practicing against the grain

I was asked to make calls to a list of people regarding an upcoming meeting. It’s something frequently done in our rural community as a way to stay in touch and to pass along information. Simple and effective. So what’s the problem?

Problem is that I immensely dislike making calls, to strangers especially. I go to great lengths to avoid them. And yet I offered to “help in any way I can,” was given this task, and forgot to say No. 

Making a few phone calls, you might say, what’s the big deal?! For me, today, this moment, it means doing something I’d rather avoid. Not sure why, call it a quirk, phobia, or aversion; it’s been with me forever. E-mail was made for me; also letters, singing telegrams, and messenger pigeons. As Jack Kornfield says, our spiritual practice is “one mistake after another, which is to say, one opportunity after another to learn.” He quotes Don Juan’s description of a spiritual warrior to whom “life is an endless challenge and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. They are simply challenges.” 

Spiritual practice makes its demands in the small things of everyday living. We can hone the skills of compassion and service by facing things we’d rather avoid, by practicing against the grain.

p.s. First sitting still, observing my breath and anxiety rising and falling, noticing but neither feeding nor fighting old thought patterns of fear and rejection, I dialed ten numbers in succession, talking to someone here and leaving messages there. Done. 

Nancy sent me this fitting comment by the late John O’Donohue: “It is a slow and painful task to break free from the wounded and wounding circle of one’s own anxiety. As always in the world of the mind, recognition is a huge transformative force.”

sources: Jack Kornfield, J. (1993). A path with heart. Bantam Books, p.72. O’Donohue, J. (2004) Beauty: rediscovering the true sources of compassion,, serenity and hope. HarperCollins, p.173. 

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