Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: life and death

  • Relief!


    The Comcast saga came to an end late yesterday morning. Today my fingers are on the keyboard of my PC and I am connected to the SCS domain. The solution was actually simple. And it is what Donny, my customer service agent at my local Comcast store, suggested to me weeks ago: Swap out the modem.

    Relief is an interesting concept. Relief is defined as a feeling of reassurance and relaxation following release from anxiety or distress or assistance, especially in the form of food, clothing, or money, given to those in special need or difficulty.

    Alison, I’m not sure to whom this message of appreciation should be addressed, but I want someone within the Comcast organization to know what you did for me.

    I had been struggling between Comcast and my web host since October 18. On November 7, when I found you I had spent over 30 hours having to give the same information over and over, and never being able to follow up with someone I had spoken to previously.

    I was rude, frustrated, angry, and you stayed right with me and assured me you would not leave me until the issue was resolved.

    Although you were not able to resolve the issue that evening, you gave me your extension number and email. I became a real person to you. I cried!!! I mattered to you, and that matters to everyone.

    During this period of time I was struggling with the problem with my service we had two deaths in our family. People have a lot going on….

    You suggested we swap out the modem and when I got the new one the following morning, you were able to assist me to get the help from Kevin to activate it.

    I sent email and left voice mail letting you know we were successful. Then you called again to make sure everything was working correctly.

    Donny, at the Benton Harbor, Michigan, store was the first one to suggest we swap the modem. I wish everyone could work with you and Donny…. everyone deserves to!

    Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

    During these weeks of frustration I have said many times I recognized this as an opportunity. I have learned a lot. I learned we do not have to call Comcast and go through 30 minutes of being passed from one person to another only to have to tell them the exact information before getting to someone who cannot help you. Using the Comcast app on your phone, you can give the information once and request a call back. The appropriate person calls you back. Oh, my….

    Another learning has been to see how kind the conditions are. Regardless of how challenging, right here within the conditions is kindness.

    It is kindness to let it go each time no resolution was at hand.

    It is kindness to persevere and make another call when I had a couple of hours. (EEK…)

    It is kindness to remember nothing is a life or death matter—not even life or death.

    It is not denial to say not even life or death is a life or death matter. It is truth.

    Over lunch yesterday my dear friend, Jane Foster, shared that even having lived with cancer for over 35 years now she still bumps into a fear of death. “Will it hurt? Will I be alone? How will my husband handle things? How will my son get through this?”

    It occurs to me these are not evidences of fear of death. They are evidences of desire to control. We want to know. We want assurances. We want things to go a certain way.

    I sent out a prayer request:
    I have a precious client named Jessica.

    She is thirty-something…

    13 months ago she was told she had 17 months to live.

    Three months ago she was told she was in remission, but her most recent scan showed tumors on her liver.

    She has been at MD Anderson in Houston this week and if she is a candidate for an experimental surgery and treatment she will fly back down on November 17 and have the procedure on November 19. If there are no complications she will be able to fly back to Michigan on November 22.

    They were not very optimistic… Possibly extend her life six months.

    She asks for help with her mental state.

    Here is her Bitmoji saying:

    If you are inclined to pray, please add a special prayer for the mental state of all humans. May all beings know peace. May all beings love and be loved. May all beings come to the end of suffering.

    Pray for Alison and Donny and each of those who work in organizations that inflict such pain in the delivery of service. Pray for Jane Foster to embrace sacred life and sacred death. (See Corpse Prayer) Pray for Jessica as she navigates such turbulent waters.

    Pray that all sentient beings feel relief….

  • Suicide

    Sacred Stories

    He was mulling the subject of suicide. Essentially about why suicide is seen as bad; he had regularly received guidance that every person chooses when, where, and how that person transitions.

    When he got home he had received an email message from Abraham Hicks.

    The subject of that message was suicide. Abraham used the exact same words, “Every death, no exception, is suicide because you create your own reality.”

