I’ve begun to paint the interior of our house. In so many ways this is a 3 dimensional metaphor of the sabbatical itself. When I think of how wonderful it will be as it’s accomplished, I’m delighted. But when I think of moving, cleaning, repairing, organizing, sorting, learning how to fix, etc- it’s almost too much to begin. Organizing this sabbatical took one year. Preparing the bedroom to paint took one week, the painting itself- 4 hours. One wall falling down is another story altogether.
In my life at this time I need to stop all desk work- all work related to trauma and torture and use my body physically and fill my mind with simple everyday life. And so I’ve come to know the paint guy at the hardware store. I found a huge drop cloth at a second hand store that covers everything and then some. Marshall and I settled on the color of a deep blue with a touch of purple- think of the kind of blue that would most set off a gold frame around a wedding certificate.
In the midst of much non-verbal work, ideas and thoughts come forth like a parade. There are so many people whose health and well-being I want to know about. But I must keep a disciplined firewall and not inquire, return that inquiry and care to myself and choose the salad over the bacon cheeseburger. I wonder about my 2009 work calendar and contact 2 Quaker conference centers to confirm dates.
But in a deeper quiet, I realize that torture is particularly difficult to learn about and work with because it involves such malice more or less absent in other justice efforts. My first thought is that I will have to continue this work as so few people can be with such malice and I’ve already learned so much. And as I am thinking this, I am also thinking why should it be me that wades into such darkness and pain. Torture is the worse thing humans do to one another. The capture and willful hurting of another is the worst. Is it really my work to reveal how deeply woven this is into American policy and ask Quakers and others to oppose this practice? Is this leading continuing, concluded, changing?
When I began work in the crisis of AIDS, I remember learning numerous aspects of medical knowledge as it slowly became known and doing AIDS education. At the same time I was helping many people to die. It seemed overwhelmingly huge. In retrospect and considering the AIDS work I do these days, it is finite- dreadful and horrendous, but still there are limits and borders, less ignorance and meanness.
Can it be that all I have done in my life from Montessori pre-school teacher to songwriter/singer to work with AIDS, rape, refugees, and prisoners is all preparation for a great work the second half of my life or is ego speaking? Am I not strong enough to do more on torture? My leadings in the past have all been fierce, without question. I’ve experienced them as shining Light that informed and prepared my body, mind, and spirit clearly. I’ve been too tired now to feel fierce and so my usual barometer to discern leading is switched off. The sabbatical in some ways is the luxury of time to rest and restore, pose questions that don’t need to be answered right away, and to feel how it is I am changing in my awareness in how I am to be used, remembering that the Light is strong and we who hope to carry Light are fragile. Today I’ll begin painting the balcony with my desks and bookcases on a frigid winter day and wonder some more about what has been, what is, and what will come. Education- necessary, luxurious, and only mildly frightening today. Wonder, gratitude, hard questions, rest, paint.