Grace and Peace with Rob Bell

I begin with a deeeeep s i g h h h h. 

A couple of deep in and out breaths. 

So here we are. And, like most of you I am feeling the heaviness. The weight of the messed up world on our shoulders and in our hearts. Like the quote I saw scroll through my newsfeed this morning:

JE SUIS SICK OF THIS SHIT!

With all that has been happening at what seems to be an acceleration of hate and violence around the globe, I have been turning inward on my own journey of growth and transformation these days, seeking ways to calm my own spirit and make sense of it if that is possible. 

This past weekend I spent a day in Brisbane listening to Rob Bell speak on the ideas from his book - How to Be Here. I have been on a Rob Bell kick lately. His podcasts (The Robcast), are my constant companions while I cook or busy myself around the house. I read this latest book in preparation for the weekend. Devoured may be a better word than read, as I cannot seem to get enough of his wisdom lately. 

His Australian tour could not have come at a better time for me. There are periods in my life that seem to come when I find myself needing to gorge on some soul food. Now is one of those seasons. He did not disappoint. Many people I talk to do not know who Rob Bell is and I find myself having to explain a bit about him. He is a motivational speaker, former pastor and author and was touted as one of the top 100 influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2011. He has toured with Oprah and Deepak Chopra and is a member of the Compassion Collective, a group of 5 authors including Elizabeth Gilbert, Glennon Doyle Melton, Brene Brown and Cheryl Strayed. The group was formed to raise money for Syrian refugees and continues to fundraise for various causes. 

This group is like the Brat Pack of Conscious Living. They are so on fire right now, it is hard to imagine their flame getting extinguished. With any luck, it will just continue to spread and keep raising awareness and dollars for those in need. The world needs their energy and insight more than ever and I for one have jumped on their introspective bandwagon on my own spiritual journey with renewed fervor.  Since 2007 and the release of Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, slowly but surely, my own life has steadily transformed. Next came Brene Brown's epic  Daring Greatly showing us how vulnerability and the courage to allow it in our lives could be a game-changer. That pushed me up another stair. Around the same time, Wild author Cheryl Strayed shared her story of her solo journey of over 1,000 miles on the Pacific Coast Trail that took bravery and courage to a whole new level of what it takes to heal for some. In so many ways these three women accompanied me on my own trail of transformation and now, more recently, I have discovered Glennon Doyle Melton and her blog - Momastery and found her story compelling and inspiring. She gives hope to anyone who has ever faced addictions. And now, as I embrace the wisdom of Rob Bell, I find myself elevated to an entirely new level of growth.

He has helped me make sense of the journey. Until now, it never felt like the big questions had answers. Why am I here? What is the meaning of it all? What is the point? I watched Rob Bell's video called Everything is Spiritual 2016 and it was like a lifetime of seeking and searching had finally hit pay dirt. So I started to dig deeper and read more of his books and listened to more of his podcasts and I am so happy to have found some teachings and conversations that address the big questions that combine science and spirituality, allowing them to co-exist in a way that makes logical sense to me, without the attached dogma of organized religion. 

There is a great story that Rob Bell tells that also gives me a way to explain to people who he is better than I can, if that makes sense. Hear me out.

He went to his mailbox one day to collect his mail and found a small painting inside. It was done by an artist who lived in his neighbourhood. He was familiar with this dude's work as he had seen it in a gallery. The guy does paintings on sandpaper of all things. The painting he made for Rob was of a hand emerging from the earth holding a bunch of strings. The strings were attached to clouds like a bunch of helium filled balloons hovering up in the sky. Rob asked the artist what the painting meant. The artist told him that he wondered who Rob was and what he did. So, in order to find out, he attended one of Rob's events. After the event, he created the painting to give to him. He told Rob that after hearing him speak, he now understood what exactly it was he did for a living. He told him that he tied up the clouds for people. He took all those thought bubbles we have floating around up in our heads and pulled them together. 

