion. Treat it as a clue. You'll often find that it leads you to the information you need to resolve the negotiation. . . . 

Leaning in to confusion is about inverting the way you're used to seeing the world. Instead of dismissing observations that contradict your theories, get curious about them. Instead of writing people off as irrational when they don't behave the way you think they should, ask yourself why their behavior might be rational. Instead of trying to fit confusing observations into your preexisting theories, treat them as clues to a new theory.

Scouts view anomalies as puzzle pieces to collect as you go through the world. You probably won't know what to do with them at first. But if you hang on to them, you may find that they add up to a richer picture of the world than you had before.

That's from an excellent companion book, a newish one: The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't by Julia Galef. Turning to One Another proposes making the world better by being open to each other; The Scout Mindset proposes making ourselves better by being open to each other. Both motivations lead to the same conclusion.

Here's my review for The Scout Mindset:

Many people aspire to be "open-minded." Most of us probably think we are. Because our evolutionary and instinctive programming fights that goal, though, we all have room to improve. This is a book for doing so, for working on becoming more open-minded.

Galef defines open-mindedness as having a "scout mindset."

Scout Mindset: the motivation to see things as they are, not as you wish they were.

Scout mindset is what allows you to recognize when you are wrong, to seek out your blind spots, to test your assumptions and change course. It's what prompts you to honestly ask yourself questions like "Was I at fault in that argument?" or "Is this risk worth it?" or "How would I react if someone from the other political party did the same thing?"

In this book, she clearly and effectively describes what it is to have a scout mindset, considers its opposite and the obstacles that prevent it, and provides a variety of tools for more effectively achieving one. Many books detail our human flaws to clear thinking; this one spells out what to do about them. It's highly valuable.

I'll have more from this in a bit.

I want to share something from comic/graphic artist Jessica Hagy, who writes Indexed. This is from the Indexed Facebook page:

Sonder: to realize that everybody on Earth is living a life as complicated, intense, and vibrantly unique as your own. It’s that feeling you get when you realize that you’re not IN traffic—you ARE traffic.

Visually, that word is is an iceberg: with what we see about other people above the waterline, while what’s really happening is submerged below.

Like so:

I believe that Sonder was first defined by The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows:

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

Sonder.

Back to today's featured books:

I alone can't ask to be seen fully for who I am and my unique value. If I want you to acknowledge my gifts, I have to be curious about yours. I have a responsibility to look for and honor yours. We create enough space for our own self-expression only by inviting everybody else's uniqueness.

 ~ Turning to One Another

Our judgment isn't limited by knowledge nearly as much as it's limited by attitude.

 ~ The Scout Mindset

It's reciprocal and mutual. If I want others to see and appreciate me, I must always work to see and appreciate them.

Here's an abridged version of the guidance Wheatley provides in Turning to One Another for how to be in conversation with each other:

For conversation to take us into this deeper realm, I believe we have to practice several new behaviors. Here are the principles I've learned to emphasize before we begin a formal conversation process:

We acknowledge one another as equals.

Conversation is an opportunity to meet together as peers, not as roles. What makes us equal is that we're human beings. A second thing that makes us equal is that we need each other. Whatever we know, it is not sufficient. We can't see enough of the whole. We can't figure it out alone. Somebody sees something that the rest of us might need.

We try to stay curious about each other.

When we begin a conversation with this humility, it helps us be interested in who's there. It's easier for us to tell our story, to share our dreams and fears, when we feel others are genuinely curious about us. Curiosity helps us discard our mask and let down our guard. It creates a spaciousness that is rare in other interactions.

I try to maintain curiosity by reminding myself that everyone here has something to teach me. When they're saying things I disagree with, or have never thought about, or that I consider foolish or wrong, I silently remind myself that they have something to teach me. Somehow this little reminder helps me be more attentive and less judgmental. It helps me stay open to people, rather than shut them out.

We recognize that we need each other's help to become better listeners.

I think that the greatest barrier to good conversation is that we've lost the capacity to listen. We're too busy, too certain, too stressed. We don't have time to listen. We just keep rushing past each other. This is true almost everywhere these days. One gift of conversation is that it helps us become good listeners again.

