The Mystery of Mutuality

The last couple of running days I’ve felt less than my best – ‘under the weather’ as they say.    Despite this, and in brave attempts to shake it, I have gotten out of bed and put those running shoes on.  Today was the 2^nd of those two. 

I haven’t allowed myself to ‘wonder’ much lately.  Instead of living a mystery, I’ve really gotten into a habit of working something over in my mind until it makes sense to me.  As of this morning’s run, I’ve declared one certain mystery in my life: our two year old dog has come to mean the world to me.  It was her snoring in the next room this morning that quite literally got me out of bed.  As the alarm sounded I felt groggy and unmotivated.  Dorothy’s snores reminded me how much she likes to run in the morning, and from experience, I’m convinced our morning routine has definite personal benefits.

Once out on the road, Dorothy and I get into a groove that is again, unexplainable.  She trots happily along (at least that’s how I interpret her high steps and perked up ears) and in between being consciously present to my breathing and watching my posture, I glance down in pure joy that she is so happy.  It is that simple.  And that unexplainable.  Dorothy brings me joy, and bringing her joy brings me joy.  It is a positive reinforcing cycle.

My thoughts wandered to my faith.  What about our loving Creator God?  I’ve been listening to a precious gift my husband will give to the Benedictine Community in Oxford in a few days.  He interviews people for research as part of his business, and in his characteristic ‘stepping out of the box’ he interviewed Fr. Dan Homan, former prior and now deceased member of that community, during his studies on collaboration and on creativity.  (He usually targets highly successful people in multi-national corporations for such questions.)  Kerry, my husband, asked me to listen to the tapes he’d found of the interviews with Dan’s name on them, and help sort out which was which.  In response to Kerry’s questions on success, Fr. Dan spoke of his life mission: to let people know they are more than what they own and that they are precious in the eyes of God no matter what they do.  It is that simple.  And that unexplainable.  According to Fr. Dan, God looks at us with joy, especially when we are happy.

Another friend this week posted a list on Facebook of ‘What ifs.”  One was, “What if we said ‘I love you’ under our breath to each person we saw before we said anything else to them?”  Simple. Unexplainable – as least by today’s societal standards.  We are programmed to be skeptical, to be proper, to be vigilant and self-protective.  Being loving is mysterious because we’re supposed to save that for people that do nice things for us and don’t hurt other people.  Being so enamored by a four footed friend who’s always super excited to see you when you come home from work, and missing that friend when you are working long days is just a little too kooky for our ‘normal’ world.  God’s love is hard to put faith in – it’s too easy – too free – too invasive.

Maybe what’s so mysterious questioning ourselves about why we love so deeply; and questioning God’s love.  Our faith teaches us to embrace mystery.  What’s clear and explainable is that loving deeply makes the whole world a better place, by starting with the relationships that surround us every day.  Maybe as we progress in this, feeling happy and connected by watching others be happy won’t be so mysterious.  Mutuality will become comfortable.

Animal Instinct!

This morning I definitely did not want to get out of bed.  I knew it was cold out and when we had walked the dogs last night there was a thin coat of ice on the roads making it impossible to walk at my usual pace.  I also had to be honest and knew if I got out of our development, other roads were likely salted, so I did set the alarm to run.  The strong call of the cozy sheets keeping me in bed was interrupted only by to my husband’s restful measured breathing – it kept me from falling back asleep!

So off I trotted – sure it was going to be short and sweet because it was cold, and surprised it was actually NOT icy.  A freak of nature!  How could the ice have gone overnight when there was no thaw?  Whatever the cause, it allowed me the luxury of letting my mind wander - and wonder at what I would learn this morning.

Once I got warmed up a bit and picked up the pace I lengthened the run in my mind.  Yeah, I could take that other turn, and yes, I should go up this cul-de-sac – it is flat so why not? (So much of our surrounding neighborhoods are constant hills and declines). Dorothy was doing her usual looking out for her friends in familiar places.  I’ve become accustomed, and so has Dorothy, of seeing certain people out with their dogs at certain points on our run.  We encountered one such familiar ‘family’ this morning in rare form. We were right near their home and the owner, not seeing me, had opened the door before the leashes went on the dogs – an older irish setter and a young husky/sheperd/malamut mix.  The two barked and barreled straight for Dorothy and I - and thus the lesson of the day began.

