I was 12 years old when I experienced the deadly force of a hurricane Betsy. Living in New Orleans, every hurricane season seemed liked a non-event that was punctuated by the closing of schools and parties in people’s homes where the adults drank hurricane cocktails (a concoction of everclear alcohol and fruit punch), ate boiled shrimp and crabs, and played cards. That year was different.
I looked outside our large living room window. It was dark and windy and raining hard. It was scary outside but I was safe and warm inside my suburban home in Orleans Parish. The neighbors had not left yet, I reported back to my mother as both parents were looking at the television. The local newscaster announced that our Parish should evacuate now to our local school for shelter. We had never evacuated before and I could feel the hesitation. Would we wait for our neighbors to leave?
This would be a tactic that is common to the people of New Orleans. We were a people that did not leave the safety and security of our homes for something unknown. We leave our home for our first apartment and we leave school to get a job and we leave jobs to get better jobs and on and on. But to leave for a hurricane seemed like to admit defeat; to surrender to a force that we have no control over.
As I watched Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on the television, I was reminded of those days when we would ponder whether to stay or go. Sometimes it was because of comfort, sometimes out of pride, and for some, it was out of poverty. Thirty percent of the city’s population lives at or below the poverty line, so to leave and take the family to a hotel is not an option for many. It didn’t surprise me that so many stayed.
It makes me wonder how easily we “stay” in our own lives when things get hard and changes need to be made – no matter how good it may be for us to move on, we “stay”.
A natural event such as a hurricane can stir up al kinds of discursive thoughts that lead to strong emotions- irritation, anxiety, jealousy, pride, etc. fueling the fire of human pain and suffering in a small building called an evacuation center. The thought of not knowing if there will be a home to go back to, or a school to attend the next day or that anything we have ever owned will be gone, while a possibility, is avoided at all costs. That kind of pain and suffering just wouldn’t happen to us. Or could it? Quick don’t think about it. We can spend a lot of energy resisting impermance instead of accepting it, just as it is, the truth of our lives.
As a child with my family and friends at my own school now turned into an evacuation center, I was in a familiar surrounding grounded in the strong belief that we would all survive despite ourselves- despite windows shattering, the wind howling, and the rain beating on the roof as hard as golf balls. Children still laughed and played and experienced the basic goodness that surrounded us.
“May all beings experience happiness……..”
-Fern Alix LaRocca
"Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from,
everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the
end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty,
joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it." —Henry Miller
Thank you, Jeff, for this reminder-
For us to survive on the spiritual path, there are many challenges to face, and there is much to learn. We have to discover how to deal with obstacles and difficulties; how to process doubts and see through wrong views; how to inspire ourselves when we least feel like it; how to understand ourselves and our moods; how really to work with and integrate the teachings and practices; how to evoke compassion and enact it in life; and how to transform our suffering and emotions.
On the spiritual path, all of us need the support and the good foundation that come from really knowing the teachings, and this cannot be stressed strongly enough. For the more we study and practice, the more we shall embody discernment, clarity, and insight. Then, when the truth comes knocking, we will know it, with certainty, for what it is, and gladly open the door, because we’ll have guessed that it may well be the truth of who we really are.
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Jeff Rubin
Managing Partner
The Usability Group, LLC
Atlanta - New York/New Jersey