Q-BLOG #27 Empty Spaces

Empty spaces have been on my mind. What they look like, how they form, what they create for each of us. Even how we can ignore them or want to fill them up. I even wonder if empty spaces or places are indeed empty. Often the idea of empty space seems almost bad. We seem to have a need or desire when we see an empty space, to want to fill it. We place a negative connotation to it as in whether the jar is half empty or half full. This week, I’m wondering why we have such an attitude towards empty space. I wrote this poem and drew this picture (attached).

Empty Spaces

Our lives are filled
With activity beyond our
Capacity.

Moving in and out
Of our consciousness
Looking for our foundation…

Grounded to moving bases
Of our busy days and nights,
Always moving…

Wondering if there are
Empty spaces in our lives…

To breathe…
To release….
To catch ourselves before we fall.

Wondering if the prayer we pray
for our world, for our family…for ourselves
will only be lost in the confusion.

Plans and appointments
Fill our calendar.
Work and responsibility seem all we live for.

Our time must be used wisely
we are told… “Fill that jar with those big tasks first,
Then fill the empty spaces.”

We have filled the empty spaces so well
That we can no longer breathe.

Take a pause.

Close your eyes.

Empty the jar slowly.

Keep some empty space….and breathe!

20 May 06, Baghdad, Iraq
Robert L. Quintana

This past week my friend Jim wrote in his Blog how the movie ‘The DaVinci Code’ affected him and defined how his experience has led him to his current belief system. He received quite a few comments from folks who read his blog. Some of the comments may be evidence that indeed, we have a need for more empty space in our lives.

We are so often distracted by so many things in this world that we do not take the time or the opportunity to remain quite and ˜listen to that little voice’ from the depth of our soul. Sometimes the distractions are things we consider bad. Most times the distractions are things we consider good. Take the story of Mary and Martha as an example. Mary wants to sit and listen to Jesus speak. Martha instead wants Mary to assist her with the preparation of dinner. Jesus rebukes Martha letting her know that listening is more important at the moment than preparing dinner. So often we busy ourselves in preparation for ourselves and others that we cannot hear that ˜little voice’ speaking to us. Instead we work ourselves away from what is divine. We leave little empty space in our lives to listen. This keeps us in our comfort zone where we do not need to question our lives.

When we do no allow ourselves some empty space, we can hear the Divine within us and listen for the Divine in others. If we busy ourselves with our tasks of preparation, we close ourselves off from the Divine. In the bible, it was those that appeared to be the most religious and/or holy men, the ones that followed the letter of the law, these are the ones that plotted against Jesus. An often used example is the good Samaritan. He was, by all accounts not a religious person. Yet, he listened to the divine within himself and heard the divine of the stranger. The three religious who passed the stranger and did not assist him were unable to listen to the divine within themselves or the divine of the stranger. They may have followed the letter of the religious law, but neglected the heart and spirit of the law. When we close ourselves to others different from us, we close ourselves to the divine. There is no empty space for the divine to visit or live.

Emptiness can leave you hungry. It can leave you lonely. It can leave you confused and open to things unknown. It can be your testing ground. A full stomach only throws good food aside. An empty stomach takes what food it can and makes the best of it. Such is the mind and the heart. Jesus went out into the emptiness of the desert to face his temptations and discover the Divine within himself.

Empty Spaces.

Namaste!
May the divine in me greet the divine in you.

Blessings and Peace.

Robert

Q-BLOG #23 Finding a Gracious Heart

This was originally written as part of my 1st series of Blogs from Iraq. The original date is 07 Oct 2005. I now post it to this Blog site. Robert


As I move closer to leaving, I find myself thinking about how much I will miss being in Iraq. Everyday I am reminded of what grace is. I find it and see it in the people I encounter and with whom I interact . They are simple things really. I walk into the PX and am instantly greeted with smiles, a hello, a handshake and hand to the heart, an embrace or a gentle holding of my arm and hand so I don’t rush off. Or the offers to assist me in “fixing” my bad back or questioning if indeed I am better. There have been invitations to homes that are as far away as mine. I have no doubt these invitations and concern are genuine.

Today at lunch we had a young soldier sit next to us in the dining hall. Catherine, who is the General Manager for the Baghdad area and is also known as ‘Mama Jones’, noticed that this soldier needed a little of our attention. He had is head in his hands and seemed quite alone. Catherine spoke to him and asked him where he was from. We conversed with him a while longer. Before the conversation ended, this young man had Catherine and I on the verge of tears. Why? Because he wanted to thank us for being here and bringing what he thought was a little bit of home. He said, ‘I know this isn’t much coming from someone like me, but I want to thank you for being here. It makes life just a little bit easier knowing what I can get at the PX.’