I seldom own my authority.  Not that I am laid back by any means – I strive to a fault to control the environment around me – but not so much the people and the other living things.  Self reflection has revealed to me that this is due to the credit/blame cycle our society sets up, and a weakness in my own sense of self confidence.  I shy away from autocratic leadership in every way.  I don’t want to take the blame for calling the wrong shot – and to my credit, I never take exclusive credit for any of my accomplishments. On the positive side of this avoidance is a spirit who is firmly, deeply rooted in the idea of community and collaboration.  All that said, I believe there is a time when definitive leadership needs to be taken up and exercised.  I sometimes fail to step in where I should.  I don’t want to mess “it” up and have to take the blame.

In the split seconds it took the dogs to advance, I was deeply grateful for something my husband had taught me about dissuading approaching dogs.  I squatted, spread my arms wide, and yelled “NO.”  My first attempt was not successful.  I consciously decided not to follow another common recommendation to let the leash down when your dog is being attacked so they are equals to the loose dog(s).  My instincts told me that was a very bad idea.  So I kept Dorothy (a pit bull terrier – size small J) close to me on her leash. When I yelled “NO” with great force, Dorothy hovered behind me.  Behind me went the large shepherd mix to bite at Dorothy.  I turned toward it and squatted and shouted again.  The small in stature woman across the road looked on in shock.  After about four turns and squats and shouts the dogs retreated.  When Dorothy was snipped at she was definitely doing her best to defend herself, and then my “NO” would subdue her again.  When the dogs were back close to their owner, she profusely apologized, and I shouted the ‘squat and spread’ technique to her as we ran off.  She thanked me.

As I ran off opulently affirming Dorothy for not tearing those dogs up to the best of her ability (she would have done okay, but I’m not sure she would have won and I don’t want to imagine what that whole scene would look like) I was actually surprised at myself, and happy.  I was pushed into an autocratic leadership role.  My, what our human nature will bring forward within us!  It was a lesson for me in instinct and protection.  Our human instinct to protect is not different from that of all of our relations in the animal kingdom.  It was, in a small way, an example of being pushed to a limit and rising to the occasion. I'm glad we encountered the off-leash dogs for the revelation it provided me! 

What I 'saw' in the Dark!

It is because of the run I’m about to speak of that this blog exists.  The experience was so rich that it pushed me ‘off the fence’ about whether to write a blog or not.

Due to a pretty rigid running discipline of Monday, Wednesday and Friday and an early meeting at Henry Ford Community College this past Monday morning, Dorothy and I set out in the dark.  It was very dark, and very early!  Under “About Me” to the left on this page I speak to my current spiritual confusion, and that heart-space has been unavoidable during my morning runs.  What seemed to set this run as so unique and so rich were the two major factors of silence and darkness, most often brightened by moonlight, and sometimes even that was absent.

It was much earlier than Dorothy usually woke and evidently she’d been up late the night before with my husband and a houseguest – one guest who loved on Dorothy like no other house guest here has!  I actually had to take the lease into the meditation room where she sleeps and put it on her, when ordinarily the sound of the dresser drawers opening as I get dressed to run are enough to get her up and wagging that wonderful tail!  Her hesitation paralleled mine, but her energy actually EXCEEDS mine; my running discipline is often driven by avoiding an indoor, albeit small for her breed, pit bull with pent up energy.  I take her with me every morning run and walk on alternate days. So off we went.  The darkness was more disorienting to her than to me; she actually ran behind me for a good mile before she was in the ‘alpha dog’ groove and out front making sure nothing harmed either of us. 

