Lesser Injuries on the Dead

A monthly update of thanks to my supporters, shared here in case it may provide some inspiration and nourishment to others.

Note: I started writing these words to the intimate community of individuals helping, on a monthly basis, to defer the medical costs of my living as a quadriplegic, but as you may see, they got away from me so I'm sharing them more broadly. :-)

Happy August! It’s almost with a puzzled heart that I issue that greeting, time seems surreal to me these days. How is it for you? As you may know, I do mean to issue these notes of acknowledgment, update, and thanks for your loving support on a monthly basis, and in the first few days of the month at that. As you can see, time and that intention are still jostling to find their peaceful alignment. ;-)

You may recall from a recent posting (see Updates) some whispers of shift and things heating up for me, and that tone seems continuing on a path of intensification; speaking of time, under this full moon.

July was a fragile month with my body calling for much tending. Many hours were spent away from the modern productivity space of my treasured little office, leaving me to contend with certain sensibilities around urgency, demand, and balance… Nonetheless, the palpable sense of growing both intention and opportunity around the emerging work of Open Field Awakening continued a steady pace.

The month was filled with many hours of joyful conversation with friends and loved ones, both remotely over telephone and zoom, and locally with many opportunities to host the gift of presence with old friends and new. One of these opportunities was with my friend and OFA board member, Eric, just returned to San Diego from nearly a year on sabbatical in New York.

Eric and I enjoyed a good handful of hours in that space of casual commune, and as the afternoon turned on, we found our way to the subject of OFA. His inquiry went to the path forward in growing our work in that domain. I replied that there were hopeful opportunities in the field, but that my attention was called by nearer term financial demands.

This is of course not an unfamiliar story. The last five years for me has been something of an advanced PhD in resilience. Let me digress for a moment…

A dear friend of mine texted me this morning, curiously he was asking about the meaning of my name, Kabir. After some brief exchange, he shared:

“I was just reading a bit about the word in Hebrew. It has associations with plaiting, or quilting, with implications that the strength or power comes from the unity of many smaller parts. It has a usage that is associated with the power of collective prayer.”

I teared up a little in reading this. It was not an interpretation I have ever come across before. One of the fundamental lessons I have been learning in the process of this “postgraduate work” (nod to my dear brother Dave ;-) is the centrality of relationship, and community in our every breath of life. I certainly would never have made it this far without this collective prayer very much embodied in the gifts you share in the flows of love through these fields.

One of the whispering themes that has danced through this journey and to the fore in the most recent months of education is the role of “right refuge,” or faith in the practice and prayer of our lives. Folks have asked me over these recent years, on occasion, what is it that you need to learn from these experiences of difficulty and suffering?

I heard once a Sufi saying, “trust in God, but tether your camel.” My dear teachers Daniel P Brown and his successor Dustin Diperna point to the adage of “neither lose the view in conduct, nor conduct in the view.” In plainer terms, the view in this sense may be said to refer to the profound humility of faith; that something truly mysterious divine is driving this every gesture of being; while conduct calls us to account, showing up to exercise the responsibility of our own inherent nobility.

That nobility, the dignified application of our natural dignity and care to the task at hand, grounded in faith becomes for me the embodiment of what the Buddhists call “right livelihood,” secular traditions might call civic responsibility, and other faiths may describe as faithful service to God.

As usual, I have digressed… ;-)

“Once I have tended to my responsibility for the near-term finances,” I told Eric, “I can return my attention to developing our work with OFA, a major portion of which will be declaring our clear intention, with some granularity of detail, and seeking seed funding to begin putting things in motion. I think the first step there will be the development of a polished presentation deck to proffer an invitation to potential funders.”

Eric smiled. He holds a number of advanced degrees (more formal than I, though certainly not lacking in life experience education of course), he is a renowned professor and educational director with major learning institutions, numerous papers, and countless hours engaged in project work with students, fellow faculty, individuals and communities in the public at large. He said, “I can put together a deck in about ½ an hour, would you like to start?”

Already nourished from our time together, I almost laughed. “Of course! Let’s get to it…”

That was 11 July. Not surprisingly, our intention turns out to be sophisticated enough to defy easy translation in just 30 minutes, but that afternoon got the wheels really rolling in an exciting and positive direction. The work which began there continues today with a rich body of progress and I/we are very optimistic to have something material to share, by the end of this month, and possibly sooner!