Yes! That is what he does folks. It is what he has done for me and it feels amazing. I could not have explained it any better than that. It also helps that he is an engaging, funny and captivating speaker. This energetic, enthusiastic man is bringing a positive, forward-thinking interpretation of Christian values into the world that deserve air time. I will attach a few links here for anyone who is interested in taking a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT09JbaEh_I

https://robbell.com/

http://thecompassioncollective.org/

http://momastery.com/blog/

Compassion 101

I have been thinking a lot lately about compassion. I struggle with it. More than anything I want to be a truly compassionate person but it does not come easily to me. If you consider the full spectrum of compassionate people we have known or know, there are the likes of Mother Teresa at one end, devoting her entire life to the art of compassion, with someone like Idi Amin at the opposite end - void of compassion. 

Now, I know I am no Mother Teresa and I am certainly no brutal dictator and I like to think I am closer to the Mother Teresa end of the spectrum than the Idi Amin end, but I don't seem to be able to fully feel compassion for all. It's like that story/movie Dead Man Walking. I don't know how she did that. How did she feel genuine compassion for that man - a convicted murderer? I have difficulty feeling compassion for people who have never murdered anyone - people who have possibly been law-abiding citizens their entire lives but for some reason I find them annoying or boring or daft. I try to find it within myself to be less judgmental and to look for the goodness or flicker of light or inspiration in people, but I often fail. I do try. As I get older, I try even harder. I know that everyone has a story to tell. I will find myself in a conversation with another person consciously digging. Digging to mine a gem out of them. Digging to bring forth some jewel of wisdom or share something with me that reveals their essence but sometimes I get nothing. 

The next time I see such a person, I dread the contact. I dread the small talk. I try to avoid yet another exchange void of anything of value to me. I feel drained by these encounters. I feel my time is stolen. Does this mean I am not compassionate enough? I find I am being tested a lot lately, like I need to go take a course or something. Compassion 101. And it does not just apply to ordinary people in my midst. It applies - perhaps even  more so - to people in the media. The Orlando shooter. Terrorists. Brexit leave voters. Racists. Homophobes. Trump. The Kardashians. You get the picture. 

Then I wonder - is it necessary for me to be so compassionate? Maybe my stores of compassion are all used up with my family, friends and loved ones. Maybe we are only born with a finite dollop of the stuff.  That makes more sense to me because I truly feel I am scraping the bottom of the jar some days. Perhaps there are those that do not deserve our compassion and by not receiving it, it forces them to examine themselves. "Gee, I wonder why Deb avoided me today? Maybe she doesn't like me. What doesn't she like about me?" This also makes sense because by withholding compassion, I have forced someone to look within. Of course there is no guarantee they will, but it definitely increases the odds. 

So maybe compassion works that way. Sometimes we are and sometimes we aren't and the people who receive our compassion benefit in an opposite way from the people who don't. This may sound like I am trying to justify my less compassionate side. Perhaps I am.  All I know is there are people who lift you, inspire you and are a joy to be around and it is only natural that we would want to spend the majority of our time with them. They do not require me to withdraw from my compassion account at all and in fact seem to make deposits. AHA! That's it! Maybe that is how it works. The more time we spend being filled, the more compassion we accumulate and when it comes time to spread some around we have plenty to share. 

That speaks to the whole notion of being grateful as well. If we are grateful on a conscious level everyday (and I am), does that fuel compassion? I think it does. Do you ever notice when you have endured an experience with someone you find difficult to be around, you come away even more grateful for your life than you did a few moments earlier? I do. 

Maybe compassion should be viewed as a gift. A gift we give or a gift we receive. So maybe we just aren't meant to go around giving it away willy nilly. 

For now, dear readers, I will pause this contemplation on the art of compassion and come back to it another day as I think it is worthy of far more examination.

See? That was compassion. A small gift to you. You can go now. :-)