We slow down so we have time to think and reflect.

Listening is one of the skills required for good conversation. Slowing down is a second. Most of us work in places where we don't have time to sit together and think. We rush in and out of meetings where we make hurried, not thoughtful, decisions. Conversation creates the conditions for us to rediscover the joy of thinking together.

We remember that conversation is the natural way humans think together.

In conversation we are remembering perhaps as much as we are learning. Human beings know how to talk to each other--we've been doing this ever since we developed language. Language gives us the means to know each other better. That's why we invented it.

We've cultivated a lot of bad behaviors when we're together--speaking too fast, interrupting others, monopolizing the time, giving speeches or pronouncements. Many of us have been rewarded for these behaviors. We've become more powerful through their use. But none of these lead to wise thinking or healthy relationships. They only drive us away from each other.

We expect it to be messy at times.

Because conversation is the natural way that humans think together, it is, like all life, messy. Life doesn't move in straight lines and neither does a good conversation. When a conversation begins, people always say things that don't connect. What's important at the start is that everyone's voice gets heard, that everyone feels invited into the conversation. Everyone will speak from their unique perspective. Thus, they won't say the same things, at all. It can feel as if you're watching a ping pong ball bouncing off a wall as the conversation veers from one topic to another. If you're hosting the conversation, you may feel responsible to draw connections between these diverse contributions (even when you don't see them).

It's important to let go of that impulse and just sit with the messiness. Each person's contribution adds a different element or spice to the whole. If we connect these too early, we lose the variety we need. If we look for superficial commonalties, we never discover the collective wisdom found only in the depths. We have to be willing to listen, curious about the diversity of experiences and ideas. We don't have to make sense of it right away.

We have to be willing to listen, curious about the diversity of experiences and ideas. We don't have to make sense of it right away.

We will always experience some aspect of reality, of the Truth, but only from our perspectives as they are colored by who and where we are. Others will know a different color and none will see the whole, complete light.

Almost ten years ago, I reviewed the book Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work. My review begins:

For the past few years I've had a fascinating and fun journey working my way through a good collection of titles about how thinking works; more specifically, about how thinking doesn't work the way we think it works. That we are constantly lying to, misleading, and deluding ourselves. That our knowledge, perceptions, beliefs, memories, and actions aren't nearly as rational and reasonable as we like to think. That many of our decisions, both the little, daily ones and the big, life-changing ones aren't as sound and carefully reasoned as we believe. Titles on my shelves I'd include in this category: Predictably Irrational, Sway, You Are Not So Smart, Drive, True Enough, Practical Wisdom, Moonwalking with Einstein, The Social Animal, Connected, Thinking, Fast and Slow.

That review is one of my most "liked" on Goodreads that I've contributed and one of the top, most "liked" reviews for that title.

I mention this because Galef also references a number of these titles in The Scout Mindset. (Hello, confirmation bias.) Her goal with her book, though, is not simply pointing out how our thinking is flawed, but what to do about it. Here are a few more sections from her book that I noted:

Your reasoning changes as your motivations change. That the principles you're inclined to invoke or the objections that spring to your mind depend on your motives: the motive to defend your image or your in-group's status; the motive to advocate for a self-serving policy; fear of change or rejection.

Catching your brain in the act of motivated reasoning--noticing when an experiment's previously invisible flaws jump out at you, or noticing that your preferences change as you switch around supposedly irrelevant details of a scenario--breaks down the illusion that your initial judgment is the objective truth. It convinces you, viscerally, that your reasoning is contingent; that your initial judgments are a starting point for exploration, not an end point.

-----

Most of the time, being wrong doesn't mean you did something wrong. It's not something you need to apologize for, and the appropriate attitude to have about it is neither defensive nor humbly self-flagellating, but matter-of-fact.

Even the language scouts use to describe being wrong reflects this attitude. Instead of "admitting a mistake," scouts will sometimes talk about "updating." . . . 

You don't necessarily need to speak this way. But if you at least start to think in terms of "updating" instead of "admitting you were wrong," you may find that it takes a lot of friction out of the process. An update is routine. Low-key. It's the opposite of an overwrought confession of sin. An update makes something better or more current without implying that its previous form was a failure.

