Sincere Gratitude for People You Don’t Know

November 26, 2008

Learn how to expand your thanks far beyond the things for which you usually are grateful.

I imagine that you are busy today getting ready for Thanksgiving, whether that means you are having company or traveling to someone else’s house. But for this special week I want to make a comment about giving thanks that, while it won’t take long to read, may help you expand your gratitude as you sit down to give thanks for your food, and perhaps say a few prayers for the economy.

Two years ago, soon after I started the blog, I wrote a piece called Gratitude in the Morning. In there I said that before I eat breakfast I always begin with a simple “Thank you, God,” addressing my sentiment to the spirit or power that I believe supports my presense on this earth. But then I always have two more thanks. One thanks is generally influenced by something I see in the paper. The other concerns the source of my food or physical and emotional well-being.

That day, for example, I saw a story about a mother whose little boy, one day shy of his fourth birthday, was killed in a drive-by shooting. So I expressed gratitude for the people who can give her comfort. I can’t do that directly, but it’s nice to know there are people who are willing to be there for others, just as people have been there for me.

As to the thanks for my physical well-being this week, I know that when the week arrives (as you know I’m writing this several weeks before Thanksgiving), I will be extremely grateful to my husband for the care he gives me as I recover from my operation on Nov. 18. And I will be thankful to the people who raised the turkey, who cooked it, who packaged it, who sold it, etc. so my husband could buy it.

There is something about my daily ritual that always makes me aware of how very many people contribute to my life, and to the lives of others, even though I am aware of only a very small number of them. I am always reminded to look beyond the ordinary things we have and recognize an ever-widening circle of people who make our pleasures possible and help us heal our disappointments.

To give you an example of how thanks can expand far beyond one thing for which one first gives thanks, I am aware at this moment as sit at this computer that I am grateful for the people who designed it, who mixed metals to form sheets of just the right weight of metal, who put the metal into forms so it could be shaped into a frame in which the components of the computer would fit, who assembled all the complex parts, who packaged the computer in the factory, who made the cardboard that went into the packaging, who cut the trees that were ground into pulp for the cardboard, etc.

The list of people who contribute to my life and joy is endless. For while after Gratitude in the Morning I wrote down my thanks every day and shared it on the Support4Change website.

May this week open your eyes to the support we receive from thousands of others.

Some Theories of Life After Death

October 1, 2007

There are many views of what happens after death. Here are just a few.

I began thinking of today’s blog entry two days ago when my cheerful, gentle 44-year-old nephew died from cancer. A devoted husband and father, he chose the best path through life that he knew how to make. Today, as I reflect on how he lived and how the decisions he made about his illness might have changed the course of his disease, I am reminded of how we all do the best we can. And every decision we make impacts the direction of our lives, and the lives of others.

Once we die, there are those, including my nephew, who believe our faith, as well as the choices we’ve made in life, will continue to affect us. His view of the after-life came from his Christian faith and he felt assured of eternal life. Because of my own spiritual experiences [see An Agnostic’s Encounter With God], I suspect there is some kind of “consciousness” or “life” after we die, but I certainly can’t guarantee that my views are correct.

It is comforting, of course, to believe that we’ll see our loved ones again. I would like to think that is possible. Since I don’t know for sure, I don’t get upset when others insist I see things the way they see them. Even if they believe in a heaven in which they’ll have as many virgins as they can possibly accommodate, their conviction doesn’t affect me, that is, unless they decide to blow themselves up, and me in the process, to get there more quickly.

The reality is that all ideas about what happens next, including oblivion, are “theories.” And our theories are not unlike what would happen if you asked an eight-month-old fetus to consider what the world into which he or she was about to be born would be like. The chances are highly unlikely a not-yet-born baby could accurately predict even one of the thousands of realities of life that we take for granted, like breathing oxygen, hiking in the mountains, watching the sunset, taking a college exam.

