Hi everyone,
It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 360.
And we're still working with Generosity,
The first Para Mita.
And it's really interesting to me how many ways there are to understand generosity.
So today,
Let's look at the generosity of courage,
Political activism and interconnection.
And I really like that today is Wake Up Call 360,
Because in a way,
These three forms of generosity are an invitation to take a 360 degree view.
To me,
The generosity of courage,
Political activism and interconnection are about supporting people who deserve our support.
And when I say people who deserve our support,
In air quotes,
I mean anyone who is marginalized in or by society.
And I'll try for a better definition in a minute.
And when I say our support,
In air quotes,
I mean the support of those of us with privilege.
And in a way,
All of us here have a certain kind of privilege in the sense that we're highly educated.
We have the privilege of understanding how things work and specifically how the law works,
Which is a huge window into understanding how the world works and how systems that influence and oppress work.
And if we're practicing law,
We're also privileged because we have a solid way of earning a living.
Maybe not an easy way or simple way,
But a solid way.
And so our education affords us a number of other things as well,
Greater access than we'd have without it,
Whether that's literal access because we can represent someone or an institution or a group trying to dismantle an institution,
Or whether that's perceived access as in,
Oh,
She's a lawyer,
So she must be smart.
Let's give her a seat at the table.
And so because of that access,
We also have the privilege of being able to influence other people,
Institutions,
Governments as well.
Having a law degree or being a member of the bar doesn't de facto confer that influence upon us.
But if we want it,
We can probably get it or at least we can get it more easily than a non-lawyer can.
So just for today,
That's the hour when I'm saying courage,
Political activism and interconnection can form a kind of triumvirate of generosity towards people who deserve our support.
And those who need support are all marginalized people.
And by that today,
I'm meaning anyone who for any reason,
Race,
Ethnicity,
Religion,
Sexual orientation,
Gender,
Nationality,
Immigration status,
Ability,
Body size or type,
Even something as benign as the schools or seemingly benign as the schools they attended,
Or marginalized for any reason,
Whether or not they identify as having or embodying that reason and who's therefore at risk from suffering from or actually suffers from bias or prejudice or any kind of systemic aversion or injustice.
OK,
So big tent definition.
And I'm going to start with the last of these three kinds of generosity,
The generosity of interconnection.
And to me,
This sounds like so much of mindfulness or it is like so much of mindfulness,
Very simple and not so very easy.
Because,
You know,
It may be that our default in 2022,
Given the world as it is,
It may be that our DNA default is to be tribal,
Is to be family oriented,
Self-centered mammals.
You know,
In my life,
I can say I share an affinity for those who share my hometown,
My schools,
My religion of birth,
Which I still identify very much with,
My political views,
My gender and various other identities and social locations.
And I'm as guilty as maybe as guilty as most of us,
Maybe more guilty than most of us here of seeing other people who are outside of those affinity groups of mine as other.
I mentioned here on the wake up call that in my family of origin,
Everyone was either Jewish or not Jewish.
One was the in crowd who could be my friends in whose houses we visited and which included the boys I was allowed to date.
And the other was just other,
You know,
Enough said is what my father would have said or he didn't actually he didn't even have to say that.
Right.
And sure,
This was a long time ago,
But interconnection is completely different from that.
You know,
It's the opposite of that.
It's the understanding,
The felt sense,
The verified personal truth.
And each of us has to verify that for ourselves.
That as humans,
You know,
As mammals,
As earthlings,
We are all completely,
Irrevocably interconnected.
My flat tire affects everyone on the road and everyone they were trying to meet and everyone they are in relationship with all the way to the last of the almost eight billion of us,
Not even counting the non-humans.
Right.
The air I breathe out,
You breathe in.
Sorry,
Maybe it's a bad metaphor these days.
I'm negative.
OK,
So the generosity of interconnection,
The generosity of interconnection.
I wrote that word in italics is remembering this.
It's just remembering this.
You know,
Yesterday it took me an hour to get it through to DHL,
The shipping company.
