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Gilbert and the Ghost
In a Psychology Today article on the invisible child, Janice Webb Ph.D. writes: "Growing up with your feelings unrecognized and unresponded to by the most important people in your life is devastating. But, remarkably, many children don’t even know that they are going through something devastating … because it’s invisible. The lack of emotional acknowledgment and validation is what’s not there. And while this invisible force is entrenched in your childhood home, you are left feeling unseen and unheard. Invisible."
This description closely fits Gilbert, this book's main character. He believes in ghosts, especially the one at 632 Savannah Street. His siblings and his mother make light of his beliefs, with statements ranging from "It's just an old house" to "there's no such thing as ghosts." But Gilbert senses that the ghost might be lonely and afraid — feelings that he has, too, when no one notices him disappearing into his classroom's supply closet or leaving a game of tag.
So he reaches out to the ghost with kindness, knowing how hard it is to make friends if you're invisible. He leaves a bracelet at the gate of 632 Savannah Street, and it's gone the next day. He bakes the yummiest cookies he knows and leaves a package of them on the steps of 632 Savannah Street. The package soon disappears as well.
The real poignancy and strength of the story comes through when Gilbert leaves the ghost a personal note asking them to be his friend. When Gilbert tells his family that this note vanished from the 632 Savannah Street porch, Gilbert's brother rolls his eyes, and his mom suggests that he make a friend in drama club. Gilbert droops. "But Gilbert knew how hard it was to make friends, especially when you're invisible." Here, artist Jess Mason shows Gilbert walking alone up the stairs of his home, a look of thoughtful sadness on his face. In spite of the neglect he faces, he hasn't given up.
Author Heather Pierce Stigall uses her experience with children and her degrees in child development, psychology-based human relations, and social work to create books that speak to kids. This book — for readers ages three to eight — not only acknowledges the experience of kids who feel invisible but also brings in a mysterious twist that validates Gilbert's efforts and hopes. As good books often do, it leaves us surprised, curious, and drawing our own conclusions. It's spooky in all the right ways, including as a reminder that we oughtn't close our minds to the vast possibilities the universe offers, some of which children see more clearly than adults do.
A story about feeling invisible that's spooky in all the right ways.
Brightening Up Tax Day with Gratitude and Dissent
April 15 is Tax Day in the United States. I confess that I have dreaded this day. I am terrible at math, and not even a big fan of numbers, especially when they are dollar amounts that reflect how much is going out compared to how much (or little) is coming in. I procrastinate preparing my taxes every single year.
Even as one of the Directors here at Spirituality and Practice, I had never thought to apply spirituality to taxes. I had always considered April 15 a kind of “blackout day” in my spiritual calendar, a cheat day when I and everyone else was allowed to slump into our worst selves: a day of permission to be grumpy, depressed, complaining, distracted, numb, and/or angry.
But I find that Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat’s Tax Day Ritual has changed my thinking and my practice. The article is a really good companion for Tax Day, and an effective antidote to grumbling.
I love how, like the Psalms of the Hebrew Bible, the ritual invites both praise and lament. The Brussats invite us to ritualize – and itemize – both our gratitude and our sorrow over government spending.
I particularly love the invitation to write on the memo line of your check, “Please do better things with my money” — an utterly charming practice, a great idea, and a firm but genteel way of expressing dissent and processing some emotion.
See more Spiritual Resources for the U.S. Election Year.
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29 Weeks Until the Election
Your Heart Was Made for This
There are many books about meditation and the importance of contemplative practices, but few that manage to remain contemplative-centered while drawing timely applications. That’s what Oren Jay Sofer’s book does so well.
A quote from the Buddha is at the top: “Irrigators channel water, fletchers shape arrows, carpenters fashion wood, the wise train themselves.” Sofer proves to be a wise guide himself, through both the waters of Buddhist meditation practice and following those currents into and through modern life. He shows with reflections, meditations, and actions how to cultivate the good and the beautiful, to let them guide your life.
Part One focuses on six qualities for training heart, mind, and body. These are attention, aspiration, energy, mindfulness, stability, and wisdom.
