12/3/7 - Respect

Respect

12/3/7

Have all of us forgotten the true meaning of the word “respect?”  First, let’s define the word: Respect 1. To feel or show honor or esteem for 2.  To show consideration or regard for.

I remember—way back when—showing respect was a natural given for such things as parents, the elderly, women, our flag, our country, our planet—life.   But it is alarming to me how little respect is shown to anyone or anything anymore.  When we are accosted each day with news concerning another mall or school shooting where innocent victims are slaughtered with no regard for…no respect for…life.   It seems to be epidemic and bleeds over into every aspect of our lives.

Like for instance—last week as I was getting ready to leave for Yuma to take care of my elderly mother of 84.  I had talked with my website designer (I won’t mention his name) about when we could meet to finish up the final details of my website.  We set a time up for Thursday evening after I finished my last massage.  After the massage, I called him but alas—no answer.  I left a message for him to be sure and call me that night as that was my last evening I could work on my website.  No call from him the entire evening.  Nor the next day.  Nor the next week even though I called several times every day to get a hold of him.  I finally asked Brad to get a hold of him and the only way he could was by deceitfully using his other cell phone (so he couldn’t recognize the number) to call him.  I cried inside and out at the total lack of respect I was shown.

Then Friday night, I went to a surprise birthday party for a friend.  Many of you were there and we all had a great time partying together.  At one point, I was asked to join a game of pool in a foursome by a male friend (I won’t mention his name either).  As the game drew to an end and I had sunk all the balls on our side except for the 8-ball, I looked around to find my partner who had mysteriously disappeared.  It was his turn and all he had to do was sink an easy 8-ball shot.  I called for him upstairs to come down for his turn.  No response.  Finally after a few minutes of waiting, the other team convinced me to take his turn for him.  I was so frustrated by his disappearance that I scratched and lost the game.

I began to realize that this was a metaphor for my life—and I wanted to know with all my heart—WHY?!  Why was I attracting people into my life (usually men) that seemed to show such little respect?  Was it a mirror for me?  I sincerely try to respect others in my life.  Or was it the way I judged others for their lack of respect?  I wanted to know the answers and I also wanted to know if this is just a symptom of something much deeper—perhaps even universal.  And so, when I don’t have any immediate answers, I let go and let God show me.

On my arrival in Yuma, things seemed to fall into place as if I had intentionally created them (which I did).  The weather was glorious (after driving down through a blizzard in Utah) and I began to relax into the stress-free life of taking care of Mom.  (Actually I’m not sure who’s taking care of who as Mom is able to take care of most of her needs besides driving and answering the phone.)  The RV Park where Mom has owned a park model for nearly 20 years had just built a new work-out building and guess what they were presently looking to hire?  You guessed it—a massage therapist!  The massage rooms are absolutely perfect with regrind rubber floors (the same material I’m going to build the Rainbow Light Centers with as we finally found an adhesive expert in L.A. that was encouraging.)  The manager of the park was as delighted as I was when I told her I was available to do massage.  I get to charge what I want, work when I want and to top it off there is also a heated pool for me to do Watsu/Waterdance in.  It is so picture perfect that I just had to share it with you.  I am so filled with gratitude at how God truly provides for all of our needs—just as he/she promises he/she will.  I trust God and I am truly grateful.  But back to my story.

As I was going through my crateful of books trying to pick my next indulgence—a book caught my eye.  It was called The Coming of the Cosmic Christ by Matthew Fox.  I’d met Matthew Fox at a Windstar Symposium back in the late 1980’s.  Although I’d never read any of his books, I really enjoyed what he had to say.  As I began reading the first chapter of his book, I soon realized why I was inspired to read it.  The chapter was entitled, “A Dream—Your Mother is Dying.”  I want to share with you some excerpts from this chapter.

The first meaning of the warning, “Your mother is dying,” can be taken in reference to Mother Earth.  That the earth is our mother is a deeply held truth among native peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe.  Among Europeans, the teachings of the great Benedictine abbess of the twelfth century, Hildegard of Bingen, stand out: “The earth is at the same time mother, she is mother of all that is natural, mother of all that is human.  She is the mother of all, for contained in her are the seeds of all” (HB, 58).  Native Americans speak an ancient truth when they say that “native languages talk of the Creation in family terms such as ‘Mother Earth,’ ‘Grandmother Moon,’ ‘The Grandfather Winds.’

