J. Robin Whitley's Blog, page 18
July 20, 2012
July 19, 2012
June 15, 2012
Prolepsis
May 24, 2012
Celebrating a Birthday – A thank you to my friends
May 13, 2012
Books to Consider
May 11, 2012
My mom and her piano
A review of my book – In A Southern Closet
May 9, 2012
How far away?
May 3, 2012
If I Had Rights – A Response to NC Amendment 1
I like to add pretty pictures to my blogs, but there are no pretty pictures in this amendment. The bill was sponsored by Republican Sen. Peter Brunstetter, and passed by the North Carolina General Assembly. I’ve been praying and considering a way to write about this with calm reserve and kindness…while also telling my truth. One of the leading arguments against Amendment 1 of the North Carolina State Constitution, is that gays and lesbians already lack basic rights. For instance, If I had rights:
I could marry my partner.
I could be on my partner’s insurance and be able to get the meds and full medical attention I need to breathe.
While battling asthma I would not have to worry if my partner could be barred from a hospital room, when she is the only one who really knows what I’ve been going through besides my doctors.
I am a part-time employee at my workplace, and have worked other part-time jobs trying to make enough money to pay my bills and buy preventive asthma meds. I work, and I work hard…but this is not about me, just an example in short, that already I don’t have rights. Other than furthering hatred of me and my friends, this amendment can’t take what we don’t have.
Where is the love?
When first considering to write about this topic, I did not want to go near anything with anger. We have enough anger. We have enough hatred. Where is the love? Isn’t that what any marriage is about? What about this:
instead of voting for Amendment 1, go home and take your spouse on a date
instead of voting for Amendment 1, spend that time, energy and money on your loved ones
instead of voting for Amendment 1, get counseling if your marriage is in jeopardy
This amendment cannot take away our rights as gays and lesbians, because we don’t have any. What this will do is begin to take away rights from unmarried straight couples and children. I know you’ve heard this argument. Did you know that there is a law on the books that prohibits co-habitation of unmarried couples? I remember reading articles in The Charlotte Observer where a rental agency had thrown a straight couple out of their apartment because they were not married. This would have been around 1997-1998. I would research for the exact article, but I’ve been very sick and there is little time to write.
Where is the love?
We get confused about love. The best description I’ve ever found for “love” is one proposed by Frederick Buechner. In summary he says, “Love is working for another’s well-being.” He goes on to describe what that means and that sometimes it means working for another, and sometimes it means leaving someone alone. Love is also working for your own well-being.
No one deserves to be hit. If you, a loved one, or a child are being physically abused in any way, get help. Rape or sexual violence is not love. Call your local shelter. Talk to your priest, priestess, friend, or a counselor. The National Council on Child Abuse and Family Violence (NCCAFV) has a link to help in your state if you need it. Hitting and emotional/psychological put-downs, these things are not love. Get help. Stalking is not love. It is illegal. Read more from the National Center for Victims of Crime if you are being stalked.
“Love is working for another’s well-being.” Think about that. What does it mean to you?
For me, it means that I will go out and vote “No!” before May 8th. This is about your well-being if this will affect you because it won’t affect me. Remember, I already have no rights as a lesbian. If everyone votes down this bill, I will still not be able to marry or get on my partner’s health insurance. This is not about me. It’s about working for the well-being of us all. I want that. I’m tired of hatred and divisive politics. We are all in this together and none of us get out alive. Life is hard enough. We need each other and that’s okay…especially when we work for each other’s well-being.
Regardless of the outcome of the vote, I choose to love. Regardless of the vote, I will continue to be honest, hard-working, and spiritual. Regardless of the vote, I will still love my family and my family will still love me. There is no need to be afraid. Love does not cause fear, because remember, “Love is working for the well-being of another.”
“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.”
― Frederick Buechner
April 27, 2012
Breath
©2008-2012 JRobin Whitley
Light as a feather, breath blows dandelion worlds to seed. We take breath for granted. I remember teaching my niece how to blow out a dandelion when she was a toddler. She was crying because mommy and daddy were going somewhere and though she loved me, she didn’t want her parents to leave. I started blowing the dandelions to distract her till her parents had driven away.
