"No"ing Everything

     My seven-year-old son recently told me that when I say "maybe", it means no.  He also said that when adults say "no" right away, they aren't listening, that it would be better to say "yes" and something good might happen.  This calls for some creative thinking.    

     In worship with Friends the other day, a person stood and shared ministry regarding the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe.  She was, in essence, saying “yes” to bringing a refugee family to the United States to be sponsored by our meeting.  And I heard yes! in my heart.  The answer came immediately.  Yes. Bring a family here and it would be a very good deed.  I was soon swallowed up by no and what about the others, and do they even want us?  These thoughts against yes weighed heavily.  Then, in silence, the yes came back and I said yes and then yes and then yes to the entire cascade of questions that followed.  What follows a yes?  …Ten more open doors. 

Give Me The Love You Are Hiding And I Will Keep It Burning Forever
by Glee 2015 

     I wonder if non-violence is about saying “yes” and then walking through the multitude of open doors that follow.  Many openings come from allowing my practical self to quiet, my protection to loosen, and my self-interest to become interest in others, saying to myself, “I will not be exhausted. I will be re-energized by the love I feel when I give my approval to a good and useful thing”. 

     If saying yes to something helpful feels like it takes energy, consider all the things we say yes to daily that are hurtful.  How about buying gasoline when we know about climate change or leaving the hose to run in the gutter during a drought, running inside to get the phone.   Let’s call these hurtful things, or “no’s”.  When we walk by a homeless child without looking, or pieces of trash on your street, saying nothing about impending war, not speaking out against police officers abusing people of color, thinking “at least it’s not me or someone I love”.  For me, it’s all around, the no’s are constantly present.  They are part of our system.  There are so many, they make up a mountain of no’s.  It takes energy to know they are wrong and feel helpless to stop them.  And it takes even more energy to push against these no’s, even when stopping them would alleviate the pain in my heart. So, I am walking through my days seeing the presence of the no’s and saying "yes" by not stopping them. Through my actions, I am saying yes to the no.  

     Imagine if you were to say. “Yes” to things you encounter that are good and helpful to humanity, the Earth, or to yourself.  Saying “yes” to the yes’s.  Yes, to opening a door for someone or yes, to a petition to put in a new bikeway, despite complicated and imperfect details.  What about saying yes to help a homeless person get some new shoes or a cell phone.  What about saying yes when your child or grandchild goes to pick up a piece of trash?  Instead of saying, “No! That’s dirty.  Put it down!” you say “Oh, what a good idea.  Let’s get a bag and pick up some trash. Then we can wash our hands.”  Then maybe say yes to riding the bus to work, yes to a friend who is writing a book about racism in schools, yes to forgiving your relatives for ignoring your needs. 

When I think about all of these yes's I get exhausted.  I have to pick and choose the yes's because I usually have to do something, organize things, give money, or show up for a meeting.  Blah!  I'm tired!  Then I realize all I have to do is say yes in my head and in my reactions.  Saying no to these solutions is usually a response to the energy it takes to change habits.  I do not like to change my habits! 

     I wonder if energy will follow when I say yes, especially when someone else is doing it all and what they need is approval and for me to talk about their idea.  Saying yes to a proposition to stop all cash flowing from the government into our defense budget and putting the money into education, disarmament, and sustainable energy?  There is one just like this called Proposition One.  You could support it.  It would take some energy.  But, imagine the energy you put into walking by the hurtful and negative things every day.  What if we all put our energy into one of these yes’s every day?  I've tried it for a couple of months and it feels really good.  It's a relief.  I have made a lot of connections, and I feel relieved of the nagging feeling that I am part of the problem.  

     How do I get past the feeling that I will use up all of my energy on useless projects? I focus on the basic goodness of all things, meaning the stuff I need will come to me when I need it if I create a system of giving and gratitude around me.  

     There are a few things I have come to know by sitting in silence.  I experienced these openings because other faithful Friends came to be silent together.  One of these is a vision of wholeness that has unfolded slowly over a period of years.  In fleeting moments, I see it all at once and try to savor it like a childhood memory.  That vision has found only a few words to describe itself, one group of words being Open To Love, and the other The Healing Salve Is To Disarm Oneself.  These are poor descriptions in short phrases, but really I see it in a larger, more systemic vision, like a picture of a working organism of people where people and environment are One, growing to become one another, a transformation of selves into selves until all of the lines of separation are blurred. 

