Spinning my wheels

An ex boss once told me, “It doesn’t matter how hard you work, if you’re just spinning your wheels in one place.” And he was right, of course. But I thought that the reason someone who works hard would be spinning their wheels is only if they don’t understand what to do, or how to go about it. And if they are someone who has always sought to learn, and always asked questions, and those things are true, than what it really says is that nobody has ever cared enough to be willing to help.
Now, for a boss, that’s really counter-productive. Why would you see an employee who you know works hard, and wants to do the right things, and just watch them spin their wheels. My whole career I wondered that. Not that I didn’t get anything done, but I know I could have done way more, and consistently looked for direction I never got.
Outside of work, I’ve had even less success. Not because I didn’t work hard, but because I understood the parameters even less, and got even less guidance. But perhaps far more criticism and judgement. Even asking straightforward questions, I never got straightforward answers. People either figured I should know on my own, or didn’t care enough to “figure” anything.
I largely taught myself programming, every new technical circumstance I encountered, I largely worked my way through. Likely much less effectively than could have been, but to a large part I got the job done. On my own hardship. But programming has rules, even if often complex ones, and even if often you have to tweak those rules or find your way around them. But at least the basic rules made some sense and were things I could learn.
People make no sense to me. Even at almost 68, I’m as confused as ever – and after the past few years maybe even more so. People so often say one thing, but then contradict their words with their actions. And the human personality is far more complex than the most complex programming language. And there seem no real “rules” within it. Maybe guidelines, but only ones that are always in flux.
I suppose I am too much like Mr. Spock from Star Trek. To me, too much of what people do just does not compute, and my every attempt to make sense of it just has me spinning my wheels. Unlike Spock, though, I cannot rely on my Vulcan side, I am a human, and emotional, and want to succeed at being one.
Or at least, I wanted to. Lately I’ve seen so much “human” that just scares me. Too much hate, too much lack of compassion, too much willingness to see others suffer for personal gain. I must have seen the whole “human programming language” all wrong. Because that’s not what I ever thought it meant to be human.
But it still hurts me. Spinning my wheels has been hard work and frustrating and depleting. And I only ever did it because I wanted somehow to help all of humanity stop spinning theirs so much. Because just because I always saw I was, and wished not to be doesn’t mean I didn’t see that others are spinning their wheels too – only so many of them seem okay with that.

Love is the only healing

From the time I was little, I expected to see the world move towards healing. I hoped that love would bring people closer, and that people would realize that division makes things worse – always – and that only by working together for the betterment of all can we make things better. 

  I never imagined that toward the end of my life I would see things as they are now. Covid was a scary thing to me from the beginning, obviously, as I know it will kill me if I get it. But when it started spreading I really expected it to bring people closer together in fighting a common goal that threatened everyone. I never imagined it to do the opposite.

  The political environment of the last several years has been more divisive than I ever imagined to see. A large part of the population who seem to have moved SO far from love, to deliberate hate. I thought the world would have learned how destructive that is from World War II, but instead it seems that some have found that time something to emulate. Why, I have no understanding.

  For myself, every time in my life that my reactions have strayed from love, there is a deep unsettled feeling in the pit of my soul. Every fiber of my being knows that love is what is right, and anything that is not love is just poison. I have no understanding why anyone would want that poison in their lives, why anyone would deliberately go about doing the things that would fester that poison in their being.

  Hate is a poison that hurts the one doing the hating. And that hurt then bubbles over to those around them. But love is the only healing. Love is THE ONLY healing. Yes, there are things in my life that have hurt me. Deeply. I could respond with hatred, or wish or do bad things to those who have caused that hurt. I could easily find reasons to feel persecuted, to add imagined hurts on top of real ones, to find any group of people that I could wish to single out as threatening, and find myself reasons to hate them.

  But that would only add hurt to hurt, and would never make anything better. Perhaps nothing I do in my lifetime will improve the world around me. Perhaps nobody cares if I try with every fiber of my being to always meet hurt with love. But I care. My heart knows. 

  People have let me down. They have, individually and collectively, in the past few years often shown me that they are not (quite) the wondrous beings I always have wanted to believe they were. But I know without any doubt that love is what is right. Love is what we should do (be there a God or otherwise). Love is healing. Love is the only healing. It keeps me sane, whether others join me or not.