As we held back our tears, we told him that it actually meant more to us coming from him. He is the reason we are here. He and all the other Soldiers, Marines, Seamen and Airmen, are the reason we are here. It is the reason we exist as a company.

Being here in Iraq and finding… no, discovering this gracious heart and those of our employees from Iraq, the US and other countries, has given me faith in humanity and renewed my belief in what the AAFES mission is. There is nothing more important than being here, body, mind and spirit, for these men and women…our customers.

Finding a gracious heart is often about allowing oneself to receive the gifts that others offer. This reminds me of an incident several years ago where I decided to pick up the tab for a lunch I was invited to. I was scolded afterward by the person I was dating. He told me that receiving a gift was as important as giving a gift. What I had done in picking up this tab from someone who had invited us to lunch, was to take away their joy of giving. I had never even thought about it this way. I wondered how many times through the years I had basically taken the joy of giving from someone else.

Every day I am learning about receiving the gift of people; their love, their joy, their compassion. For much of my life I’ve been independent. To receive any gift, not just material gifts, but gifts of love and offers for help, has not been easy. Much has changed in me for I am no longer the same. I am learning to accept gifts and have found a humbleness in that act. It is opening my heart and my soul. The brick wall I have built is beginning to come down. It is frightening and exciting at the same time.

Iraq, this mystical land of old, is re-teaching me lessons and showing me what a gracious heart is and how to identify it even through the walls I have created. Invitations are not only gifts to enter another’s space, but a gift to open your heart to being humble and gracious.

May you learn to receive the gifts that are offered and find great joy in the gift of giving to others. Both are blessings and both can leave you with abundance in your heart.

Blessings and peace. Choose love not fear.

Robert

Q-BLOG #26 Man or Machine?

It continues to amaze me how thoughts enter ones head and certainly, how events can trigger an emotion, a thought you did not realize you had. Maybe you just forgot it. Maybe it was there, implanted before you were born. Maybe.

A thought that has continued to enter my consciousness this week has been the verse to a song we sang in church when I was a child. Maybe some of you recognize it.

“What so ever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.”

The context is not purely religious. It can certainly be cosmic, universal, pagan or whatever you decide or choose it to be. The thought, the meaning behind the words is in essence, ‘treat others as you would have them treat you.’ As easy as this would seem, it is much more obvious that the application is much more difficult. Why? My theory is fear. I find so much fear, certainly in my own decisions, but also in decisions we make as a collective. I also find myself laughing because of the hypocrisy in those decisions.

Please don’t get me wrong (fear talking here!). I understand the context, the reasoning, the fear behind the thoughts. I have them too. Yet when I have time to think about it, calmly, without the distractions of materialism and the constant messages of fear and greed, I can only hear one thing in my soul of souls. “Love. Love others as you would Love…”.

As a nation, many claim that we are a nation built on the principles of the bible and God. That may be, but being built on those principles obviously does not translate into acting on them.

In Iraq, we have many workers from other countries. Many of these workers are well educated in many different fields. Here they are working as laborers, custodians, cashiers, supervisors, drivers, trash collectors. They have left their families, spent thousands of dollars to get a job here for less than half of what a Westerner makes, to provide a better life for their families. They deal with many hardships to achieve this better life. Many Westerners, especially American’s look at these fellow human beings as being less than human. They are sometimes treated as being stupid or less equal. We, I, shouldn’t be surprised. We treat each other similarly. We create class divides, income divides, social and racial divides. We forget that we are all humans. I’ve seen and heard managers, supervisors and colleagues talk about how badly they may be treated by their supervisors, only to see them treat people the same way.

Laws don’t change people’s minds or actions. Laws only reflect minds and actions of the people. It feels more and more like we are a rope that is being slowly untwined.

I wrote several pieces of poetry for a series of Art work titled “Humanity” that my friend Jim Frederick created. I share some of them with you here. Think about humanity. Not as something separate, but something collective that each of us is connected to and how what one part of this collective does, affects all the other parts.

Shroud of the Trinity

• Shroud of the Trinity
• Shroud of Humanity
• One overlapping the other…
• The other shining through its cover
• A simple shadow of what was
• A Shadow of the hope of what could be
• Shroud of the Trinity
• Shroud of Humanity
• Intertwining all that was
• Into all that is and still can be.
• A vision into the past
• With an eye on the future…
• Parent, Child and Spirit.
• Mind, Heart and Soul.
• Traces of the Trinity,
• The future of Humanity.
• Blending into one,
• Yet remaining separate…
• Giving hope to those in the shadow
• And sending a message to those outside the shadow.
• Shroud of the Trinity.
• Shroud of Humanity.
• Map of the past,
• Mapping the future.