-----

Holding your identity lightly means thinking of it in a matter-of-fact way, rather than as a central source of pride and meaning in your life. It's a description, not a flag to be waved proudly. . . . 

That might sound like a minor distinction, but it feels very different from the inside. . . . 

Someone who holds her political identity lightly is happy when her party wins an election. But she's happy because she expects her party to do a better job leading the country, not because the other side suffered a humiliating defeat. She's not tempted to taunt the losers, the way some Democrats gloated over "right-wing temper tantrums" after Obama's 2012 win or the way some Republicans relished "liberal tears" after Donald Trump's 2016 win.

Holding an identity lightly means treating that identity as contingent, saying to yourself, "I'm a liberal, for as long as it continues to seem to me that liberalism is just." Or "I'm a feminist, but I would abandon the movement if for some reason I came to believe it was causing net harm." It means maintaining a sense of your own beliefs and values, independent of the tribe's beliefs and values, and acknowledging--at least in the privacy of your own head--the places where those two things diverge.

Since reasoning is contingent, identity should be contingent as well. You should always be willing to update your beliefs.

I want to go back to the quote I started with from Turning to One Another. Here it is again, with a bit more explanation.

Sacred is nothing special. It's just life, revealing its true nature. Life's true nature is wholeness, Indra's net embracing every living thing, able to contain all unique expressions. In a sacred moment, I experience that wholeness. I know I belong here. I don't think about it, I simply feel it. Without any work on my part, my heart opens and my sense of "me" expands. I'm no longer locked inside a small self. I don't feel alone or isolated. I feel here. I feel welcomed.

As I write this, through my window I've noticed a mother bird flying back and forth, worms dangling from her beak. She's working diligently to provide for her babies. Watching her, I remember my own mothering, and suddenly, I feel connected to all other beings who, as mothers, try to keep life going. A brief moment of noticing one hard-working bird, and I feel different, more connected. The bird, me, mothers everywhere, we're all doing our part to bring more life into the world. She does her own work, I do mine, and in this moment of recognition, my heart opens to the truth that we all share in this together. Instead of feeling tired by such responsibility, I feel blessed.

We can't experience sacred in isolation. It is always an experience of connecting. It doesn't have to be another person. (Remember, I just connected with a bird.) It can be a connection with an idea, a feeling, an object, a tradition. The connection moves us outside ourselves into something greater. Because we move out beyond ourselves, the experience of sacred is often described as spacious, open, liberating. We learn we are larger than we thought.

Experiencing sacredness is feeling open and connected, a part of something more. Boundless and enlarged. Sensing there is more out there than you and your perceptions, and that you belong to it. The more we let ourselves open up to others, to their experiences and perceptions, the more awareness we'll have of the sacred.

Here's an article from my recent feed that relates. It reports on a effective way that communities are connecting with disturbed individuals through listening and understanding instead of judgment and punishment.

The Alternative to Police That Is Proven to Reduce Violence

“Especially this day and age with all the violence by law enforcement toward men of color, you’re worried that if you call 911, it might be the police who show up,” says Hillary Ronen, a district supervisor who represents Bernal Heights. “If we had somebody we could call instead of 911, that would be better,” adds Gwendolyn Westbrook, who leads Mother Brown’s kitchen for unhoused people in the Bayview neighborhood, which has the city’s highest proportion of Black residents. As Tim Black told the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice in 2020, “There’s a lot of privilege that comes along with having a healthy enough relationship with police that you can contact them.” . . . 

The city’s new Street Crisis Response Team, which responds to unarmed adults in crisis from mental illness, substance use, or homelessness, tries to reduce interactions between the public and the police, to prevent officers from reacting violently to people in these situations.  

Nationwide, cops fatally shoot hundreds of people experiencing mental health emergencies every year. The city’s crisis responders, by contrast, don’t carry weapons. And they don’t have law enforcement backgrounds: Each three-person team includes a Fire Department paramedic, a behavioral health specialist, and a peer support counselor to help connect people with social services. In their vans, they store supplies like blankets, socks, snacks, Narcan, tampons, and toothbrushes. They respond to calls within 16 minutes on average, sometimes spending hours with a single person. Since November 2020, the team has fielded thousands of incidents—and, according to the Department of Public Health, which manages the project, not one has led to a death or an arrest, and fewer than 1 percent have led to violence.