And the person I finally got on the line was in a phone center.
And they're my sibling.
Now,
The person down the hall from me or across the table or who once sat in a courtroom with me in any of the chairs,
Also my sibling.
And in that moment,
You know,
Can they be my favorite sibling?
Can we be as generous to these siblings we've never met,
May never meet,
May never share a tribe or a culture or a heritage or a skin color or affinity of any kind?
Yeah.
Can we be as generous with these siblings as we are with our favorite person from this recollection that we're all irrevocably interconnected?
Because it isn't a discovery.
It's a recollection.
Sati,
The Pali word for mindfulness,
To recollect,
To recollect the present moment and to recollect that we belong to one another.
And maybe to recollect that this is not news.
The generosity of interconnection.
So the generosity of political action then for me is about political action that remembers interconnection in the moment.
It could also be big political action.
But just for now,
Just for this morning afternoon,
For this talk and staying small,
Maybe small but mighty.
Right.
I want to invite everyone,
Myself,
Everyone here together to imagine the personal day to day,
Moment to moment generosity of political action as standing up for someone who doesn't feel comfortable or isn't safe standing up for themselves.
Advocating for partnership for a person of color,
Hiring someone who is transgender,
Saying something with kindness,
But with seriousness when your kids or mine start disparaging someone in the privacy of our own family room because of their body size.
The generosity of small but mighty political action.
The generosity of courage,
I would submit being a lawyer,
Takes interconnection and political action to the next level.
To me,
The generosity of courage is not just standing up for someone,
But standing beside them,
Saying out loud,
This is my sibling.
I stand behind her.
And I stand beside her.
Or him or them.
They are my people.
They are my beloved.
They are my responsibility.
I stand beside them.
And I want you to know that anything you have to say to them or about them,
You are saying to me or about me.
Yesterday,
My daughter went with a classmate to be her support person at an academic hearing for this classmate who is on probation because of faltering.
And my daughter has dealt with mental health issues,
And so she went at some personal risk to herself for being identified as supporting this person.
And she sat beside her.
And I'm proud of my kid for a lot of reasons,
But.
This,
At the moment,
Sits at the top of the heap,
The generosity of having the courage to be the person who stands beside or sits beside and says out loud.
I acknowledge we're connected.
As this small but mighty.
Political act.
To say to others,
This person is my sibling.
We are both earthlings.
We are all earthlings.
Or in the parlance of my family of origin,
We are all Jewish.
So let's sit.
Finding a comfortable posture,
And although you might be finding a comfortable posture,
If there is some discomfort,
Finding a way to be with that just for a few moments for our sit.
Locating the breath or.
If the ambient sound is a better object for your awareness,
Locating the sound in your environment or the breath in the body.
And just relaxing with whatever is here.
Right now.
I.
I.
And now maybe calling to mind someone.
Someone who stood beside you.
At some point in your life,
Maybe you were a little kid,
Maybe it just happened last week.
But is there someone who stood beside you,
Who stood up for you and stood beside you?
In the sense of gratitude that you might have felt and maybe feel now.
Understandable?
And maybe even saying silently to that person in your imagination.
Thank you.
Thank you for your generosity.
Thank you.
And maybe you've been the generous one,
The person to stand up for and stand beside someone,
Someone who needed your support.
Maybe you do that every day.
Maybe that's your work.
Or maybe you've just done it once.
Calling to mind that moment of literally getting to your feet and coming and standing beside someone or sitting next to them.
Shoulder to shoulder.
And feeling now in your body that sense of not just purpose,
Not just I have to do this,
I would do this no matter what,
That I know many of you,
Because I know many of you,
I know many of you feel,
But also that sense of generosity.
This is something I have to give,
Not I have to give,
I have to give and I have given it.
And being grateful to yourself for your own generosity.
Thank you.
Thank you everyone for being on the wake up call today and sitting together and yeah,
Maybe take this with you.
If it's resonant,
Take this gratitude with you.
I'll see you next week.
