Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Hazelden Foundation

  • Dissent with Love

      WORD FOR THE DAY

      Love takes off the masks
      we fear we cannot live without
      and know we cannot live within.

      ~ James Baldwin (Gratefulness.org)

    Group 2 sharing last evening was active with exploring the question of the value of being ordained (in Buddhism). This was not so much an intellectual discussion, but a sincere reflection of the yearning many expressed toward living in a community that honors, respects, and supports those deeper dynamics of mindful living. Several in our group have been exploited by spiritual leaders in this lifetime — emotionally or mentally or sexually — and sometimes all three.

    Many said the time of hero worship or guru gazing have personally passed us by.

    Interesting, just yesterday morning out on a bike ride, Larry was telling me about the great-grandmother of a child Linda had the privilege of doing a baptism for last week. He said this woman is Hispanic, and he assumes she likely has a Catholic background. She also has dementia and, although she never said a word, he felt he could see in her eyes the accusation, “That woman is no priest!”

    Over the years, many miles on this Yellow Brick Road have been walking away from the past where patriarchy choked the rights of women out of our collective lives. This morning, two daily writings address the benefit of having “right view.” The first is from Neale Donald Walsch (author of the series of Conversations with God books).

      … that a point of view different from your own might be well worth entertaining. Sometimes it is not easy hearing an idea that is different from the one you are advancing — yet it might be that second idea for which you were actually reaching. Answers arrive in more ways than one. Sometimes they come through us, and sometimes they come to us.


    Brandon Morton’s son with a baby goat!

    Our bicycle-riding conversation continued, “The church Linda’s brother and sister-in-law and her sister and brother-in-law go to still will not allow women in leadership. The husband is the head of the house, and the wife is by scripture ordered to be submissive to his will. Do you think Linda would go along with that?”

    I responded to Larry, “I would hope she would not, and more than that, I would hope you would not ask that of her.”

    Reading online this morning from The Discrimination of Women in Buddhism: An Ethical Analysis: “Men and women are considered the two wheels of a cart. They should be considered equal if we want the cart to move ahead. If one wheel is smaller than the other, the movement will definitely be impaired.”

    One of the headings in that article leapt off the page: Is Buddhism a Sexist Religion?

    I would also ask, Is Christianity a Sexist Religion?

    Perhaps (blatant or latent) sexism, along with other forms of discrimation, is within all religions and all of our human history. It is HIStory, for heaven’s sake…. But where do we go from here? We only pretend to repair a cart with imbalanced wheel size by exchanging it for a different cart that also has an unbalanced wheel size.

    The second writing that speaks us forth in love and wisdom and respect for all beings comes from Deep Spring Center for Meditation:

    Thought for Today by Aaron

    As we work with these practices, please realize that they are leading you in the direction of trusting your own ability not to enact anger or other negative movement when it arises. To hold it in the heart with compassion until it dissolves. To reclaim your power as higher density beings— no longer a third density human but higher density, able to trust that those around you will not be projecting negativity so it’s safe to share, and you will not be projecting negativity so it’s safe to share. But that you are still capable of saying, “No, I disagree with this or that.” That’s very different than expressing negativity. Expression of view is not an expression of negativity, it’s simply an expression of view. And we learn how to hold different views and deeply hear each other. Then one unified understanding arises and we move forward with it. Or, if one is not in full agreement, one sees that the rest of the group is and abstains from obstructing the process. But if one person thinks, “This will be totally destructive,” one will still hold, “I cannot agree. Go ahead and do what you need to do, but I dissent. But I dissent with love.”

    I was just about ready to push “publish” when I received this additional confirmation from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation Thought for Today:

      The wise person questions himself, the fool others. ~Henri Arnold

      We pray for wisdom, and sometimes we achieve it. The strongest and wisest of men are not threatened by questioning their own answers. If we draw conclusions and blindly stick to them, we can never learn anything new. We have often made the mistake of avoiding the appearance of ignorance.

      Instead, we are at our best when we give ourselves the privilege of being a learner. When someone tells us something we don’t understand or agree with, our best response is to ask for more information. We can take our ego out of the equation, surrender our need to be right, and simply try to learn what is being told to us. What is it that I don’t understand here? What does the other person see that I am missing? When we attain a moment of wisdom, we are open to learning.

      Today, I will give myself the privilege of being a learner.

      From the book Stepping Stones: More Daily Meditations for Men.

    Once your intention is clear, perhaps the answer is also already clear!

  • The Aftermath

    You see, I have this weird, but in my experience, validated faith that if I surrender myself to my own words, the ones that came without too much cogitation or premeditation, they will lead me to a place I didn’t know I’d be visiting; they will show me 1) What I didn’t know was on my mind when I started, and 2) What I didn’t know I knew about that particular subject.

    Sydney Lea, page 195, The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop, by Diane Lockward.

    Sitting in my Snowbird Poets group, I placed my fingers on the keyboard barely breathing and witnessed The Aftermath.

    Time is nonexistent, Dear One, non-exist-ant

    Standing barefoot
    I am aware
    of things I am too young to know

    Stripped of my innocence
    when he climbed on top of me
    in the courtyard
    beneath the Viburnum

    That snowball bush was in full bloom
    while I was not
    yet
    but soon would be

    Ten years later
    I hear from some
    deep drug-induced fog:
    “If we don’t get her awake
    she is never going to
    have this baby!”

    Then: “It’s a girl!”

    53 years later
    my twenty-year-old granddaughter
    takes off on a bicycle
    as a sinking feeling
    of fear
    flashed fast across my face

    Of course, she was right
    I would have let her brothers go—
    without so much as a second thought

    But the Viburnum will bloom
    again and again
    unlike a young girl’s innocence

    Debra Basham 03-18-2019

    See Processing.

    Pearl Bailey says there’s a period of life where we swallow a knowledge of ourselves and it becomes either good or sour inside.

    Bailey’s words sing the truth. I had come from a legacy of women who had worn the shackles of sexual shame. My mother had a first marriage she did not tell us about, and I did not learn until I was in my forties that she had discovered she had a sexually transmitted disease at the same time she found out she was pregnant for me.

    I became pregnant on New Years Eve, three weeks before I turned sweet sixteen on January 22, 1966. I got married, and I was forced to leave high school in tenth grade. (See Loved and Wanted: Listen to Your Mother.)

    My daughter, and my granddaughter have carried that legacy of sexual shame, but none of us need carry it any longer. It is time for all women to be free….

    A Course In Miracles

    LESSON 60

    God is the Love in which I forgive.

    God does not forgive because He has never condemned. The blameless cannot blame, and those who have accepted their inno­cence see nothing to forgive. Yet forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence. It is the reflection of God’s Love on earth. It will bring me near enough to Heaven that the Love of God can reach down to me and raise me up to Him.

    I do not have written permission to share these words from Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey © 1982, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation, but the message must be shared:

    For too many of us, feelings of shame, even self-hatred, are paramount. No one of us has a fully untarnished past. Every man, every woman, even every child experiences regret over some action. We are not perfect. Perfection is not expected in the Divine plan. But we are expected to take our experiences and grow from them, to move beyond the shame of them, to celebrate what they have taught us.

    Each day offers us a fresh start at assimilating all that we have been. What has gone before enriches who we are now, and through the many experiences we’ve survived, we have been prepared to help others, to smooth the way for another woman, perhaps, who is searching for a new direction.

    We can let go of our shame and know instead that it sweetens the nuggets of the wisdom we can offer to others. We are alike. We are not without faults. Our trials help another to smoother sailing.

    I will relish the joy at hand. I can share my wisdom. All painful pasts brighten someone’s future, when openly shared.