Tuneful Tuesday and Wednesday's Words of Wisdom (Week 1)

I'm planning on making these regular posts, but of course the first week is "off."

On "Tuneful Tuesday" I hope to share songs that have touched my heart and focused my attention on needful things, or that have opened my mind to the bigger reality. I hope you like the songs and that you share songs with me in the comments.

Walking to the bus this morning I listened to one of my favorite songs.  The chorus always sticks in my head for hours - days - after listening: "Turn off, turn off this song. Find someone to love. Turn off this song, you can listen to is later - Go outside."

My heart seems to open a bit every time I hear the refrain (which inner or outer ears). I feel that call to be outside - not in the elements out of doors - but outside my "self."  I hear these lyrics are calling on my to step outside, however impossibly, of my own ego tunnel. To love. To immerse myself in the reality that is so much bigger than myself.  When I "turn off the song," I am turning off the story in my head - the story that tells me what the world is and instead actually experience the world. When I listen to this song I hear Byron Katie asking me who I would be without my story and Eckhart Tolle asking me what I would experience if I moved beyond the labels and words in my mind.  Did the songwriter actually mean for me to hear all of this in the lyrics? Does it matter?

. . .

I hope to share good poems, quotes, art, and so forth in "Wednesday's Words of Wisdom". I come across so many wonderful words during the day - probably due to my habit of reading wonderful books and so forth. And I feel a desire to share. :D

Today I would like to share a poem that has been a part of my life for 20 years now. I first read this poem in college and it hit me with such a heavy force and presence. As I read it, my heart settled into my chest and my soul said, "This is true." After reading the poem I could only sit there in a timeless silent state of "Yes." And then, when I re-entered waking time, I thought, "What am I going to do with this truth?" And I've just kept asking myself the same question over and over.

The poem came to me this morning as I spoke with my beloved friend J. We were talking about how we are willing to spend money we normally wouldn't spend, if the money blesses the lives of others and rewards them for good work. J told me how she gets more massages than she "needs" because she wants to support to good work of her therapist, who she also knows is struggling financially. She talked about how she pays another person to care for her yard because the person does it so well and they could use the money. J could hire a landscaping company rather than the woman in her neighborhood and save some money. She could get a massage from one of those strip-mall places, rather than using the services of someone she knows personally. But where's the fun in that?

Where and how we spend our money, our time, our resources, creates the world we live in. And I would like to spend my riches on a world that values the usefulness of every soul.

My conversation with J got me thinking about how often it is that the cheapest way to get a job done is also the worst way. How cheap jobs devalue the soul of the worker and do little to enrich the larger community. Whereas a job done right, by someone you know and with whom you have a long-term communal relationship, builds not only the soul of the worker but of everyone who benefits from the job well done.

For example, our family has chosen to purchase most of our food from local businesses - and when we can, local growers. It is so lovely to known the individuals who grow the food that lets me live, who arrange for that food to be transported from the farm to my table. I know that our money is supporting local sustainability and independence.  And when I bless the meal, thanking All That Is for the food we are eating and the many hands that brought the food to our table, my children know whose hands I'm talking about.

And here is the poem:

To be of use
by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
from Circles on the Water. © Alfred A. Knopf.