Friday, November 29, 2019

Attention




Invisible Work
Because no one could ever praise me enough,
because I don’t mean only these poems but the unseen
unbelievable effort it takes to live
the life that goes on between them,
I think all the time about invisible work,
about the single mother on welfare I talked to
years ago, who said, “It’s hard.
You bring him to the park, run rings
around yourself keeping him safe,
cut hot dogs into bite-sized pieces for dinner, and there’s no one
to say what a good job you’re doing, how you were
patient and loving for the ten
thousandth time, even though you had a headache.”
And I, who am used
to feeling sorry for myself because I am lonely
when all the while, as the Chippewa
poem says, I am being carried
by great winds across the sky,
think of the invisible work that stitches up the world
day and night, the slow, unglamorous
work of healing, the way worms in the garden
tunnel ceaselessly so the earth can breathe and bees
enter and leave their lovers like exhausted Don Juans while owls
and poets stalk shadows, our
loneliest labors under the moon. There are mothers
for everything, and the sea
is a mother too,
whispering and whispering to us long
after we have stopped
listening. I stop and let myself lean
a moment against the blue
shoulder of the air. The work
of my heart
is the work of the world’s
heart. There is no other art.        ...Alison Luterman


To ask what MATTERS is to ask what is of utmost importance to a being. If someone can’t tell you, you can find out, they say, by looking at their checkbook or their calendar. I imagine today it would be their Smart phone.

I would answer the question this way:
I would say both nothing matters AND everything matters.

The word matter is ancient and multi-layered.
Besides substance it also means potential.
It comes from the root as MATRIX and MOTHER
And matrix means, among other things, WOMB.

There is no sense in which we can divorce our theological and philosophical understanding of life and death from the matrix into which we were born. Even if we were to divorce ourselves from that matrix, we would still have a theology based upon rejection, which is still a belief system. Everyone believes in something, or as Dylan sang, you have to serve somebody.

So: matter.

For me, when I am practicing contemplation and mindfulness, what does NOT matter is winning the lottery, what kind of car someone drives, titles and honorifics.

What matters is the tear on the cheek of one child, the fate of even one child going hungry or separated from their mother, or getting killed in a school shooting or a bomb blast, being abused or neglected, be it in Syria, at the Mexico border, or here in Tennessee. The well-being of creatures, the worms in the garden, the bees and the owls, one moment of connection, one second of peace. Love matters. Truth matters.

But that is when I am disciplined and diligent. Other times, I go on the web and buy a new sweater.

What matters to you?

Because no one could ever praise me enough,
because I don’t mean only these poems but the unseen
unbelievable effort it takes to live
the life that goes on between them,
I think all the time about invisible work,

Who does this invisible work?

Here’s an example from our own Unitarian heritage:

The day he was taken by the Nazis in Prague, Dr. Norbert Capek preached as usual to his congregation, using metaphor as many Unitarian ministers did in Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia. He preached as storm troopers stood in the back of his church.
We all know that this is the worst winter in our history and the ground is terribly frozen. We also know that Spring must come and the seeds now buried will sprout and bloom again.
Of course, the Nazis knew this was code, as it was not Winter but Spring, and the 72-year-old man was arrested and sent to Dachau where he was the victim of cruel medical experiments as well as the gas chamber. For practicing this faith, our faith of freedom and humanitarianism. He never gave up. Even in the camp, he led church services and continued to compose hymns for his fellow. Invisible work.

What we do, and refuse to do, matters. Our attention becomes intention. Our attention is what moves us from intention to action.

Bumper sticker: What you do matters. (Holocaust Museum)

What do you do?

And I, who am used
to feeling sorry for myself because I am lonely
when all the while, as the Chippewa
poem says, I am being carried
by great winds across the sky,
think of the invisible work that stitches up the world
day and night, the slow, unglamorous
work of healing…

And, words matter.

Words. Like “though” and “intimidated”.
Words like “bad news” and “investigate”.
One word can cause deep wounds, another word can heal and repair.
The word “matter” matters.

Black Lives matter. This movement was brilliant in many ways. The opposite of black lives MATTER is not All Lives Matter. The opposite is Black Lives Don’t Matter. I will tell you that black lives didn’t matter to me for my first few decades of life. I neither lived near nor knew any person of color, other than our housekeeper, Emma, almost nothing was taught us in school even though it was at the height of the Civil Rights movement, nor did my family of origin affirm black lives in any way. I lived about two miles away from the AME church where the impetus for the Mt. Laurel decision was formed. Attention became intention which became ontological results. Nearby is Jacob's Chapel, a stop on the Underground RR as I suspect my family home may have been.

Click here for more on the Mt. Laurel Doctrine.

Jacob's Chapel AME Church. Genesis of Mt. Laurel Decision


The phrase and the movement Black Lives Matter pleads with us to see the myriad ways in which the institutions of this society, this matrix in which we exist, education, government, real estate, religion, law enforcement, justice, health and wellness, even entertainment and the arts, have neglected, trampled over, and treated as less than human persons of color. I find it hard to believe that any educated white person could review their life and not see this, not comprehend the privilege which they have been granted, the doors that were open to them and closed to others, the suspicions placed on others but not on them. We have been trained and have trained ourselves to neither review nor acknowledge these things. Again, only a discipline and a mindfulness will keep us alert to this 
pleading.

Cain Family Home 1940-2018




There are mothers
for everything, and the sea
is a mother too,
whispering and whispering to us long
after we have stopped
listening. I stop and let myself lean
a moment against the blue
shoulder of the air

What this small congregation does matters.  Our intention to love and heal comes through when intention becomes attention and the invisible work of housing, feeding and caring for the least among us. Our attention turns what matters into substances, food, mattresses, conversation, socks and toothbrushes.

Listening matters. Giving our full attention to the other.

How can you pay attention?

The work
of my heart
is the work of the world’s heart
There is no other art.

What is the work of your heart? Will you stop long enough to hear it?