Tag Archives: Humility

The Residue of Bias

Over the last few days, I’ve watched a documentary on Netflix: Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb.  It shows a dedicated team of archaeologists, historians, workers and even a medical doctor.  They dig, uncover relics, decipher hieroglyphics on interior walls, study skulls and bones … and add to the story of Egyptian history.  I was fascinated.

One thing I love about me is my welcoming of everyone, regardless of age, gender, culture, sexual orientation and personality.  Watching this show, however, has shone light on my dark side, on my old assumptions about people.

Take the title of the documentary, for instance.  “Why doesn’t ‘Saqqara’ have a ‘u’ after the second ‘q’?  Surely to do so is normal.  We all know how to spell ‘quiet’.”  Western civilization goes with “qu”, but so what?  Who is this “we all” that spells this way?  Growing up, I absorbed the values of my parents and friends, as well as those of Canadian culture.  My view of the world was narrow.  I was swimming in the waters of ethnocentrism: “evaluating other cultures according to preconceptions originating in the standards and customs of one’s own culture”.  Today I say “No thanks” to such distorted vision.  But I didn’t have the eyes to see when I was twenty.

Temperatures at the dig were usually over 30º Celsius (86º Fahrenheit).  People working there either wore long-sleeved shirts and jeans or traditional dress that covered the arms and legs.  “Boy, they must be hot!  Why don’t they wear t-shirts and shorts?”  How my bias leaks out … unconsciously.

Another unexamined thought of mine apparently is that women wearing traditional African dress, including the Muslim headscarf called a hajib, would not be doing professional work.  Once the team found the entrance to Wahtye’s tomb, and began excavating, the paintings on the wall were interpreted expertly by a woman wearing a hajib!  My pause as I listened to her speak about the family relationships on those walls showed me that my spiritual development is incomplete.

Next to open my eyes was a medical doctor who was an expert on human bones and the stresses she saw there.  She theorized that the reason children’s skeletons were buried with their parents was that this part of Eqypt was rocked with a malaria outbreak around 600 B.C.  She analyzed the way people walked from how their leg bones fit together.  “This bone should be more externally rotated if Wahtye was healthy.”  Once again, while my current spirituality praises the insights of the doctor, somewhere lurking inside me are vestiges of a kid who learned that women don’t do important work.  (Sigh)

Towards the end of the film, various folks working on the dig talked about Wahtye and his family.  Their sensitivity to these ancient ones, their clear feeling of relationship with them, shone through:

The only place I sensed true sadness was in his burial chamber.  There were no signs of luxury or indulgence.  The coffin was just regular wood, and he wasn’t even mummified that well.  Maybe the shock of his children’s death brought him to this.

***

We still need to find out how he died but it’s something very beautiful, which fills your heart with joy, to reveal the face of Wahtye.

***

I think this skull is Wahtye.  At last I meet him!  Something was happening in this bone.  I’m trying to feel his pain and suffering.

***

On the walls, we see the dreams of Wahtye, what he hoped his afterlife would be.  In his bones, we see the real story – one that is just like ours.

***

I am humbled, by human beings of the past and present
I still have much to learn

Being Praised

The Buddha said that life includes both praise and blame.  We can try our darndest to avoid the blame part but that effort will be futile.  Perhaps we imagine a reality in which only praise comes our way, and we think that would be marvelous.  Looking closer though, I bet most of us don’t know what to do with people singing our virtues.

Today I was in a Zoom meeting with five other folks under the umbrella of the Evolutionary Collective.  Each person was to be the focus for fifteen minutes.  The rest of us simply gazed at the human being onscreen and asked ourselves what we “got” … what aspects of the person were speaking to us.  In the most profound, who is this person anyway?  We didn’t know biographical details.  Except for one of them, I didn’t even know where they lived.  All we did was look and respond aloud to “What am I experiencing?” as we looked into their eyes.

When it was my turn, the other folks showered me with praise with words that touched far deeper than my personality or good deeds.  I choose not to tell you what they said.  I don’t see the purpose in doing that.  It’s not important that you agree with their assessments.  It’s not valuable to hear various adjectives being laid on my shoulders.

So what’s a guy to do in response?

1.  Aw, shucks
2.  No, no … that’s not me
3.  (A big and nervous smile)
or
4.  Thank you

I’ve always liked the number 4.  “Just receive it, Bruce.  Let it in.  Let it inform you about what’s next in your life.  Let the goodness spoken find further expression.”

