From the Heart: The wellspring to action

Last Sunday in silent Quaker worship, I was obsessed by a “monkey mind” dominated by this absurdist presidential campaign.

Finally, I concluded, I simply had to let go. But how?

Then I realized the chaos was in my mind.

What if I moved all of that “stuff” to my heart?

It was surprisingly easy. I simply refocused on my heart.

I immediately felt peace move to my chest and then wash over me.

My mental churning vanished.

The hard turmoil in my mind had melted to a balm in my heart.

The energy was still there, but I was different.

Everything had changed.

                  •  •  •

Could it be that we sometimes are “using” the wrong part of ourselves as we face life’s challenges?

Do some things require heart while others call on reason? Or is there a sequence of heart/mind or, more often, mind/heart that we should follow.

Quakers speak of “leadings.” Being led, almost compelled, to act. In the past, Friends have been led to women’s suffrage, the emancipation of slaves, civil rights, conscientious objection, prison reform. The list is long.

Thinking about those leadings, I see they have taken shape in both mind and heart, but ultimately heart spurs us to action.

The wellspring of leadings is in the heart.

When will our own Streets speak?

Let see, masses of demonstrators take to the streets in Egypt and our government slowly and agonizingly pivots. With considerable diplomatic hand wringing, it no longer supports a leader who has taken office through rigged elections and brute police force. Hosni Mubarak has stayed in power for 30 years thanks in large measure to our hunger for oil, deals with the Israelis, and the US taxpayers’ underwriting the Egyptian military.

Okay, now that we’ve seen the light, what do we have planned for the Saudi monarchy with its own dark, US-supplied forces? Or what about our support for the king of Jordan? Or the sheiks in Dubai? And what’s the deal with propping up the patently corrupt Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan? And there's the little matter of the Israeli land grab in the West Bank.

I don’t have a checklist handy of all the tyrants and outrageous causes we’ve supported down through the years and around the world. It is a still active list. And the list is long.

Are we waiting for the streets to speak again?

Then there’s our own manipulated and questionable “democracy” where big money rules, and the wealthy and large corporations have the system rigged. We don’t call it corruption here. It’s all perfectly legal. It’s just that the laws are written by lawmakers bought and paid for by the rich. Example: The CEO of struggling Bank of America just raked in $10 million for is “work” last year. This is the same outfit the government bailed out two years ago — with our money.

If we weren’t so wrapped up in the latest entertainment frenzy (the current one, of course, is the Super Concussion Bowl — love those hits!), we might take to the streets ourselves. It has been known to happen. Two “street” actions within living memory were the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War protests. They didn’t produce permanent fixes, but they nudged things in the right direction.

And there was the original Tea Party, the one long ago that wasn’t underwritten by Corporate America.

But for now there’s more important stuff to do than shaking off a sick and rigged form of government. There’s Valentine’s day and the NCAA March Madness and the NBA playoffs. Let the good times roll!

The presidential campaign, which is starting to gear up, is always good for a few laughs too. Remember “Hope” and “Yes we can!” What will it be in 2012?

While our television and computer screens glow in the night with “Dancing with the Stars” and Facebook “news,” our American streets are dark and mute.