The Most Conservative Action is Love

I’m very conservative, but people tell me I’m not. I’m a Christian, but I’ve been told I’m not that either. I do not align with the far right in my beliefs. I do not go to church, nor do I necessarily believe the things many Churches want me to. But I think I believe what Jesus would want me to believe.

I believe that all people are worthy of love. With the same worth, none more than another. I believe that sin is measured in God’s eyes, not in those of humans, and not in human laws – some of which I believe run counter to God’s laws. I do not believe it is our place to judge, but only to continue to love, always, consistently, as best we humanly can.

I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I swear very little. I always try to tell the truth. I live pretty much within the “rules”. But not to be “holier than thou”, but just because that’s me. I’ve had a conversation with God going since I was a small child. A child of three who came home from pre-school in a taxi to an empty house. A child who would wander in the woods for hours with no human knowing where I was. God was my companion. God was my conscience. God was my guardian. God raised me.

I grew up with a mother who not only told me I was hated, but that everyone hated me, God hated me, and that nobody cared that I loved them. Many times in my life, circumstances and words have reaffirmed hers. Maybe everyone does hate me. It has often seemed so. 

But the conversation I have had with God for 67 years now has never stopped. I have prayed for healing. The pain persists, and seems to worsen day by day. I pray again. I pray for friendship and love, yet one after another of those dear to me turns away. I pray again. I pray for ease in my life, yet it has been harder than many could imagine. I’ve been bullied, beaten, had a knife at my throat, a gun at my head. I’ve been lost (physically), scared, cold, homeless, hungry. But the conversation continued. Have I had doubts? Of course. But how could I turn away? I can’t. Will God ever answer my prayers in a way that tells me assuredly that He loves me, no matter my mother’s words, no matter the words of many? I don’t know. But the prayers continue. And they will until I can pray no more. Until my bones are dust, and my earthly existence forgotten.

Many have told me I am foolish to believe the things I do. Yet they cannot explain to me why the things they believe are less so. Those who say I am not conservative, say that my words and my actions show acceptance for things that they say go against the Bible. I have in fact read the Bible, more than once. I have also read many other books which support, and/or explain biblical thoughts and concepts. But for me, I come back to two verses, Mark 12:30-31

Mark 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

I believe that. I believe that with my entire being. And to me, that’s what being “conservative” should mean. The definition of conservative is “holding traditional values”. What value could be more traditional, nor have deeper roots than love. Being loving is the most conservative action possible. Yet “love” is also associated with liberal values, “willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one’s own”, “supporter of policies that promote social welfare.” Is that not what love does? Does love not want the best for everyone, and wish to allow each to decide for themselves how to best be the person God has created them to be? Love does not judge or decide another a failure. Love does not judge one person (or race, or color, or…) better than another. Love just loves. 

If you wish to share words of support and agreement, I welcome them. If your words are disagreeable or condemning, please don’t share. My heart is hurting enough as is.

Make Love a Verb

Love is the easiest thing in the Universe. Loving perhaps the hardest. So, I wrote a little poem earlier today. This is what it said…

Shall we stand
In quiet observance
Trying to be oblivious.
Or is a heart
Which holds love
Obliged to
Make Love a verb.

The dictionary definition of love is deceptively easy: “a feeling of strong or constant affection”. And affection is of course defined as love. As many definitions, we can go round and round on this… joy, gratitude, blessings… Each of these is love. To humans, as well as arguably to many animals, love manifests itself as a feeling. Love brings changes to us, it may warm us, increase our heartbeat, send butterflies fluttering all through our insides, make our eyes sparkle, our cheeks flush, or our toes curl.
We can be given those feelings by the simplest of things, blue skies, puffy clouds, the colors of autumn, a first snow, or by a friend, a child, grandchild, a new interest, a lifelong partner. Each of those is a gift. Each touch of love a memory, a moment that becomes part of us, that molds us and refines us, and shapes us over time.
But what do we do about love? Love isn’t just a thing we think, or a thing we feel. If love is real, it comes with an action plan… or the attempt to create one. The plan of expression of love for a tree or a flower or a sunrise may be as easy as a smile. Or it may become a photograph that we can use to share our love with others.
Beyond that, however, expressing our love becomes more complicated. Not just speaking about that love for a friend, or a partner, but about that broader definition of love, that love that is rooted in our heart and sculpts our soul day after day as we move through life, experience new things, and hopefully grow in the process. What do we do to act upon those feelings love brings? How do we best express our love to the world?
This is clearly a question which has no single answer, no correct nor incorrect answers. It is only a call to find that answer that we ourselves can believe in and implement, with all of our heart and soul behind it. The point is not that there is a single way, nor a correct way to express our love to the world, the point is more that we need to. Love is not intended to lay dormant, hoarded within ourselves. Love, by its own nature – is an action verb. Love is a connection, between us and the world. And regardless of whether the object of our love is in fact a flower, or our partner for life, true love will make us richer, give us a call to action, deepen our convictions, bless us… and the more we recognize the love within us, the more those will be true.