I remain unbloated
I know that I’m here to serve
I will continue to do so

Hacked

I’m not a suspicious person, or apparently a very careful one.

Yesterday I opened Facebook and saw a new communication in Messenger. It was from a friend whom I haven’t talked to for months. I was thrilled. There sat a video with the caption “Look what I found.” There was a tiny picture of some guy. Was that me? Had my friend dug up an old moment that we’d had way back in the past? I clicked. Nothing happened. (Sigh) I sent him a message saying that I couldn’t open the video. Our reunion would just have to wait.

That was the full extent of my thought process: communication delayed, curiosity unsatisfied. And so to sleep.

Then there was 7:54 this morning. I was having breakfast right then, blissfully unaware of the events in Cyberland. At that moment, for my entire address book, I believe, a video showed up in inboxes, declaring “Look what I found.” It was hours later that I realized lots of folks were trying to get hold of me.

Did you send me a video?

I can’t open your video

Looks suspicious to me

You’ve been hacked, my friend

Then a really big sigh. I wasn’t thinking clearly for the first few minutes but I finally decided to phone Facebook. I soon found out that such an action is virtually impossible. “Okay, then … change your password.” Of course! “And how exactly do I do that?” I fumbled around in Facebook menus for awhile before giving up. And then a magic word came to mind: Google. Lo and behold, a short YouTube video appeared in my life, voiced by a nice-sounding guy. I wasn’t in full control of my rational mind but I soon had a new password. I know I can trust you so here it is:

*************

I sort of sighed in relief, and figured out that I should phone my computer guy. Would he be working on Saturday? I called … and he answered. He said that all I could do was change my password (Done!) and warn everyone to not open the video. (The next part is my personal favourite) Brain matter swirling, I didn’t have a clue about how to let people know. My techy friend, ever patient, simply said “Post it on Facebook.”

I’m fascinated by my inability to figure that out on my own. Having said that, I posted. But the Messenger communications kept arriving. I answered them all.

I’m sad that my eagerness to connect with an old friend has led to so many people being at minimum inconvenienced, and perhaps severely hacked. Am I allowed to sigh a fourth time?

On we go

P.S. I just went to Facebook to post this and found out that the warning message I sent this afternoon went only to me! Arghh. I just changed it to “Public”. (Sigh number five)

Ties

As a kid, I had to wear a tie almost every Sunday because that’s what a boy needed to do in the Presbyterian Church. Dad taught me how to get the job done. I never really got the hang of the task, however … pulling too tight, I guess, and the result had a strangled look. Oh well. Kids aren’t bankers and executives.

Many years later, I spent a summer backpacking through Rocky Mountain parks. I was a man of the wilderness. In September, I was invited to attend the wedding of an old friend. As the day approached, I had an epiphany: I had forgotten how to tie a tie. I smile now as I remember my fascination around that. It was such a symbol of freedom, of being untethered. I did, however, figure it out before the ceremony.

Many more years later, I looked at my tie job in the mirror and shook my head about the squelched look. The previous man of freedom went online because he wanted to look like guys in fancy clothing commercials. The ties were perfect! I learned that the triangle look was called the Windsor Knot. A video would guide me to the promised land. Boy, it was a lot of twists and turns of fabric but I was determined. And eventually … Voilà! I was a gorgeous dude. My later versions of the Windsor have been less than perfect but still pretty good.

And now there’s today, watching CNN. I have learned that, when making a presentation, handle all the small details so there’s nothing to distract the audience from your message. Anchors and guests were talking about the coronavirus and the racial protests. I was leaning intently into … how their ties looked! Some were crooked, some were too tight, some were big blobs of looseness. And then here comes a fellow sporting a perfect Windsor Knot. I managed to get distracted by his neck as well. (Sigh)

It’s okay, Bruce. Your foibles are showing. I still love you.

Being Humbled

The warning message appeared on the dashboard display: “Washer fluid low”. No problem. Even though my car Ruby is new to me, I’d been down this road many times before. Once I get to school, I’ll whip out the jug of fluid and get that sign out of my space.

How many vehicles have I had in my life? I bet fifteen. Fifteen hoods to raise, fifteen reservoirs of washer fluid to locate, fifty years of driving.

There’ll be a button or lever low on the dash to get the hood open. And there it is, with its little car diagram. Flick! Open with a click. (Gosh … I just have so much life experience!)

