Cats, Dominant Thoughts, Channeling Peace

In my last blog, I questioned our collective focus on violence, our mutual obsession with what threatens us, what causes us fear. But our collaborative, cultural dis-ease—which permeates the air we breathe, which we teach to our children and our children’s children—is, I realized again today, only part of our problem. At least it’s only part of my problem. My own focus in my own daily life is a large slice of my inner unrest as well.

I live w/ a bunch of rescue cats, who all showed up at my front door and who’ve made my daily life constant chaos and frustration. I, w/ 3 other good-hearted individuals, also feed strays in a community in the South where I constantly confront not only a general attitude of apathy toward animals, but a determined resistance to animal welfare. There’s also a culturally common disregard for the environment and a love for gas-guzzling machinery that makes my heart hurt. And there’s an all-to-prevalent, constant, concerted, deliberate resistance to new information or change. I don’t mean the kind of resistance to change we all have w/in us; I mean a hard core distrust if not hatred of new facts or transformation, of anyone who brings those new facts or seeks even slight transformation. I constantly wallow in such frustrations, seeing no end, no solution, no possibility for change. But that’s not all that plagues me.

I regularly read Facebook posts that glory in what’s wrong w/ everyone else and in the world. Admittedly, I find my own soul energized by the negativity: encouraged by the negativity of those who share my views; righteously inflamed by those with whom I disagree. Further, when colleagues lament about work “issues,” I’m all too eager to jump on the complain train. And while some of the issues are legitimate and troubling, I’m too eager to stew in them…and pass them on to others. Plus, like so many people in this country, especially as a 60+ single, childless woman fearing the future as an aging American in today’s economic climate, I let my fear depress and paralyze me.

Despite occasional efforts to see the cup half full in the midst of my daily obligations and difficulties, I naturally tilt toward the half-empty perspective. I wallow on all that’s wrong w/ me or my life, all that’s rotten or missing, swimming face first in a pool of “stinkin’ thinkin.’”

I’m also a Christian, but the state of the world plus my own stinkin’ thinkin,’ have wreaked havoc on my faith, on my belief that there’s an eternally big God who’s simultaneously involved personally in each of our lives. It’s hard to see ANY evidence of the active presence of a loving, powerful God: either in the world, or in the people who say they know him. I don’t expect God to solve my problems and woes for me, but some light, an occasional nudge in the right direction, would be helpful. Yet it seems all my prayers are met w/ silence. The cup not only appears half empty, it’s bone dry. Which leads me to today.

Just getting over a bad, energy-draining cold, I began today cranky, coughy, and touchy; the smallest irritant set me off. Cleaning litter boxes, overwhelmed by relentless cat dander, wiping up one too many hairballs and feeling utterly alone, lost, and purposeless in the world, with litter scoop in hand, I prayed. From the depths of my soul erupted my common prayer these days: “H E L P, damnit! PLEASE…HELP. I have NO where else to turn.”

I sat there awhile—expecting the usual response from the God who tenaciously never lets go of me, but who also seems to never stand in the breach for me…silence. However, when I sat up, facing me at my desk were the words of Soren Kierkegaard: Our lives always express the results of our dominant thoughts. No magic: I had posted those words there years ago, but I never saw them anymore they’d been there so long.

I saw ‘em this morning. MY life always expresses the results of my dominant thoughts. My life always expresses the results of my dominant thoughts. What I focus on, I become. Always. I knew the words were God’s response. The idea behind the words obviously wasn’t new to me; the timing of my re-seeing the words was impeccable.

It’s so easy to get weighed down in our daily lives as individuals by very real concerns, threats, demands pulling us in multiple directions, pressure upon pressure until this toxic web becomes all we see…our dominant focus…and our lives and well-being pay the price. Especially if you’re a person like myself who tends to take herself too seriously…at least the parts of herself she doesn’t like, as if those parts are the full essence of who she is.

Later today, in my crankiness, I made a snide comment on a friend’s Facebook posting, to which one of her other FB friends took some offense. When I read his counter-snide comment, along w/ my friend’s defense of my comment (only feeling remotely guilty that I’d put her in that position), I was ready for a word war. Clearly I hadn’t yet entirely embraced the answer to my prayer, b/c my thinking was still flowing in the wrong direction. I tried 3 times to post a reaction, wavering between passive-aggressive and outright nasty retorts. Somehow, thankfully, I was able to pull myself away from submitting any post. My first post was unkind and self-righteously judgmental enough and quite unnecessary; the second one would’ve been just ugly, by design.

How can I live in peace if I’m overwhelmed by the heaviness I make of my daily life? If peace doesn’t dwell within me as a main ingredient in my “dominant thoughts,” how can I channel any peace to those around me, to my community, to the world?

The ONLY person on this planet over whom I have ANY control is myself. And I can have NO positive, healing, restorative, peace-building influence on anyone if I am overcome by the inner turmoil and darkness of my own dominant thoughts. As long as I have cats, the hairballs, cat dander, and chaos will continue. As long as I live in a society and work in a statewide institution, there’ll be people, policies, practices with whom/which I disagree, or that require challenge or change. As long as I interact—online, in print, or face-to-face—with real, fabulous, flawed human beings, I’ll get my feathers ruffled. Only together can we transform our world. But only I can bring peace within my own soul—and thoughts…well, I with the occasional subtle nudges from God.