Qigong and Worry

Sunrise today at 7:22 a.m. Overcast, but a bright, rather than dull, gray. Fresh after a good sleep.

I went to bed last night full of worry. Yesterday my wallet was stolen early in the morning, and I didn't discover it until after church. Last night, as I was calling credit card companies, I learned that gas had been purchased, that a purchase of over $500 was several times denied at Target, that a couple of $100 purchases had been made at Meijer . . . happily I was able to cancel all my cards, although now I need to replace my drivers license, get a new health insurance card, and wait for my new debit card. And get those charges reversed.

And I only had $40 in my wallet.

Rats.

I rose this morning to do twenty minutes of qigong at sunrise, facing east. When I am regular about this practice, which I rarely have been since I moved to Flint, I love the heart balancing poses that conclude the routine. Leaves a smile on my face, and gets me ready to DO things (even the laundry I'm finally going to throw in the washer downstairs).

The past few days have been very productive (that is, energetically focused on producing). Weekends are like that with the public focus on Sunday morning each week, and trainings and actions on Saturdays and Sundays when many people are available for our public work. Add to that a very emotionally draining (and reinvigorating) Memorial Service for Jon Owen last Friday, and an overnight trip to Indianapolis for the Heartland UU District Board of Trustees, I've been very "productive." And pretty satisfied.

The Veterans Day service was quite special. I felt a little more in control of the unity of the service knowing that it would be very diverse due to the number of people speaking. Four veterans spoke during the service, Dr. Van who served in the Army in Korea, Linda Kilbourn who was in the Navy during the Mercury space flights and the early 1960s unrest in the Dominican Republic, Linda Campbell who was in the Navy throughout the 1970s, and Steve Urdy who was an Army paratrooper in Grenada and the first Gulf War.

I had asked that people address why they joined the military, and it was interesting to learn that while one person was fulfilling a family obligation (men in Steve's family had served in the Army since the Spanish-American War), others saw the military as a way out. Linda K got out of Flint and finishing high school; Dr. Van got out of going to jail for drunk driving; Linda C. got out of Oklahoma. All felt that there were positive things they learned in the military, and positive characters that were shaped there, learning leadership and accountability and service. Some said that they had been brainwashed in the process, but never lost their ability to see beyond the rhetoric; and all resisted the conforming culture. "Serving my country" had great meaning, and a copupole of people lamented that today, with the elimination of the draft, we don't make social demands on young people, and we wage war without their being an evident social cost of rationing, for example, or even paying for the wat, which is now entirely being paid for "on credit."

The congregation responded deeply to each testimony and to the service as a whole. In a training on building one to one relationships within our congregation, I asked people to share what was great about the service, and people talked about seeing that issues are not "black and white," that people are multi-dimensional and deeper than we would easily know, and that there is great value in being a community where a diversity of experience is welcome. I was so happy to help us see that our narratives are richer than our issues.

I'm optimistic about the possibilities at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Flint and the creation of a local organizing ministry for our neighborhood, our people and our city.

Time to pray, to shower and to do some wash. Good morning.