Unity  2015 by Glee 

     The vision is like many microcosms described as a large interwoven scene comparable to an M.C. Escher drawing where one perspective becomes the other while one’s eyes and mind are led on a spiral journey but in this case, a journey of compassion.  Simple and yet complex, this vision of a gentle but powerful system is easier seen in the mind by relaxing the eyes, mind and heart until the small and the large are seen as one, letting dichotomy fade away.  It is like an ecstatic moment in nature expressing patterns within patterns of randomly purposeful beauty. 

     I have seen this way of thinking played out in non-competitive games, those used in the Alternatives To Violence Program, a way of playing games that has it’s roots in many cultures but came to western culture in the 1970’s.  Capture the Flag might be familiar. 

One I really like is called Wizards, Dwarves, and Giants.  A group of people are split into two equal teams and asked to choose a base far from that of the other team.  Exactly half way between the two, a meeting place is established.  At the meeting place, each team brings a character imbued with its perspective power.  Giants win over dwarves, wizards win over giants, Dwarves win over wizards.  Each team has a secret meeting at base, where they choose who they are going to be that time.  When ready, teams walk to the meeting place, form a line facing the other team, standing quietly, out of character.  At a signal from an outside facilitator, each team expresses their character.  Those who are over-powered, can be chased by the winning team and tagged, causing them to go to the opposing team.   The teams gather again at base and it goes on and on.  As the teams mix together, one team might get larger, the other smaller, a strategy might emerge, but what profound thing happens is that the members come to know being on both sides without animosity.  The goal at the end is for both teams to become one, for each member to know both sides and all powers.  The powers and characters each have a useful quality.  The end result is a feeling of mutual winning.  They are not meant to decimate the opposing team.

     When we see humans woven into one another as we are woven into the whole of our living ecological systems, the medium we are made of becomes the message we express.  In this case, the medium of minerals, air, water, sunshine, moonlight, and more, is a part of our being.  As we observe water flowing, plants growing, planets moving, we understand how we are to behave.  We express ourselves the way we do because of what we are.  When the vision is one of a system moving smoothly, there are constant returns and endless expenditure, one part is happy to be giving, as it is receiving in full and in many miniscule and infinite directions from all systems within a system in expansion and compression, breathing the universe.  Another reason to let go of defense and ownership.  

     One analogy of unity came by way of a vision of one who sees from the perspective of the baby in a womb soon to be born and at the same time the mother waiting to meet them and yet knowing this is a soul she has met many times before.  Once this feeling of connection of infinity is realized, there is love, fear, and expectancy all present at once in a moment so fleeting there is no time to grab the phone, a camera, a pencil, or a word to describe it.  We can sense unity when we are in this kind of fleeting moment.  We are here now in this place.  Once this unity is known, we are informed by this truth.  It is now a part of our senses, like hearing, tasting, or feeling. 

     When I see us interwoven, the system flowing, I see a vision of the softest and weakest power that cannot be overcome by any amount of defense.  Indeed building up protection, holding back water, and pushing back at the gates of time appears to be stopping the flow of this beautiful system.  I listen for this truth in the quietest places, when the doors are open, the path is clear, the arms are wide, the dams are let loose, the tears fall shamelessly in joy and sadness, the muscles lay softy after stretching and hard work, the breath of her mountains and trees are the air in our lungs.  This is the kind of power that comes from being Open To Love.

     I feel so euphoric in this vision, I ask, “Where is violence in this system? For there is always violence.”  When you ask for food, you are fed.  When you ask for water, you are quenched.  When you are tired you rest.  When you are curious, you seek.  When you are rested, you run, dance, laugh, lift, build, push, lead, and follow at the intersection of all of existence.  Love, that feeling of connection beyond explanation but expressed a thousand and a thousand more ways, comes slowly, without warning, and stays as long as we can be with it, for god is overwhelming, but unforgettable.  In every action, every movement, each breath and effort to connect, we are here with this love.  It cannot leave.  We are never separate but for our armor, our borders, and our defense, which is exhausting.  We cannot help but remember the pain, violence, and suffering.  When we stop the divine flow of opposites from moving into one another, the energy cannot be replenished and the next place in our system cannot receive, and the next and the next and the next, and on and on endlessly we are being affected by this stuck place.  Whether fear, exhaustion, or injury, we must leap from fear to love, leaping with arms wide, eyes open, muscles relaxed, compassionate, forgiven, released, and in love to the other side only to realize the separation, the chasm was never there. 

