May you feel the angels that always surround you! Next week, I’ll be engaging in the spiritual practice of rest and will not publish a new post. However, I’ll be back in two weeks. Have a wonderful two weeks! This post is about the spiritual practice of Being A Member Of A Loving Community.
My first semester of graduate school at MIT ended just before Christmas. I was excited to spend the holidays with my parents. However, before I left for vacation, I had a massively important task… buying Christmas gifts for two little ones. A few years before I enrolled in MIT, my sister made me an auntie. When she told me about her first bundle of joy, I decided to be the “cool auntie,” which meant, in part, buying every single fun toy for the newest addition to our family. Buying fun toys for a baby was easy. If the toy was squishy, brightly colored and could be put in a baby’s mouth, it was usually a hit.
However, by the time I was a first year student at MIT, my niece and nephew were 6 and 3 years old, respectively. They were past the “baby toys” phase and were ready for big kid toys! This meant that I needed help to select the awesomest toys known to humankind. Why? When I give a gift, I do my best to make sure that the recipient will love the gift. Accomplishing this for a 6 and a 3 year old meant playing with toys to make sure they were fun. However, you need to have typical fine motor skills to play with most mainstream toys. Since my fine motor skills are impacted by cerebral palsy, most of the toys sold in stores are too difficult for me to play with.
The day after the fall semester ended, I was talking to a friend about wanting to go Christmas shopping for my niece and nephew. I explained that I wanted to get them some toys but I needed help determining which toy was the most fun. My friend volunteered to help me.
“I’ll be your fingers! It’s been ages since I’ve been in a toy store,” my friend, Alexis, said.
Alexis and I agreed on the day we’d go shopping. The morning of our shopping day, Alexis arrived at my door along with three of our classmates.
“Allison, I heard that you needed some expert toy testers today. May I offer my fine motor skills for your use,” Tony said, as we all cracked up laughing.
“Wait! Do you all want to come?” I asked, looking at my friends.
“Yeah. We’re done with finals and can help out,” someone said.
After arriving at the mall, we descended upon the toy store. Before we went in, I briefed everyone on our mission: find the most fun toys for a 6 year old girl and a 3 year old boy who are both bright, active and creative.
After filling our shopping baskets with every age-appropriate toy imaginable, we gathered at the back of the store and divided the toys among ourselves. Once everyone had their assigned toys, my friends sprawled out on the floor and spent the next hour or so playing with toys.
I can’t tell you how many people stared at my friends as they played with art projects and action figures. I giggled as I saw parents and kids try to figure out what we were doing. My friends, however, were so intensely focused on their assigned toys that they were oblivious to the many stares they were receiving. It was quite something to see my friends, some of whom were over six feet tall, play so diligently with tiny toy xylophones or puzzles for a 3 year old.
Over time, my friends gave me their verdict on each toy they tested. After piling all of the fun and safe toys on my wheelchair tray, my friends returned the toys that did not meet their approval to the shelves. I purchased two toys for each child and thanked my friends for helping me live up to my self-appointed role of the “cool auntie.”
“You’re welcome! It was nice to take a break from being a Ph.D. student and just play,” one of my friends said.
When my classmates came to my dorm room to offer to help me choose toys, I was surprised. One of the awesome aspects of going to MIT was being a member of a supportive community. Being a part of a community that loves you, affirms you and basks in the beauty of who you are is a spiritual practice because you are surrounded by love and love is the energy of the Divine. As you surround yourself with that energy, you align yourself with love. Additionally, when you are loving, affirming and basking in the beauty of members of your community, you are seeing others as God sees you. As you see others as God sees all of creation, you embody your oneness with The Loving Presence.
Love, blessings and purple,
Allison
Try incorporating this exercise into your week. If you need modifications to the practice, scroll down to the section titled Access Notes.
Connecting With Your Community
Choose between 2 and 5 people in your life to contact. You can either talk to them in person or call/video chat with them. Simply say “hello” and see how they are doing. The only purpose of each conversation is to connect. You can choose to have a brief or long conversation with each person. The people who you reach out to can be friends, family, colleagues, or anyone else. BUT, the people should be supportive of you and affirm who you are and you should supportive of them and affirm who they are.
The following modifications are intended to create equal access to the spiritual practice above. These modifications are somewhat general to be as useful as possible to as many people as possible. Please feel free to further tweak the exercise as needed so that you can participate as fully as possible while honoring your body’s needs.
1. If you can’t be with the people who you have chosen to connect with in person and speaking on the phone/video chatting is not possible, try emailing or texting the people you have chosen.
2. If contacting between 2 and 5 people is not feasible, try reaching out to 1 person.
