"Portrait of Awakening" © 2013 Rev. David Seacord 5" x 7" Acrylic on Canvas
(The image [like life] may require some stepping back...)
Everyman's WEEKLY Journal #24
© 2013 Rev. David Seacord
May 12, 2013
Recognizing Ourselves as Each Other...
The phone rang and it was my 'ex-and-now-best-friend', Sarah, calling to ask me to be with her on the phone because she was walking through a dangerous feeling part of Brooklyn at 10 o'clock at night and she was very nervous because all the negative male attention she was receiving as she was walking. Understanding that her being on her cell phone was a protection technique, I stayed with her for about 20 minutes until she got to the safety of her destination, tracking her with location notes 'just in case'. That 'just in case' (that we didn't talk about but we both were aware of)… that picture of 'something happening'… that I knew (if actual) would be traumatizing for both of us. I prayed silently that we would be spared that kind of outcome, and we both felt gratitude to Source when she arrived safely at her destination--an important friends birthday celebration. Later she let me know by text that she'd gotten a ride home and didn't have to do the walk back to the subway…
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This desert place where I have come to live with Mom is far enough from such concentrations of urban dark side energies that I seldom lock my doors here, BUT it is not so far that the news of the negative is absent. So this week, I, like a lot of people, felt the pain of the hundreds of deaths from the collapse of the garment factory in India. Because nothing is ever really 'as it seems', today as I was engaged in one of my zen practices-- ironing my shirts-- I pondered the possibility that some of my shirts may have been sewn by some of the deceased. Certainly if not them personally, then by others working in similar far-flung marginal conditions. As I followed my self-inquiry, it was easy to see that these marginal conditions existed because someone was trying to maximize the profit from the clothing product. It was also easy to see that the manufacturer was severely pressured by many forces in choosing to cost cut working conditions, as it was trying to compete in a global marketplace of giant but uncaring ("we don't want to know your problems") foreign buyers, like the favorite American chain we creatives 'like-to-dislike': W___art. So up to this point, it is clearly easy to point the greed finger elsewhere. However, I must warn you that to continue inquiring leads to much more uncomfortable territory…. (This btw, is what you may not wish to hear or read, but the conundrum of that is: It's you/me reading/looking at exactly what we don't want to---it's THAT that makes it a valuable thing to read. Catch 22.)
Continuing… So I was in that favorite-to-dislike chain (Mom's favorite store and pharmacy, wouldn't you know) and I noticed that bananas (which I eat a lot of) were 'on sale' for $.37/lb (about half the normal price). Since I was there, I loaded up--- good deal, right? But then that 'self-inquiry' started asking questions inside me again… hummmm… "At $.37/lb, factoring in store labor, transportation and other costs, what is the farm worker earning?" Of course I saw that it would not be much…. a lot less than I would be willing to work for, I thought to myself. And right then I saw what I didn't really want to see. Thiswas all because of me. Me? Yes, an aggregate of millions of 'me's', to be sure, but I was definitely part of that aggregate. How is this so? Because I am (often) an economic program that doesn't want to pay what something is really worth, that's why. Therefore, I'm the source of the pressure that presses the stores to find ways to cheat the full fair price economics, which then passes the pressure onto the manufacturer, which then causes the manufacturer to pressure the laboring worker to accept the risk of a potential disaster in the future for a paycheck (if it could be called that) now. And then the future arrives….
The problem is, I/we get numb from continually trying to swim against the currents of the false, the untrue. I know I do. The call of the world is (basically) 'Believe in me---I can give you happiness-- I can give you wealth-- I can give you power--- I can give you the greatest sex---'. And, again and again and again, each time we/I chose the world, eventually we rediscover we have betrayed ourselves. We have tried again to make 'the illusion' be real.
Is there real 'security' in this world, really? Do we have any guarantees of safety? No. To live--to be alive-- is to continually risk and to be vulnerable, moment by moment. To tell another story about life is to tell a lie. But that is the great pretense that we have bought into…. Is it not our egoic motivations --- the desire to Be Somebody, to Get Ahead of the Game, to Be a Player, to Do Something Important… is it not all those things that drive us or anybody to violate the law of Unity? How do we not know this? I suggest it is because we do not choose to know it. Which is the same thing as saying Me First-- you get what's left.
Once Ram Dass said something amazingly important: "No one can possibly grow spiritually at another persons expense". A Course in Miracles says it another way: A teacher of God is anyone who recognizes the well-being of another as equal to his own.
The conundrum is that the spiral of spiritual growth gets played out against a whiter and whiter background, so that what were once tiny little imperfection specks become bigger and bigger, more and more visible. My/our ego screams 'Uncle! Enough!' but Spirit says there is a different possibility. As my songwriter friend Steven Walters put it about this surrender: "Nothing less than everything will do…" In other words, the journey to truth is endless, and it knows that ultimately there are no exceptions. ACIM also says it nicely: the hardest thing to get about truth is that it is true (meaning completely, infalibly true).
What this means is that eventually (actually, as soon as we are willing) we are called to act absolutely consistent with what we know is true. That is where the rubber meets the road. One path towards that that is very useful is the practice of generosity. This is basically reversing the worlds teaching of 'me first' with its opposite, selflessness. In this, we enter Unity by giving equally to others whatever we give to ourselves.
I pray these thought will be of use to you, and myself…because of course, speaking/writing the words is the easy part of the path. Walking it is still necessary too. In that, we all rely upon Grace.
Namaste, & Sat Nam,
David
PS… Happy Mother's Day :-)
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Rev. David Seacord
Fine Art Painter / Sufi Cherag
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