Do I understand God’s Will?

My recliner has spaces between the sections of padding for the foot rest. My kitten Angel loves to try to play with my legs through those spaces. Unfortunately she doesn’t know to do that with her claws retracted. I could be upset with her and try to discipline her, though I don’t know how well such things would work with a kitten. But instead, I try to redirect her to play with me differently, in ways that I enjoy instead of getting hurt by. This is what I wish for from God. Angel is a good kitten. I know if she understood people talk she would want to do what’s right. I hope I can say the same for myself. As an Autistic, lacking so much in understanding of society, I hope to hear God’s voice when I make choices of how to act. I make mistakes, clearly, but I try not to, even without His direction. But, how do I understand if I feel moved to do something that has the apparent wrong consequences, or seemingly none at all, when I believed I was listening to Him. How do I know if I was only listening to my own voice, or whether in fact I was correctly doing His will. Because so many things I have believed myself to do out of love have fallen within that question. I want to please God, and I want to love His people well. But sometimes I feel as if I have no real understanding if I am doing either. And I find that so hard.

Spiritual Progress

Spiritual progress happens by learning to overcome obstacles while also learning to steadfastly remain loving and caring. If in fact there is such a thing as reincarnation, and if in fact we do purposefully incarnate in a specific form to facilitate our learning, then I suppose I might not have chosen a better life to accomplish that progress. Growing up as a person who does not understand “how to be a people”, with a mother who openly said she hated me, and mocked me for talking about love, certainly were obstacles I had to overcome. Perhaps I have not done that without struggle. Perhaps I have let it make me sad, and feel that my journey was hopeless at times. But I have never let it take my heart away. I have never let it close down my heart or harden it. And as much as I wish I could be stronger and smarter, and understand how to function around the people I love such that they might enjoy me more and love having me around, so that I could truly share my love instead of just holding it inside me; and as much as I might wish I could do all of that without letting it hurt me or make me feel helpless in the midst of circumstances I don’t understand how to change; regardless of any of that I have grown through all this to realize that the primary goal was holding tight to the love within me, and not relinquishing that or allow the circumstances of my life to overcome it.

All the things I have hope for

Several of my friends have posted the post that lists all the things they are sick of. I see things rather differently. My heart chooses to live in a world that believes in the inherent goodness of those around me. However even good hearts sometimes go astray. So I look forward to that time when the understanding is found that their own well-being is bound into the well-being of those around them, and that consideration for others is in fact for one’s own good. As such, I have hope for the realization that wearing a mask is but a minor inconvenience compared to watching someone you love die, or even be sickened for a lifetime, or hospitalized in anguish for weeks. I have hope for the realization that it’s best to be certain before making accusations of anyone that could lead to their unjustified death, or tarnish your own reputation for life. I look forward to the realization that nobody is “bad” or inferior just because of the color of their skin, or the clothes they wear, or who they love, or if they use a wheelchair. Their heart may be golden. They could be your best friend, save your life someday, or better your future if you allow the opportunity. I look forward to the day when even in disagreement we can find respect and compassion. When we can voice our opinion with love behind it, and put hatred to rest. I look forward to the day when the realization hits that the fate of the tiniest being on this planet is bound up in each of our own, and when we respect – not only each other, but the world we all share. I look forward to the day when the realization hits that love not only IS better, but it feels better too. So if you are going to be selfish, you should be love.

Love thy neighbor, everyone! You’ll live longer!

I have a new part-time job that has me doing scientific research. Researching is something I have done since my pre-teen years in helping my mother with her scientific studies (pre-Internet, of course), on her way to her PhD (and before). It is also the one facet of her studies that I most enjoyed. I liked the equipment, yes, but always hated the exposure to fumes and chemicals that I had no understanding (or faith in anyone else’s) of what they could do to me. 