Nevertheless, despite the impossibility of accurately predicting life on the other side, any number of religious leaders, philosophers and ordinary people have written millions of words on the subject. One idea I read recently comes from Harry Freund’s book, I Never Saw Paris: A Novel of the Afterlife. It’s about five people who enter what might be called the entry hall of Paradise after an accident and spend a week reviewing their lives with one another. The purpose is to be clear about not only their positive contributions, but their weaknesses as well, even for the most religiously faithful among them. During the week while the characters wait for the judgment, they question the meaning of their lives, face their shortcomings, and look for some kind of redemption. The ending is a twist on the idea that we will all be judged individually. I’m not sure I would like that kind of experience when I die, but who knows, maybe that’s what I’ll get. There’s bound to be an upside and a downside to most scenarios.

But if you are interested in exploring other off-beat after-life theories, you may want to also read The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. I rather like his take on the review-your-life process. Here you get to meet the people who have had an impact on your life, and those whose lives you have influenced, even if you didn’t know them, or know them well. Incidentally, it’s interesting that both authors have used five people to illustrate their point.

Since there is no guarantee that a better life awaits you when you die, I believe the best approach is to simply live as courageously and kindly as you can in this life. Follow the two golden rules: Do unto others what you would want them to do to you—and do not do to others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you. Then at the end of your life, if there is a judgment, you can say, “I’ve done my best according to what I knew how to do at the time.” I don’t believe a merciful God would ask more of us than that. And if that’s not good enough for the God you follow, I’m not interested in joining you in worshiping him.

People who have reported near-death experiences seem to almost always say that, if they do see a “being of light,” that there are only two questions asked of them. One is, “Did you love?” The other is, “Did you learn?” There isn’t any questionnaire to fill out about the money you earned or saved, the possessions you amassed or gave away, the power you gained or lost, the number of hours you worked or the places you went on vacation. What a sensible “judgment” to look forward to. Who hasn’t loved? Who hasn’t learned?

I believe that if my nephew is asked those questions, he will have no trouble getting into wherever he’s going. The lessons my nephew learned are many and he has shared what he’s learned with his children and members of his community. The love my nephew gave is great and will be felt for many years to come.

This view of the relationship between life and death is why I was glad to learn about Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer-science professor, who was recently asked to give a talk for “The Last Lecture” series. These are talks given on many campuses across the country in which top professors are asked to give a hypothetical “final talk” in which they speak about what matters most to them and what wisdom they would impart to the world if they knew it was their last chance to do so.

For Pausch, a 46-year old father of three who has pancreatic cancer, it really was his last lecture. And what a lecture it turned out to be. I was most impressed with his sense of humor, his acceptance of life, and the realization that what he’s done will live on after him.

For example, he is considered one of the nation’s foremost teachers of videogame and virtual-reality technology and helped develop “Alice,” a Carnegie Mellon software project that allows people to easily create 3-D animations. My 15-year-old grandson is learning how to design video games and may even now be using one of Pausch’s contributions to the world.

Incidentally, I particularly liked a quotation from the talk. When showing his rejection letters on the large screen at the front of the lecture hall and talking about setbacks in his career, he said, “Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things.”

If you read the Wall Street Journal article by Jeff Zaslow on “A Beloved Professor Delivers The Lecture of a Lifetime,” you can see a small clip of the talk. However, on the Carnegie Mellon Entertainment Technology Center website you can see the entire lecture in clearer pictures.

Last night I watched the Ken Burns final program on “The War” and was reminded again of how twisted versions of heaven can make hell on earth. Kamikaze pilots flew their planes into ships full of sailors trying to free the peoples of the Pacific from Japanese expansion and cruel treatment. Like today’s terrorists, they were convinced they would have a special place in the afterlife if they committed suicide and took others with them. How terribly sad that our versions of what we cannot see deprive us from being a better human to those we can see in this life.

Imagine that you are to give a talk on what your ideas on life after death. If speaking in front of an audience is not your cup of tea, just pretend that it’s easy to stand there and share your ideas comfortably. After all, the audience in only in your imagination.

What would you like others to remember about you?

What is one thing you would do differently if you could live your life over?

What is one thing you wouldn’t change if you could live your life over?

How have you best expressed your love?

What has been the most valuable lesson you have received?

Who would you like to thank and for what?

Why Do You Believe What You Believe? — Part Two

April 17, 2007

How does your view of God affect your actions?

If you have not yet read PART ONE, I believe it will help you understand this post a little better.

In my earlier comments on this topic, I created an imaginary community that is far more idealistic than one could find in the “real” world. But wouldn’t it be nice to live in a place where people are able to accept one another as fellow seekers who have arrived at their faith or philosophy of life through different routes?