Her big, brown eyes lit up with wonder as she watched me blow the parachute seeds into the air. She leaned her head forward towards one I picked, so I offered it to take her turn to use her breath and blow the seeds into the air. I kept it a little from her face so she wouldn’t accidentally breath it in. Sudden like a little bird, she leaned forward quickly and promptly bit the head of the entire dandelion and looked at me as a traitor. Who knew? I had been blowing and not biting, and even though I knew toddlers were in the oral stage of life, I didn’t see that one coming. Luckily she did not choke on the dandelion. We stopped blowing dandelions to the wind for that day.
Our breath is personal. A whisper in a lover’s ear caresses and teases with its warm, breathy words. Sacred songs sing of the breath of the spirit. Blow your horn. Sing a song. Make a wish and blow the flames from your favorite birthday cake.
A child's best friend. Adapted from a 1963 photograph taken by my mom.
Everything is as “easy as breathing”…except when breathing is not easy. Breath is our world. Breath is invisible spirit; sharing exasperations, aspirations, sighs, and longings.
We take for granted the power of our lungs and the energy that oxygen and breath give us. In my struggle with asthma, I have found myself angry sometimes for being limited in activity. Most often, I am despondent because I cannot prove my worth by “helping” or doing something. Guilt that I am letting family and friends down consumes me. And yet, every movement takes breath. Every word takes breath. The physical necessities of ordinary activity are filled with breath that we don’t notice or pay attention to unless we are doing breathing prayers. Breathe in. Breathe out. Watch your breathing as you wash dishes, play the piano, write a letter, or fold clothes. Dreams are made of breaths too. There’s so much to dream, so much to do.
This past month has been one of limitation on top of limitation. Stay in a controlled environment. Wear a mask to go outside. Ask for help. I never knew I was prideful, till my asthma required that I ask for help from other kind human beings. Just yesterday, I had to stop at a local gas station that will pump gas for the customer. I had my mask on. The last time gas was pumped for me was sometimes in the 70′s. Self-service is not only a product of my generation, it’s also a part of our identity. The man pumped the gas and washed the windows that I could not wash. As I handed him the signed receipt, I slipped him a dollar. He handed the dollar back to me, smiled, and with great kindness said, “You have a blessed day.” Then he went to help another. My eyes filled with tears.
This time, I’m glad that my struggle has been filled less with self-pity while waiting for breath to return. This seems like grace. Perhaps I’ve grown…I can only hope. It’s easy to read blogs and social site updates. Typing takes no breath! Reading takes no breath! There I read that my friend has lost her seventeen-year-old son in a boating accident. My heart aches. I am still breathing. Her son is gone. I am still breathing. I pray for her in her heartache and loss. It’s easy to pray and have compassion, easier than breathing really. Her loss, her heartbreak show me a clear truth. As long as I live, there is no limitation. I am still breathing.
Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.
Mother Teresa
Catholic Nun, Missionary
Nobel Peace Prize Recipient
April 20, 2012
Zen came the cats
©2009 JRobin Whitley
Most of my life I’ve considered myself a dog person. I’ve always had dogs and always loved dogs. My first experience with cats was through my mom’s cats that she kept outside and my sister’s Siamese cat who hated me but loved my sister. When mom would let Cocoa in our bedroom in the mornings she would nip at my ear or meow in my ear and then go purr all over my sister. I wasn’t impressed with cats even though they were cute as kittens. From that experience with Cocoa I decided my mom and my sister could be the cat persons and I would stick to dogs. Besides, you could have a good wrestling match with a dog without getting your eyeballs scratched out.
My friends had cats as I got into college. I petted the cats on the heads and tolerated them because I liked my friends. Of course I didn’t let poor little strays stay out in the woods or streets hungry. I took them home to my mom’s pride of kitties…that is until she forbid me to bring any more to her house. She had twenty or so at the time, so I figured she wouldn’t notice one more. Wrong. “I know all of my cats Robin,” my mom reprimanded me in her sternest “I’m not stupid” voice. I knew she wasn’t stupid and I also knew she would keep the cats.
My dad said he hated cats all of that time. We always laughed because any time he sat outside on the porch the cats flocked to him. Years later he told me why he “hated” cats but that’s another story. I didn’t hate cats, I was just indifferent to them. For the longest time I would say I loved kittens but then they grew into cats. I did notice however that just like the cats would flock to my dad, they often flocked to me. Several times while on choir tour in college a strange cat would come up to me at a host’s house and I would kindly pet it on its head. Often the response was, “He must really like you. He doesn’t usually let anyone pet him but me.” Hmm. Odd.
