response to the last post's comments

I know I promised you all "I am not the muffin", and rest assured that post will be coming soon. But before I get there I wanted to respond to something that came up for me in the comments left on my last post.

But before I even get there... Thank you so much to everyone who has responded. I was a bit nervous and apprehensive about starting this blog. However, with every comment I get more and more excited about it. So thank you thank you.

Sherri commented in her response the following: "On the other hand fake niceness is better than true discourtesy."

Now I don't want to put words in Sherri's mouth, and I may be a bit off base in what she means here, but I disagree to some degree.

Though I'm not really into discourtesy, there are many many times I would prefer a truthful, if even painful, response, over fake niceness (be it in a work related or any other experience). This is just a personal preference, of course, but again, I want to get at what is of spiritual import to me underlying this preference.

Last Sunday, Rev. Chris Creathnenn told a great story during the service at First Unitarian Universalist Church Oakland. I can't do the story justice in my recounting of it, but let me try to give a brief outline. In the story there was a community of people who lived together and shared together and loved to listen. They would gather in a big circle and take turns just listening to what each other had to say, good, bad, sorrowful, silly, angry and so on. Then one day the town was taken over by big angry guards and some folks who seemed much like cruise activity directors (nothing against cruise directors themselves, I'm simply using this as a simile based on a stereotype). They told the community that from then on their would only be happiness. People had to smile all the time. They were even given face harnesses to keep them smiling. People were only allowed to be nice. This destroyed the community. In the end, the community stand up against the folks who had taken over, and they resume their old way of life.

This story was embedded in a larger worship service that was about witness. And what I resonated with was how the fake niceness denied everyone the ability to witness and to be witnessed. Without this, without being able to be true to what we feel and have people recognize that, without being able to recognize in others things besides niceness, we deny ourselves and others our wholeness. Our facades of "I'm ok, you're ok" keeps us separate and fragmented.

I also want to acknowledge that it can be really hard to let our hurt be witnessed. It is sometimes easier and safer to put up the barrier of fake niceness to protect ourselves. But let this not be our constant means of interaction.

I want to close this post with the quote that I meant to start "I'm not the muffin" with. It will end this well, and make a nice transition into my next post.

"Have compassion for everyone you meet . . .What appears cynicism, conceit or bad manners is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone."
-Miller Williams

In Faith,
KTM