Wouldn’t it be nice if we all consciously chose our beliefs through a process of careful consideration, rather than automatically accepting what someone else says is true? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could live in a world where faith, which is unknowable and unproveable, is not elevated to the irrefutable? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all recognize that just because someone (us or the other guy) believes something — sincerely, earnestly, genuinely, totally, intensely (add your own adjectives) — deep within his or her own heart, that such a conviction does not raise it to a position of universal truth that everyone else must feel as deeply?

If we could live this way, we would discover that the process of exploring one’s faith is not quick or easy. But if we make the effort to push beyond the rote memorization and blind acceptance of the dogma of a church, mosque or temple, we will find deeper truths that can speak to our hearts in a more personal and satisfying way.

Also, if we took the time to explore religion more deeply, we would recognize that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of interpretations of holy writ. Then, when someone says, “I’m not interpreting the Bible. What I believe is just what the Bible says,” we would recognize that what that person is actually saying is, “I believe my interpretation is right.”

After all, there are always slightly different, or sometimes significantly different, views of the same scripture. No one follows every word of the Bible absolutely literally. Everyone picks and chooses what he or she wants to emphasize.

That is why, when deciding how you will answer the   questions below, it is important you do not use scripture to explain your position. I want to encourage you to go beyond saying, “I believe God is __[fill in the blank]__ because it says so in the Bible.” The purpose of these questions is to have you see what it is in YOU that causes you to interpret the Bible in a way that makes you feel as though God is __[fill in the blank]__, or that there is no “God.”

In fact, it seems to me that we would live in a much less troubled world if we were all willing to explore WHY we follow one religion or spiritual path rather than another.

Why does one interpretation of scripture appeal to one person and not to another? Why does one Muslim find justification for killing innocent people in the same Koran that others claim is peaceful? Why does one Christian believe the world was created 6,000 years ago and another has no trouble in believing in both Jesus and evolution? Why does one person believe in hell and another does not?

Why do Americans who say they believe in “God” have four quite different definitions of that deity, as discovered in a study by sociologists from Baylor University that was conducted by Gallup in 2006? In this survey, where, interestingly, no one category received more than 32% overall agreement, the respondents said their God was:

An “Authoritarian” God who is angry at humanity’s sins, engaged in every creature’s life and world affairs, and ready to throw a thunderbolt of judgment down on “the unfaithful or ungodly.

A “Benevolent” God who sets absolute standards for mankind in the Bible.

A “Critical” God who keeps his judgmental eye on the world, but he’s not going to intervene, either to punish or to comfort.

A “Distant” God who is “no bearded old man in the sky raining down his opinions on us,” but a cosmic force that launched the world, then left it spinning on its own.

What is it about each of these definitions of God that appeals to one person rather than another? What happens when you probe more deeply into the reasons behind your definition of God — or your disbelief in a concept of God?

For example, if you believe in an authoritative God who is the prime mover in sickness and health, what do we make of the observation by John Shelby Spong, former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, that “antibiotics, surgery, and chemotherapy are just as effective on sinners as they are on saints”? Or what is your take on his recognition that “with the advent of modern warfare, God seems always to be on the side of the nations with the greatest arsenal,” although with Iraq it may be that weapons play less a role than conviction and hubris. And what about hurricanes and cyclones that had at one time been explained as the work of a vengeful God, but are now seen as weather patterns influenced in part by humankind’s lack of care for the environment?

How we view God is not simple or easily explained, is it?

But I am convinced that the more we explore why we believe one thing rather than another, the more we can strengthen the beliefs that are most important to us, question those that no longer work for us, and gain greater tolerance for the beliefs of others.

PLEASE NOTE: Before answering the questions at the end of this post, be certain to read the next two paragraphs.

Remember that no matter how you see yourself or understand the relationship between who you are and your beliefs, your answer does not make you good, bad, wise, or foolish. If I knew your answer, I would make no judgment about you, whether or not the interpretation of scripture to which you are drawn is one with which I would agree.

