Water, Water Everywhere...Connects Us

Drip, drip, drip from the showerhead that I turned off. I’m far enough away from the damned Dan River, teeming with coal ash untended, but that catastrophe drips from my showerhead.

I feel connected, painfully so at times, to people I don’t know, like the thousands of water-abused Charleston, WV citizens, or the folks downriver from the latest—but not last—enviro-disaster on the border of NC and VA, those poisoned by the wanton release of highly toxic coal ash on the Dan River; or the millions of invisible homeless kids and adults, some of whom I’ve encountered through my HEAR US journeys, many more I’ve not. I could go on and on and on….

What good does it do to connect mentally with the suffering of others?

For me, such connections can lead to my development of empathy, a trait cleverly presented in this short, delightful KarmaTube video.

Such connections keep us, well, connected, rather than isolated and smug. Empathy, much better than sympathy, requires work, as I’m reminded of all too often.

My shower-meditation is one way I exercise my heart. I try to become micro-aware of a few common things in my daily routine and mentally connect with the people responsible—the person in the (likely) sweatshop who sewed my jeans, the farmworker who picked the mangoes I enjoy, the steelworker who processed the stainless steel that became my coffee pot.

The ills of our modern world can topple even the hardiest soul. My work over the years with homeless families, youth, and single adults has, I hope, ground down the nastiest parts of my personality, leaving a coarse, but improving, sense of compassion, or so I’d like to think. Listening. Seeing. Weeping. Laughing. Fuming. Writing. Filming. Photographing. Thinking. Never enough. But if it’s all I can do, I’ll do it.

As I shove off from a working “sabbatical” spent with my wheels parked for most of the past 3 months, I know I’ll be immersed in the equivalent of toxic ash spills. My mettle will be tested. I will massage my empathic abilities. I will aim my outrage at injustice to those who disregard the humanity of the have-nots.

I know we as society can, and must, do better. But that boils down to me. I must do better. With the steady drip, drip, drip of compassion from deep within, I’ll connect with those in my path, doing whatever I can to ease the injustice of poverty. That’s my plan.

Not My Problem Mentality vs. Compassion

Having spent more time in brutal winter weather zones this year than I have since I bolted out of Illinois in 2005 for my nomadic life under the HEAR US banner, I am getting the reality therapy that millions of others regularly cope with during these blasts of winter.

I haven't forgotten what it's like to gasp at the subzero temps that get bolstered by north winds. Well, I sorta forgot, but my trip to MN in early December cured my amnesia.

What lingers in my frost-bitten head, however, is the awareness that I have so much when it comes to options for escaping winter's brutality, and so many have so little.

My house-on-wheels, aka Tillie, is a fine way to live small, except for the extremes of heat and cold. Though I'm parked at my sister/brother-in-law's house in the mountains of western NC, I'm still sleeping in Tillie, Maybe it's just a meager attempt at solidarity with the freezing masses. I could sleep inside. But the discomfort of the cold mornings when I have to crawl out from the warm down comforter keeps it real for me.

I find myself wondering about the millions of households struggling to pay for heat in its various forms. I know even more households have scant protection from the various forms of "polar vortexes" that vex us. And then we have the millions of kids and adults with no place to call home. Sigh.

Solidarity breeds compassion. And for sure we need more compassion. How do we get that? Well, this recent post, Cultivating Compassion, offers suggestions. One in particular that I like is mindfulness:

Fortunately, we also have the skills to reconcile the old brain with the new. One of them is a technique that we call mindfulness—moment-to-moment awareness of thoughts and feelings. That is, we have the capacity to be aware of awareness, and to simply observe and become familiar with the tricks our minds play on us.

Take the cold as a practical example. Can mindfulness bring the realities of others' sufferings closer to our hearts? I'd like to think so. And it leaves plenty of room for action--whether it's donating gently-used coats to a local shelter, sharing soup with an elderly neighbor, paying a family's heat bill for the month, or being nice to a worker who spends too much time in the weather. On our HEAR US website, we have a Compassion Epidemic  section with all kinds of suggestions for extending compassion beyond your doors.

I'm more than anxious for winter to take a hike. But I'm trying to "woman-up" to the reality that chills my bones. I'm not suffering, but many do. My challenge--what am I going to do about it?