Part Two goes deeper into how energy works in human lives, with chapters on curiosity, courage, renunciation, kindness, ease, patience, and equanimity. These are all what one might call “internal” qualities.
Part Three, midway through the book, begins to point deliberately “outward,” focusing on friendship and how spiritual practices such as mindfulness and attention prepare us to become practitioners of empathy, integrity, resolution, joy, rest, and wonder.
The final Part continues this outward journey with chapters on gratitude, generosity, devotion, play, compassion, contentment, and forgiveness. For example, chapter 21 “Generosity,” includes practical teaching such as this:
“How might generosity function if we questioned the very concept of ownership? Look deeply: What actually belongs to you? Is not everything borrowed in the end? Even your very body is a gift you never could have created. Recognizing that our brief sojourn on the planet requires that we return everything, we begin to see that we own nothing. We are simply caretakers. Can we share accordingly?”
We highly recommend this book for everyone on the spiritual path, Buddhist or not.
Go Deeper:
The Liberating Promise of Mindfulness is an e-course on developing moment-to-moment clarity that enables you to live an engaged and compassionate life in this increasingly complex world.
A guide to practical applications of Buddhist meditation.
The Duke
Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent), a 60-year old taxi driver, is upset that people like him have to pay for a license in order to watch television. When he reads in the newspaper how much the government has spent for a portrait of The Duke of Wellington by Goya, he decides to steal the painting from the National Gallery in London. He sends ransom notes saying he will return the painting if the government will pay more attention to the needs of poor people. He figures the ransom money will pay for a lot of TV licenses.
The Duke tells the story of this modern-day Robin Hood who in 1961 did attempt to steal from the rich to give to the poor. Jim Broadbent is convincing as the fearless and undaunted idealist. Helen Mirren plays his wife, who is not in on the scheme, and Fionn Whitehead plays their son, who helps hide the painting in their home.
This is a delightful true crime movie full of twists and turns. But its strongest moments come after Kempton returns the painting and is put on trial for theft. Given the chance to speak for himself, he explains that he has always looked out for other people and gotten in trouble for it. When he was just 14, he got dragged out to sea by a riptide but a passing boat saved him. He knew someone would come because he had faith in people. He adds:
“I knew someone would. I am not me without you. We all need each other. You are me. It's you who makes me me. And it's me that makes you you. Humanity is a collective project.”
He goes on to explain that he’s concerned about war widows and the pensioners, the boys who went to war and are now over 65 and are isolated. “My philosophy – the I’m you and you’re me thing – tells me that every time someone gets cut off from the rest of us, this nation becomes a foot shorter.”
It’s not often that you hear the African philosophy of ubuntu articulated in a courtroom. But that’s the takeaway from The Duke. Ubuntu means “I am because we are.” As Archbishop Desmond Tutu put it:
“A person is a person through other persons. We learn how to think, how to walk, how to speak, how to behave, indeed how to be human from other human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. We are made for togetherness, we are made for family, for fellowship, to exist in a tender network of interdependence.”
A true story about a elder who steals a painting in order to help others, demonstrating the philosophy of ubuntu.
Jerry & Marge Go Large
Millions of people play the lottery every day in hopes of winning tons of money. Jerry & Marge Go Large is based on the true story of a retired Michigan couple who discover a loophole in one of the lottery games and find their lives turned around. This delightful drama is based on a Huffington Post article by Jason Fagone.
Jerry Selbee (Bryan Cranston), who loved his job at the factory in his small town, does not enjoy retirement and soon grows restless. His lively wife Marge (Annette Bening), on the other hand, has eagerly looked forward to their having more time to spend together. She tells him: “I’ve waited 40 years for it just to be us and we kind of suck at it.”
Jerry has a gift for math – he is always calculating one thing or another. One day he notices that the chances for winning go up dramatically in the “Winfall” lottery the more he bets. After a few tests, he realizes he’s discovered a flaw in the system that enables him to become a consistent winner. Soon he and Marge, who is excited to join him on this adventure, are traveling to Massachusetts to buy up large quantities of tickets and then go through them for winning combinations.