To shorten this cat history (how did I even start this), let’s say that cats kept adopting me even though I kept telling them I was a dog person. The first cat to adopt me seriously was Egypt, a black imp that one of my crazy exes thought she had to have and then ignored.
©2009 JRobin Whitley
Truthfully, I only thought that Egypt adopted me to take care of her dog, Bear. But then she began to sit on my chest when I read or sat beside me on the arm of the couch. When I lived alone she would take a chair at the table and she was smart enough to know she couldn’t touch the table. She died unexpectedly after I had for eight years. I cried, oh I cried. I miss that cat even now. Still, I would not have said I was a cat person.
A few months before Egypt died there was this cat named Junior. I was working at a local camp who needed a therapy cat. Someone in the area had a cat who seemed suitable and so I told the woman to bring the cat to the camp and if he didn’t pass his interviews then I would be responsible for finding him a home. I kept him at the office at the camp because I knew better than to bring the cat to the house. My partner liked cats and she would get attached to him, then we would have more cats and we had promised each other NO MORE CATS.
When I finally met the cat I couldn’t believe they had named him Junior. He looked more like a Clark Gable type of fellow. He was still in his adolescence and playful. He also had a wound that had to be medicated. The boy panicked when the couple left him. I tried to console him and he calmed down. We had a good talk and I told him we would need to find a more suitable name. I asked him if he liked Grayson and he was amenable to that.
As I worked he often came up behind me in my office chair and kissed the back of my ear, patted my shoulder or tried to sit in my lap. The lap thing didn’t work too good since I’m short and he was long even then. When he saw the cursor on the computer screen he found a place on my desk to watch and play. It was clear he was also trying to read as I typed. He’s smart that way. He met the kids at the camp and he was great with them. Still, he didn’t make the cut. That wasn’t his fault but mine. It meant I had to find him a home. Till then, he would have to stay at our house for a few days. He had a hard time adjusting.
©2009 JRobin Whitley
Yes. He became our cat. He became the clown, the little boy, the friend, the kindly grandson to our eldest cat. He won over our hearts. I still did not think I was a cat person. I liked cats and they decided to like me. DJ, my partner, kept saying, “Robin, he is your cat you know?” I kept saying he was OUR cat. And of all our pets, he IS the one that is our first adoption together. He loves everyone and shines all our shoes and makes sure we have white hairs on our clean black pants. Egypt taught him her house manager skills so that when she was gone he could make sure everything runs smoothly.
In the past six months I’ve been returning to my meditation practice. I love quiet time but true meditation and getting my mind to stop is quite challenging. DJ’s cat, Feather, had decided to help me. Her nickname was “The Purrmeister” and one day while I was struggling with worry, she started purring so hard that I could feel her purr in my center. That day was the first day I saw that cats are masters at Zen.
©2010 JRobin Whitley
From that moment on, Feather became one of my teachers. I would begin my meditation trying to quiet my mind but the harder I tried the more my mind raced. Then Feather would begin her purring and my world became OM. I wish I had returned to my meditation practice when I first met Feather, perhaps I could be a master by now. But Feather left us last month and my meditation practice is back to the racing brain. It took me a week before I could even try to sit again. I missed her so. She loved the meditation stillness and was teaching me. I can only hope it helped her pass to the next world more peacefully.
Yesterday, as I sat in my practice, I was about ready to scream in frustration. Why bother with meditation and stillness if I cannot even sit still or find a Zen instructor? I took in a deep breath, practiced a little Reiki and tried using each mudra. My mind was a determined tyrant. Just as I was about to give up, I looked up and there was the cat, sitting and smiling peacefully as he looked out the window.
Zen cat
I watched him smile just like one of the Zen masters had encouraged novice meditators. For a moment my mind stopped and all was quiet. That was the goal. Then I got so excited over the moment that I grabbed my phone to take the picture and the Zen was gone. I got the picture, but lost the quiet. As soon as I moved, I realized I had lost the moment by trying to grasp the moment. I sat back down dejected at my inability to stay in meditation.
Lucky for me cats keep adopting me. As I tried to return to quiet the cat saw my struggle, hopped up on the couch and settled in beside of me. He snuggled and purred and then looked at me as if to say, “It’s okay. I can teach you.”
©2012 JRobin Whitley
“Only when you have nothing in your mind and no mind in things are you vacant and spiritual, empty and marvelous.”
~Alan Watts
from Zen: The Supreme Experience
