thoughts on helping
I met with my spiritual director this morning, and we spent a lot of time talking about the guilt I feel for not doing more to resist and oppose the unbelievable wave of toxicity and threat that is sweeping over the US.
Some of the things I’m doing are fairly easy for me, some of them are hard for me. But I always, always feel guilty for not doing more. This is a common pattern in my neuroses, honestly; at one point she asked me, “And when would it be enough? When would you be enough?” and I was like, “Well, never, obviously. And you realize my best therapist asked me that exact question more than fifteen years ago about a completely different topic? My answer has not changed...”
At one point she quoted the great line from the Pirke Avot that says, “You are not required to complete the work in your lifetime, but neither are you free to desist from beginning it.” And like the giant word geek that I am, I remarked on the interesting phrasing of “desist from beginning.” (Of course, that’s not the only way the line gets translated. But it’s the English phrasing she used.) Because we tend to think of a beginning as a point in time, a moment; we begin, and after that we have begun and are now doing. But if “beginning” is something we could potentially “desist from,” that means it’s a process. Beginning is ongoing.
We also talked about Howard Thurman’s oft-quoted remark “Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” In some ways I'm wary of that argument; I mean, if what the world needs is people to start a community garden, or a shelter for homeless families, or whatever, and nobody feels brought to life by the prospect of doing that, then it won't get done, right? But I remind myself that a great thing about the world is that there are so many people in it. Years ago I knocked myself out of paralysis of choice around charitable giving by giving myself permission to target my donations to the places that spoke to me most strongly, the places where I felt called, and to trust that others would feel called to look after the places I wasn't. So in our meeting today I began to give myself permission to do the same thing with political action: I will do what I can, and urge myself to do more where I genuinely feel I should, but I'll try to resist the creeping self-loathing feeling that I'm never, ever doing enough. Especially that I'm not doing enough so long as I still have spare resources (time, energy, money . . . health . . . freedom) that I'm spending on myself and my friends and family instead of on the Cause. ("Who told you you had to be a martyr?" my spiritual director asked.)
Then I spent the rest of the day picking up supplies in various locations and bringing them to the Syrian family my church is sponsoring. First I went to a big outdoor-clothing company and bought three pairs of boots, which we were getting at employee prices because a church member's husband's cousin works there, and somehow the company was letting us buy the boots, through his arrangement, at employee prices. Then I went to the church and picked up some donated gym clothes for the younger kids, and also turned in the receipt for the boots, so I can get paid back from the sponsorship fund. I was supposed to be picking up another bag of clothes from somebody's front porch nearby, but I didn't see them there, so I hope they weren't stolen...
I also stopped at a fantastic falafel place that has opened recently and bought some sweets to bring with me to their house. We've been told that they always want to be hospitable, but may be running out of nuts and sweets and such to offer guests, so it would be nice to bring something when we stop by, and I had been thinking of baklava. When I asked for a big container of it, though, the woman at the counter warned me that it would be expensive. "How expensive?" I asked, and she said they were $1.49 each piece, plus the 15% tax. "Hmm," I said, "It's a present for a big family who just arrived a couple of weeks ago from Syria, so I do want to get a lot; there's nine of them!"
And she offered to cut the price to $1.25 each, and not charge tax. "I can't go lower," she said apologetically; "that's what they cost us!" "No, no," I said, "that's really generous and I appreciate it. Maybe I'll get some baklava and some other small sweet things. What are all these others?" Because their counter is always piled with amazingly delicious-looking mysteries pastries.
"Well, this is shortbread," she said, pointing at one, "and these are mamool, with dates in them..." "SOLD," I said.
I've never actually seen mamool cookies before, at least not knowing what they were. But three days ago I met with a young woman at church whom I'm sort of mentoring through a Unitarian Universalist young adult program -- I say "sort of" because I'm not anything like a Mr. Miyagi figure for her; I'm an older adult not otherwise involved in the program with whom she can discuss all the things that the program brings up. We take turns providing opening and closing readings at our monthly meetings, and this past Sunday, for the monthly theme "Friends and Loves," I opened by reading Naomi Shihab Nye's wonderful prose poem "Gate A-4," in which mamool cookies stuffed with dates figure strongly. So when the woman behind the counter pointed at them, it felt like a sign! So I got a lovely box of baklava and mamool, with plenty for all.
Then I drove over to their apartment. I hadn't been there before, and hadn't even met the family except that I was sitting in the front row when they came to church to say hello, only six days after they arrived. I'd been told that the eldest son has picked up a remarkable amount of English already, and also that Google Translate is better at Arabic<-->English than you might expect...
I'm not often a victim of social anxiety, but I was for this. It wasn't worse than I expected it to be. They welcomed me in, took the things, and sat me down in the living room, along with most of the kids who were there; the youngest was energetically running about, two of the middle ones came home from school while I was there (they're enrolled already! Yay!), and through the eldest son they asked "tea or coffee?" and the mother brought out tea for me, her husband, and her eldest son, and nuts for all.