Once they realize they can consistently win, they decide to invite their friends and neighbors to add to the pool for purchasing tickets so they can also share in the winnings. Their accountant (Larry Wilmore) and the owner of the store where they buy the tickets (Rainn Wilson) are the first to join, but soon the whole town is part of a betting corporation. Jerry and Marge’s generous act soon leads to improvements all over town as people invest their earnings.
Director David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) draws out spunky performances from Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening, and the screenplay by Brad Copland makes the most of the transformation of this elderly couple through their spiritual practice of generosity.
Here are a few things to think and talk about after viewing Jerry & Marge Go Large:
Generosity is an act of moral beauty, one that has intrinsic rewards like the high we get from helping others and the caring connections we build.
─ The S & P Team in our topic on Generosity
Generosity is the classic expression of the accomplished spirit, when the self is open and unguarded and can freely share with others.
─ Lewis Richmond in Work as a Spiritual Practice
True sharing is a panacea, a genuine cure-all for the spiritual malaise that affects so much of humankind.
─ Michael Berg in The Way
A spunky and thoroughly satisfying morality tale about generosity.
The Seed of Compassion
One of the best ways to introduce a child to His Holiness the Dalai Lama — the highest spiritual leader of Tibet and a world-renowned peacemaker — is through the curiosity that comes naturally to the young. What was the Dalai Lama like as a child? Was he ever mischievous? How did he learn about being compassionate?
In an introductory letter to The Seed of Compassion, the Dalai Lama writes that it brings him great joy to share the story of his life with his young brothers and sisters. You can tell from the very first page that he understands the kinds of things they'd want to know about his life.
Bau Luu's soothing illustrations, in earth tones with bright adornment of prayer flags and maroon robes, bring the Dalai Lama's story to life even before the first word. While most of us know the Dalai Lama's early life from black-and-white photos of his escape to India during the 1959 Tibetan uprising, here we get to see the gentle lives of farmers in northeastern Tibet, his birthplace.
From the time he was very young, the boy — who was not yet known to be the Dalai Lama — lived with his family, who sowed barley, buckwheat, and potatoes. But in addition, he explains, his mother raised him on a different kind of seeds: seeds of compassion, "a diet of love." She gave food to neighbors in need in time of famine, and she always treated her son with kindness ... even when he was naughty.
The images here, both in pictures and words, are absolutely charming. Imagine His Holiness riding on his mother's shoulders, tugging on one of her ears to tell her which way he wants to go and kicking his legs if she ignores his directions! Even when, at age four, he passes a series of tests which show he's the new Dalai Lama, he doesn't instantly transform from being a kid. He and his brother roughhouse so rambunctiously inside the palanquin transporting them to India that they keep knocking it off balance and have to be separated for the rest of the journey.
These details help children understand that the Dalai Lama, like other spiritual leaders, grew into his duties and passions. When he writes about making the world a more compassionate place and observes that "this ability is within every one of us" — strongest, he believes, in children — they begin to recognize that just because they have some rough edges doesn't mean they cannot become more and more caring human beings. The Dalai Lama likens this process to young plant sprouts "that must be tended until they grow strong and thrive."
Four to eight year olds will especially enjoy this book, but we can all benefit from hearing the Dalai Lama's story and his teachings. This book will leave children and anyone who reads it to them with an important reminder: By watering the seeds of compassion that otherwise remain dormant in us, we can bring joy to ourselves and others.
An autobiography of the Dalai Lama's growth in compassion.
Molly Wolf, Hiding in Plain Sight
We learn before we're even full grown that we can't afford to be vulnerable to the world. Not unless we want to be pounded into applesauce.
Worse still, we're told that gentleness is weakness, that love is just asking for grief, that generosity is fecklessness, that openness is cruisin' for a bruisin'. We're told that it's right to be smart, strong, tough, guarded, and independent. That's being grown-up; anything else is stupid kid stuff. Anything else is just asking for trouble. Anything else is holding out your heart to be drop-kicked across the room.
Anything else is holding out your heart to be drop-kicked across the room.
Gift
In this cold commodity culture
Where you lay your money down
It's hard to even notice
That all this earth is hallowed ground . . .
The art keeps moving
Never know where it is going to land
You must stand back and let it
Keep on changing hands.