I walk to the front of Ruby and feel for the lever that will raise the hood. It’ll be a small thing right in the middle. I’ll get my finger underneath it and push up.

I groped along the gap between hood and body. Nothing. A second sweep produced the same result. Being a mature, adaptable type of human, I anticipated that the magic lever was probably way to the right or way to the left – unusual, but my history of rich life experiences would see me through.

Nothing again … and again I say nothing.

No, Bruce. You don’t need to consult the manual. Your mature intelligence will solve the problem.

Two minutes later I’m on page 502, viewing a diagram that indicates a lever smack dab in the middle of the hood edge. What? This dumb Honda manual is lying!

I felt and felt and felt. There’s no ******* lever anywhere!

I took a break, leaning against Ruby’s driver door while the school buses spilled out their young contents. I was hoping that no kid would approach while I was wallowing in ineptitude. Thank goodness for small miracles.

Back to the redness of Ruby’s hood. Back to the gap. Fingers in slow motion left to right … and then right to left. (Sigh)

And then, something tiny nudged my hand. I lifted up. The gap did not expand. Without thought, I moved my fingers to the right.

Release … letting go … opening.

For fifty years I’ve done it one way. Today Honda had a different idea. There is much to learn in this life.

Misidentifying

Have you ever hurt someone with absolutely no intention of doing so? I sure have. I simply lacked knowledge, and sometimes asked the person a question which revealed that fact – a question that I intended to be a contribution.

Over and over, in many situations that I’ve misinterpreted, I tried to understand that my intention was good. I would never knowingly try to damage another being. Sometimes it’s been a hard sell to convince myself.

Many decades ago, I was talking to a teenaged Asian student. We were making meaning together until I asked him a question about a country – perhaps Korea or Japan. He stared at me, with what felt like a mixture of anger and sadness. “I am aboriginal … a Blood from Stand Off.” His words hung in the air as I slowly died inside.

Three years ago, at the beginning of my first year of volunteering in a Grade 6 class, I was walking around from desk to desk, seeing if I could be of help. A girl with glasses and shoulder-length brown hair was struggling with a Math problem. I did an internal search for her name and happily remembered it: “Jessie, let’s figure out what the question is really asking.” (Pause from the other human)  “My name is Ben.” Oh, the assumptions that Bruces can make in the world!

This year’s group is a split Grade 5/6. Today Jeremy, the teacher, asked me to hand out assignment sheets to the kids – certain pages for each grade. I looked over the span of children before me and realized that the 5’s and 6’s were mixed in together. For several of the kids, I didn’t know what grade they were in. (Sigh) Twice I approached boys who I thought were in Grade 5, but I was wrong. I tried not to look very deeply into their eyes.

So … life is full of mistakes and I’ve participated fully
It’s humbling to be wrong
It’s reassuring to know that I intend to do no harm
And still it hurts

Day Twenty-Three: Potpourri

Gnima and Baziel

Shells near the water

Nescafé coffee

***

Three things drew me yesterday:

1. The Leaving

We all knew it. At 2:30 pm, a van would give us a honk at the gate and then whisk away Jo, Lore and Baziel back to Belgium. There would be a hole in our family in the sense of physical proximity, certainly not when it comes to love. The day before, I asked Jo how he was feeling about the coming separation and he quite rightly said he didn’t want to talk about it.

We sat on Lydia and Jo’s patio in the early afternoon and talked about this, that and the other thing … not about what was coming next. Baziel, Lore and Lydia were here and there, chatting and doing the last minute packing. I looked at the teens and realized I didn’t know when I’d see them again. But it will definitely happen. I’m part of a Belgian and Senegalese family now. There will be reunions.

Jo and I have shared many fine conversations over the past two weeks. There’ll be another opportunity at Brussels Airport early in the morning of January 9.

The honk did come, and we all turned to each other. There were gentle and lingering hugs between the three human beings and me. The sweetest moment was the farewell of Lydia and Jo … companions in love, with the glistening eyes. As the van pulled away, we moved to the centre of the dirt street to watch it fade to the east and then disappear into a left turn. Goodbye for now, dear friends.

2. So Different … So Much the Same

There are seven million of us across the world. Almost all of us have two arms and two legs. We have skin. We have internal organs. On the other view, we have different languages, personality, culture, skin colour, facial structure, hairstyle, willingness to express ourselves, age, attitude, inclusiveness/exclusiveness. And here we are on Planet Earth, cuddling together, forming a wondrous mosaic. What a privilege to be here with you.

