Essayist Roger Rosenblatt learns to appreciate the power of kindness through the pain of loss

I have loved Roger's essays over the years, for their beauty and eloquence. In the last few years, he lost his beloved thirty-something daughter to a sudden heart attack and talks about his journey since then.

Maybe the most profound thing he talks about is the virtue of kindness, how it is even more important than being smart. I find his words on kindness to be encouraging because part of me has been embarrassed by my kindness, incorrectly feeling that is more of a womanly trait. Something soft and wimpy. Instead, he argues that being kind is special. I am going to let his words sink in, reflect on this and honor my kindness.

From interview with shelf-awareness.com:

We greatly enjoyed Making Toast, although "enjoyed" is not quite the right word. We were moved by the book, and appreciated its spare style. How did you find your voice for this remembrance? How did you avoid sentimentality? Making Toast seems to be remarkably un-clichéd.

I often write nonfiction this way; in this case, finding an inverse proportion of fancy writing to the importance of the subject. If you have the goods, there is no point in dressing it up, no need to get fancy, to create a subject out of language itself. The story itself brings readers to their knees. I was compelled to write simply and directly.

At what point did you decide to write about your daughter's death, and why? Why share it?

I wanted to share it to be useful. I didn't initially intend to make it into a book. I wrote a New Yorker essay to get it out of my system; it was the only way I knew to feel better. The editor, David Remnick, said the piece was wise and urged me to write more. He also said, "When you write this, write with more grace than pain." If you write only from pain, you write standing on your feet rather than on your knees.

You say that you had grown weary of your anger. How do you feel now?

The holiday season is a crummy season for my family, so the anger is greater right now. It flared up in December when we went to the cemetery. The anger goes up and down. It's futile to be angry at God--the God I believe in doesn't care. He set the world in motion and left it. But his not caring became a personal affront to me.

Where are you in your role of not quite grandparent, not quite parent? Are you and Ginny still part of the household?

We are, and it's now been two years. We know what we are doing--it's no longer a role, it's our life. It's very easy.

What has stayed with you? Any words of wisdom?

Yes. Life--get on with it. And I am kinder as a person, more alert to the feelings of others. I can use my wit liberally, but am more careful with it now. I'm more aware of the fragility of life, and want to make sure that the last word anyone hears from me is kind. Being smart is not special; being kind is. Everything has been a gift.

--Roger Rosenblatt being interview by Shelf-awareness.com

David Brooks recognizes Obama's leadership at the health care summit

I don't often agree with his policy recommendations, but David Brooks, a thoughtful conservative, today acknowledges Obama's leadership at the health care summit. The tea baggers and birthers don't like David, but that is a good thing. Read his op-ed here.

How to live

Today

--Word carved on a stone on John Ruskin's desk

Does the GOP really want health care reform? We will soon find out if their actions match their words. See this clip from Jon Stewart.

Feeling more and more

We bump up against the fact of change and impermanence as soon as we acknowledge our feelings or needs for others. Basically, we all tend to go in one of two directions as a strategy for coping with that vulnerability. We either go in the direction of control or of autonomy. If we go for control, we may be saying: “If only I can get the other person or my friends or family to treat me the way I want, then I’ll be able to feel safe and secure. If only I had a guarantee that they’ll give me what I need, then I wouldn’t have to face uncertainty.” With this strategy, we get invested in the control and manipulation of others and in trying to use people as antidotes to our own anxiety.

With the strategy (or curative fantasy) of autonomy, we go in the opposite direction and try to imagine that we don’t need anyone. But that strategy inevitably entails repression or dissociation, a denial of feeling. We may imagine that through spiritual practice we will get to a place where we won’t feel need, sexuality, anger, or dependency. Then, we imagine, we won’t be so tied into the vicissitudes of relationships. We try to squelch our feelings in order not to be vulnerable anymore, and we rationalize that dissociation under the lofty and spiritual-sounding word “detachment,” which ends up carrying a great deal of unacknowledged emotional baggage alongside its original, simpler meaning as the acceptance of impermanence.

We have to get to know and be honest about our particular strategies for dealing with vulnerability, and learn to use our practice to allow ourselves to experience more of that vulnerability rather than less of it. To open yourself up to need, longing, dependency, and reliance on others means opening yourself to the truth that none of us can do this on our own. We really do need each other, just as we need parents and teachers. We need all those people in our lives who make us feel so uncertain. Our practice is not about finally getting to a place where we are going to escape all that but about creating a container that allows us to be more and more human, to feel more and more.