Is our Mother Earth dying?  Consider Bhopal; Chernobyl; Love Canal; Times Beach, Missouri; and now—even as I write this—the Rhine River, where one thousand tons of chemicals, including eight tons of pure mercury, were spilled—the river where Hildegard of Bingen and Meister Eckhart, the two greatest creation mystics of Western Europe, lived and preached their message of compassion and interconnectivity with creation…It seems that every month a new ecological disaster is produced by the two-legged ones.  Mother Earth is the victim.  If this continues, eventually we and our children will pay the price.  If we persist in poisoning the “mother of all,” then we will ultimately poison ourselves.

Consider these facts.  Agricultural practices in North America today destroy topsoil at the rate of six billion tons per year…The world’s forests are disappearing at an alarming rate—one-third of the planet’s total will be destroyed in the next fifteen years…In the ordinary course of events one species disappears about every two thousand years.  Currently, however, species are disappearing at the rate of one every twenty-five minutes…And how about water?  Holy, holy water.  In the United States alone we dump eighty billion pounds of toxic waste into mother earth’s lifeblood—her water—annually…In the last twenty-five years serious birth defects have doubled world over.  Current statistics may not yet reflect the magnitude of the problem, yet we continue dumping dangerous chemicals into Mother Earth.  Again, Hildegard warned of human folly vis-à-vis Mother Earth when she declared:  “The earth should not be injured!  The earth must not be destroyed!  As often as the elements of the world are violated by ill-treatment, so God will cleanse them.  God will cleanse them through the sufferings and hardships of humankind.  All of creation God gives to humankind to use.  But if this privilege is misused, then God’s justice permits creation to punish humanity” (HB, 78-80)

I hate to sound like a doomsdayer or a politician when I say that if we have no planet to live on—we have no future!  No politics.  No religion.  No family.  No friends.  No fun.  No life.  No nothing!!  So if our Mother Earth isn’t the most important political issue here (to parrot Al Gore) then what is?!  That’s why I can’t support candidates (I won’t mention any names) who downplay Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth.”  But then again I can’t support candidates who can’t see through the obvious bullshit—and I mean bullshit—that our current President is feeding us about Iran’s so-called nuclear agenda which was motive for our own (nuclear) war agenda.  (Have you seen In Plane Site or Discoveries of 911?  I have them both if you’d like copies.  They are absolutely alarming!)  But then again, I can’t support candidates who can’t see through the bullshit of our current healthcare system to where I have to drive Mom clear down to Mexico (I’m glad it’s only 5 miles away) in order for her to purchase her asthma medication which is 1/5 the cost down there and yet is made in the U.S.A.!  And then again I can’t support candidates who support taking the life of an unborn child.  So what do I do?  JUST NOT VOTE?!!  (That’s why I haven’t in the past 20 years cause there was no one to vote for!)  Or maybe I should run for president myself like Robin Williams did in Man of the Year? (That was a great movie, by the way.  And have you seen Wag the Dog lately?  That’s another classic for those of you who are curious as to why all of the shoes are hanging on the telephone wires.)

 

In closing  I’d like to share with you a poem I wrote 18 years ago after the birth of my son, Jordan.  It speaks of the respect I have for all of life and especially for the Mother/Father God which brings us life.

Respect

Oh God, who dwells within all things

Giving life to all liberally

Your beauty’s contained in every flower

Each bird’s song a perfect melody

Who can deny your majesty?

When gazing at heaven through cedar boughs

Your grace expressed in watching does

Lead their fawns through bramble roughs

Your tender love is most revealed

In Mother’s smile when tear’s concealed

Oh Blessed Creator, my heart is full

Of love, respect and praise for you

Each time I chance upon a flower

And ponder upon the seed within

One tiny grain of awesome power

Brought forth this beauty to my view

And when my son goes climbing trees

And comes upon a Robin’s nest

He knows to leave the eggs untouched

For Robin’s song is what we love best

Exploring ancient cedar groves

Where dwarfs and elves and fairies dance

My foot steps lightly on sacred paths

For cone and sapling become rich romance

When frost appears on forest hills

And buck and doe run fast with fear

A shot is heard, a silent prayer

For buck and doe—and unborn deer

Precious newborn babe of mine

Red and wrinkled, still wet from womb

Some say it was not you I felt

And make your former home a tomb

But even my young child of four

Was given sense enough to know

The tiny brother she now holds

She felt kick so long ago

Dear God, whose infinite love is full

For living things both great and small

And in your image of supreme majesty

Created man—the choicest of all

Yet of all your creatures you have born

None have shown a lesser respect

To take the life of their own unborn

Your greatest gift they cruelly reject

I pray each time I hear a Robin sing

Or when wandering down each sacred path

Collecting herbs and flowers and things

And chance upon a fresh fawn’s track

Holding tight my young child’s hand

I shed a tear when I look in his eyes

And pray he and God will understand

That I have won the grandest prize

                                                Janae Thorne-Bird