  • What Love Can Do

    I could begin this article with an update on my SCS-Matters domain still being unavailable here on my home WiFi router, or that our underbelly of our mobile home is not yet insulated or ‘closed up’ as they call it and there is snow on the ground this morning, but I will instead begin by sharing what is important. Last evening we attended the visitation and funeral for the 34-year-old son of our cousin, Rita.

    Chris was eccentric. Was that his soul’s destiny? Perhaps it a result of having been born in cardiac distress and immediately being whisked off to a children’s hospital several hours away from home. Maybe having lived his 34 years knowing he could die at any moment contributed.

    Perhaps living our lives knowing we could die at any moment would be good for us all.

    In the two-year Dharma study group this entire second year is working with the sacred darkness. You might be quite surprised how much fun and how easy the exercises are for this very challenging practice. Sit on an exercise ball, like the one my Dharma Sister, Patty, is leaning on in this photo and note the balance or imbalance until you can find inner stillness.


    Another exercise is to hold a book in your hand, out at arm’s length. Notice the inner process. “This is silly. This is heavy. No big deal. I am going to hurt myself. I see no point in this. Kindness says to put the book down.”

    You can see how these simple processes are pointing to a deeper state of awareness.

    The third exercise is to take a raw egg and purposely let it roll off a counter and fall onto the floor and make a mess! I did this while on Zoom with two Dharma Sisters – one in Texas and one in the Sea of Cortez. We were to watch the tension and the mind activity. “This is wasteful. I am going to have to clean it up. What am I supposed to feel? Is this working? Did I do it right?”

    Both of my witnesses said the SPLAT sound produced the greatest gut reaction for them.

    I confess to being unwilling to waste one of the good farm-fresh eggs…. I noticed aversion, tension, and desire for control.

    Many other events that are filling my days are too personal to share without betraying confidences of others. But one happening just now is worthy of sharing with you.

    I was standing at the kitchen island writing this post on my laptop because the Comcast challenges that prevent my PC from having access to my blog. John came back into the house saying, “Look who I found outside raking leaves for a neighbor.”

    My eyes had been against the screen and all I saw was a man in a heavy jacket wearing fogged-over eyeglasses and a stocking hat. I walked over to get a closer look.

    “From Stevensville United Methodist churches young adult class years ago,” he said. “Scott.”

    I recognized his voice!

    He went on, “First let me say we have three wonderful children and five amazing grand children. And I want to thank you both for giving me such a foundation for life. You were so far ahead of us spiritually but you never let us know that and you were right there with us helping guide us along.”

    “I call that ‘doubling back’ such as when an avid reader wants to inspire love of reading in a toddler. You have patience and kindness and meet them where they are to bring them along. It is such a joy to watch the love grow in them…” I shared.

    I also told Scott what I had been told at the Oakwood retreat, “Debra, you love so deeply and you serve so many. You often worry is you are doing enough or if you could have done more. This week let yourself truly cherish yourself….”

    I thanked Scott for being God’s answer to my willingness to truly cherish myself.

    This morning I watched again the last Dharma Path video. I made a note in my journal about the book exercise: Ego cannot hold on very long. LOVE can hold on as long as it is needed. That is what love can do. Love can hold on as long as it is needed.

    Thank you Chris, and Rita, and Comcast….

  • Grief and Relief: RIP Aunt Sharon

    Tender emotions here…. Some of the emotions are frustration. I have spent the past two weeks without resolution to my WiFi/Domain not speaking to one another. Twenty three hours on hold with Comcast, Comcast, Comcast, and Bluehost.

    Monday evening, Aunt Sharon Basham passed. I met with her family on Thursday evening, went to visitation Friday evening, and I had the honor of officiating her Celebration of Life today. Everything about that service touches other places deep in my heart. Aunt Sharon lived with her daughter, Tracey, and son-in-love, Bo. The family supported Sharon in her wishes to be able to live her life out in the home they all moved into together on her birthday in 2008.