--Barry Magid, "No Gain," Tricycle Summer 2008

A fitting end for the "George W." decade: Hummer to close

Militaristic, inflated, and profligate are great descriptors of government and business during the George W. Bush era. These are also appropriate words for the Hummer brand, adult-sized military-style toys for, what many have suggested, men with big egos and small other things. Today, GM announced it is closing down the brand because nobody is interested in buying it...even the Chinese backed out of a potential deal.

Maybe America is growing up and returning to values of ingenuity, collaboration, hard work, community and creating real value.

A straight ally for LGBT equality from my alma mater, University of Maryland

Read about this smart, courageous and handsome student athlete from University of Maryland. He makes me proud to be a fellow Terp (short for a terrapin, a type of turtle). Click here.

CPAC, The Tea Party And The Remaking Of The Right...on "Fresh Air"

Listen to this informative discussion about the confluence of forces bringing together conservatives, the tea baggers, and other extremists. God help this country.

Jon Stewart exposes Glenn Beck

Simple but wise words

Yes and thank you are the opposites of selfishness.
The ego can only be erased through happiness and gratitude.

--Arnaud Desjardins

A reminder on who is responsible for this recession

This severe recession started on W's watch and started turning around once Obama came into office. Do not let conservatives re-write history, as they would like to. Facts are important things.

Why people aren't hearing the gay community's message...a great blog post from Change.org

Check out this blog post about the importance of messaging in the movement for LGBT equality.

As this gay Conservative Member of Parliament shows, being on the Right doesn't mean you have to be selfish, narrow-thinking, and moralistic.

Practicing giving -- fearlessly

The old man
must have stopped our car
two dozen times to climb out
and gather into his hands
the small toads blinded
by our lights and leaping,
live drops of rain.

The rain was falling,
a mist about his white hair
and I kept saying
you can't save them all,
accept it, get back in
we got place to go.

But, leathery hands full
of wet brown life,
knee deep in the summer
roadside grass,
he just smiled and said
they have place to go to
too.

--Joseph Bruchac, "Birdfoot's Grandpa"

Why Microsoft is scared sh*tless by Google

As Google continues to develop and provide free products that compete with Microsoft's Office and Windows offerings, you can see from the chart below why MS is running scared. They make huge profits on those products and loose on Bing and other online offerings. The more competition, the better...for consumers and business.

GOP criticizes universal health coverage in Hawaii while state residents love it. Ben Oliver from The Daily Show hilariously exposes it all.

Oneness

The life that runs through the everything in the universe is me.

--Zen saying

In other words, I am not separate from the world. Rather, I am everything and everything is me.

One of my favorite new ads...poking some fun at our new "green" culture. Time to laugh at yourselves, environmentalists! I am on your side.



Advancing LGBT equality one kiss at a time...in Paris, in honor of Valentine's Day.

Tonight, after walking around the Castro and happily seeing so many gay couples out in force to celebrate and express their love(when 40 years ago this would have been socially unacceptable and illegal), I came across this video from Paris.

The powerful ending from the movie "A Single Man." The essence of buddhism.

George (VOICE OVER):

A few times in my life Iʼve had moments of absolute clarity.

When for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think...And things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh.

I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything they fade. I have lived my live on these moments.

They pull me back to the present and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be.

Rachel calls out cute GOP cutie who voted against the stimulus package, but took credit for its projects in his district. Facts are stubborn things.

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Watch his last runway show to understand why designer Alexander McQueen is being mourned. A brilliant, creative mind who looked forward, not backward.

Also, watch this moving tribute to Alexander from a fashion editor at the NYTimes

Everyday, including today, you can be in love

I have given a talk on the following topic to a gay buddhist group, a few years ago. In my search for romantic love, I discovered that I can be a lover everyday by sending this heart energy out to other beings, not just romantic lovers, and by observing myself and others and letting their love into my life. For example, how one treats the convenience store clerk reveals more about his or her capacity to give genuine, unconditional love. This realization has changed my life.

The claim that love pervades this world may not sound real to you but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Most of us just haven’t learned to pay much attention to the countless moments of love, kindness, and care that surround us each day: a child at the store reaching for her mother’s hand, an elderly stranger at the park who smiles upon a young family, a grocery clerk who beams at you as she hands you your change.

