Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Daily Reflection

  • Grace is All Around

    My husband and I were a bit traumatized after witnessing an horrific incident at a bridge close to where we’re camping in Santa Cruz, as we were walking back from the beach. A man had a medical incident (DUI-drugs apparently) while driving across the bridge, hitting someone and another person either leapt out of the way or was also hit and fell over the bridge. Apparently he landed on the dock below, then was airlifted.

    The screams from the bridge will remain with us for a long time.

    We went for a lovely bike ride the next day all along the coast. When we passed the amusement park on the boardwalk, the screams on the roller coaster brought it all back.

    However, the following day, the Daily Reflection from Deep Spring Center for Meditation spoke to me hugely. I am the guy who fell over the bridge, the guy who caused the incident, the injured woman. We are all one. There are no sides.

      Even in the most terrible disaster, when people are dying, when people are suffering, those who have emerged personally unscathed experience an excitement of sorts. It grows partly out of having escaped harm themselves. It has its roots in fear. It’s a kind of relief, what you might feel if you were on a bridge with some friends and it began to tremble and pieces fall out, and you all ran to the end and just got off the bridge in time before it collapsed. Other people on the bridge plunged to their death. You would feel a sadness, a true sadness for them, born out of the recognition that it could have been you, but also a very personal sense of relief: I’m safe. My loved ones are safe. We escaped. Can you see that this grows out of fear? There is a separation: WE escaped, THEY died. It’s not okay that they died, but, “Whew, we escaped.” Part of this is the denial of the human of its own mortality: here’s another one that I’m free from; it didn’t get me this time. So there’s a sense of denial—that isn’t me on the bottom of that chasm. Never mind that my loved ones and I are here safely on the side, that’s still US down there.

      The human mind sometimes cannot cope with the enormity of the suffering that it faces. Sometimes that degree of denial becomes necessary for survival. I’m not saying that it’s good or bad, only that the being that would grow in spiritual ways needs to be aware if one is experiencing that, that one is experiencing that. Experiencing denial, experiencing profound fear, feeling overwhelmed, and by way of needing to cope with the heaviness of this catalyst, moving into denial. This is something that can mask as sadness, but it’s not true sadness, it’s fear. Sadness that grows out of love is a very profound emotion. It leaves you feeling helpless, in a sense, deeply aware of the reality of suffering. Simply watch the way it arises, all of you, to further clarify this distinction. ~ Aaron

    There are no coincidences.

    It is truly remarkable Aaron’s teaching was about falling off the bridge….

    The same day as Aaron’s quotation in a book I’m reading The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese, there’s a scene with two surgeons — one is injured and the other looking at him with compassion and wanting to help him — but from a place of oneness and love, and not as “one” looking at the “other.”  

    Reading Verghese’s words also spoke to me. Grace is all around.

  • Consecrate This

    Compassion becomes real
    when we recognize
    our shared humanity.

    ~ Pema Chödrön

    Posted on Facebook by a Reunion Living Ministry colleague:

    “To bless whatever there is, and for no other reason but simply because it is, that is what we are made for as human beings.”

    ~ David Steindal-Rast

    I bless the heat and the fact that I can experience it. What do you bless today?

    I commented on her post: I bless a clean toilet tank and bowl.

    Yesterday afternoon some workers broke a water riser three houses from us.The park notified all residents that we would be without water for a few hours. Shortly after the water was back on VERY rusty water came pouring in! If you do not see the photos, you can click on the title of this post to read it on the website.

    The water in the toilet bowl began to clear some after MANY flushings, but the inside of the toilet tanks were very stained this morning:

    To see that coming out of our water lines was pretty shocking. The young man who manages our park day-to-day assured us it was rust from the loss of and then re-establishment of the water pressure in the lines. He even came over late last evening. We sent him home with our appreciation and some of John’s garden bounty: Sugar Rush cherry tomatoes.

    Today my thoughts and prayers are with those who lost loved ones and have been devastated by the fires on Maui. John and I had one of our best ever breakfast-out experiences in the historic town of Lahaina when we stayed on Maui and we fully understand things are not over just because it stops making the news. Friends and neighbors in Florida are still navigating the devastation of Hurricane Ian, now almost eleven months ago.

    A friend just brought her elderly father home following a hip-replacement. Thankfully they are receiving support from hospice, but even with that support there is a lot to navigate.

    Another friend leaves her home here in Michigan and goes to Wisconsin for weeks at a time in support of her 100-years-plus father’s staying in his own home.

    Many of you are aware of Barbara Brodsky’s caring for her husband, Hal, in their home in spite of his being paralyzed on one side and having aphasia post-stroke. Plus Barbara is deaf, and she just spent months non-weight bearing due to infection in the bone on her toe. She is recovering well and grateful to be able to shower and now to swim!

    People navigate many challenges every day, day-to-day.

    Readers know about our precious Jackson. He has been seizure free since the first week of November, however, he is not yet talking and things like potty training that would be expected about this age (he will be three in December) is out of the question at this time. They will be evaluating him related to his possibly being on the autism spectrum, and we hope for benefit of more early intervention services and therapy. This is not the parenting experience our granddaughter dreamed of.

    When something happens many prayers and thoughts come flooding forth, but, then life goes on and we may not always remember that life goes on….

      Daily Reflection from Deep Spring

      There are places in this universe where there is terrible pain, darkness, misunderstanding, which lead to hatred, greed, and fear. What you do on this simple planet Earth as you raise the vibration here has the ability to move the expression of Divinity, Buddha Nature, Christ Consciousness—whatever you want to call it—out into the universe. It raises its vibration. It makes it more powerful. This is the core of the work you’re doing. It is not just for you, to wake up or to live your life more comfortably. I’m delighted to see you living your lives more comfortably, but that’s not the end result. And if that were the end result in your mind, can you see how it would limit you? But when you immediately consecrate this goodness, this opening heart, this clarity, “I consecrate this. I offer it to all beings everywhere, in all the universes, that all beings truly may have an end to suffering,” that heightens it for yourself and it makes it available everywhere. No insight, no movement of the open heart is ever lost.

    The opening words from Pema Chödrön say it all: our humanity is shared. Recognizing this makes compassion real.

    Whatever we go through, we consecrate this….

    Amen.