— "The Gift" by Canadian singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn
This song and this extraordinary documentary are both based on Lewis Hyde's seminal 1983 book The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. It is a tribute to "the artist's labor in service of his gifts." Whereas most of us live in a world where market values prevail and commodities are all important, artists are animated by different values since they serve the life of the imagination. Hyde clarifies what that means in the introduction to the book:
"Certain spheres of life, which we care about, are not well organized by the marketplace. That includes artistic practice … also pure science, spiritual life, healing, and teaching. This book is about the alternative economy of artistic practice. For most artists, the actual working life of art does not fit well into a market economy, and this book explains why and builds out on the alternative, which is to imagine the commerce of art to be well described by gift exchange."
As you watch this rounded, imaginative, and diverse documentary directed by Robin McKenna, you may want to keep these other thoughts by Lewis Hyde in The Gift in mind:
INVOCATION
"An essential portion of any artist's labor is not creation so much as invocation. Part of the work cannot be made, it must be received; and we cannot have this gift except perhaps, by supplication, by courting, by creating within ourselves that 'begging bowl' to which the gift is drawn."
DONATION
"A gift that cannot be given away ceases to be a gift. The spirit of a gift is kept alive by its constant donation."
BEING MOVED
"We are only alive to the degree that we can let ourselves be moved."
GRATITUDE
"When we are moved by art we are grateful that the artist lived, grateful that he labored in the service of his gifts."
MYSTERY
"The passage into mystery always refreshes. If, when we work, we can look once a day upon the face of mystery, then our labor satisfies. We are lightened when our gifts rise from pools we cannot fathom. Then we know they are not a solitary egotism and they are inexhaustible."
Director Robin McKenna has taken on the immense challenge of translating Hyde's ideas into touching, universal, and global stories about the creative process, generosity, and sharing. Or as she has puts it in interviews, the documentary is "a remix of his book for the 21st century."
In Alert Bay, BC, McKenna spends time with Marcus Alfred, a young artist who is carving masks and planning his first potlatch in his indigenous community where tradition is held in high esteem. Instead of following the ideal which holds sway in capitalist and consumer culture where leaders are usually the ones with the most money, the spiritual practice in the potlatch is giving all you have away. Marcus says: "The more you can give, the bigger chief you are." Giving keeps the people together.
As we watched this flow of giving and generosity, we tried to imagine what would happen in all American communities if the most respected people were those who gave the most away.
The ideal of the "gift economy" plays an important role in the Burning Man gatherings which combine camping out the Nevada Desert, immersion in community, and striving to create new forms of art. In the documentary, we watch a young woman make a large mobile bee vehicle that she can use to move around the camp as she gives away her honey.
As we saw all the examples of the gift economy at Burning Man, we found ourselves hoping that it could happen in more than temporary spaces.
Another place where people are gathering together and forming new tribes of creativity is an abandoned factory in Rome where 200 migrants and workers are living. Artists from the community have turned this squatters camp into a museum called "Metropoliz." The people living there are protected from having their home destroyed by builders, and artists have a place to showcase their creations in the spirit of gratitude and joy. One wall painted by important artists not only brings value to the wall; it acts as a "Barricade of Art," a defense. One of the museum organizers explains that they are using the value of art to counter the value of real estate.
As we watched the residents' children playing among the art installations, we wondered how our creative capacities might have been nurtured by exposure to these gifts of art at a young age.
In several places in Hyde's book, he talks about being "moved by art." Artist Lee Mingwei brings singers into a museum and encourages them to approach a stranger and offer them a "gift of song." The giftee is seated before the performer who then shares a piece of music.
As we witnessed the transformative power of this gift, our eyes filled with tears. This kind of art cannot be measured or counted; it is priceless. It travels from heart to heart and keeps on moving.
A documentary showing how art keeps moving in circles of sharing, giving, and generosity.
Venus
The spiritual practice of kindness — acts of charity, generosity, and thoughtfulness — frees us from the isolation and alienation that are so rampant today. When we reach out to others, we open our hearts and theirs as well. Kindness is first of the three great treasures advocated by Lao Tzu. The Buddha taught it as an essential sign of an awakened mind, and, indeed, the Dalai Lama has said that his religion is kindness. Muhammad regarded kindness as a mark of faith. Jewish and Christian ethics are built upon deeds of kindness, as are the daily interactions of people of primal traditions.