The “blessings that are always pouring forth” include the love that has permeated our lives, peeking at us through many eyes. Think, for example, of someone you loved to be near when you were a child: a parent or grandparent, a special aunt or uncle, a family friend or teacher—someone it felt wonderful to be with. Why did you like to be near that person so much? Probably because she radiated a wish of love to you through the quality of her presence, her words, her play with you, or simply through her smiling eyes when you came near. Try to remember someone like that from your childhood right now. Hold that person in your mind for a moment and recall how it felt to be near her. That’s what it is like to receive the love that simply wishes for your happiness. We like to be near people like that because we have a deep need to receive their unspoken love, to drink up its life-giving goodness.

-- John Makransky, "Love is All Around" (Fall 2007)

In praise of the ordinary & mundane

My zen master has encouraged me to show up fully in the most mundane tasks, like unloading the dishwasher, folding my laundry, peeling potatoes, etc. At first, this sounded like a bunch of buddhist rubbish: what joy is there in putting my dinner plates away? The more I show up for these things, he insisted, the more contented I will be. I didn't get it.

But, gradually, I did start paying attention to the ordinary moments and found myself alive in them. I now notice the warmth of the dishes as I take them out of the dishwater. I feel my ferns as they graze my legs when working in the garden. I smell the vegetables as I peel and cook them. The little things in my life have become more welcomed activities, and many of them now feel like good friends of mine. I am no longer so grasping of "peak" experiences as I balance out my life and expand my level of awareness to all moments of my life.

A funny thing has happened, too. The extraordinary moments are more colorful and vivid because I am more awake and present. Now, I really show up and notice when watching a great movie or making love, and my heart is pierced by the joy of it.

With a deep bow to the little things in life, I am off to wash the pots.

One of my favorite songs recorded by Jeff Buckley in 1994 and performed by K.D. Lang last night at the Olympic Games opener

K.D. Lang sings it at last night's opening ceremony.

Notice the joy of Suzuki-Roshi, the zen master who founded SF Zen Center. I practice in this tradition.

Andrew Sullivan argues that LGBT equality leads to greater societal integrity

Try never mentioning your spouse, your family, your home, your girlfriend or boyfriend to anyone you know or work with - just for one day. Take that photo off your desk at work, change the pronoun you use for your spouse to the opposite gender, guard everything you might say or do so that no one could know you're straight, shut the door in your office if you have a personal conversation if it might come up. Try it. Now imagine doing it for a lifetime. It's crippling; it warps your mind; it destroys your self-esteem. These men and women are voluntarily risking their lives to defend us. And we are demanding they live lives like this in order to do so. Yes, Admiral Mullen. It is about integrity. It's also about a minimum of human respect.

-- Andrew Sullivan, responding to the National Review's Rich Lowry.

Taking care of ourselves

When we build a house, we start by creating a stable foundation. Just so, when we wish to benefit others, we start by developing warmth or friendship for ourselves. It’s common, however, for people to have a distorted view of this friendliness and warmth. We’ll say, for instance, that we need to take care of ourselves, but how many of us really know how to do this? When clinging to security and comfort, and warding off pain, become the focus of our lives, we don’t end up feeling cared for and we certainly don’t feel motivated to extend ourselves to others. We end up feeling more threatened or irritable, more unable to relax.

--Pema Chödrön from “Unlimited Friendliness” (Winter 2009)

My little brother, Jason, in a snowball fight at college in Washington, DC

Check out Jason on this Weather.com clip. He is living large in Washington, D.C! As he should.

Playing the game of life with joy and compassion

One of my favorite passages from the metaphysical book "A Course in Miracles" is "Spirit am I. A beautiful son of God. Free of all limits. Safe, healed and whole. Free to forgive and free to save the world." These 25 powerful words always remind me of who I really am -- a beautiful son of God, my true nature, and are especially helpful when my ego is subtly or aggressively criticizing me.

I do think that the reason we are here on this earth is to remember who we are by playing the game of overcoming our fears. Yes, the word play is important because games are most fun and successful when people focus on the task at hand in a joyful and open-hearted way. For me, my best games have required all energy and ingenuity but I am okay with whatever the results are. In short, I truly play, without a lot of attachments to a specific result.

