Imagination may involve thoughts, visualizations, and sensations that are internal to ourselves, but can it also take shape? Imagination becomes a lens that impacts what we notice, and thus, to a certain extent, it materializes into what we actually experience in the world.
There are very real ways to form relationships with ideas and even people internally inside our own imaginations, and this can impact how our bodies feel materially.
Image Description: Light shining through the trees of a forest.Public domain.
Father Greg Boyle is a person I really appreciate. He’s the founder and spiritual leader of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles. Homeboy Industries provides jobs, training, tattoo removal, therapy, and a variety of classes for people who are leaving gangs and people who have been recently incarcerated. In the midst of these opportunities, Homeboy Industries has created a large, extended family of kinship — many meaningful relationships over time.
Father Greg was once a guest on Krista Tippett’s On Being. During that interview, he uses a beautiful phrase about the mutuality of relationship. He says that in kinship, we serve as enlightened witnesses, helping each other ‘return to ourselves.’
Toward the beginning of the podcast, he uses some language from Cesar Chavez. Once, a reporter said to Chavez, “These farm workers sure do love you. . .” And to that, he replied, “The feeling’s mutual!”
That line came up again when he discussed this beautiful experience of returning to ourselves. To bring it home, he told a story about one of the homies named Louie and a mutual blessing they shared with some humor. I want to share Greg Boyle’s words below:
“You want to be as spacious as you can be, that you can have room for stuff. And love is all there is, and love is all you are. . .
“Alice Miller, who’s the late, great child psychologist, talked about how we’re all called to be enlightened witnesses — people who, through your kindness, tenderness, and focused, attentive love, return people to themselves. And in the process, you’re returned to yourself.
“Like I have a homie named Louie who just turned 18. And he’s kind of a difficult kid. You know, he’s exasperating, and he’s whiny. And he works for me — although work may be too strong a verb. But homies lately have asked me for blessings, which is odd — it’s like in the last three years — and they always ask me on the street or in my office. And they never say, ‘Father, may I have your blessing?’ They say, ‘Eh, G, give me a bless, yeah?’ And they always say it the same way.
“So this kid Louie, I’m talking to him, and he’s complaining about something. And finally, at the end of it, he says, ‘Eh, G, give me a bless, yeah?’ I said, sure. So he comes around to my side of the desk, and he knows the drill. And he bows his head. I put his hands on my shoulder. Well, his birthday had been two days before, so it gave me an opportunity to say something to him. And I said,
‘You know, Louie, I’m proud to know you. And my life is richer ’cause you came into it. And when you were born, the world became a better place, And I’m proud to call you my son. Even though — ‘
And I don’t know why I decided to add this part —
‘– at times, you can really be a huge pain in the ass.’
“And he looks up, and he smiles, and he says, ‘The feeling’s mutual!’
And suddenly — kinship so quickly. You’re not sort of this delivery system. But maybe I returned him to himself, but there is no doubt . . . that he’s returned me to myself.”
Friends, I hope you’ve had this kind of experience lately, even if socially distanced.
Or I hope you can recall this kind of experience — of returning and being returned — in a way that fills you right this instant in the present moment.
In my job role, every day looks different than the next. I love this, and I feel grateful for it.
I work as the Community Care Director at the Epilepsy of Michigan, and each day, I interact with community groups and community members who call us. I am not an expert about any of the following, nor do I pretend to be, but in this position, I regularly learn knowledge and pull from knowledge about medicine, law, social work, therapy, public policy, education, spiritual care, community organizing, and more.
Image Description: Small, white pieces of paper with text that reads, “Responsibility,” “Duty,” “Accountability,” “Liability,” and other words that are not fully in view. Public domain image.
Two phrases popped into my mind. I hadn’t thought about them in a long time, but years ago, I read them in a book and found this to be a helpful framing.
When we think about responsibility, it’s helpful to remember that there is a difference between being responsible for and responsible toward.
Very often, we feel responsible for that which isn’t ours and that which we didn’t cause. We take on other people’s emotional states. We believe it is our responsibility to “fix” others. We believe that if someone is in a difficult mood, it must be our fault. We take responsibility for that which isn’t ours.
We are not responsible for these, but we are responsible for our own actions and emotions. And of course, we also can respond other’s needs with care.
As we think about responding, I think a better framing involves being responsible toward. We have a responsibility to live our values and be our best selves. We send these toward interpersonal needs and collective needs. We will also fail at this. But we can come back to these values continually.
There are many things in the world that need our care and attention. In these, we need collective action too. We are responsible toward them. We didn’t always cause them (caveat, that we’re sometimes complicit collectively) but if we are to live our values and seek to be our best selves in community, we will need to act.
In some types of instances, I hope that we will feel freed from being responsible for, and in others, I hope that we will feel empowered to be responsible toward.
My feet sank into the sand on the shore of Lake Michigan. Slowly, I noticed how that felt, and I smiled, enjoying it, additionally taking pleasure in the warmth of the sun on my back and the breeze moving toward my face. “Check in,” I said to myself.
That’s what I’ve been saying to myself lately. There are so many ways that we “check out.” We get stuck in our heads, ruminating over thoughts. We distract ourselves, picking up our phones a zillion times per day. We think about work when we’re not working. We project fears about future stressors that aren’t even happening right now (and likely, won’t happen at all). We easily check out.
It can feel so good to check in.
It feels freeing and enlivening to connect with our bodies, our surroundings, nature, the sounds of birds or children laughing, and the presence of our relationships.
This blurry image above is a cruise ship on the Atlantic Ocean at night time. It’s a laughably terrible photo. But it has a nice thought attached.
I recently took a cruise myself, and when I snapped this image, I was on the top deck of my own ship. We were sailing overnight to our next port of entry, and as I looked toward the expanse of the ocean, not too far from us, there was another cruise ship traveling with us in parallel. Though the photo is humorously abysmal, I could see this ship very clearly.
I stood there for a while and watched it, wondering who might be on that ship. Though I couldn’t make out individual people, I knew that thousands of people were there, an international bunch, and some were in the pool, some were in their beds, some were eating dinner, and some were at shows and activities.
Then, I thought, “Oh, and there are probably a few standing on the top of the deck, watching my ship in the distance, thinking about the very same things about us.” I enjoyed knowing this was true, even though I couldn’t see the people in my same position.
I thought about how many times a day in every day life, we think about people we love, and they think about us. We rarely know exactly when and how this happens, but it’s certainly true. There are people in parallel with our own lives — from afar, or just living their own day nearby, thinking of us fondly, enjoying us, remembering us, wondering about us, hoping for us, cheering us on, and desiring goodness for us.
Smuggling Grace 