    A powerfully relevant poem, “Two Mothers Remembered” by Joann Snow Duncanson, speaks of this unique bond when a daughter is a caregiver to her mother:

    I had two Mothers – two Mothers I claim
    Two different people, yet with the same name.
    Two separate women, diverse by design,
    But I loved them both because they were mine.

    The first was the Mother who carried me here,
    Gave birth and nurtured and launched my career.
    She was the one whose features I bear,
    Complete with the facial expressions I wear.

    She gave me her love, which follows me yet,
    Along with the examples in life that she set.

    As I got older, she somehow younger grew,
    And we’d laugh as just Mothers and daughters should do.

    But then came the time that her mind clouded so,
    And I sensed that the Mother I knew would soon go.

    So quickly she changed and turned into the other,
    A stranger who dressed in the clothes of my Mother.

    Oh, she looked the same, at least at arm’s length,
    But now she was the child and I was her strength.

    We’d come full circle, we women three,
    My Mother the first, the second and me.
    And if my own children should come to a day,
    When a new Mother comes and the old goes away,
    I’d ask of them nothing that I didn’t do.
    Love both of your Mothers as both have loved you.

    They chose some wonderful music. In the Garden, by Alan Jackson. And Supermarket Flowers, sung by Ed Sheeran.”You were an angel in the shape of my mum….Spread your wing….And I know that when God took you back he said Hallelujah, You’re home….”

    The Basham family is an amazing family. I married in to it over fifty years ago and I am so grateful….

    Tonight Stacey sent a text message: “Please hold energy for Doug. He’s frustrated with stuff breaking, weather, etc. I just want to be supportive of him. This is his dream that I’m along for the ride.” (See FaceBook Sailing Lady Gail or Adventure of Doug and Stacey.)

    We had opportunity for a voice-to-voice and I shared some from my journal this morning:

    D: Last night I was kind to the person at Comcast (8:30-9:30 pm) and Bluehost (9:30-11:00 pm) while still being honest about the frustration.

    D: What would you have me know?

    V: Ask Jesus for help. Remember the Sacred Story you published that there is an angel for everything?

    D: I am willing. I do see how my not planning to go to Indy for the Welcome Baby Party for Brian and Tegan was part of that greater awareness.

    V: That is ALWAYS happening. Even the challenging situation with your domain is kind. You can do everything you need to do—just not the way you want to do it. Yes?

    D: Yes.

    V: Do you remember this is part of the Sacred Darkness? Watch the one who wants to control. As Barbara heard when she was trying to save her neighbor from drowning,”Stop trying. Relax. Let LOVE do this.”

    D: Helplessness; confusion; grief. As I embrace that in myself I do it for all sentient beings.

    I reminded Aunt Sharon’s family of the importance of celebrating little acts of love and enjoyment and remembrance.

    It is OK to feel grief and relief.

    In closing, these words to Sharon, and to each of you, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done….”



    As I was hanging up with Bluehost I asked the guy what time it was where he was at. He said it was 8:00 pm and I responded, “It is 11:00 pm here.”

    We are not actually all having the same experience, even when we are having the same experience.

  • Atlas

    Sacred Stories

    She had been talking to her friend about synchronicity at a time during which she was in the process of exploring options for relief from physical discomfort. Someone had suggested she try Atlas Physical Therapy. She was hesitant.

    Running some errands she saw not one, but two company vehicles with the name Atlas. These were not two vehicles promoting the same company, but two completely different companies with that name.

    Having fun telling her friend about the sightings, she recalled another friend had suggested she watch the film Cloud Atlas.

    While out driving, her friend saw yet a different ‘Atlas’ company van!

    Sometimes synchronicity is clearly pointing the way. Even when the way is not always clear, it is always delightful to notice and be willing to receive the meaning of the message.