Last night while eating Indian pizza, some friends and I played the game of Catan, a very competitive boardgame that involves quite a bit of strategy and concentration. Everyone had an opportunity to be in the lead so it wasn't clear who was going to win. Feeling relaxed and light-hearted, I played the best I have ever had, enjoying the fellowship of my friends -- as well as my constantly-changing fortunes. I noticed when my ego was registering its complaints about me and others, and smiled at its judgments and kept playing with joy and compassion.

So as I begin this week, this is an opportunity to remember my true nature and play the game of life in the same way.

Despite our gay marriage ballot losses, we are nearing a tipping point on LGBT rights: read Frank Rich's column from today's New York Times

Frank Rich's "Smoke the Bigots Out of the Closet"

Doing the right thing...a life's work

I’ve tried to do the right thing. I raised a beautiful bunch of kids — and they truly are my greatest accomplishment. So I’m not worried about what’s next. If there is a God, I think he’ll know that I just did the best I could. That’s all a man can do.

--Milton Christian

When the opposite is true

Sarah Palin tells the tea-baggers what kind of Chrisitan nation she envisions. Be wary.

I think, kind of tougher to, um, put our arms around, but allowing America's spirit to rise again by not being afraid to kind of go back to some of our roots as a God fearing nation where we're not afraid to say, especially in times of potential trouble in the future here, where we're not afraid to say, you know, we don't have all the answers as fallible men and women so it would be wise of us to start seeking some divine intervention again in this country, so that we can be safe and secure and prosperous again. To have people involved in government who aren't afraid to go that route, not so afraid of the political correctness that you know -- they have to be afraid of what the media said about them if they were to proclaim their alliance on our creator.

--Sarah Palin

As the debate on "Don't Ask Don't Tell" reveals, the LGBT community is advancing. But it is hard to be patient when fighting for fundamental rights

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I have a cold and feel uncomfortable tonight...but also have an immense sense of gratitude

\One of the greatest lessons I have learned in my life is to not compare myself to others, especially my choices with those of others. Sometimes, I do get envious of other people's things and stacks of money, but, in my quieter mental moments, I feel very fortunate for my family, friends, health, interesting work, curiosity, and all the love in my life. Sure, my inner critic gleefully points out my failings and areas of lack. Yet that's its job and I take it less seriously than I have in the past.

As I approach 50 in four months, I have the wisdom to know that I don't have all the answers nor the power to control everything. However, I am willing to show up, keep my heart open, do my best, and keep re-choosing my life direction. That's all I can ask of myself.

I am off to bed with a stuffy nose and nasal congestion. But poor me, nothing. Now, those people in Haiti really inspire me by not giving up. They are my teachers. With a deep bow to all!

Shields & Brooks sagely discuss Scott Brown, Obama, DADT, bipartisanship, and McCain

Reagan's budget director speaks out on big banks

Turns out Eliot Spitzer was right about Wall Street

Rent and watch this video: "Food Inc."

Last night, I watched another movie that made me mad about what has happened to my country. "Food, Inc" talks about how we have lost our way as people, becoming estranged from our food and farms, eating unhealthy processed products, and becoming sicker in the process.

One of the things that Buddhist practice has taught me is that I do all sorts of crazy and unskillful things when I am not present with my feelings and the world around me. I can overeat, gossip about others, spend hours on the internet, and continue to look for happiness outside of myself.

Going forward, having watched this movie, I am committed to being even more discerning about the meat I take into my body and to living with more present moment awareness. I am not about to become a radical raw food vegetarian, but I will continue to choose my foods with care and curiosity. Moreover, I see that life is a process of continuous process of waking up. Again and again.

Pith lesson

We can always begin again.

--Jack Kornfield

Presidents should be questioned by the opposition party...as Obama was on last Friday

It is good for democracy and breaking political gridlock.

GOP strategist and Bush advisor, Mark McKinnon, and I agree on this. Read his article in the Daily Beast.

Sign the petition asking for regular Presidential question times. Let's make America work again.

We live in modern times while fear-mongers (many GOP & tea baggers) do not. They cling to the past.

Admiral Mullen advocates for integrity...by allowing gays to serve in the military. GOP senators object.

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Obama calls out timid Democratic Senators...reminds them to be leaders, not mice

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Unity and oneness

By the very fact of his being human, man is asked a question by life: how to overcome the split between himself and the world outside of him in order to arrive at the experience of unity and oneness with his fellow man and with nature. Man has to answer this question every minute of his life. Not only–or even primarily–with thoughts and words, but by his mode of being and acting.

--Erich Fromm