Looking for a Cause

Good Morning -

It was quiet at work yesterday, so I spent some time playing online. At one point, I was rereading my blogs and had the (not so) profound sense of being bored with myself. There's a navel-gazing aspect about blogging that, at times, can seem solely self-serving.

I remembered the 6-month check-in horrorscope from my favorite oracle, Rob Brezny, who encouraged me to think about three questions for the last half of this year: 1. To what am I in service? 2. How can I upgrade all levels of my health - physical, emotional, spiritual, etc.? 3. What do I need to do to clean up any old karma?

As part of the first question, he encouraged us Leos to make sure that at all times one of the things to which we are in service is something bigger than ourselves. Rereading my blogs yesterday, I felt clear that I don't have that one thing right now. I'm causeless and it's causing some concern.

I used to be neck-deep in a number of different causes. I worked closely with local immigration groups to create humane borders. I did work with the School of Americas Watch to close the school and have accountability for those involved. I attended peace marches and worker's rallies. I marched. I sang. I talked. I listened.

And then, I stopped. About two years ago, I got to a place in which I was irritated with leadership, tired of the polarities that seemed to frame the arguments, and worn out from arguing.

I felt like there was such a bad mix of ego and martyrdom (sometimes the S&M face of ego) with many of the people involved in the work and knew that, like all strong reactions we have, my reaction to them held a mirror for me to look at my own ego and martyr issues.

Knowing the work is too important to come at it sideways and wanting to be involved for the right reasons and with clean heart, I put myself in Activist Time-Out. I stopped attending meetings, stepped back from rallies, and participated in no planning. I was still on a lot of listservs, so continued to email CEO's or my senators about worker's rights, immigration bills, or LGBT rights when prompted by different groups, but nothing more. It's a scatter shot approach, to be sure, and I often questioned the importance or effectiveness of it.

That's been the extent of my activism lo these last two years. I've spent the time reflecting on different actions and discerning how it is I want to bring my heart to justice work. I've toyed with suspicions that this sort of weariness is just what Bush & Co. intended to happen, then catch myself for dehumanizing George and the rest of his cabinet.

I feel the tension that happens when we step into defending the rights of a group and try to image a way that we instead step aside from the invitation to polarize and simply create the magic we want to experience.

For example, instead of pouring money and energy into trying to prove that people who are LGBorT really are people, we would just step aside from the rhetoric and go about being our wonderful selves, demonstrating through our lives how we are as fascinating and as boring as anyone else and that we don't need to be split into a sinner who needs "love", and our hated "sinful" actions.

I've felt a tug lately to get involved again - to once more really be a part of something bigger than myself - but don't know what that would be. As I swam yesterday, I thought of the different things about which I am passionate (side note - proper grammar tends to suck the passion right out of a sentence and create a passionless, passive voice).

Every specific issue I thought of created that suck back into the polarizing and fighting again and I just don't want to fight anymore. Generally their arguments are stupid and shouldn't even be worth the time, except that the current power differential means that the "other side's" ideas about how things should be are played out as the What Is. I can't bring myself to argue this point with them, though, and am tired of the "them".

Scooting my lens back some, I identified passion for big ideas like community, teamwork, and justice, but they seem so broad, I'm not sure how I'd apply action to them in a way that was purposeful.

Wanting to express this conundrum via the Virgen, I looked to our newsletter from Heifer International, which we get as a result of the chickens a friend gave in our name to a family in a developing country. The background is from an article on the importance of water, the statistics are about genetically modified soy beans, and the number is their number to get involved.

Food and growing is something about which I have passion and it seems to work on so many issues. Good, sustainable growing is good for the environment, growing and eating locally addresses fuel issues, providing resources for families to grow decreases hunger and increases nutrition, etc., etc.

As if to nudge me further along these lines, I awoke to the newsletter from a great restaurant in Denver. It's called SAME Cafe, and stands for "so all may eat". It was started by a couple who used to volunteer in soup kitchens and were aware of the unhealthy food that is often fed to those who are hungry because it's the sort of food that is donated.

Believing that everyone has the right to nutritious food, they started this cafe where payment is flexible - those who can pay do, and those who can't give time through doing dishes or busing or such. So far it's worked out and they serve wonderfully fresh, organic and simple food. My partner heard about it through an NPR story and, after looking at their site, I signed up for their newsletter so I can stay in touch with what they are up to.

Today's newsletter discussed their relationship with a school-based community garden from which they get a lot of their produce. Seeing the pictures of the kids growing veggies and reading about how some are paid to work in the garden over the summer made my heart sing. I know I've talked before about community gardens and I know I love teaching children how to be strong, loving and authentic, so maybe this is my passion place.

Growing in southern AZ makes me cry a little, so for now I'll start with educating myself and see where I go from there.

Here's to finding and celebrating your passion place, wherever that may be.