On pins and needles.

It started with tingling in my fingers: pins and needles. I found myself at St. Vincent’s having a nerve conduction test to see if my elbow was transmitting trouble to my hand.  The gentle, concentrated Indian doctor moved her soft dark hands across my pale, cool skin placing and releasing electrodes. Ten lists this week: she did nine of them. Elbow, wrist, arm, hand, fingers, small electric shocks invading nerve paths, something external controlling me from within: only a small amount of pain, but a disconcerting twitch that becomes a shade more daunting when it becomes a repeating drumbeat.

            I couldn’t help knowing that somewhere in some leather bar people are enjoying electric shocks with their sexual passion; or that somewhere, under grave duress, others are suffering shock torture inflicted by politics, religion, or simply the whim of their captors. We’re only trying to find out the truth here.

            The shocks failed to reveal the real situation, so we had to have some needles. A little more pain with this: sharpness, particularly in the wrist, as I had to bend the wrist ever farther, deeper into the pain. I wouldn’t like to dramatise this sharpness. Elbow, arm, hand, wrist, little dots that remain on the skin for a day or so but do no lasting harm, little cross marks inked into place where the needle has to go.

            I looked out the window over the roofs of the hospital complex and leaned into this really negligible pain. Crucifixus etiam pro nobis came into my mind: so why is the Creed a proper subject for reflection while the machine (rather noisy) roars away recording (Recordare) the flinching of my nerves for future reference? I’m no Latinist; I can hardly conjugate a verb. But I do listen to quite a lot of music.

            The most famous needle in the New Testament is the one whose eye the camel can’t get through. Or can it? Does this animal have magical properties derived from modern physics where a wave is a particle and a particle is a wave? The Kingdom of God is hard to get into, especially if you’re rich. Therefore be poor. And the disciples say: ‘Who then can be saved?’ We’re only trying to get at the truth here.

            Remember, gentle Jesus, that you did it all for me: for us, pro nobis, for all of us. If I can lie there, invaded by needles, pricked by physical pain— however limited— and yet find myself without guile in the presence of the truth of our salvation, it only proves one thing. Wherever you are, wherever you go, the Divine will remind you of itself.

            Everything in this story is small: little pains, small needles, very small camel. Only the truth is great.

On Knowing Who You Are

I had a dream where I was confused about who I was, where I was, who I was with, and when it was. I thought I was living in the past, when my husband was alive, and I was concerned that my dogs had not been fed as we moved from one house to another. I wanted to go back and feed them. Yet at some level, I knew I belonged in the present, at yet another address, with different dogs who had certainly been fed last night. What was I looking for? Why did I think I was moving from place to place? Why didn’t I know when I was living?

            When I awoke, this reminded me of Jesus’ question to his disciples: ‘Who do the crowds say that I am?’ and then his second question: ‘Who do you say I am?’ In ancient times, it mattered very much what other people think of you. Ideally, it should agree with what you think of yourself. What God thinks of you, God knows.

            It matters even more what people say about you. ‘For what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?’ This passage in Luke 9 raises the likelihood of being shamed because the Son of Man is ashamed of them. That is being cast away: we can’t trust you, because you have been ashamed of us. On the one hand, the disciples are told to be silent, but on the other hand, something honourable has to be said. How to get out of this dilemma?

            I’m afraid the world is full of prominent people who have lost themselves although they appear to have gained the whole world. It’s a mistake to envy them. Not a few examples come to mind, from politicians to business leaders to entertainment stars. Would you, in cold blood, want to change places with them? Would you like their ruthlessness, crudity and greed charged to your account? Who are they? Who are you?

            Who was I in my dream? A mean person who doesn’t feed her dogs? An anxious person trying to live up to responsibilities? Someone who moves around all the time? Someone who stays in the same place all the time? Someone living in the past, or trying to regain the past? But I knew the present existed. Those were good times, but these are good times too.

            There seemed to be a page unturned, and it had to do with feeding the dogs. Anyone who knows me knows I love dogs. Maybe I need to do more loving of dogs. More loving in general. Some people might believe I think too much, and feel too little. It doesn’t feel that way. Maybe I love thinking about ideas. Although there are surely ideas I wouldn’t cross the street for.

            I love the city where I live, so I photograph it, and its people, and its dogs. Who are we? Are we who people say we are, or who our friends think we are, or who we say we are in dreams, in public, or privately to ourselves? Or all of the above, whether in a parallel or a circular pattern? What God thinks of us, God knows.

On Ignorance

To the Buddhist tradition, suffering is caused by three poisons: hatred, greed, and ignorance. And the greatest of these is ignorance. From ignorance both hatred and greed arise.