San Francisco isn’t the only place betting that a health-focused crisis response team is the key to reducing unnecessary violence on its streets: Dozens of cities around the country, including Los Angeles, New York, and Denver, have set up similar teams over the last couple of years. Many draw inspiration from a long-running program in Eugene, Oregon, called Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets (CAHOOTS). Since its start in 1989, CAHOOTS has saved Eugene millions of dollars, according to the clinic that created the program, by freeing up police to focus on more dangerous crimes and by keeping mentally ill people out of jail.

The ideas from the two books might feel fluffy in the abstract, but they can be applied in very real, gritty ways. Communities are made safer and stronger through openness, empathy, and conversation.

I want to share one more thing from Turning to One Another. Wheatley includes this poem (among others) as food for thought and inspiration.

A Prayer For Children

by Ina J. Hughes (an American school teacher) and adapted by James Steyer.

We pray for children

who sneak popsicles before supper,

who erase holes in math workbooks,

who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,

who like ghost stories,

who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those

who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,

who can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,

who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead in,

who never go to the circus,

who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children

who sleep with the dog and bury the goldfish,

who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,

who get visits from the tooth fairy,

who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.

And we pray for those

who never get dessert,

who have no safe blanket to drag behind them.

who watch their parents watch them die

who can’t find any bread to steal,

who don’t have rooms to clean up,

whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,

whose monsters are real.

We pray for children

who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,

who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never rinse out the tub,

who don’t like to be kissed in front of the car-pool,

who squire in church or temple and scream in the phone,

whose tears we sometimes laugh at and

whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those

whose nightmares come in the daytime,

who will eat anything,

who have never seen a dentist,

who aren’t spoiled by anyone,

who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,

who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children who want to be carried

and for those who must,

for those we never give up on and

for those who don’t get a second chance,

for those we smother….

and who for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind

enough to offer it.

It reminds me very much of this recent picture book, which captures the essence of Turning to One Another as perfectly as anything might.

I Wish You Knew

by Jackie Azua Kramer

Our school

wraps around

a hundred-year-old

oak tree.

Through shady branches,

we watch summer leaves

change in the autumn wind

and drop

into crunchy

piles.

My favorite place is the school garden.

Between leafy cabbages and tomatoes,

my father helped our class

plant rows

of sunflower seeds.

One day, he told me

that because he wasn't born here

like me,

he must return to

his native country.

He wrapped his arms around me.

"Te quiero mucho, Estrella . . . my little star.

I'll be back one day

to see the sunflowers

bloom."

I love to skp between

the tall stalks of yellow-rayed petals

and think of his smile.

I wish you knew that when I forget my homework

or sit alone at lunch

or cry over little things,

it's because

I miss him.

I wish you knew

that since my father

left,

my mother works

a lot.

An my little brother

has bad

dreams.

I wish everyone knw how much I miss him.

Our school

wraps around

a hundred-year-old

oak tree.

As a teacher, my favorite place is our busy

and curious classroom.

I love to watch my students play

in our noisy playground,

with its soft patch of sand.

I wish they knew

that when they forget their homework

or sit alone at lunch

or cry over little things,

they

are not

alone.

Our school

wraps around

a hundred-year-old

oak tree.

My classmates and my new favorite place

is our class's sharing circle,

called I Wish You Knew.

We write down things that have happened

and feelings we wish others knew

on a piece of paper.

They're secret,

but they don't have to be

if you're ready to share.

I wish you knew I'm here to help.

I wish you knew that I'm hungry a lot.

I wish you knew that my

mom's away in the military.

I wish you knew I lived in a shelter.

I wish you knew

I miss my father.

But now in our sharing circle . . . 

 . . . I love to share cool ball tricks he taught me

or dances he learned as a boy

or songs we sang together.

I wish you knew

that we'll be together soon.

Till then,

my friends and teacher

help me plant sunflower seeds,

and we wait

for them

to bloom.

How can we make more opportunities to share with each other those things "I wish you knew?" How can we help each other find more sacred?