Polarizing Figures

August 12, 2014
             Day 104

You're a polarizing figure when you constantly divide people into "us" and "them".  People who do this seem to think if someone believes one thing differently, they're automatically part of another group they don't want to be associated with. 

Star Wars taught me a great line a few years ago that's stayed with me.  Anakin Skywalker (the future Darth Vader) yells to Obi-Wan Kenobi, "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy!"  Obi-Wan frowns, and then scolds back at him, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes!"

We're all such vastly different people, and what seems to surprise us in this new age of technology and social media is that we're already close to the people we'd have otherwise "thrown away" as our enemies.

Social media is slowly teaching us that we're all connected to one another much more than we realize, and we're learning over time that we really are much more different than we thought.  We see friends and family members answer differently than we would have to random quizzes and surveys, we see them share things we'd never in a million years think is funny, and we see in a million ways all the time how many things we're all choosing to care differently about. 

It's helpful to remember though, that a polarizer is a good thing in camera work.  To quote Wikipedia, a polarizer "can convert a beam of light of undefined or mixed polarization into a beam with well-defined polarization".  The part of that line that jumps out to me right away is "well-defined".  When something or someone is polarizing, they are well defined.  We know who they are and what they believe.  Even if they are polarizing, pushing people into boxes, and making this world into an unnecessary game of us vs. them, they have at least shown us who they are.  They are standing firm in their beliefs, whether politically, socially, or fiscally.  When they do this, we can choose to avoid them or choose to gravitate toward them based on what they believe.

Either way, we are already surrounded by polarizing figures in our lives on social media, and it's forcing us to accept the many differences we all have.  More importantly, we should remember that for some, we ourselves are sometimes those polarizing figures we think we only see elsewhere!

May The Fourth Be With You

May 4, 2014.

"May the fourth be with you" is a funny phrase playing on a cool cultural quote from Star Wars: "May the force be with you", but what is the force, and why do we "pray" that it be with someone?  The answer to the second part is simple: we don't need to hope it is with someone, because it already is.  If anything, we're requesting that the person tap into the force.  Turn off their soul's visors and just believe.  Answering the first part, about what the force is?  Well, that's a little trickier.

I don't know why I've had such an interesting life, but I believe I have.  I'm the son of a mother whose first husband was tragically killed when he was just 29 years old, leaving my mom suffering his loss while nine months pregnant with their fifth child, the four others all still under 6 years old.  And I'm the son of a poet and writer who was known all around JFK Airport in Queens as The Poet Laureate of Kennedy Airport, a title even astronaut Frank Borman recognized him for.  My father had lost his first wife to breast cancer at a very young age too, leaving him an immigrant widow from Ireland now with four small children to raise on his own in this new country.  My mother raised her first five children, then helped raise my father's first four children, and then had me and then my younger sister on top of that.  Giving birth and giving love were two of her greatest achievements in life.  And my father was constantly giving his gifts as a writer to his friends, family, and colleagues at Eastern Airlines and JFK Airport.  So right from the start, I was born into a family that knew profound suffering and grief, but also knew how to give, and give beautifully.

The force is strong in my family.

I was a well behaved little kid for the most part, and loved serving mass as an altar boy and later Bishop's Server at St. Agnes Cathedral on Long Island.  It was there on June 26, 1986 that I heard Mother Teresa speak about vocations.  I don't remember exactly what she said, but maybe something special clicked with me, because two months after I turned 18, I joined a monastery, and became Brother Sean.  I lived there under the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience until the summer after I turned 22.  Four of the most formative years of my life were spent learning about who God was, and who I was created to be.  And in the years since then, I have also learned who God is not, and how much more God's love matters than the tenets of any book or religious practice. 

I've been a gay pride activist, I've been a Humanitarian of the Year recipient, I've been a Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol Deputy, I've been a monk, I've been a poet, and I've been an author of books. 

The force is strong with me.

I don't know why the force is strong with me, but I do know the exact date my life changed forever.  It wasn't when I was born or when I heard Mother Teresa speak.  It wasn't on my pilgrimage to Rome or on any of my trips to Ireland, England, France, Hawaii, Trinidad and Tobago, Italy, Mexico, or Canada.  It also wasn't when I was called to be a monk, or when I published my first book, or when I published my second book.  It wasn't any of the times I heard Pope John Paul II speak in person, or even when I gazed on the bones of St. Peter himself, just a few feet away from me.  And it wasn't when I announced for the first time that I was gay, or when I first met my partner Andy.  All of these and many more occasions no doubt transformed me, and grew me into the soul I am today, but it was a death event, and not a life event, that really changed me forever.

When my father died, he appeared to me on a Long Island Rail Road train as I was rushing home to be with him at his deathbed.  The moment was brief, perhaps all of 10 seconds, maybe 15?  But it was the realest, truest life experience I have ever had, and it showed me without a shadow of a doubt that this earthly body we wear is not who we really are, and the soul does in absolute fact transcend to some higher reality.  On August 26, 1999, just a few months before the end of the 20th Century, my life began again.

The force is strong with all of us.

Many don't believe.  It's less that they refuse to believe, and more that they just haven't been shown proof, and no amount of talking about it will ever change this.  And that's...fine.  As a believer, I don't want to be the type of "spiritual type" who's constantly trying to get people to believe.  Instead, I think it's my responsibility to talk about my experiences, and share them with others.  I'm a writer.  It's who I am, not just who I profess to be.  And as a writer, I have a story to tell.  I have many, many stories to tell, in fact, and not just my own.  I have your stories to tell as well as my own, and I do try to tell them in my fictional writing.  I create characters based on people I've known, and I weave storylines around your beliefs and struggles, not just my own. 

It is my firm belief that whether people believe it or not, there is a strong force at work in all of our lives.  We don't need to define it as God, or source, or energy, or karma, or anything that will unsettle us in any way.  But I do believe we can honor the mystery and mysteries of life by choosing to set time aside to reflect on them.  We don't have to do this every day, but I do believe honoring the unknown is a wonderful way to appreciate both the unknown and the known around us. 

By admitting we are vastly unanswered wanderers, we can appreciate just how much more we are open to learning. 

I don't know if "force" is the best word, but it'll be the word for today.  It'll be the word people use jokingly for the most part, but it will also carry a profound truth about who we are, and who we might become one day.

So yeah, I'll say it.  May the force be with you.  And more importantly, may you always be open to the force.  Even Luke Skywalker learned to close his eyes and believe before he really, really started to see.