Better Accommodations

The first time I read this lovely poem by the mystic Sufi poet, Hafez, I had to put down the book and breathe it in just sit think about it for while. It reminded me of how I felt after reading about an experience described hundreds of years later by the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, while standing on a busy street corner.

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness……....As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

This is a season filled with fear messaging. It is human to be afraid. There is a very old part of our brain that is designed to keep us safe, to always be scanning the landscape for the tiger in the bushes, to be assessing which berry is healthy or poisonous. This part of brain has a function, we learn to not touch a hot stove or jump from places too high to land safely. But at the same time that it is ok to have very human experiences with fear, we also learn that we don’t have to “be” the fear. Our fears can be debilitating and may or may not be based in current reality. And in a season of fear messaging, fear can be manipulated by unscrupulous players. When we are afraid, we are more likely to abdicate our reason, or lose our compass and follow what proposes the easiest way to some version called safety. When that happens, fear is indeed “the cheapest room in the house” and we all can claim better accommodations.

One of the fears being played upon is that of difference, that that difference is dangerous. But we don’t have to “be” that fear. As Merton wrote we are all walking around shining like the sun, we are all intimately connected in deep and powerful ways. There is not just comfort in sensing that elemental connection, but also empowerment.

The October Growing Edge Podcast co-hosted with Parker J. Palmer will be a new conversation with John Paul Lederach, renowned for his life long work in conflict resolution and peacemaking. I’ve been reading his new booklet about the roots of division and violence and the improbable actions of ordinary people to disrupt, mitigate and heal divisions. I will write a lot more about John Paul and this booklet in my post about Podcast on Oct 1st. But it suffices to say, I’ve been really moved by this work, and thinking a lot about how change does not happen “out there” but close up, personally and locally. When an individual chooses to not “be” the fear, but act in small daily ways that some folks would just call “being neighborly”, the pillars that support fear and division are chipped away - and eventually brought down.

It takes courage to have some of these hard conversations, it takes a fierce kind of love to stop outside our safety zones. It takes hope expressed in ordinary, extraordinary daily action to shift our world from shadow to light. It is all still possible. It is not “out there” but “right here” accessible and doable— within us and between us.

So this week when every news outlet is calling for our fear, let us be courageous. Let us seek better accommodations. Let us reach out and have conversations that extend welcome and connection. Let us help one another to step back from messages that divide and destroy the essential threads of connection in our communities. Let us speak a different message, sing a better song.

We are all shining like the sun and we all deserve better accommodations.

Ok….and let us vote, and encourage others to exercise their right to vote.

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Interfaith Compassion Dialogue with ServiceSpace

I was so happy to hear that several folks from The Gathering of Spirits community joined the 21-day Interfaith Compassion Challenge with Service Space.org. I loved joining you all for the beautiful opening online zoom event - wishing you all a fine experience!

Get Out The Vote

Last night I had a fabulous time at a hometown show in Bloomington IN that was in part a benefit for the Bloomington UU the Vote (Connected to the non-partisan national get-out-the-vote efforts by the Unitarian Universalist Congregations). Thank you to everyone who attended!

This week I’ll be doing an online information event with Movement Voter PAC, which is mobilizing get out the vote efforts across the country. (This one is a bit more focused on the Harris/Walz ticket and down ballot races focusing on communities of color and our young voters) Learn how you can get involved with Voter registration locally and in battleground states. Here’s the link to register.  https://movement.vote/register/pdr84kmi

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Upcoming Shows and Workshops

For more info visit www.carrienewcomer.com/tour

I hope you’ll join us for this very special show in Chicago, at the fabulous Old Town School of Folk Music with Gary Walters and The Gathering of Spirits String Quartet.