I simply want all of us to begin to recognize, if we haven’t already, that when any of us says we know what God is, or isn’t, that we are only speaking for ourselves. Others may agree with us, but each response to spiritual questions is an individual one. I believe it needs to be addressed as such. That doesn’t make our striving to understand religion or to follow spiritual practices either noble or inconsequential. But it can certainly help us understand why each of us is attracted to, and experiences, religion in a different way.

EXAMINING WHY YOU BELIEVE WHAT YOU BELIEVE — PART TWO

If you believe in a “God” (or a spirit or power you call by another name), would you define your God as authoritarian, benevolent, critical, or distant? What is there in your experience that supports your belief?

How do you describe God when you want to tell someone what He/She/It is like? For example, do you believe God is a “being,” like humans but without form, or more like a “presence?” What personal and spiritual experiences have you had that cause you to believe this?

What is there about your life that causes you to conclude the creation of the universe occurred as you believe it did?

Do you believe “God” plays a role in daily life? What is that role? Why do you believe that?

Why Do You Believe What You Believe? — Part One

April 16, 2007

What might an honest examination of your beliefs uncover?

I will start this week’s set of questions with a story that illustrates what might happen if we were all to understand the process by which we have chosen the religion or spiritual practice we follow, or by which we have decided not to follow a religion or spiritual practice.

Imagine there is a community, a most unusual community, in which the governing council is selected by lottery. What is particularly interesting is that this non-election system works to everyone’s satisfaction because all council members must come to unanimous agreement on all decisions for which they are responsible.

They must decide as a unit how their community will feed the poor, clothe the sick, care for the injured, educate children, promote justice, and defend the helpless. They must also agree on other important issues, such as the amount of taxes everyone should pay, how much property should be set aside for parks, and what zoning should apply to new construction.

Now imagine further that it just so happens that the current group of policy-makers consists of eight people. Five of them are sincere followers of five different religions — Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. In addition, one is an atheist, one an agnostic, and one has created his own spiritual path from a variety of faiths.

But they all know that it won’t help to decide an issue if their only reason for being in favor or, or opposed to, an item on the agenda is based on the Torah, Bible, Koran, or other holy writ. If they were to insist on using scripture, their opinion won’t hold much weight for those who don’t ascribe to their particular religion. Consequently, they all have to find something else on which to base their unanimous decisions.

How do they manage to set aside their personal beliefs in order to provide for the general good? It turns out that their success goes back to when the community was founded. Early in its history it was decided that parents should encourage their children to follow their religion. Therefore, they learned all about the traditions of that religion or practice, and they were clear why their parents either felt one religion was better than another or why they didn’t ascribe to any religion.

However, the major thing that differentiates this community from the one in which most of us live is that when these children become young adults, they are encouraged to consider the reasons WHY the faith of their parents should be their faith.

Therefore, they are asked to carefully observe the natural world, study how religion has influenced history, notice how a person’s faith influences his or her actions, and reflect on how their own experiences may or may not support the religious faith of their parents. In fact, the very questions posed to you this week at the bottom of this page are the ones they are required to consider.

Deciding their answers, and yours, is not an easy task!

It would be much easier to encourage children to simply, unquestioninly adopt the faith of their families. But in this community they aren’t. Instead, they are asked to use both their rational and intuitive minds to discover which religion (or none) makes the most sense to them. Thus, for the members of this community, religion is not static dogma. It is dynamic, and throughout life these people continue to explore whether their current beliefs still make sense as a foundation for their actions, or whether they believe it best to base their actions on another religion, or on no formal religion at all.

It is the process of opening their hearts and minds to ever-expanding faith and deepening spirituality that allows those selected for the governing council to make decisions for the community. These decisions are based on reason, compassion, and the common good, rather than solely on what each person believes is right according to their specific interpretation of their chosen scripture.

And remember, in this governing system all decisions must be unanimous. So there isn’t a lot of time wasted on debating whether or not there is a “God,” no matter whether someone uses the term “God,” “Great Spirit.” “Allah,” “Yahweh,” “Universal Force,” “the ground of all being,” or some other name. They aren’t interested in hairsplitting semantics.

In this community it is assumed that those with strongly held religious views believe those views best explain how those people experience the world. But since they must use other criteria with which to make decisions — in order for their decisions to be unanimous — they discover there is much on which they agree when they’re not trying to make the other person wrong for having a different faith.