The morning moonlight was remarkable.  During my morning meditation as I sat on a cushion on the floor, the moon had ever so gradually started setting and eventually bathed me in its light through a window.  I knew it would be a good run in that earlier moment.  The first mile we run is usually in a neighborhood, and there are short stints along busier roads to get to more secluded roads, depending on which direction I choose.  Knowing the snow-less running mornings were numbered, I decided to venture toward a major road (which will be unavailable to run on once the plowed snow narrows it) to get to a heavily wooded dirt road.  Unfortunately, the cars coming toward us and heading to work early were blinding, and of course distracted me from enjoying the moonlight – a poignant, disappointing experience of light pollution.

The first major spiritual truth of the morning was revealed as we turned onto the dirt road.  In contrast to the car lights, it was as if I was blind for the first few yards, but I kept going.  I then thought I heard an outdoor electric generator, got further down the road noticing no home lights on, and realized that my eyes had adjusted. It was just going to be dark.  The stretch of dirt road is about 1.5 miles, and since the earth was turning away from the moon, the moon was behind the dense trees.  I was on a road that is often plagued by wash-board like bumps, not to mention unexpected dips and rises, and it was dark - very dark. 

Some of my recent restlessness, I had just days before realized, was due to a lack of collaboration, to borrow an overused buzz word.  I found as I looked around my life, I felt as though I was managing EVERYTHING and felt the weight of the world, at least MY world, on my shoulders.  It was my life’s mission at this point to manage everything around me.  And in that present moment I realized, there is only so much managing you can do in the dark – the condition is very limiting!  Managing the world, I had realized, left me with little trust in anyone or anything, including myself.  I had a choice on my run, I could trust my skills, and the process, and accept the fact that there was little I could manage, or I could turn around and go home.  I had to keep going.

Looking down constantly was as dangerous as not looking.  I was very conscious of the full foot strike on that road so that I had a better chance of not turning an ankle; creating a wider base.  I was less aware of upcoming hills and declines because I couldn’t see more than 5-10 feet ahead of where I was.  Another dynamic I became aware of was how much I ordinarily ‘rubber neck’ it on that road looking for deer during my runs.  They could have been all around me that morning and I wouldn’t have known.  There was fear during that stretch, and fear isn’t productive when running – being uptight and putting all sorts of demands on your body in addition is a bad idea and counter-productive.  I felt forced to relax, and to trust.

Despite all of those limits, I felt very strong.  The day before was sedentary so I had energy.  It took the letting go to capitalize on the energy I stored up, and to push myself physically, which makes the run that much more effective throughout my day.

The next turn was the next spiritual gift.  The road I turned on was not busy, but wasn’t desolate and wooded either.  So a few people drove past, and the side of the road I was running on meant that the closer vehicles were driving near me from behind me.  The light that came from behind also dispelled the beautiful moonlight, but the moon was also behind me at this point.  So whether it was headlights or moonlight, my travels were made so much easier due to back lighting rather than light in my face when the rest of the environment is bathed in darkness. 

During the run I let my mind drift to any possible spiritual truth that I could find in being ‘backlit.’  I’ve never been one to strongly believe in an interventionist God.  My case against that has been the fact that there people starving and dying and suffering, and God doesn’t intervene?  And I don’t buy the party line that God allows those conditions to exist in order to give those of us who aren’t suffering something to do.  God is an unconditional lover.  God doesn’t just sit idly by creating and allowing suffering on the part of God’s creation. So it is our human greed and our less-than-perfect being that creates suffering, as far as I’m concerned.  Since I don’t believe in a direct interventionist God, I was left wondering, and happily so, how God and my faith might light me from behind?  It sure seemed effective!  And maybe times like earlier in the morning, where I needed to face the light (being bathed in moonlight) in stillness to draw energy and peace from something, some force, greater than myself, were also part of this equation.  There are times I must stop doing – stop managing - because I can’t see – either because there’s too much light or not enough.

The night before this run, I had a conversation with a former spiritual director over the phone.  I told him I had recently had trouble sleeping.  He quoted some famous spiritual writer as saying, “My final prayer will be to fall peacefully into the loving arms of God.”  I tried doing that the night previous to this run and it didn’t work.  I truly was in a place of mistrust.  I didn’t feel God there.  God showed up – or more likely heart recognized God – more in the surprisingly unwelcoming (surely by Dorothy’s standards) dark, early morning run.  I am grateful!