MAN or MACHINE?

• We live in a world
• That makes us believe
• We are machine.
• Productivity
• And an endless lack of creativity…
• Do this!...Do that!
• REPEAT!!
• REPEAT!!
• REPEAT!!
• Are we Man or Machine?
• Thinking has left our brain Responsibility is not ours, instead there
• Are all the ‘others’ to lay the blame.
• Passing those we choose not to see,
• Not saying hello, goodbye or
• Go to hell!
• Are we Man or Machine?
• Tears are few in our memory…
• Well, except if we loose all our money…or
• Many other unimportant things.
• Are we Man or Machine?
• Emotions are gone.
• Our hearts are cold
• Our greed (fear?) is what rules
• But there still might be
• A shimmer of hope…
• For this time, this century of humanity.
• Are we Man or Machine?

Find your love. Overcome your fear.

Peace and Blessings!

Robert

Q-Blog #25, DO!

My return to Iraq has been quite interesting. In many ways things are the same and yet, there is a difference. This is neither good nor bad. It just is.

AAFES, the US military and contractors have learned from the experience of these past three years and have matured to a degree. Humvee’s are better equipped to go out on patrol, we now have a water plant, roads are paved and there is a significant improvement in overall living conditions. Listening to people who were not previously here, you would think that nothing has been accomplished and that we have a long way to go. For those who had/have been here previously, you hear the contradiction of how far we have come and how much things have improved. They (we) are happy, if not satisfied, with where things are now. There is more to do, but much has been done.

Last year I wrote a Blog on perspective. It talked about how easy it is to lose sight of reality because we tend to see things through the filters of our experience and prejudices. I believe each of us needs to do what Robin Williams asked his class to do in the movie, ‘Dead Poets Society’. He asked them to first look at things around them as they sat. Then he asked them to stand up on their desks and look at the same things around them, but from a different perspective.

The reality I see is that we have come a long way, but we still have work to do. We are still in a war zone. We do have our experiences, our history and knowledge of where we want to be. The challenge is finding a place, a middle ground, from which to work; a place where judgment is not being passed. Instead we are working towards a mutual goal. We are working towards that place where we want to be.

The process is not exclusive to organizations; it applies to our lives as well. I find myself in a constant battle between the part of me that realizes how far I’ve come and the part of me that knows how much work I’ve yet to do. I can hear my own time clock tick, tick, ticking away and I wonder if there will be sufficient time. The moment I write those words, I suddenly hear the voice of my friends Jim Frederick and Billy Miller, who are wonderful examples of how we ought to live life. They tell me and others to simply, “ Live life by DOING!” Not live life by “thinking” about doing, or “putting off” doing, but everyday, DO something towards your goal. The goal of the person you intend on being, the profession you intend on working in. DO something, anything, towards the physical, emotional, spiritual and mental manifestation of the gifts you possess and the self actualized person the universe intends you to be.

I’ve been blessed with other friends who have gone out and DONE things to move them to who they are. Trish, Tom, Tim, Eddie, Jay, Susan, my sister Angela and others who have gone against the norms of society, not only seeking their gifts, but moved towards them by DOING. Their gift(s) as a person of the spirit, a social worker, an instructor, Flamenco dancer or artist were then realized. Their gifts—our gifts--create a connection between humanity and our spiritual selves.

Each decade of my life I’ve been able to apply a name or a general label. Something that described the emotional level or stage that seemed to stand out when I looked back. The Child. The Dreamer. The Worker. The Lover. As I approach the conclusion of another decade of my life I know that I want to apply the label, The Doer. Though I believe I’ve worked hard most of my life, I have yet to DO enough of the things that will lead me to….well, me and the gifts I have.

My once partner Jim J. is an incredibly gifted human being. Beyond having the highest IQ of anyone I know, he has an incredible ability to remove his filters and view a situation, a circumstance, an event, from a bird’s eye view. He can argue or support any side and every side. That is not his greatest gift. His greatest gift is his ability to see all sides and find the ground of consensus that would be in the best interest of all involved. As we look at our world, our government, our families and our own lives, wouldn’t it be great to have someone like Jim to help us cut through our filters and move to do that which would benefit everyone? In fact, wouldn’t it be great if WE just ‘stood up on our desk’, looked at things from a ‘bird’s eye view’ removing our own filters and making the decisions that were best for all humanity?

As Jim Frederick has said to me over and over and over again, “…you just have to start DOING it…and the rest will come.”

Climb up on a desk, car, mountain or any other thing that will give you a different perspective. Take a breath in and remove your filters. See past your experiences and your prejudices, then breathe out. Now, start doing.

DO choose LOVE over fear.

Blessings and Peace,

Robert….