3. Just a Little Package

The coffee here is instant. It comes in tiny packages that mostly don’t respond to my efforts to open them. There’s sometimes a little line that indicates a perforation, but not always. The arthritis in my right thumb seems to be laughing at me as I twist and turn in search of caffeine. The staff have kindly offered me a pair of scissors. Friends across the table don’t seem to need them. In five seconds they’re pouring the contents into their cup. Today I let go and cut the end off the package. Yesterday I grunted. How can a little bit of instant coffee be such a teacher for me? I don’t know … but now it’s me who’s laughing.

On we go

Day Eight: The Language

I’m sitting here on Tuesday afternoon fresh from my digital copy of French All-in-One For Dummies. I’m no dummy but yesterday’s experiences among the French speakers of Senegal was truly humbling. Most of the folks here know either no English or just isolated words. My high school French knowledge has declined to muddled snatches of vocabulary and sentence structure. Guess that’s what 55 years of non-use will do to a guy!

I listened to a brisk conversation between Moustapha and Jo last night, with musical interludes as Jo improvised on his guitar to the compositions of Fleetwood Mac. The melodies were a blessed respite from the angst of understanding virtually none of the words flowing between the two. Surely I know some French!

As I sat back and shook my head sadly, I was in the middle of a deep “not knowing”. In my spiritual experiences of the past few decades, I’ve sometimes fallen into the wavery bliss of letting go, of not needing to be smart, coherent or even reasonable. Floating free in a land devoid of achievement, with nary a landmark to be seen. Being there isn’t scary anymore.

However, yesterday’s untethered state pulled me towards deficiency. I wanted to know the words, the meanings of the flowing sentences. And then … it was okay that I didn’t. The real now needed to be embraced as a whole experience. Tomorrow (now today) would give me the opportunity to return to the hotel and its WiFi, and to download the Dummies book. Monday evening was simply another version of all being well.

Earlier in the day, I was out walking with Mariama, the 20-year-old woman whom I’m sponsoring. She’s studying Math, World History and an unremembered science at school. We both sighed – long, exasperated ones – as we felt our inability to communicate. We were both sad. Last January, when I agreed to support Mariama, I knew I was coming back to Senegal right around now. So I had eleven months to improve my French. I did virtually nothing. The faraway yearning for contact didn’t get the job done. But yesterday’s tortured journey on foot together hit like a sledgehammer. And so I’m ensconced in a cozy chair at Keur Saloum, studying vocabulary and grammar.

How strange … I just threw in the word “ensconced”. It just came into my head. I love words. I love letting them spill out, and trusting that they’ll be good and true. It’s like a graceful dance, and such a contrast to my crawling en français. But hey … either way, I’m moving!

On we go, Mariama, Moustapha and Fatou

Smoke Alarming

I know things.  Quite a few things, actually.  And then there’s all that other stuff.

Consider smoke alarms.  I owned a home in Union, Ontario for twenty years with my dear wife Jody.  I often had to change the batteries and sometimes buy and install a new alarm.  So you’d think that the events of today would be a snap.  Not so.

I woke up at 3:35 this morning to the chirping of the smoke alarm in my kitchen.  Sleep was pressing down hard on my head.  Clear thinking would have to wait till business hours.  The bottom line?  I couldn’t figure out what to do.  I lay in bed, stupefied.

“It’ll go away.”  Sure.  How likely was that?  Fifteen minutes later, it did!  “See?  No problem.”  Back to snoozing.

A further fifteen minutes of tossing and turning were replaced by rechirping.  I counted: the beeps were every forty seconds.

“It’ll go away.”  It did. And then it returned, right on the dot of fifteen minutes.  Away … return … away … return …  Now it was 5:00 am.  My paltry brain tried to make sense of it all.  “If the battery was low, wouldn’t it keep up the beeping – no breaks?  But maybe it’s wired in.  Do wired in smoke alarms have batteries?”  Fuzziness ruled the early hours.

Finally, oh finally I got up.  I put shoes on and stumbled to the garage for the ladder.  After setting it appropriately in place, I climbed.  “Will I be able to get the alarm off the ceiling?”  I so lack confidence in my home maintenance abilities.  Happily the unit came off with a simple twist, revealing a nest of wires.  “Hmm … wired in.”  The close proximity chirp was piercing to the core of my mind so I grabbed my headphones.  Better.  But now what do I do?

