A Day of Gratitude

A student reminded me this afternoon that Thanksgiving Day (in the U.S.) is only a month away.

Halloween is even closer, mere days away, and seems to be a bigger deal than it once was. I notice more people putting up lights and other decorations and more community events than I used to. Certainly many of the costumes that kids wear today are quite elaborate compared to what we wore as children.

Christmas, as we all know, has become such a retail phenomenon that a visitor unfamiliar with our customs and history would never guess at a glance that it is actually a religious holiday. I've seen Christmas ads in August. We complain every year about how early the hype starts and how "commercial" the celebration has become, but most of us also contribute to that commercialism in one way or another.

Somehow, we manage to squeeze Thanksgiving between those other two holidays. There is an expectation that families will come together for a special meal. There's also the big parade in New York and lots of American football. I wonder, though, how much genuine thanks is given on that day?

I wish we had a widely recognized International Day of Gratitude - not connected to pilgrims or settlers (or giant Underdog balloons) or the history of any particular place or people, and not limited to any one religious tradition, but a day devoted principally and universally to gratitude. I'm not the first person to have such a thought. In fact, a Google search readily identifies September 21 as World Gratitude Day, and I missed it... 51 times. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one, either, because so far there's no Wikipedia entry for such a day. In any case, I don't want to wait for it to cycle around again before I finally act on the concept.

A day of gratitude can be marked in many different ways, but, whatever gratitude practices are employed, imagine how much good will and positive energy could be generated from a day during which billions of people across the globe make the conscious choice to be grateful - considering their blessings and giving thanks.

No Hallmark greeting cards. No shiny packages. No showy feasts with obligatory turkeys. No special sales at the mall. No perfectionistic guilt trips for not doing as much as your sister, friend, co-worker, or neighbor. And no judgement of others for not being grateful enough for what you believe they should be grateful about, either. Just authentic personal gratitude and whatever flows naturally from it. Perhaps a few random acts of kindness or creativity: a poem... a song... a bouquet... a drawing... a hug... a smile... a glass of water... a helping hand. For some, I suspect the day would also include include extended prayer or meditation. Mindfulness.

Yes, I know. Everyone won't do it, and there are lots of reasons not to.

But I still could.

So could you, if the idea holds any interest.

Why bother?

I suspect the best answer might come from trying it.

There are at least 363 additional days each year for focusing on other things. (And, for the record, I happen to love big Thanksgiving dinners, as well as parades, gifts, and fireworks.) I'm not arguing agains big celebrations.

We can complain and snipe at one another, find fault, and busy ourselves in every conceivable way on each of those days, if we want. I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't fight against injustice. I don't believe in pretending that problems - including egregious problems - don't exist.

I just think an occasional day immersed in gratitude might help keep us from losing sight of some of the good which life offers us in abundance, even with its challenges.

It could be that Thanksgiving already serves this purpose for you--or Christmas or New Year's Day or a birthday or an anniversary of some kind. If not, maybe one of those holidays could become your gratitude day? You could choose any day.

How about tomorrow?

I'm gonna get my calendar...

A Call to Self-Awareness

I've been doing some thinking lately about power and privilege. In reading a number of thoughtful blog posts and exchanging stories with friends, I am increasingly struck by the need within my own distinctly privileged circles to acknowledge our power, to consider carefully how we use it, and to examine the influence of privilege on ourselves and others.

Privilege is a reality in our world and extends to each of us in one way or another. Denying the advantages it bestows or pretending we have less power than we do is not helpful; using our power in hurtful and destructive ways is even worse.  Dr. Margaret Aymer Oget offers some interesting perspective in this interview with Landon Whitsitt on the importance of using whatever power we have wisely.

Most recently, I was part of a rather eye-opening conversation about the careless misuse of heterosexual cisgender privilege and the pain and confusion left in its wake. I am struck by the number of LGBT friends who have had to confront this issue time and time again, not only from expected adversaries, but tragically also from people they've trusted as friends and allies. I was disappointed to note how many of the examples cited came from within "progressive" circles.

Examples ranged from proudly displaying minority friends as though they were prizes won, to inappropriate behind-the-scenes boundary crossing by virtue of some apparent perceived superiority, to sabotaging jobs and/or relationships in an effort to avoid discomfort. Some were probably unintentional breaches while others were downright malicious. All were hurtful.

Of course, it's always possible when sharing personal stories that some will be less than accurate, but the number of accounts from varied sources and the core quality uniting them leads me to believe there are dark and long-standing problems here that need a light shined on them.

It's never fun to stare down our own ill-advised behavior, and it is tempting to point to someone else who is far "worse" than we are. I'm certainly not arguing against calling others to account, but sometimes we progressives want to believe that exemplary work in other areas buys us a pass. It doesn't. We can't just be vigilant of others. We have to engage in meaningful ongoing self-evaluation.

