My Year of Hopefulness - Vermonty

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." ~ Henry B. Adams

While Mr. Adams meant for this post to be about professional teachers, I'm learning that we are all always teachers, just as we are all always students. Every moment that we're living, we're teaching. What we teach to others says an awful lot about who we are and the significance of our lives. Just as we get what we give, we learn what we teach. What we teach is our contribution to humanity, and this is not something to be taken lightly.

What I try to be mindful of in every moment is that every action we take, every word we say has true lasting effects that we will never know. That applies to every stranger we meet, as well as everyone in our personal and professional lives. That means every personal interaction, as well as every anonymous interaction. There is no excuse for leaving out please, thank you, and a smile. There is no excuse for not doing what we say we will do. Being polite, courteous, gracious, and follow-through will get us farther in this world than anything else.

Years later, others will still be thinking about what we said and did and how we treated them. I'd prefer they think well of me than ill of me. And sometimes that requires swallowing my pride a little bit, and not saying exactly what I think all of the time. Publilius Syrus got it right when he said, "I have often regretted my speech, never my silence." I've learned that lesson many times over, the hard way. A little filter is good.

I'm not saying that this is easy to always remember or do. I try to get it as right as I can as often as I can. Sometimes I fall short and in the aftermath I feel a bit badly. I just double-down my efforts and try to do better going forward. At the same time that I accepted that we're all lifelong teachers and students, I also gave up the pursuit of perfection - both realizations have helped enormously.

When I got into my apartment building elevator a few weeks ago, a man I've never met before stepped in after me. I had just gotten home from a rough day, and I wasn't feeling particularly cheery. I could have looked down at my feet, lost in my own sad thoughts. Instead I looked up and smiled at the man in the elevator.

He smiled and asked me, "are you from Vermont?" I laughed.

"No, I'm not," I said, "but I spent a summer there doing a theatre internship when I was in college."

"Oh," he said. "Are they nice there in Vermont?"

"Very," I said.

"You just look like a very nice person. And I always associate being very nice with being from Vermont. You look very Vermonty."

"Well, thank you," I giggled.

"See - that's what I mean," he said. "So polite, those people from Vermont."

He hopped off the elevator and bid me good night. A small interaction considering all of the interactions I had that day. I don't know his name. He doesn't know mine. I may never see him again. But weeks later, I'm still thinking of him. I smiled to myself. Vermonty - that's a last impression I can live with.

My Year of Hopefulness - Daniel Ellsberg and John Dean

On Tuesday night I attended an event at the New York Society of Ethical Culture. The event was a talk moderated by Ann Beeson, Executive Director for U.S. Programs at the Open Society Institute and former Associate Legal Director at the ACLU. She interviewed Daniel Ellsberg and John Dean on the eve of the release of a documentary entitled The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith, the film makers, were in attendance as well. I'm looking forward to seeing it some time soon, and you should, too. We all should. While its set around the events of the 1970s, its moral implications are just as relevant today.

From the moment the footage began to role, my eyes started to tear up. With scenes of the massive amounts of missiles that we poured into Vietnam, 7.8M tons, it was hard to not consider all that we have been doing in Afghanistan and Iraq for years. And while the specific circumstances and players may differ, the outcome is likely to be the same. Innocent people are placed in the line of fire, and harmed. Those people are looked at as casualty numbers, the equivalent of statistics in some government report. In truth, those people are someone's parent, sibling, child, friend, neighbor, lover. And after years of watching the news night after night, watching the death tolls climb higher and higher, I can't find a logical reason to have incurred any of those losses.

Daniel Ellsberg and John Dean, government insiders, stood up once they realized that we could not win in Vietnam, once they had proof in black and white, via the Pentagon Papers, that there was no morally, ethically, or even legally correct reasoning for our occupation of Vietnam. At great personal peril, they risked everything, even their own freedom, their own lives, to reveal these findings. It would have been easier, far easier, to turn a blind eye - at least in the short run. In the long run, they just didn't feel like they could live with themselves if they didn't release the classified information they had that showed the fallacy of the war. They saved, literally, thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of lives by standing up with every odd stacked against them. Their courage is immeasurable.

As I sat in the audience I considered the bravery and fear these men must have had for years, how they risked everything of personal value for the good of the world. It was completely humbling to be in their presence. The most fascinating piece of the talk was the last question they answered: "What would you say to other potential whistle blowers out there who are contemplating taking the path you took?" John Dean couldn't recommend it. Daniel Ellsberg asked those people to seriously consider taking the same road he took. I left understanding both of their points of view, wondering what I'd do, what my friends would do, if faced with similar circumstances.

I fell asleep Tuesday night thinking about the Dalai Lama's letter to the world after September 11th. We later found out that he didn't write the letter at all; it was a hoax written by someone else who was very concerned that in the wake of the attacks, we would find ourselves entering a deadly war that we could not win. The author may have felt that it had more relevance coming from the Dalai Lama; perhaps the author felt more people would listen to its reason. Perhaps that person didn't have the ability or the knowledge to be as courageous as Daniel Ellsberg and John Dean. No matter; the author's intention was the same - he or she felt compelled to stand up, speak up, and try to encourage others to do the same.

The letter is a beautiful one and bears repeating. I still cry when I read it; it's that powerful. It's reproduced below and can also be found on the website of The Government of Tibet in Exile. Daniel Ellsberg and John Dean seized the time of their teaching. I wonder if we will have the courage to seize ours, too, not just in issues of war but in issues of every day life as well.