But not being able to communicate well made me nervous, and I completely blanked on things I could have said, or ways I could have responded sociably to their overtures. It was a lot of sitting silently, with a kid or two on their phone, nodding and smiling to each other and nibbling on nuts. I was very impressed when the father took out his phone and pulled up the video they'd taken of the congregation (applauding as he spoke to us), and asked with gestures if that was indeed me in the front row? Indeed it was, and I complimented his memory in recognizing me!
Other than that they talked among themselves, we agreed that the wind was whistling very loudly past the windows, we watched the planes fly over and I asked if they heard the noise of them a lot and they said yes and I sad that I live very near the airport so I hear the noise too, etc. etc., and they showed me the forms attesting that school fees had been paid for two kids but I have no idea how that system works and didn't know whether they were telling me that the fees had been paid or that the fees needed to be paid, and one pair of boots didn't fit so I emailed the person in charge to alert her and ask how to go about exchanging them, but didn't get an answer before I had been there forty-five minutes and had finished my tea and told them that I would have to leave. (Aside from my social awkwardness, rush hour was only getting worse...)
And all the way home I had esprit de l'autoroute, thinking of things I could have said and questions I could have asked, conversation I could have more successfully made. When I was there the only things I could think of seemed really inappropriate: "Do you like Canada?" (what are they going to say, "no"?) and "How are you settling in?" (trite, much?), and argh, I totally dropped the conversational ball and felt like an idiot.
But, the thing is, it was really good that this happened after that meeting with my spiritual director. Because I was able to not beat myself up too much. For one thing, the whole day up until I actually got there was such a wonderful series of examples of people helping, in big ways and small: me, of course, and all the people who donated their things, their employee discount, their money that bought the boots at that discount, even the woman at the restaurant who didn't know me or the family from a hole in the wall -- well, she might recognize me, I've been there a number of times -- but anyway, she cut the price of the baklava and arranged everything nicely in a box with a piece of tissue paper and told me to tell them "Welcome to Montreal."
And so, if what the family got out of the afternoon was some boots, some gym clothes, some sweets, and a headshaking agreement that wow, some of these Canadians are great, but some of them just sit there like a bump on a log, didn't anyone ever teach them manners? That's okay. I didn't have to do it perfectly. Of course I wish I'd done it better. But I did it well enough, and I brought them things they need. Other people are helping too. And I'll do it better next time.
So I'm still calling it a good day. And now I have to go make dinner.
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Some of the things I’m doing are fairly easy for me, some of them are hard for me. But I always, always feel guilty for not doing more. This is a common pattern in my neuroses, honestly; at one point she asked me, “And when would it be enough? When would you be enough?” and I was like, “Well, never, obviously. And you realize my best therapist asked me that exact question more than fifteen years ago about a completely different topic? My answer has not changed...”
At one point she quoted the great line from the Pirke Avot that says, “You are not required to complete the work in your lifetime, but neither are you free to desist from beginning it.” And like the giant word geek that I am, I remarked on the interesting phrasing of “desist from beginning.” (Of course, that’s not the only way the line gets translated. But it’s the English phrasing she used.) Because we tend to think of a beginning as a point in time, a moment; we begin, and after that we have begun and are now doing. But if “beginning” is something we could potentially “desist from,” that means it’s a process. Beginning is ongoing.
We also talked about Howard Thurman’s oft-quoted remark “Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” In some ways I'm wary of that argument; I mean, if what the world needs is people to start a community garden, or a shelter for homeless families, or whatever, and nobody feels brought to life by the prospect of doing that, then it won't get done, right? But I remind myself that a great thing about the world is that there are so many people in it. Years ago I knocked myself out of paralysis of choice around charitable giving by giving myself permission to target my donations to the places that spoke to me most strongly, the places where I felt called, and to trust that others would feel called to look after the places I wasn't. So in our meeting today I began to give myself permission to do the same thing with political action: I will do what I can, and urge myself to do more where I genuinely feel I should, but I'll try to resist the creeping self-loathing feeling that I'm never, ever doing enough. Especially that I'm not doing enough so long as I still have spare resources (time, energy, money . . . health . . . freedom) that I'm spending on myself and my friends and family instead of on the Cause. ("Who told you you had to be a martyr?" my spiritual director asked.)
Then I spent the rest of the day picking up supplies in various locations and bringing them to the Syrian family my church is sponsoring. First I went to a big outdoor-clothing company and bought three pairs of boots, which we were getting at employee prices because a church member's husband's cousin works there, and somehow the company was letting us buy the boots, through his arrangement, at employee prices. Then I went to the church and picked up some donated gym clothes for the younger kids, and also turned in the receipt for the boots, so I can get paid back from the sponsorship fund. I was supposed to be picking up another bag of clothes from somebody's front porch nearby, but I didn't see them there, so I hope they weren't stolen...