Yesterday I wrote about choosing “this”, as in the reality of the present moment.  That commitment seemed to be fading away as the blare of the alarm ruptured my insides.  “C’mon, Bruce.  Think.”

Somehow I came up with a word which has a deep spiritual connotation – “Google”.  Surely Mr. Google could help me out.  I typed “smoke alarm chirping” and indeed an answer appeared before my wavering eyes.  There could be dust inside that’s causing the malfunction.  So I got out the vacuum and shoved the wand into the mass of wires.  Almost immediately, the chirping stopped!  Oh, I’m so smart.  I left the unit dangling from the ceiling and dove under the covers.  Exactly fifteen minutes later … well, you know what happened.

The Internet article mentioned that some wired in smoke alarms have a backup battery to deal with power failures.  I mounted the ladder once more and turned on a flashlight, trying in vain to read the small print above me.  Then I felt the surface of the unit, seeking some compartment that would be perfect for a battery.  Nothing.  Thank God for those headphones.

6:20.  The sound of “this” was pissing me off.  After much searching and whining, I found a little latch on the alarm.  A bit of pressure and … Voila!  A plastic section opened to reveal the bliss of a 9 volt battery (the rectangular one).  Laden with memories of other plastic objects, and me pulling too hard, resulting in destruction, I gingerly tried prodding the battery this way and that.  No go.  I tried to resist the explosion of sentences such as “You’re so stupid!”

I bet ten minutes later the battery came out.  The chirping continued.  I knew I had a stash of 9V batteries and I went to get one, smartly remembering how to get it back into the compartment.  The deal finally done, I closed the little door, screwed the unit back onto the ceiling, and waited.  No chirps!  Maybe I’m decently smart after all.

It was 6:50 and my head could sense a closely approaching pillow.  Dreamland was with me right away.

9:00.  Chirping.  And my mind started a slow process of disintegration.  Being a little more alert, I realized one thing: I hadn’t checked the new battery’s expiry date way back when at 6:50.  Addressing that situation, I read “December, 2018”.  (Sigh)

The story finally ended after a trip to Costco for a package of 9V batteries, clearly described as lasting five years.  Yay!  10:20 found me placing the sacred object into said unit, closing the little door, screwing the whole thing onto the ceiling, and waiting.

Chirp

(Waiting)

Chirp

(Waiting)

… … … … … Silence

Start at 3:30.  End at 10:30.  Piece of cake

 

I Don’t Know Things

There was a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Captain Picard and friends came across a slow-talking, slow-moving group of humanoids.  They didn’t appear to be very intelligent as they kept saying “We know things.”  It turns out they were crafty beyond measure.  Today I felt the opposite.

“Jeremy”, the Grade 6 teacher, had the kids read about the history of St. Patrick’s Day, and then answer questions about the passage.  I was doing fine with all that.  Then he challenged them with word scrambles – decoding twenty terms from the reading.  Pairs of kids worked diligently to rearrange the letters.  Looking over many shoulders, I saw the lists gradually being filled in.  A few kids came over one by one, to ask if I’d figured out #11 yet, or #4.  I said no and suggested they look for the possibility of a silent “e” at the end of a word, or search for consonant blends such “ch” or “st”.  I sounded fairly intelligent, at least in my own hearing.

But what was true?

I didn’t have a clue.  Eleven-year-olds were proceeding merrily towards completion of the twenty but all I’d accomplished was “iswh” is “wish” and “camgi” is “magic”.  Sweat piled up on my brow as I realized I was unable to solve “Ieardnl”, “rogaen”, “evlorc” or “enrge”.

As they say, my whole life flashed before me … times when I clearly wasn’t good enough, times when everyone else seemed to be better.  Failing a French test, falling down continually in my version of skating, piddling around the shallow end while my classmates did laps in the pool.  It’s so powerful, this pull of assumed inferiority.  Today I didn’t have the eyes to see my many good points.  They simply didn’t exist when I couldn’t recognize “clover” within the jumble of my mind.

I was asleep to what’s real.  The challenge for me is to wake up ever more quickly rather than thinking I can eliminate the moments of ignorance, deficiency and angst.

Now, with the benefit of hours between there and here, I smile.  Actually I chuckle.  What a silly goose to be defining my self-worth on my ability to turn “rogaen” into … into … “orange”!

Ahh.  There’s hope for me yet.