autumn twilight doesn’t describe what I choose to write anymore. I think that’s why posts have been so sparse.
I’m a very different person than I was when I began this blog. And so it is time to retire it. To those of you who are listening, don’t worry, there will be something new and shiny very soon. Thank you all for reading.
I will not be junking the content here on autumn-twilight ever, but in the near future I’ll be taking the site off-line, once my new blog is up and running and stable.
I have all of my posts saved in a number of formats, and many of the better ones will find their way back to the internet in due time.
All my love,
sharing the gift
The older I get, the more time I spend thinking about helping those less fortunate than I. Today I was thinking about all the people in the US who probably spend the majority of their lives with 100% of their income allocated towards themselves. I was reminded of something Stephen Colbert said recently:
If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.
This is something that absolutely fascinates me. Our ability to be hypocritical when it suits us is just positively remarkable. I donate between 2 and 5 percent of my pretax income to a good cause every month. I have recurring donations that sum to about 2%, and I regularly contribute to a variety of other causes.
I didn’t always do this. In fact, it’s only been a year or two that I’ve been making consistent donations of greater than 1%. What caused me to start was looking at what I have and seeing so many people that have so much less. I realized that if human compassion, if the desire to uplift the human spirit is part of my purpose in life, then keeping every scrap of my income I can to myself was selfish. I donate my time too. Mostly to the Brotherhood, but to other events and organizations when I have the time and inclination.
Because I didn’t grow up with charity as an ideal, because I understand that we as individuals need to look to our own families before we look to others, I’ve always been very gentle to people who don’t choose to give a portion of what they have. I still am, but my feelings tonight are a little harsher, which is why I thought of the Colbert quote.
What it boils down to is this: Don’t tell me you can’t afford to give 1% of your income to charity. It’s bullshit. If you truly cannot afford to donate 1%, then you are already living outside your means and you need to get in touch with a financial counselor as soon as you can. I’m not kidding. Email me, I’ll try and find a person or agency who can help.
Now some of you may be thinking “But theo, you have a good job, you make a good living, of course you can afford the luxury of being charitable.” You’re right. I can. And I’m thankful that I can. But 1% for me is a bit more than 1% for the average person. 1% should be negligible to you too, you just don’t realize it. (And note, I regularly donate between 2% and 5% of my income before taxes, which is 2 to 5 times what I would suggest as a good habit for everyone with a job.)
If you work full time and make minimum wage ($8.25/hour in IL for 2012) then you make $330 a week. 1% of that is $3.30 a week, or $0.66 per work day.
If you make $10 an hour, it’s $0.80 per work day
If you make $15 an hour, it’s $1.20 per work day.
In 2010, the average individual income for the United States was $40,584 a year. 1% of that is $405.84 over the course of a year. That’s an average hourly wage of $19.51.
Assuming (conservatively) that there are 150 million employed individuals in the US, if we all donated 1% of our income to charity, we would produce $234 Million in charitable contributions for every working day. That is $1.17 Billion per work week. That is over $60 Billion Dollars a year.
If you truly can not scrounge 1% of your income ($0.20 per working hour if you are making $20/hour, less than a dime per hour if you are making minimum wage), then you’re in trouble. If you are in that much trouble, you should get help. You may think “It’s not a lot of money, but I need every cent I can get.” I’m sure there are people out there who really are in a situation that tight or even tighter, but you probably aren’t. Those who are in that tough of a spot are the people I believe could be helped by our efforts.
If you do any of the things below with any regularity then you can afford to give 1% of your income to charity
We are a society that is full of privlege. I am very happy to be privleged. I am happy that I can afford to sit at home where it is warm, and think about charity in the abstract while there are people who depend on real, actual charity just to survive the week.
If you don’t want to give to charity on a regular basis, that is your right. I won’t even judge you very harshly for it. But don’t lie to yourself. It’s not that you can’t afford it. You choose not to.
I don’t know what it will be.
Or how big.
But it is time for a change.
I feel weighted down, mired in unhelpful habits, in distractions. I feel like there is little I can change in my life.
What we feel is not always reality, often not in fact.
It is time for a change.
Perhaps the most simple truism of the modern world is this:
At their heart, everyone is selfish.
The idea of selflessness is something that we reject out of hand. When someone does something kind, or displays compassion, or sacrifices for another, we rationalize that the act is ultimately selfish because it benefits the individual in some way.
By very real logic, this is perfectly rational. The idea that a person may benefit psychologically, or socially, or in some other intangible way from an apparent sacrifice is completely true. The trouble with this argument, is that it is completely hypocritical when put in the context of the overall ethos that it comes from.
