Judging, Accepting

Until we can received with an open heart,

We are never really giving with an open heart

When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly

Or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help

                                                            Brene Brown

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What is wrong with us?

Why is there so little compassion and generosity?

Why are we so eager to judge and condemn

We seem to have a terminal condition

We seem so eager to shame

We shame people of color (those lazy blacks)

We shame the poor (lazy moochers)

We shame addicts (they choose to use)

We are experts in shame

And we make generosity conditional

Insisting on merit

We create a whole world of throw away people

Where does this come from?

I remember growing up, being taught that one should always be the strong one

The one with the answers

The one who is in a position of giving help

The one who is OK

Or perhaps FINE

But we all know what FINE means don’t we

Fucked up, Insecure, Needy and Emotional (or Egotistical)

Yep

Perhaps this need to be OK in the eyes of the world

The care taker, the answer person, the one who has it together

Is really nothing more than a way of hiding what we know

To be painfully true

That we are just as messed up and needy as everyone else

Perhaps, it is a form of denial

The reality is

That we all need help

We all need compassion, love, forgiveness

And the degree to which we can accept it for ourselves

May determine the degree to which we can offer such things

To others

Jung and Nouwen talk in their work

About the “wounded healer”

They suggest that we address the brokenness of the world

And of those around us

Most effectively through our own brokenness

Through our own hurt and failure

What this suggests to me is that he answer to the pain of the world

Comes from people who are willing to receive and give

And give and receive

That living this life is always a matter of being healed

And being a healer

Being generous, and learning to accept generosity

Being kind, and accepting kinds

Give and receive, receive and give

I regret at times, the difficulty I have receiving, for it closes me off to so much goodness

And it makes it harder for me to let my own goodness out

I hurt for those people in power

Who grasp wealth and power and shame the poor

For I know how powerless and poor they really are

You can see it in their faces

As they stand behind the microphones

You can see it in the masks they wear

And the tweets they send

Perhaps it is time to change the way we think

Perhaps this Oh so America need to be in power, to be right

To be “on top” to be “number one”

Is not healthy