In fact, they don’t pay much attention to what others say they believe. Rather, the members of this community have been taught to focus on whether someone lives the tenets of their faith, or according to what they claim is their philosophy of life. They take careful notice of whether a person expresses the highest qualities of the human spirit, treats others with kindness and takes care of the environment. It is through these observations that they know people can be moral, ethical, kind, and compassionate — and make the world a better place simply because of who they are — even when they are atheists or agnostics. Likewise, they know that members of every religion have been immoral, unethical, unkind, and cruel — and have made the world a hard place in which others can live in peace.

In other words, this community would agree with my article on The Conclusion That Actions Speak Louder Than Words. I’m not sure they would want to know what I believe or why I believe it as long as I am honest, kind and compassionate. But if you are interested, you can learn why I don’t believe there is a hell and why I suspect there is some kind of afterlife, even though I can’t possibly know what that will be like, nor do I think others know. If you want to learn about some of the experiences that formed and support my beliefs, you can read An Agnostic’s Encounter With God.

EXAMINING WHY YOU BELIEVE WHAT YOU BELIEVE — PART ONE

What do you see in nature that causes you to believe in the religion you profess, or to not believe in a religion?

How do your relationships, ethnicity and sex affect your choice of a religion or spiritual practice, or do they cause you not to believe in a religion?

What effect does your understanding of history and current events have on your religious beliefs?

When viewed rationally, what appeals to you about one religion or spiritual practice rather than another? Why?

Are your actions consistent with what you claim to be your beliefs?

Valentine’s Day All Year Long

February 14, 2007

Giving thanks and finding love.

My Valentine’s gift to my husband will be a fresh batch of caramel brownies without nuts because he doesn’t care for nuts in his brownies, cookies, cake or ice cream. Since I think you should have nuts in everything, this is a good example of the compromises that have helped us stay together for forty-seven years. And because he doesn’t need an expensive Valentine’s card to know I love him, I’ll cut a heart out of red paper and that will do for my be-my-Valentine card.

Over the years I’ve noticed that many people on Valentine’s Day get caught up in the belief that receiving one particular gift means you are loved more than you would be if you got another gift. And as Noel Coward once said, “Don’t give unto others what you would have them give unto you. They may not have the same taste.”

Not only do we all speak a different love language, we do well to remember that it’s not the gift we give or receive on one specific day that proves we love or are loved. It’s how we express our love in small, and sometimes more significant, gestures the other 364 days of the year.

Therefore, recognizing that giving and receiving love is a full-time job, I’m glad to recommend a special love and romance book—and/or newsletter—by a husband-and-wife team of love and marriage specialists, Judith Sherven, PhD and James Sniechowski, PhD. Their book, Opening to Love 365 Days a Year, contains a daily brief meditation, one-sentence affirmation, and quotation.

Go to Amazon.com and take a look at all the five-star reviews the book has received. Then buy the book to get valuable perspectives on how you can keep love and romance in your life every day. Or, if you’d like to get an e-reminder of these same pieces of love tips, for free, go to their website and sign up for their daily newsletter. Each day you’ll get the same great advice, but in an every-day form.

Learn how to give the gift that keeps on showing your love long after Valentine’s Day.

A gift that keeps on giving is always gratitude, and here is gratitude that fills my heart and soul with love not only today but every day:

I give thanks for life.

I give thanks for whoever designed the blood pressure cuff, so that I can know every day if I need to take medicine for my blood pressure.

I give thanks for the training and skill of pilots.

This last thanks arises from my trip back from Eureka through San Francisco on Monday. Right as we took off the man ahead of me shouted that a smaller commuter plane had taken off right under us and 200 feet to the right! I hadn’t noticed, but he apparently knew a lot about the airline and even knew the name of the pilot, Chris. All I noticed is that, while most planes speed up after take-off, our plane definitely slowed down. Then, as the plane banked left, making a wide circle over the bay, the pilot calmly said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve been given permission to give you a tour of the bay.” Then he proceeded to describe points of interest. That’s never happened before. So when I say I am thankful for skillful pilots, I mean it. Don’t know if the other plane took off without permission or if the control tower made a mistake, but I’m sure glad someone knew how to put distance between the planes.

Hope you have a lovely Valentine’s Day and that you continue to show your love 365 days a year.