Simply put: In the west, material wealth is the measure of a persons value. We often assume that it is the satisfaction of desire that is tantamount to achievement in the west, but beneath that desire, the larger conceptualization is one of posession, of having.
If Desire, or the satisfaction of Desire, were the pinnacle of desire, the super-wealthy would have no impetus to grow more wealthy. The middle-class would be content with their ability to do just about whatever they want with their life. No, the only place where Desire can be considered the driving force of our culture is if that desire is pointed at the accumulation of wealth.
If the underlying measure of selfishness is wealth, then any act that depletes ones wealth for the good of others is a selfless act. It injures the self for the benefit of another.
And I think that is what we are really talking about when we begin the discussion about selflessness. It’s not about what is being sacrificed, it is about the effect that the sacrifice has upon a person. and that effect, whether it is beneficial or injurious, must be put in the correct context. The context of the west is Wealth.
So the truth of this simple truth, is that it’s a lie. It’s a lie we tell ourselves because selfishness has become a badge of pride. Because it’s far easier to deride or ignore a person who is acting only in their own interest.
The biggest danger of this ethos, one that I fear has come into play many times in the last few decades, is that we have lost the power of acting in concert. Because even when we do act as a large group, our culture makes the assumption that each individual of that group is in it for themselves, for their own personal reasons. Indeed, our media emphasizes this, making a point to seek out the most diverse viewpoints of any large group and present them as though they are all equal shares of the group mind.
Individualizing the cause of a group or organization trivializes it. That is not to say we can’t or shouldn’t Personalize a movement, we most certainly should. There is a difference between giving the public access to the driving, very personal and relatable aspects of a group movement, and telling them that each person is in it for their own personal reason.
This is the power of a message. When the message is concise, strong, and inviting it provides the opportunity for massive change. Our challenge today is that it is virtually impossible to codify or present a message. The volume and quantity of divisive voices is overwhelming. Add to that the habit of news media to not bother differentiating fact from opinion and we have a vast sea of fragmented voices, and no message to unify a populous.
The simple truth, my friends, is that all of this is possible because we no longer believe a person can be selfless, and that very belief is predicated on a lack of context.
Why is the belief in selflessness so important? Because without selflessness, there is no such thing as a cause. There is no such thing as a movement based on principles. Everything becomes about self-gratification.
The Gay-Rights movement, which should be about civil liberties and equal rights for all forms of sexual expression is marginalized as “A minority of people who want to normalize their deviant sexual practices.” The trouble is, that statement is true. And because of the assumed selfishness, the idea that people who are not part of that minority group would or could support or further the movement is taken off the table. Our disbelief in selflessness simultaneously fragments, marginalizes, and minimizes the movement.
And since selflessness (or the lack thereof according to our culture) is about personal gain, the very idea of standing upon philosophical, ethical, or even moral principles is off the table. Any person who does stand up on a principle becomes a suspect. We wonder what their “real” motivation is.
So here’s the real truth. Selflessness is real. Sacrifice is real. There are good people in the world, far more than you realize. They’re all around you.
Stop buying into the lie. Accept that people are good, that they are compassionate, that they are selfless. Confront the lie wherever it crops up.
Share the Gift
There are days, weeks, months, when I feel weak. When I feel as though I have no option other than failure. Recently this has been a powerful movement in me. The feeling that I am inadequate.
Those of you who have read autumn twilight over the years will know that this is not a new feeling for me. I have often questioned if I am worthy. The only real answer I have about my worth is that I am to close to judge it. I am here, and I have my gifts. That must be enough.
Recently I’ve turned my eyes inward more often than not. It’s hard to look at yourself and not like what you see. Or at least not like everything you see. The lesson is that you accept what you dislike, or you transform it. I’ve never been one to easily accept my own shortcomings, so I am left with transformation.
But it is so fucking hard. Forgive me the whining, but that’s how I feel this morning. It’s so fucking hard. I want nothing more than to throw myself back into bed and do nothing.
And that’s how I’ve been feeling for weeks now. Too hard to try. Too hard to do anything but lie down and feel miserable about it. Too hard to even think about. To be harsh with myself for a moment, it’s bloody pathetic. I know better.
But even knowing better, occasionally I find myself lost in samsara, induldging my self-pity, wallowing in materialism, and knowing inside just how bad it is for me.
Eventually the addiction loses it’s appeal, and the dream fades. I find myself shaking it off, banishing the illusions of comfort and satisfaction. I see myself in the mirror and cry. I awaken finally, and I turn my eyes back to transformation.