Turn Your Heart To The Point Of Oneness
by Glee 2013

     I have been reading about the solution to a world wide fresh water crisis, particularly around the work of Maude Barlow and the notion of water becoming a common, un-owned resource, establishing bodies of water like the great lakes region, a commons.  The English used to and still have areas that are considered the commons, a good example being shared grass areas where sheep, goats, and cows are put out to pasture.  A community must share this resource, and guard its productivity into the future.  Whether the seventh generation is considered, I am not certain.  A commons from the perspective of indigenous peoples regarding the small amount of lands still in their care, might be considered commons, but in a much larger and longer reaching way.  It’s not the giving of a shared space to the common use of people, feeding into the individual use of the land/business they own separately, with borders and separations.  Yes, territory, and survival are part of this and cause violence, but use of the resources is not a commodity that can be used up, it is there for all beings, all of life.  It is never parceled up.  It is part of us and we are part of it.  I am making an attempt to describe this, and it might be a bit romanticized, but this point might just be the point of Mr. Lietaer.  He refers to societies inspired by the Great Mother, that these societies are ones of sharing and openness, not scarcity and fear.  That it has a lot to do with small local economies showing us how knowing, encouraging, and sharing, giving of our gifts creates a strong, equal economy. This is saying yes to another way of using water.  It requires letting go of ownership and saying yes to letting it belong to a living system, having faith that it will return to us when we need it.  

     Here's a brain twister... I have seen whole organizations, classrooms, and faith groups change when the answer to most every yes is a yes, and to every no is a no.  If the yes is, at heart a yes, it firstly does no harm.  It may not solve all of the problems we are facing, or even perfectly resolve a conflict.  The yes may not stop Climate Change or the violence that comes from it, but the yes energy will be cared for until another yes comes along.  As leaders, saying yes can build capacity and keep the flow of healing energy moving.  One example is a gathering to figure out a problem, where ideas in the form of a brainstorm are recorded.  All ideas are acceptable, clarified, and recorded until all ideas are expressed.  This is a yes system.  A no system is one with fits and starts using shame and aggression to get to the answer that is acceptable only to the already existing system that is perhaps causing the stuck feeling to begin with.  So, openness to all possibilities is a yes, and it creates the energy to move a system into a place of shared vision.  Many of us know that a shared vision is a supported vision, an equitable vision, and it may even create further possibilities beyond the solution that comes out of a yes session of brainstorming. 

     Here is an example of how seeing a yes was hard for me.  

     My Quaker meeting accidentally found themselves on a list of organizations supporting The Charter For Compassion.  This is a charter asking that all faith traditions return to a place of compassion as a basic principle and that this principle also be at the heart of our beloved communities.  A beautiful idea based in exhaustive research of the basis of all religions done by Karen Armstrong.  Our organization is a non-violent, peace society, based in the notion that there is the light of God in every person.  We might even see ourselves as one of the experts on faith and peace activism.   Reading the words of the charter proved challenging for our community and even for me.  The concept of promoting a principle of compassion without first instilling a sense of human experience around it seemed inherently flawed.  I could not put my energy into something that seemed too good to be true.  I even sited the evidence that any utopian vision is one of inherent violence to those who do not readily comply. I was scared that I would put my hope into something and that it would either not work or that someone would go around killing groups of people who refused to act compassionately.  Wow!  I don’t even know how my mind went there.  It just goes to show how fear can bring on a no when a yes comes along.  I went home and looked at Karen Armstrong’s new book, Fields of Blood: Blood and the History of Violence ,  and realized she had provided the research needed to show the world that saying yes to compassion doesn’t lead to more blood. She writes in the introduction, Obviously the two world wars were not fought on account of religion.  When they discuss the reason people go to war, military historians acknowledge that many interrelated social, material, and ideological factors are involved, one of the chief being competition for scarce resources. 

Still Life With A Blood Donor
by Glee 2012

     So, here I was, faced with my own disregard of a yes.  A profound and beautiful answer to a history of violence so long I couldn’t fathom an end to it in my children’s lifetimes.  Yet there it was being honored by The Pope, The Dalai Lama, and many others.  Our no hasn’t stopped the flow of an open and healing system, but it blocked the forward energy of a group of folks who believe in compassion so strongly, they would say no to it.  I wanted to go back in time and say, “Yes! This one is easy, Yes! Yes! Yes!  Never mind that the words are not perfect or that the plan isn’t in place.  This is one of those fabulous ideas that must move forward.”  What a relief it would be to add my faith community to that list.  Relief is what we call goods and services given to a group of people in dire need of basic supplies. 

     I am left with the question of brining a Syrian refugee family to America to be cared for by our community.  Spirit answered yes to that right away! Come to find out, much of the unrest in Syria is caused by a scarcity of fresh water.  What is alleviating the situation is compassion and opening of borders.  How many yes doors need to open to end a civil war and rebuild a country?  How many yes doors have to open in American politics to bring refugees to rest here in the U.S.? 

Learn More:  Charter For Compassion 

                        Alternatives To Violence Project

                        Maude Barlow: Blue Future