"Dear friends around the world,

The events of this day cause every thinking person to stop their daily lives, whatever is going on in them, and to ponder deeply the larger questions of life. We search again for not only the meaning of life, but the purpose of our individual and collective experience as we have created it-and we look earnestly for ways in which we might recreate ourselves anew as a human species, so that we will never treat each other this way again.

The hour has come for us to demonstrate at the highest level our most extraordinary thought about Who We Really Are. There are two possible responses to what has occurred today. The first comes from love, the second from fear.

If we come from fear we may panic and do things -as individuals and as nations- that could only cause further damage. If we come from love we will find refuge and strength, even as we provide it to others.

This is the moment of your ministry. This is the time of teaching. What you teach at this time, through your every word and action right now, will remain as indelible lessons in the hearts and minds of those whose lives you touch, both now, and for years to come.

We will set the course for tomorrow, today. At this hour. In this moment. Let us seek not to pinpoint blame, but to pinpoint cause. Unless we take this time to look at the cause of our experience, we will never remove ourselves from the experiences it creates. Instead, we will forever live in fear of retribution from those within the human family who feel aggrieved, and, likewise, seek retribution from them.

To us the reasons are clear. We have not learned the most basic human lessons. We have not remembered the most basic human truths. We have not understood the most basic spiritual wisdom. In short, we have not been listening to God, and because we have not, we watch ourselves do ungodly things.

The message we hear from all sources of truth is clear: We are all one. That is a message the human race has largely ignored. Forgetting this truth is the only cause of hatred and war, and the way to remember is simple: Love, this and every moment.

If we could love even those who have attacked us, and seek to understand why they have done so, what then would be our response? Yet if we meet negativity with negativity, rage with rage, attack with attack, what then will be the outcome?

These are the questions that are placed before the human race today. They are questions that we have failed to answer for thousands of years. Failure to answer them now could eliminate the need to answer them at all.

If we want the beauty of the world that we have co-created to be experienced by our children and our children's children, we will have to become spiritual activists right here, right now, and cause that to happen. We must choose to be at cause in the matter.

So, talk with God today. Ask God for help, for counsel and advice. For insight and for strength and for inner peace and for deep wisdom. Ask God on this day to show us how to show up in the world in a way that will cause the world itself to change. And join all those people around the world who are praying right now, adding your Light to the Light that dispels all fear.

That is the challenge that is placed before every thinking person today. Today the human soul asks the question: What can I do to preserve the beauty and the wonder of our world and to eliminate the anger and hatred-and the disparity that inevitably causes it - in that part of the world which I touch?

Please seek to answer that question today, with all the magnificence that is You. What can you do TODAY...this very moment? A central teaching in most spiritual traditions is: What you wish to experience, provide for another.

Look to see, now, what it is you wish to experience-in your own life, and in the world. Then see if there is another for whom you may be the source of that. If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another. If you wish to know that you are safe, cause another to know that they are safe.

If you wish to better understand seemingly incomprehensible things, help another to better understand. If you wish to heal your own sadness or anger, seek to heal the sadness or anger of another.

Those others are waiting for you now. They are looking to you for guidance, for help, for courage, for strength, for understanding, and for assurance at this hour. Most of all, they are looking to you for love.

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness."

My Year of Hopefulness - Another Small Act of Kindness

Yesterday, I returned home from the airport at 1am after being awake since 4am the morning before, dealing with quite possibly one of the worst days of my life in-between. I arrived at my apartment door frustrated, deeply saddened, and full of disappointment. I looked back at the cab that had dropped me at the curb outside and he waited for me to make sure that I got into my front door okay. Can you believe that? A New York cabbie concerned that some no-name lady got into her apartment building without trouble. His small act erased my sadness. 

I fell asleep last night considering all the ways that I could make that same small effort and truly transform someone's day:

holding doors open for others

petting someone's dog and saying how cute the dog is

letting someone who looks frustrated go ahead of us in a check-out line at the store

even smiling - just smiling

There a lot of gloom and doom in this world, especially these days. We can all do a part to let a little sunshine in, and while we're at it, let the sunshine in for others, too. 

Celebrating "Small"

A few weeks ago I was taking the bus cross town, or at least attempting to, in the pouring rain. I was dashing down the flooded streets, chasing after the bus I needed to catch. Thankfully another person was in the same boat, or so I thought. He banged on the door of the bus to stop it. For me. And he continued on his way under a half sagging umbrella. I breathlessly thanked him. "No problem." he said.

In the late summer, I was walking a few blocks to meet my friends at the Boat Basin. A "Not in Service" bus stopped and asked me how far I had to go. He offered to take me over there. "But you're out of service," I said. "Don't worry about it," he replied, "I don't mind." He dropped me off as close to the Boat Basin as possible and didn't even ask me to swipe my Metrocard.

Today I walked outside, very early in the morning and more than a little grumpy. An older woman was struggling to scrape off the thick ice that coated her car. A stranger pulled up to the curb and offered to scrape the car for her. The woman was overwhelmed with the offer of help. I smiled and felt a little more hopeful about the world. 

I was saying good-bye and happy holidays to some of my co-workers today. And I was quite speechless to have one of them say to me, "You, Christa, were the bright spot of 2008 for me. In a year that is so challenging on every front, I am so thankful for you." I didn't even know how to respond. I never would have expected to have made any kind of impact close to that.

It's these small acts of kindness and concern that make all the difference in our existence, in our experience of life. While grand gestures are certainly well-received, I always find that it's the small and heartfelt moments that I retain and cherish most. My new year's resolution is very simple - it is to celebrate and savor these small gifts, understand how little effort it really takes to make someone else's day, and to recognize that I can create those moments for others on a continuous basis. In short, I'd like to feel more hopeful and generate more hope for others.