A Great Big Useless Tree

Shortly before Rhys was born I found out my blood type for the first time in my living memory. Being the middle child, my mother and father were never too concerned about remembering "important things" about me so I had to adapt (jk, love ya mom and dad, xoxo). I was having some blood work done and the labs/docs were nice enough to screen it for my blood type as well. Low and behold, O negative blood runs through these selfless veins: Universal donor which, appropriately enough, also means universally screwed because I can only take O negative blood. O negative blood is rare, you see, which is probably a good reason for me to donate blood on a semi-regular basis. I'll honestly start doing that at some point, I swear, but the whole idea kind of freaks me out. I need to get over myself. But I digress.

Sitting in the hospital two days after Rhys came and went, I was a bit restless and found a sense of calm and comfort in recalling my seventh grade science class punnet square lesson and using it to determine the odds of Rhys' blood type and confirm Kelly's actual blood phenotype. The moment still imprints itself in my memory in a startlingly clear way. I frantically asked if anyone had some pen and paper and looked around at the family members in the room as if they all should have had some paper and a pen on them at this given moment. Never mind that everyone else had been walking through the events of Rhys' birth and death with us, just as stunned by what had happened as us, just as inadequate in their understanding as we were. I needed pen and paper and moments later, from where or whom I have no clue, it was in front of me. I drew up the square and divided it into four boxes and went to work. We had found out that Rhys was O positive which meant that Kelly, who is A positive, must have an AO phenotype and not an AA. Kelly giving the AO and me giving the OO meant Rhys and future children have a 50/50 chance of being either AO or OO. That spontaneous decision lead me back to the present and reminded me to sit with my anger and sadness and pain. It pointed me towards a deeply rooted sense of what was, what had happened, and of all the thoughts and feelings that came with it. Put another way, it was a moment of experiencing Tao.

A few months ago Rev. Lillian Daniel's rant about a conversation with a fellow airplane patron made the rounds on my facebook newsfeed and I found myself feeling somewhat self-conscious and worried. In that short post resided my fears and concerns about revealing my spiritual identity to those around me. Stereotyped? Check. Misunderstood? Check. Rejected? Check. I would consider myself "spiritual but not religious". Never mind that this identity is deeply rooted in an ancient tradition and never mind that it places the experience and understanding of one's inner self at the center of spiritual practice; something that seems to run antithetical to her conception of spirituality. And to be fair, on a certain level I think I get what she's saying, laziness is not spirituality and I don't think any self-respecting person would disagree with that, but her post felt a lot like the old adage throwing the baby out with the bath water. And there is a piece of this that felt even more insidious.

Lillian Daniel's conception of spirituality seems to only make space for someone who believes in a very western, very Protestant view of spirituality. I can't help but wonder what she would say to Sat Hon explaining a certain type of Taoist meditation thusly:

When I teach this pathless form of meditation to students: that there is nothing to teach and everything is perfect and in harmony just as they are in this very moment. I am usually met with the following:
"Ughh. But you have taught us nothing," is a common response.
"Exactly," I laugh. While some walk out in a huff.
"Charlatan!" they shout.
A few stay, hoping that perhaps at a later time I will eventually reveal the secret techniques to them. They will also leave empty-handed and full of blame and anger. Only a rare individual or two will awaken to this instantaneous perfection of suchness.
"You lying thief!" they laugh. And perhaps we will then share a cup of Dragon Well tea.

I might be a bit more interested in sharing a cup of coffee but you get the gist. This is not the type of religious or spiritual experience she is holding up as valid. I don't know, maybe Lillian Daniel is reacting to something very different, but her comment about wanting to sit next to someone who experiences the world as she does when the plane goes down strikes me a tad disturbing. As if the only way she would be willing to share something meaningful with someone else is if they shared a fundamental belief in the way she saw and experienced the world. It helped identify what the struggle has been for me when it comes to "outing" myself.

Living and working with so many others that are openly Christian and assume the same about those around them can be a challenge and for a few years now I've existed in this world feeling like an intruder, constantly justifying the words I used and the names I invoked in order to at least maintain some sort of authenticity within myself. I've hid my self from others because I wasn't convinced that being honest about my spiritual path would be received or accepted or even tolerated. I've not been very eager to approach that place. Rhys' birth changed a great deal of this for me and reminded me of a lesson I learned attending church, curiously enough. Much of that lesson is indebted to the love, support, and character of very intelligent and wise women who walked with me through the process of confirmation and, later, ordination. They taught me and showed me that they were interested in me, not because I was Christian or held the same beliefs or recited the correct creeds but precisely because I was me. In a funny way my spiritual life and path wouldn't be possible (or at least much more contentious) if it weren't for my experience as a Christian being formed in a church environment that encouraged questions and respected difference.

So practicing Taoist spirituality isn't something new for me. I've been reading about and enjoying Taoism for years, but sharing that with people? Coming out of the closet, so to speak? That's been difficult. Reading things like Lillian Daniel's post reminds me of the expectations and assumptions we foist on each other, and it worries me. It scares me. All of this is by way of saying that this transition for me has been about seeking an authentic an honest expression of myself in this life that accepts that things happen without explanation or reason. Sure we can learn from them, we can grow and change because of them, but the events of life, for me, are not tied to some greater plan or divine providence or overarching narrative in which good triumphs over evil. Life is what life has always been, a balance of chaos and order. Put differently, life is both joy and sadness, loss and gain, learning and forgetting, nothing more and nothing less. I don't pray and I don't worship. I practice presence and cultivate empathy and compassion.

In the simplest terms possible, I am, and that is enough for me.