Venus reminds us of a quote from Ian Maclaran: "Be kind for everyone is carrying a heavy burden." The story focuses on some elders with their own burdens. Maurice (Peter O'Toole) is a veteran actor who in the last stage of life spends time with his friend Ian (Leslie Phillips), a worry wart who constantly grouses about his high blood pressure and nerves. The two old men reminisce about their careers and still occasionally get an acting job. Maurice jokes about playing another old geezer who dies in a movie. As they scan the obituaries, they wonder how many lines they will get about their lives. They often rib each other. When Ian says it is time to consider writing his memoirs, his friend says, "That won't take long." In one of the best scenes about their camaraderie, they share a magic moment in the back of a church where various theatrical stars are buried. When a string quartet begins to play something, Maurice and Ian take each other as dance partners and are transported to another era in their minds.
When Ian's grand niece Jesse (Jodie Whittaker) shows up at his modest flat to be his live-in helper, Maurice is quite taken with this 19-year old girl, who has a lower-class background and a very large chip on her shoulder. He derives an immense amount of pleasure just looking at her body. At first, Jessie regards him as nothing more than a dirty old man but then she begins to realize that he genuinely appreciates her. Ian carps about her caregiving, and she doesn't really try very hard. Maurice takes her to the theatre and then to a club where she gets drunk. When he learns that she needs a part-time job, he gets her a job as a nude model. In a trip to an art gallery, he explains the beauty of the body as they contemplate a painting of Venus by Velasquez.
Venus is carried by an Academy Award caliber performance of Peter O'Toole. Director Roger Michell has a knack for bringing out the best in actors and actresses. The screenplay by Hanif Kureishi gives O'Toole plenty of room to demonstrate his acting chops as he recites scenes from plays he's done, exchanges comic barbs with Ian, and conveys incredible yearning through his expressions in Jessie's presence. She is a sullen and angry girl whose mother wished she never had given birth to her and whose boyfriend mistreated her badly. Maurice's many small kindnesses make her feel uncomfortable yet slowly his attention begins to transform the way she feels about herself and others.
Over the years, Maurice has stayed in touch with Valerie (Vanessa Redgrave), his ex-wife and the mother of his three children. Seeing him in a movie showing on television while he cooks her dinner, she remarks on how gorgeous he was as a young actor. But that moment of reverie is shattered when Valerie recalls that the actress in the movie was the one that he left her for. Maurice admits that pleasure has always been the animating force in his life. But for him it is something beyond selfishness or hedonism. In the touching last scenes of the film, we see how palpable and life-affirming his kind of pleasure can be. Venus opens our eyes and our hearts to the bounties of small kindnesses.
Additional release material includes audio commentary by director Roger Mitchell and producer Kevin Loader; Deleted scenes; and a featurette, "Venus: A Real Work of Art."
A touching and winning film of a veteran actor who opens our hearts to the bounties of a life animated by kindness and pleasure.
World Trade Center
Oliver Stone's World Trade Center is called "a true story of courage and survival." It speaks directly to the other big story of September 11, not the terrorist attacks but the miracles that happened when people pulled together and risked their own lives to help others. Accounts of self-sacrifice were repeated all over New York in the days and months after the Twin Towers were destroyed, but as the years have passed, the war on terrorism has become the most common association with that day. It is time to remember something more.
The secret to this drama's emotional dynamite is the literate and heart-affecting screenplay by Andrea Berloff which explores the tragedy from the point of view of two members of the Port Authority Police Department and their wives and friends who agonized over their fate for a 24-hour period. The spiritual practice of kindness is common to all religions; indeed, the Dalai Lama asserts it is the most important one. Although it is sometimes viewed as one of those effete virtues lacking in charisma or clout, kindness is very powerful — encompassing meaningful acts of love, words of encouragement, generosity, and acts of selfless courage that reverberate beyond our knowledge. This movie focuses on that.