            The Nobel Peace Prize has been shared this year between a young Muslim girl and an old Hindu man. Malala Yousafzai is 17 years old, and Kailash Satyarthi is 60. Malala, who began her speech at the United Nations in 2013 with the Muslim declaration: ‘In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful’ was shot in the head by the Taliban because of her advocacy for girls’ education. Mr. Satyarthi, inspired by Gandhi, has helped free an estimated 70,000 children from slavery in India which is a major slave trafficking nexus and destination, through founding the Save the Childhood Movement and the Global March Against Child Labour. He believes that freedom is a divine gift that should not be taken away by slavery.

            Both of these heroes, the Muslim and the Hindu, would, I think, agree that childhood should be a time of learning. Not of working endless hours in a rug factory, or being mutilated to beg on the street, or being locked up in the house without instruction, or being armed and forced to fight and not to read. Jesus said, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do’ but they did plenty. Ignorance is an enemy.

            Pope Francis addressed a similar idea on the morning the Peace Prize was announced. Do we know what is happening in our hearts? he asked. What are the results of not knowing? Have we let in jealousy or envy (greed) without being aware of it? Have we let in hatred? Do we keep open house for every kind of delusion, without discrimination?

            The sin of Adam was not to aspire to knowledge, but to taste specifically the knowledge of good and evil: such knowledge belongs to God. Hatred can appear when we think we know, and don’t know. Those who hate Muslims because of the war crimes in the Middle East should observe that Malala is a Muslim. Christians who think that ‘God hates fags’ could learn that God hates nothing that God has made, that they should forgive their brother seventy times seven, and perhaps it would be a good idea to forgive themselves a few more times than that, for luck.

            Pope Francis advised the Ignatian practice of examination of conscience as an antidote to ignorance. At the end of the day, he says, you should interrogate your heart, the heart that is the seat of thought and reverence, as well as attachment and emotion. What has happened? he asks. What devils have you let in? What could be the results? What might they make you do?

            God is beneficent. God is merciful. It’s humankind, prey to the three poisons of hatred, greed and ignorance, who need to spend our childhood in learning, in peace, without being bought and sold, or confined and forbidden, or enslaved or brutalised. It’s we adults who need to cleanse the thoughts of our hearts with learning that treats of mercy and compassion. And blessed be God who gives us guidance through heroes like Malala Yousafzai, Kailash Satyarthi, and Pope Francis.

On Energy.

I have a dog who is a minimum energy expenditure animal. He’s had a traumatic time in his life, so now he wants rest and recovery. His favourite thing is sleeping. When I get up in the morning I go to check whether he’s still breathing: he sleeps so deeply I have to watch close for the subterranean rise and fall of his reassuring breath. He’ll eventually stagger to his feet, accept a dog biscuit, and find his way down to the lawn where he takes up his daytime position for sleep.

            What is energy? My dictionary speaks of vigour or vitality, ability for intense application of force, activity, or power. According to the laws of physics, energy has different roles, different works that it is called upon to perform. Kinetic energy moves things. Vigour is a drive to health and growth in living beings, which translates into forceful expression, physical or mental. Vitality is related to energy with the added component of enthusiasm or animating force of life.

            You’ll know what it is when you haven’t got it. When people are physically or psychologically drained, that sounds much like a battery that has run down and needs to be recharged. With energy. The question is: how?

            When I consult books on how to get more energy, they tend to emphasis chemical energy, in the form of food, drugs, even internal chemicals such as adrenalin. Sugar, for example, adds energy in the short term, but may deplete it further on. Certain vitamins are necessary to life: a lack of energy may be a symptom of malnutrition. Good food, sufficient sleep (a lot more than you think) and good health (absence of disease and often, its medications) all tend to giving energy.

            Some things encourage mental energy. Actual interest is one of them. The greater the interest, the more energy for investigation. In this, interest is akin to love. The more love, the more attention is likely to be given, leading to more interest and more love. I was once told that you have to fall in love with a PhD project, because eventually you’ll come to hate it. You need a lot of interest to begin with.

            Some things deplete mental, psychological or emotional energy. Worry is one of them. Unfortunately, worry is a genetic trait; I have my share of it. Just give it back to your ancestors and let them carry it. Another is confusion. Clarity about what is actually happening is energising. The rose-coloured glasses are not helpful; neither are the dark dark glasses. Clear glass is the best. You can see through it.

            To become energetic, the self-help books advise surrounding yourself with energetic people. Real can-do types. I know many people who can and do get things done, but I don’t know anyone who’s charged with energy all the time. People generally seem to be looking for help from each other. As St. Paul says, no one has all the gifts, but people’s abilities complement one another. If you look around, you’re likely to see someone who has the answer to your problem.

            People long for love and attention, and that is best addressed by loving. Love and interest will carry you a long way. It will lead to the giving of attention, which generates its own energy.

            And I’ve found that I can take a leaf from my dog, the gentle rise and fall of his breath, taking a rest when it’s needful, taking a space between moments of energy. It’s not gone; it will come back. Animating life.