But this story is not intended so much as a progress update, though I’m happy for the artifact, but rather about faith.

The work we started that afternoon has filled my time with an exciting flow of creativity, generative dialogue with others, and a deep sense of satisfaction with those hours I can find free at my desk. On the last Monday of July, Eric was over to put some polish on our then-current revision so that we could bring the rest of our board of advisors up to speed on the state of the enterprise.

Knowing that the beginning of August meant tapping into the last of our emergency reserves for funding, Eric asked me if it wouldn’t be wise to just call this “good enough,” and ship something out the door that week to potential funding partners. Of course, in a conventional sense, his suggestion may have been right on point.

I, however, was not convinced. While, as a collaborative partner sincerely engaged with the work and vision of OFA, Eric’s suggestion stood firm on the ground of good faith, I had to decline. For me, the work we are engaged in today is the emergent embodiment of a vision that has been living with me for nearly 3 decades.

No, I told him, we cannot conflate the clarity and foundational nature of this particular piece of the work, with near-term demands of any kind. We must place our faith and diligence in these two streams as separate tasks, each sovereign but worthy of our full devotion in their own place and time.

He nodded, understanding, and we proceeded with our presentation. I knew, full well, that the first week of August would mean tabling this work for the time and turning our full attention again to what has felt like an endless search and foraging for the next day’s meal.

I retired to bed early that Monday, like many of the days recent prior. I woke on Tuesday, feeling the weariness of strain and stress with our practical situation in my body all too present. I have learned to honor these “impositions,” or rather “opportunities for faith and healing,” and laid low the morning.

Knowing the real urgencies at hand, I mustered my strength to rise and tend to business in the office shortly after 1 PM that day. My body still felt frail and I knew I was not long for the day, but felt somewhat easeful with joy in handling what I may. I had not been up for an hour when the phone rang. A familiar friend, whom I do not often enjoy the opportunity to connect with directly, spoke into the connection. After some moments of cordiality, “my wife and I were inspired by your recent hopeful letter of good work and would like to confirm wiring instructions to send you $15,000 to support your efforts.”

I nearly cried on the spot. I believe it was Marshall McLuhan who said “the medium is the message.” While he was, I think, speaking to various communication technologies, the sentiment couldn’t have been more apropos of the moment. My friend, on the other end of the line, is one of the most profound exemplars that I know of good work, diligence, and faith. He is a devout Christian, with wise words of Scripture never far from his lips, and has demonstrated intimate care with any task that comes before him for at least the last two decades that we have known one another, and I am confident, for much longer.

Returning for a moment to my textbased conversation with Michael this morning, my middle name means “faithful,” and I very much relate to these words by which I am called, as a holy instruction to learn a deep embodiment. I nearly cried that day on the call, and simultaneously my heart jumped for joy to feel encouraged, to be filled with courage, on the path of devotion to this good work that I find my life devoted. I was not long for the desk that Tuesday, my body dearly needed care and rest, but I was struck with the profound grace to be up and practicing conduct in my service to others when that call came in. I returned to resting shortly after 4 PM, to wake on Wednesday feeling refreshed and back to work.

That was not two full weeks ago and my time since then has been divided between fulfilling on that promise of effort, caring for this body as it heals, and tending to the varieties of business at hand. As I say, I’m optimistic for what we may see done by the end of August, and I have been swept up in successive demands and so running late on this note of thanks to you, my kind community of care.

As it turns out, these words have run longer than anticipated, certainly more than a short note of thanks and so, with permission I’ve decided to publish this missive in more public platform at Life As Art as I’ve been too busy to otherwise tend to that offering and I do hope this will serve as a generosity in that space.

I was thinking something the other day about a comment my surgeon made, now nearly 23 years ago, as I rolled into the recovery ward of intensive care of St. Joseph’s hospital in Phoenix Arizona on that seemingly fate filled day in November. “I’ve seen lesser injuries on dead people” was the comment.

In those liminal moments of darkness following the overturned vehicle and prior to the jaws of death bringing me back into the light, I recall choosing this life. My gratitude today is deep and full as I feel the grace of good works at hand. May you be well my friends. I pray that you find the balance of faith and commitment in your own life, and if I may be of service to you, please don’t hesitate to reach out.