  • 11:30 Meeting

    She had missed a phone call about a meeting at 11:30. The meeting was to be at the local art gallery.

    Stopping by just to enjoy the current exhibit, she happened to be right where she needed to be at the time she needed to be there!

    The universe if filled with unseen helping hands….

    Please take time to notice. We are always being guided and supported.

  • Three Goldfinches

    Her mom had passed away.

    She was spending the night with her sister when she heard a scratching sound on the window.

    As she saw the three Goldfinches at her window, she knew it was a visit from her mother.

    She was in her nephew’s room on the second floor of her sister’s home.

    Her sister did not feed the birds.

    Her mother had a passion for feeding the Goldfinches in her yard.

    She always had a sock feeder hanging outside her window….

  • Bare Perception

    At the time of this writing, I am still holding space for resolution with the issue of not having access to the SCS-Matters.com domain using my Comcast WiFi at home that began 10 days ago. This morning I was successful logging in using the unsecure Xfinity WiFi hotspot, and I am on my laptop at home.YEAH!

    Yesterday morning my “dharma study buddy” mentioned a term that I had not previously encountered in our study with Barbara Brodsky, and I have been searching Aaron’s archives for ‘Bare Perception.”

    Emrich Retreat – February 26, 2000

    So it’s important that you see that the qualities of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral, are not innate to the object but depend on your relationship to them.

    Very occasionally that relationship is what we call “bare perception”, being just with this object as it is in this moment without any prior conditioning to influence how you relate to it. As a simple example, if you had never seen fire, somehow you had lived your entire life and never seen even a candle flame, if you came into a small village after traveling through a cold winter night and somebody invited you into his home where fire burned in the hearth, giving off warmth, in that moment it would be very pleasant. Right there, nothing but the fire. Nothing but that moment. No past conditioning. Yet even here, there is past conditioning that equates warmth with comfort, so already there is some slant.

    Think how different it would be if you were traveling on that cold dark night because your home had just burned down and all your family died. There might be a pleasant sensation of warmth from the fire, but your overall experience of fire would not be pleasant. Usually you bring this old conditioning into the moment and so it taints your experience in this moment. It’s very hard to see clearly just what’s here right now.

    It’s not easy to bypass that old conditioning. Often the best you can do is to know, “My response here is conditioned by old experience” and to allow a spaciousness which is not so attached to the view, “This is good” or “That is bad”. One notes, “In this moment this feels good to me. It feels pleasant and wholesome. But I acknowledge that consciousness in part is based on past conditioning.”

    My past experiences with being on perma-hold, then getting a non-native English speaking entry-level person who asks me the same questions as the last person just asked me has been anything but pleasant.

    Last evening I was with my sister. She was saying she felt sad. She was able to say she could see where the sadness was coming from, and she recognized it as old conditioning. She said she knew tomorrow she would feel better.

    This morning, I see all of this so related to the talk I gave at St. John UCC in New Buffalo yesterday. I was speaking about the way the news creates a false sense of the world as unsafe and unkind. I encouraged people to pay attention to their own experiences. I suggested making lists of the kindnesses we receive and give. We spent some time reflecting on the true nature of the world.
    –
    It is because we are raising our standards that things seem to be getting worse.

    This is true about our world, and it is true about my sister.

    We care more than we have ever cared before.

    I would like to add the sermon to this post but I have not yet figured out how to do that with the cobbled-together process. You can send me an email message asking for the audio file of the sermon if you would appreciate listening.

    I am here with my fingers on the keyboard, grateful for improvement and I know tomorrow I will feel better….

  • Every Memory a Blessing

    Sacred Stories

    She was at the post office feeling so depressed having sold her late husband’s small sailboat.

    She looked across the room at a rack of greeting cards.

    A familiar image….

    A familiar message…. every memory a blessing.

