New Place/New People

 

Love Your Neighbor

“The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self—to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince, or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself if you will allow it.”

Barbara Brown Taylor

          We arrived at Trinity Center on Emerald Isle, NC a little after 6 pm last night. Beautiful place—comfortable, rustic, untouched by development, with all the native flora and fauna still holding ground and lush. Eight women, all elders with ties to Carol, the teacher. As I looked around the room at our first gathering, I assessed how well the week would go. Will I like these women, will they like me, will there be comradery, life-long friendships? One woman was most interested in getting everything settled in the kitchen, one was bemoaning the rule of silence during the daylight hours, “I’ve never been silent all day in my life!!” One was quiet and somewhat aloof; one could not stop giving instructions. One was intent on making certain she understood the precise meaning of the each of the rules, and one was simply worrying about there being poison ivy on the path to the beach. I appraised, I assessed, I did exactly what one is not supposed to do when coming into an unfamiliar place and group—I judged.

          When one is conditioned in early childhood to be vigilant, to be careful, to not trust, one has a harder time of letting go and allowing someone else to “spring you from the prison of yourself.” And, trust me, it is a prison. One with a quick-release escape hatch; one that allows you to make decisions about other people and immediately put distance between yourself and them—long before having actual knowledge of their lives or personalities. Because the neural pathways that support such vigilance have been operative for so long, not doing it requires constant monitoring and extreme effort. It's simply the way your brain has learned to function in the interest of security. It is, in other words, your default setting. Changing it requires reprogramming.

          All the women gathered here are experienced writers, and all of them have stories to tell. I am here to learn. My challenge will be allowing them to teach me.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane