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Horizons Magazine

More about Andrea

OCTOBER 2002
Criminal defense clients; We're All Doing Time; personality conflicts;
relationships are mirrors; creating Heaven where you are, right now

Hello and welcome to the October 2002 issue of Horizons Magazine.
Usually as I'm writing my October editorial each year, it's mid September and
a hurricane is brewing just off the coast. I'm typically sitting in my rocker at
 midnight, laptop on my knees, thankful for battery backup as a storm rages
across Melbourne. So it feels odd to sit here at noon on a sunny, bright, hot and humid day this time of year writing to you.

It's hard to believe I've been doing Horizons Magazine for over ten years, and I feel I've just begun. In the past, I typically changed jobs every 3 years, usually to earn more money. Having been a criminal defense paralegal for 22 years, the work was all the same: same legal documents to prepare, same judges to set hearings with, same prosecutors and defense co-counsel to deal with, same law enforcement officers, same bail bondsmen and bailiffs and, for the most part, same charges. All that ever changed was the name of the clients and the name of the attorneys I worked for.

I loved my work and enjoyed being able to talk to the clients, who were often in jail or headed there. They were kind of a trapped audience - which was great for me * hehe * First-timers would talk about how they were freaking out about jail time, and I'd send them a copy of Bo Lozoff's We're All Doing Time, which encourages inmates to consider their incarceration time as a self imposed monastic retreat, during which they work on self improvement. It's a great book for anyone who's handicapped as well, or imprisoned by their own thoughts and beliefs. It gives suggestions for how to spend your time - and where to place your thoughts - during confinement of any kind.

Inmates can call collect from jail to their attorney, so I frequently spoke to several clients a day. I'd remind them, "Don't look around, look up. Don't get wrapped up in the politics between the inmates there, cuz that's only asking for trouble. Do your time and get outa there and back into your life." I'd give them easy breath meditation techniques to calm their anxiety. I'd suggest they journal while they had powerful emotions going on. When they'd proclaim their innocence, I'd jokingly remind them they may be in there for what they didn't get caught for more than what they did get caught for.

I'd remind them "if God wants you outa jail, man can't keep you in jail." If they could, through contemplation, prayer and journalling, come to an understanding of what their lesson regarding their situation was, they'd likely have some big breaks as far as sentencing and/or early release. Many of them agreed that what I said somehow made sense. I always had a good rapport with the clients, and two things I was good at were tracking people down and getting clients to turn themselves in. And there was no big trick to doing that. Okay, tracking them down had lots to do with following intuitive hunches, but talking them into surrendering to the authorities merely had to do with me talking to them one on one, making a personal connection with them, maybe telling them the results I'd seen of every other case like theirs, and letting them know the worst they could expect to happen, which was all dependent on their previous record and current charges.
I'd spend time hearing what they wanted to do once their time was served, and I'd encourage them in their goals. I'd let them talk about their concerns over their loved ones, and help them reframe past events so they could release their anger and fear. I'd let them talk to me about what was important to them, and how they were feeling. Invariably, by the end of our talk they'd be looking forward to putting their past behind them, doing their time, and getting back into society in a productive way. Some did, some didn't. I'd also speak with the families, to ease their concerns and give them something to look forward to. It didn't always work, but if there was even one - and I know there were dozens - that took comfort in what I said and it made a difference to them, then my work was not in vain. Kinda like "whoever is before you is your multitude, and you serve them the best you can."

In emotional situations such as that, it's difficult not to fall into the downward spiral of negative thoughts and scary what-if's. Yet a place like jail is the ideal proving ground. If you choose to keep your thoughts toward future goals in the midst of the chaos of jail, that's instrumental in making your lesson be learned quickly and easily.

"Relationship with others," says Amrit Desai, "particularly those we are closest to, is the fieldwork for spirituality." It's really true that our relationships with those around us are mirrors that reveal the best and worst in us. It took me a long time to realize that, and even longer to realize that I could learn lessons about my past through my relationships in the present.

For many years, whenever I had a personality conflict with anyone, I simply avoided that person. Problem solved. Or so I thought. Without exception, someone new would come into my life with whom I experienced the same personality conflict over the same issues as the one I left behind. One day I finally "got it," that if I stayed and resolved the conflict with just one of these people, I'd stop getting that lesson. I discovered that I'd encounter the same types of challenges and lessons through a variety of people, until I stopped the cycle by working through the conflict, rather than avoiding it by bailing out before it was resolved.

From time to time, I see conflicts between members of various local groups I attend, usually to do with politics or who's the biggest dog, or who knows the right way, or who decides how money is spent, blah, blah, blah. Invariably, a disgruntled few will leave and form their own group, and meet on the same night at a different location. This new group will be by invitation only ~ to keep out the riff raff from the previous group, ya know *smile* You've seen it happen. It makes me think what the early church must have been like, with all the denominations deciding what was allowed in "their" Bible.

It's a human condition: we form groups to discuss meaningful personal growth and spirituality, yet we don't recognize when we're being presented with an opportunity for real growth and healing! It's like we're in a cartoon: we keep asking for something and then refuse to open our eyes to notice it's being handed to us on a platter. It makes me think of the fundamentalist groups that talk about God and heaven as if it's a far off place in some theoretical future. They really don't see that heaven and hell is available to them right now, where they stand, to the extent they can see it. They don't realize they are experiencing God right now, where they stand, to the extent they recognize it. They don't recognize it because they've not been taught to see it. They're not stupid, just ignorant - as in unaware and uninformed. It's just a matter of perception; they don't know what to look for.

It can be heaven having a support group of loving friends around in times of need. It can be hell when those you love fight among themselves and want you to take sides. It's easy to see God at work when Christopher Reeve regains feeling in his paralyzed limbs. But God was also at work when he fell off the horse in the first place. To see God at work in everything around you is to experience heaven on earth.

You can help bring a little heaven on earth to others as well. You can be the one in the office who remains upbeat when everyone else is stressed. You can be the one at Thanksgiving with the family to ask everyone what their best news was this past year. You can be the one who, when friends begin to gossip, says something nice about the one they're discussing. You can be the one who makes waiting in the grocery line fun and bearable on a Friday evening when everyone just wants to get home. You can be the one who writes notes to everyone who's ever done anything you're thankful for. You can be the one in traffic who lets the extra guy in, just because it's no big deal. You can be the one who pays the toll for the driver behind you. You can be the one who puts an extra quarter in the parking meter. You can be the one who overtips the waitress. You can choose to be that one. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to become that one. You can be the lightbearer in your own sphere of influence, whether that's in an office with 30 others, or at home raising your children. It's all a matter of perception - how you perceive life and how you choose to react to it.

Enjoy our offering this month. Hari Om.