But again, research is something I really enjoy, and have done scientific research on and off for most of my life. So there is some background and knowledge in the health sciences that is to my benefit on knowing what and how to conduct the research. But the best part is having that knowledge base grow as I do so. There are occasional articles I have run across that are not necessarily applicable to the work I am doing – but that are in fact applicable to me… such as one I found this morning ( Autism and Mind–Body Therapies: A Systematic Review

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5446600/) . 

But there are others that are in fact applicable, and yet provide perhaps specific interest for me (and others), that I would like to share a bit of here. So, I know many people are skeptical of the relationship between the mind and the body in a purely scientific perspective. I wish I could share big pieces of my research that might change those ideas, but the biggest thing I have found of interest is this (in short).

In 2009, the Nobel Prize was awarded to research about how telomeres affect the body and aging. You can read that here (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2009/press-release/). But the most interesting things I have found about that are related recent articles about how lifestyle changes affect the length of telomeres, and hence the length of our lives. Specifically, there are a handful about stress, and how stress reduction, as well as reduction of other specific stressors on the body increase the length of telomeres, and hence potentially the length of life. But my favorite is this one (and several others similar)… about how Loving & Kindness (specifically in Women) are associated with longer Telomeres, and hence longer life. This over doubles my happiness at being born with a loving heart. No wonder I have managed (so far) to beat all the health issues I was also born with, and surpass the average life expectancy for an Autistic person born when I was. (“Loving-Kindness Meditation Practice Associated With Longer Telomeres in Women” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23602876/).

So, there is not only a life benefit to being loving, but a scientifically proven health benefit. Love thy neighbor, everyone! You’ll live longer!

We are Love

Can we only love family? Isn’t there room in our hearts to love more than just those with blood relationships – or those married to blood, room to just love? To let people know that they’re loved? Not just with a word, but with true relationship. With a love that has interest in the wellbeing of another. People think of that as being only hard work. “I have enough going on in my own life, without worrying about other people,” they think. But people are built for relationship. We are in a relationship with those around us, whether we choose to see it that way or not. Whether you believe in God, or the Universe or nothing at all, we are bound together by our very existence. When I make your way better, I make better my own, whether or not I can see that difference in the fabric of my life. Love is the material we are made of. We love each other. We just do. Do you ever wonder why hate feels so bad? Because it is so foreign to what we are made of. It is not what we are. We are not hate, we are not anger. We are love. Sometimes we are love gone astray, and it hurts. And we want love back. And if we are paying attention we realize that the closer we get back to love, the better we feel. And if we were able to actually become fully love, then surely we would live in bliss – because that is what love is. Love is joy, and joy is love. Whatever you may call Him, God is love. And when we are close to love, we are close to God – and to be close to God, you must be close to love. It is that simple. Yet somehow we let it not be simple. We complicate it with life and rules, and busyness and caveats and justifications (that typically aren’t very just). But if you listen to your soul, you know, that the closer love is, the closer peace is, the closer joy is. I know this for a fact. I only hope to live long enough to live it.

Give it to God

I have always had a problem with the phrase “Give it to God”. Not because I don’t want to, but because I really just don’t know how. As an Autistic, the tendency is to analyze everything to death, so in that I realize that “give it to God” never means just go lay in bed and don’t get up and expect that God will make everything right. We have to DO something, as in “ God helps those who help themselves”, so where is the line between helping and trying to control? And I find that especially hard when it comes to relating to other people, because the whole relating thing is something I find difficult. I don’t know what I say, or what I do that will evoke the response(s) that I had intended – often even when that response is as simple as a smile. So I searched my soul to answer that question, and the answer is that I don’t have an answer, except for the voice that echoes in the pit of my stomach. The voice that I hope is God’s. I have to believe if that voice evokes a feeling of warmth and excitement in me, then I am sharing from love, and that’s what I (and I hope God) wants me to do, regardless of how it is immediately received. But if that voice finds a pit in my stomach, then I am sharing from fear, and I apologize to everyone I love for all of those times. My hope from now on is that even if my approach is awkward, my words misplaced, my timing misunderstood, that I will share from love, for love is that which I wish to share.