This kind of assessment is easier said than done, because we have so many ingrained defenses and established paradigms. It's a challenge to view our actions through the lens of someone whose life experiences are markedly different from ours. It's a bit like trying to proofread your own writing. Even when looking directly at what you wrote, you may instead read what you meant to write.

But approaching old topics from new angles can be illuminating. The person-on-the-street video interview, "When did you decide to be straight?" that went viral a few months ago is an example of simply and effectively shifting the perspective of a conversation in a way that allows for re-examination of our assumptions. I was encouraged by the way the young people below from the Gay/Straight Alliance of Sequoyah High School built on that same theme.

It occurs to me that my LGBT friends have been self-evaluating all their lives. Society pretty much gives them no choice but to analyze and over-analyze themselves. But those of us who identify strongly as straight have gotten away with putting our heads in the sand--sometimes even to the point of treating others badly in order to maintain a facade or avoid risking our societal status. It's past time for straight folks to step up our self-awareness. Identifying areas of privilege in our lives is a useful starting point because it points to places we might be tempted to rationalize our prejudice or phobias, however subtle or egregious.

There is no shame in admitting to fear or misunderstanding. We all have blind spots. None of us is perfect. But when we deny feelings or experiences and instead devote our energies to covering up things we don't want others to notice or, worse yet, take advantage of individuals who do not share our privilege rather than advocating for those who may not have a voice, we not only look bad, we do a great deal of damage.

A therapist friend of mine recently suggested that she believes talking about these very real issues relative to sexuality is "the next wave of confronting our cultural immaturity around all things sexual." She may be right. It seems to me that meaningful adult conversation on these topics is long overdue, but it's not easy to initiate conversations about things which make virtually everyone in the room uncomfortable for one reason or another.

Most things that need to be confronted are uncomfortable, and privilege of all kinds is squarely in that category. Further complicating matters is the fact that multiple layers of privilege often co-exist, with a cumulative effect. For example: "middle-class straight white male" would include at least four layers of privilege, each with corresponding implications. When the power of that privilege is abused, and you mix in "cultural immaturity around all things sexual," the result is a toxic cocktail.

I don't see a quick fix on the horizon, but I believe some honest self-evaluation within the straight community would be a good starting point. Establishing relatively safe spaces for open conversation in which privilege is willingly set aside in favor of better understanding between people would be another worthwhile step. Deep listening and empathy may be a tall order in the current climate, but surely it would better facilitate healing than pulling rank and treating others as inherently inferior, however discrete we may think we are being about it.

If anything I've said above resonates with you, I'd love to hear from you. How do you think we might encourage better self-awareness and facilitate open respectful conversation and understanding?

Ready or Not

Months ago, I signed up to create this blog at the Blogger website. I had already read a bit about the different blogging services and talked with a few friends who have blogs, in order to gather some opinions.

After I set up my blog but before posting, I read even more blogging advice and tried to notice what I liked best about my favorite blogs. But I didn't feel ready to define my blog in narrow, specific terms, and I've never been particularly good at the kind of lean concise writing that so many of the best bloggers employ. With so many great blogs already out there and virtually everyone saying they don't have enough time to read as much as they'd like anyway, it was easy to talk myself out of starting.

Perhaps most significant was the fact that I had no good answer to the question, "What will your blog offer that people can't already get elsewhere?"

I did start a Tumblr blog even before I signed up on Blogger and have enjoyed experimenting with it. I tried my hand at a few full length blog posts there early on, but gradually that tumblog (as I understand they are sometimes called) has evolved into a place where I mostly capture photographs I like and quotes I find meaningful, with a few other things sprinkled in. I'm really pleased with what that space has become and enjoy just looking through my little collection of treasures. It feels like a sanctuary to me--quiet, sacred space.

I had no idea when I initiated that project what it would become, but eventually it developed into something I like very much. While I am happy to share my Tumblr with others, I don't mind if it never achieves much of a following or if it's not typical. It is what it is.

Now, after months of perfectionism-fueled procrastination about this blog, I've decided it's time to jump in, ready or not. I'm not sure yet how it will develop, but you don't have to know what your child will be when (s)he grows up to give birth.

So, I don't know yet if I'll blog more about creativity, politics, or just day-to-day experiences and random thoughts. I'm not sure if I'll blog often or infrequently, and I have no idea if anyone will be interested in reading what I've written, but I do know I would like this to be an open and welcoming space, and I look forward to planting some seeds to find out what grows.

For now, the answer to what my blog offers that others don't is, simply: my voice.

Thank you for joining me here. I hope you'll come back again for another visit.