I don’t particularly like the cycle. I don’t like finding myself lost in the dream. I don’t know how to stop it though, and I don’t know that I’m supposed to. One thing I’ve learned is that if we’re meant to help other people we are often subject to trials that prepare us for those who will need us.
I don’t mean to imply a guiding force of fate here, just an understanding that no suffering or challenge goes by without giving us experience and knowledge to be used later. Whether we realize and grok that experience is another story, for another time.
So that is where I am this morning. Waking up. Feeling sad and hopeful. Crying a little. Willing. To face my trials. To see the world as it is. To challenge maya.
Share the Gift.
Last night was the full moon. My teacher, and friend, Coriander gave me a message from a vision he had. I’ve been sitting with it as best I can since then. It’s not a complex message (although as with many things, the setting which inspired it, and the surrounding discussion was very complex.)
He said, “I know it’s hard to see it sometimes, but everything you need is right there, you just need to reach out and grasp it.”
These are words I’ve needed to hear for some time now. It’s a truth about where I am in my life that I sort of know already, but that I haven’t found the right words for.
It’s frustrating. I know that it’s true, but reaching out and grasping it still seems so completely impossible. I think part of the trouble is that I’m conflicted about what it is I want in my life. There are so many avenues open to me right now. My life is full of possibility. I know that this is a wonderful place to be. I know that I should be grateful for the blessing of these options. But right now I wish I didn’t have so many options.
I think that’s part of why I’ve spent so much of the last year wrestling with, learning to understand, my submissiveness. I crave, more than anything, not to have to make these choices. It would be much easier if someone else could make them for me. If someone would step in and clear away the open plain and show me a road.
This is a trial I am going through. It’s not an instant of time, or a defining moment. The trembling I experience whenever I think about throwing myself down a path is exhausting. The fear of choosing, this terror I experience when thinking that perhaps I’m choosing the wrong path, is exhausting. It’s wearing and debilitating. I’m spending all my energy just trying to buy myself the time I think I need to make a choice. Meanwhile the world just keeps chugging on ahead. Some possibilities vanish and others open up. The field remains full of options.
Complicating this is an understanding that I don’t have to choose one thing. I can choose many things. I can be the guy who seems to do everything, who has his hand in every pot. I can be an author and engineer and priest and performer and teacher and poet and mystic. In fact, it’s not really a choice. I AM all of these things. I don’t have the ability to choose not to be one. But choosing to give myself to the pursuit of all these things is it’s own terror.
I fear being consumed by them. I fear that if I give myself up to the work I will get lost in it and never find my way out. I fear if I am all these things I’ll only ever be average at any of them.
It’s odd for me to be so lucid about fear while the moon is almost full. But when else should I see these things I suppose.
I think the truth is that the choice is already made, and I’m just afraid to admit it. It hurts so much to think about it, but there was never any choice but to chase my heart, wherever it leads. I don’t need to find my muse, or court inspiration. So long as I’m chasing my heart, moving ahead towards dreams, giving myself in each moment to wherever my passion lies, to what needs me, then I will be in alignment with myself.
And that’s my wisdom for this moon. Give yourself to what you’re doing at any moment. Give yourself to purpose, to passion, to truth. Give yourself to honesty. Allow your community, your family, to devour all you have to offer. Despite the fear, allow yourself to be grokked. Let the world drink deeply of the chalice of your heart, let them be affected by the blazing spirit that you are. Open your eyes and let yourself be seen.
Share the gift. Defy the death.
Find the strength to bare yourself to Binah, and begin to shine.
The truth is this: Nobody suceeds until they try.
We are all just potential greatness, waiting to be realized. We are solar fire captured by the thinest veil of stardust.
The truth is this: Almost none of us choose to try. Most of us wait for the right moment. We either hope for something miraculous to happen, or we prepare ourselves, day in and day out, for the absolute right opportunity to shine. The right moment to step up and be who we are.
The pretty lie we tell ourselves, is that this preparation is vital. That it is strategic. The lie lets us hold on to the hope that our dreams will be realized, if we just prepare a little more, or wait a little longer.
The truth is this: You can not prepare yourself to be great. Greatness happens because you act. It happens because you act consistently, because you act in congruence with your will and the will of the Divine.
Greatness does not come from waiting.
Ask yourself, what are you waiting for? What is holding you back? Why aren’t you shining?
The world is your playground. It is your jungle-gym. And yet you sit in your home, listening to your pretty little lie.
Share the Gift.