Sgt. John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) is a 21-year veteran of the Port Authority Police Department who was on the scene when a bomb exploded in the World Trade Center garage in 1993. When word comes of a plane crashing into one of the Twin Towers, he and his men take over a city bus and head downtown. He admits to the commander riding with him that there is no plan to deal with an attack at the top of the buildings. By the time they reach the area, the streets are littered with debris and wounded people are staggering out of the buidlngs.
McLoughlin takes five volunteers and heads into Tower 1, going to the concourse level to get breathing gear. While they are there, the building starts to collapse; they run into one of the elevator shafts, one of the strongest parts of the building. McLoughlin is pinned beneath concrete and metal; only two others survive a short distance away from him: Will Jimeno (Michael Pena), who is trapped under a concrete slab, and Dominick Pezzulo (Jay Hernandez). The latter tries to free his buddy but is killed during another downfall of debris.
In every authentic tale of survival, we ask ourselves what would sustain us in the face of suffering, pain, and the imminent prospect of dying. McLoughlin as the leader of the men is brought face-to-face with his feelings of inadequacy as a cop and as a husband to his wife Donna (Maria Bello). He admonishes Will to stay awake, warning if he goes to sleep he might never wake up. At one point, fire balls race through the area where they are lying. Choking in the fumes, John shouts out the Lord's Prayer. But it is Will, the young rookie who always wanted to be a cop, who carries them through their painful 12-hour ordeal as they lie twenty feet beneath the rubble field. He remembers a line from the movie G.I. Jane about making pain a friend. He sings a ditty from the TV show Starsky & Hutch, talks about his wife Allison (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and little girl, ponders what name he wants for the baby in his wife's womb, and sees a bright image of Jesus offering him a water bottle.
Meanwhile, in Goshen, New Jersey, Donna McLoughlin, surrounded by her four children and relatives, tries to deal with the tragedy. She spends a moment in her husband's workshop and touches his tools as a way of connecting with him. Donna feels guilty that she can't even remember what her parting words for John were that morning. The most poignant moment of solace comes at the hospital where she connects with a black woman (Viola Davis) who fears the worst about her son, an elevator operator in Tower 2. In Clifton, New Jersey, the pregnant Allison suffers a series of mood swings when there is no word about Will's fate.
One of the most memorable characters is ex-Marine Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon) who, after watching the World Trade Center catastrophe on television, goes to church, and tells his minister that he feels compelled by God to help those in harm's way at Ground Zero. He and several others who race to the scene also seem to be motivated by a desire for revenge — a detail we prefer had been left out of the movie, but truth be told, it was also a prevalent feeling in the immediate aftermath of the attcks.
The search and recovery effort by the police and fire departments has been called off for the day when Karnes arrives at Ground Zero, but he manages to get onto the rubble pile anyway. He and another Marine climb over the piles of twisted steel with only flashlights for gear. Hearing a noise from below, they locate McLoughlin and Jimeno and call in support from the command center. Now it is up to emergency officers Scott Strauss (Stephen Dorff) and Paddy McGee (Stoney Westmoreland) and paramedic Chuck Sereika (Frank Whaley) to dig them out, an incredibly dangerous mission as the pile could shift at any moment, burying them all. It becomes clear that this rescue operation is filled with great meaning for all those involved.
According to Talmudic legend, explains Rabbi Rami Shapiro, there are always thirty-six menschen, called lamed-vavniks, who live both for themselves and for others. Without their acts of lovingkindness, life would implode under the weight of human selfishness, anger, ignorance, and greed. Shapiro interpets this teaching to mean that people move in and out of the lamed-vavnik role, and at any given moment that the world continues, we know that 36 hidden saints are performing acts of lovingkindness.
World Trade Center salutes people who performed remarkable acts of lovingkindness on September 11. They courageously stepped up to play what part they could to help others in the darkness. This story inspires us to join their ranks — to be today's lamed-vavniks in our increasingly violent and dangerous world.
Special DVD features include: a commentary by Oliver Stone, 911 survivor Will Jimeno, and actual on-scene rescue workers; and deleted scenes.
Salutes the courage and lovingkindness of those who reached out in the darkness to help others on September 11.