Loving Kindness

I've been on 'medical leave' from this blog for a while--my hands were burning when I typed, so I stopped any voluntary typing activity to let myself heal. I'm still working on the healing part, but it seemed like a good time to post another entry.

Since my last post, I've been thinking a lot about loving kindness. I read several books that renewed this focus for me. There was Isabel Losada's The Beginner's Guide to Changing the World about her decision to become an activist on behalf of Tibet and the Dalai Lama and Anne Lamott's new book Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith and Good Catholic Girls: How Women are Leading the Fight to Change the Church by Angela Bonavoglia.

I wasn't in love with the writing of Losada's book, but I was moved by her journey to try to make a difference in the world by choosing the side of non-violence. Her account of her meeting with the Dalai Lama awakened my interest in him, though my way of promoting (or sometimes managing to express a tiny bit of) compassion in the world does not have Buddhism as its source.

Anne Lamott's voice, however, is one that consistently brings me to tears and fills me with hope. Her non-fiction writing about her own journey is an inspiration to me because she is so honest about her failings and her feelings. She understands in a way that I sometimes do not that one can still be a 'good' person and express rage. Reading Plan B reminded me that I do better in my own struggles for loving kindness when I am encountering others' stories and experiences. I think that's one of the reasons I go to Church; it is a place where I can be broken open to love and pain and the expression of the divine through fellow humans.

This feeling of being broken open, for which I am profoundly grateful, makes the pain I felt at some of the things I learned from Good Catholic Girls all the more intense. The senselessness of the Church bureaucracy is made more acute when reading of the sacrifices made by women of faith. It would be so easy to leave the Church, as I did once before, when the hierarchy does not in any way speak for me. But I think that the choice of most integrity (for me) is actually to stay and to work for change in the ways I can.

Loving kindness. Most days I fail utterly at achieving this simple practice, at least in any difficult situation. Sometimes the knowledge of my failure discourages me from even trying. I will never achieve what the Dalai Lama has achieved, probably not in several lifetimes. Yet I try to take for my inspiration the tactics of Brother Lawrence: 'He said he was very aware of his faults, but not discouraged by them. He confessed them to God and made no excuses. Then, he peaceably resumed his usual practice of love and adoration'. I strive for the ability to do the same.

The Practice of the Presence of God may be found at http://www.practicegodspresence.com/