I also stopped at a fantastic falafel place that has opened recently and bought some sweets to bring with me to their house. We've been told that they always want to be hospitable, but may be running out of nuts and sweets and such to offer guests, so it would be nice to bring something when we stop by, and I had been thinking of baklava. When I asked for a big container of it, though, the woman at the counter warned me that it would be expensive. "How expensive?" I asked, and she said they were $1.49 each piece, plus the 15% tax. "Hmm," I said, "It's a present for a big family who just arrived a couple of weeks ago from Syria, so I do want to get a lot; there's nine of them!"
And she offered to cut the price to $1.25 each, and not charge tax. "I can't go lower," she said apologetically; "that's what they cost us!" "No, no," I said, "that's really generous and I appreciate it. Maybe I'll get some baklava and some other small sweet things. What are all these others?" Because their counter is always piled with amazingly delicious-looking mysteries pastries.
"Well, this is shortbread," she said, pointing at one, "and these are mamool, with dates in them..." "SOLD," I said.
I've never actually seen mamool cookies before, at least not knowing what they were. But three days ago I met with a young woman at church whom I'm sort of mentoring through a Unitarian Universalist young adult program -- I say "sort of" because I'm not anything like a Mr. Miyagi figure for her; I'm an older adult not otherwise involved in the program with whom she can discuss all the things that the program brings up. We take turns providing opening and closing readings at our monthly meetings, and this past Sunday, for the monthly theme "Friends and Loves," I opened by reading Naomi Shihab Nye's wonderful prose poem "Gate A-4," in which mamool cookies stuffed with dates figure strongly. So when the woman behind the counter pointed at them, it felt like a sign! So I got a lovely box of baklava and mamool, with plenty for all.
Then I drove over to their apartment. I hadn't been there before, and hadn't even met the family except that I was sitting in the front row when they came to church to say hello, only six days after they arrived. I'd been told that the eldest son has picked up a remarkable amount of English already, and also that Google Translate is better at Arabic<-->English than you might expect...
I'm not often a victim of social anxiety, but I was for this. It wasn't worse than I expected it to be. They welcomed me in, took the things, and sat me down in the living room, along with most of the kids who were there; the youngest was energetically running about, two of the middle ones came home from school while I was there (they're enrolled already! Yay!), and through the eldest son they asked "tea or coffee?" and the mother brought out tea for me, her husband, and her eldest son, and nuts for all.
But not being able to communicate well made me nervous, and I completely blanked on things I could have said, or ways I could have responded sociably to their overtures. It was a lot of sitting silently, with a kid or two on their phone, nodding and smiling to each other and nibbling on nuts. I was very impressed when the father took out his phone and pulled up the video they'd taken of the congregation (applauding as he spoke to us), and asked with gestures if that was indeed me in the front row? Indeed it was, and I complimented his memory in recognizing me!
Other than that they talked among themselves, we agreed that the wind was whistling very loudly past the windows, we watched the planes fly over and I asked if they heard the noise of them a lot and they said yes and I sad that I live very near the airport so I hear the noise too, etc. etc., and they showed me the forms attesting that school fees had been paid for two kids but I have no idea how that system works and didn't know whether they were telling me that the fees had been paid or that the fees needed to be paid, and one pair of boots didn't fit so I emailed the person in charge to alert her and ask how to go about exchanging them, but didn't get an answer before I had been there forty-five minutes and had finished my tea and told them that I would have to leave. (Aside from my social awkwardness, rush hour was only getting worse...)
And all the way home I had esprit de l'autoroute, thinking of things I could have said and questions I could have asked, conversation I could have more successfully made. When I was there the only things I could think of seemed really inappropriate: "Do you like Canada?" (what are they going to say, "no"?) and "How are you settling in?" (trite, much?), and argh, I totally dropped the conversational ball and felt like an idiot.
But, the thing is, it was really good that this happened after that meeting with my spiritual director. Because I was able to not beat myself up too much. For one thing, the whole day up until I actually got there was such a wonderful series of examples of people helping, in big ways and small: me, of course, and all the people who donated their things, their employee discount, their money that bought the boots at that discount, even the woman at the restaurant who didn't know me or the family from a hole in the wall -- well, she might recognize me, I've been there a number of times -- but anyway, she cut the price of the baklava and arranged everything nicely in a box with a piece of tissue paper and told me to tell them "Welcome to Montreal."
And so, if what the family got out of the afternoon was some boots, some gym clothes, some sweets, and a headshaking agreement that wow, some of these Canadians are great, but some of them just sit there like a bump on a log, didn't anyone ever teach them manners? That's okay. I didn't have to do it perfectly. Of course I wish I'd done it better. But I did it well enough, and I brought them things they need. Other people are helping too. And I'll do it better next time.
So I'm still calling it a good day. And now I have to go make dinner.
read
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