    “The pain of her death was exquisite.
    I cried for weeks, but felt an incredible joy and comfort
    that was an equal part of the grief.
    I was so grateful that I had spent time with her
    — only with her, fully present and joyful.” (p.163)

    The Dharma of Dogs: Our Best Friends as Spiritual Teachers, by Tami Simon

  • Holy Hissy-fits

    Holy hissy-fits, Batman, have I been navigating the sacred darkness this week!

    Last Friday morning I realized I was not able to log onto the SCS website. I @$$sumed our website was just down for some reason so I sent a text message to Joel and to our webmaster, Rebecca. Rebecca responded that she was able to log in just fine.

    There-in-lies-the-problem….

    Everyone can log in except me. And I can log in everywhere except on my home WiFi. I can even log on from home connecting to an unsecure xfinitywifi hot spot.

    Hours of calls.

    Many words of frustration.

    If I had to give the same information to one more person, I was going to jump out of my skin.

    I know I was not being kind to them. I was also not being kind to ME.

    As I hung up the phone, still awaiting a resolution, an email message popped in from Barbara Brodsky, about the Dharma Path homework for this two weeks:

      “I’m challenging all of you, as well. Where are you spinning in circles? Why? Here is the sacred darkness, but you can’t take it as sacred because there’s so much fear of it. You have to stop, as I was forced to stop in that snow cave of the avalanche. Trapped, knowing, yes, I still could die here. Who knows what will happen. I had tools to survive, but that was no guarantee of survival. More important, I could not help the people that I was pledged to help, at least not at that point. I had to just stop and survive in the cave. Dig and meditate, and dig and meditate, and dig and meditate, until I could overcome the old habits of fear; of trying to push the stone up the hill and make it stay there. To realize, to remember it’s all impermanent. Take it one step at a time, with an open heart. See where you are. See what the next step might be. Do it with love. And if it’s not effective, stop and meditate again, and see what a different step might be.”

    I wrote back to Barbara: “Do you think the 8 hours I have spent on the phone with Comcast trying to get an issue with my domain cleared counts????”

    Barbara wrote back to me: “Aaron is smiling and asks, ‘What did you learn?’”

    This morning I wrote in my journal about an email exchange I had with Roann (one of my Dharma Sisters) following our Zoom gathering at which I shared my frustration and cried.

    I was very tired and feeling sad last night when I attended my online two-year intensive. One of the women wrote to me afterwards. “Where do you allow for protection of yourself, where you’re not a ‘doormat’ for everyone else’s tsuris (trouble or woes)? Or maybe you want to be in that position and play that role. If you weren’t available to everyone and their mothers uncle… Who would you be? If you didn’t put on the apron in the kitchen, what would happen?”

    I wrote back in my journal:

    D: You know my heart. I put on the apron in the kitchen because it is a joy to serve. Like rinsing out the coffee pot for Pat on retreat. Easy to do. The state of darkness is not about that. What am I feeling?

    V: You are appropriately feeling grief. Yes, you are also knowing your helplessness but you are aware nothing you are going through is permanent. The unkindness (being hostile, rude, short-tempered) doesn’t bother you because you are in an “I shouldn’t be feeling this” mode. You know who you are and the unkindness bothers you because it feels awful. Some people have no baseline for feeling freedom and peace. You have that. Since Friday you have spent many hours on the phone with Comcast without access to this natural state of openness. That causes grief.

    I have just spent another hour on the phone. This time with a woman who works security at the back end for the company that hosts our website.

    I dialed Comcast again. I am going to take it one step at a time, with an open heart.

    Aaron says, “See where you are. See what the next step might be. Do it with love. And if it’s not effective, stop and meditate again, and see what a different step might be.”

    Welcoming prayers and energy holding….

    P.S. In case you are wondering, I also spent time on a text chat with Comcast, and they offered me a $5 credit off my bill because I have been inconvenienced. Then I called the number the text chat gave me and was told an open ticket is already in process, so I just need to wait until they resolve the issue and someone will call me. Now I am at the office using the WiFi there to post this.