My 13-year-old grandson stayed with us this past week. My husband and I are not breakfast people - but he is. At six a.m. on the first morning, I realized that, as modern as my kitchen may look, you cannot plug in the kettle and the toaster at the same time. And, being it was dark at six a.m., struggling in the blackness to get downstairs to the breakers proved to be a challenge. It was a simple case of electrical overload, in a house which was rewired and re-plumbed top to bottom sometime in the early 2000’s.
It suddenly occurred to me that I really am in my last half of my life. In the 60’s and 70’s if we plugged in the toaster and the kettle, it was expected that a trip to the fuse box would be necessary. The same applied to the blow drier and the radio at the same time. You see, the apartments I lived in were built in the 1920’s or so. The rent was cheap. They were built at a time when there were no blow driers, electric kettles and, the wiring was a little “dodgy”.
After my grandson left (late for the bus), I sat with my tea and thought about it. In this day and age, we are truly living in a state of faulty wiring and electrical overload.
With the lingering aftermath of a Pandemic, increasing tensions between Israel and Palestine, the beating death of a black motorist by five black police officers, the on-going war in the Ukraine, our children being stabbed or shot in and around their schools and everything else we are bombarded with daily on social media and nightly on the news, it seems our own wiring is becoming faulty as we struggle to keep up and choose where to place our actions and prayers. In 2023, there is just so much demanding our immediate attention.
This brought me to empty buckets. As a child, I clearly remember my dad telling me that I was born with a bucket, filled with luck or maybe it was water. He explained that as I journeyed through life, the bucket would begin to empty as I used it up on what I deemed to be important. And I have. In the 60’s I used a little of my bucket in my involvement in the Save the Seals Campaign, brought to our attention by an animal rights activist and crusader called Brian Davies. I used up a little more of my bucket protesting against the US involvement in Viet Nam. And more still protesting against the testing of nuclear weapons in the waters off Amchitka Island, Alaska, by the United States in 1971.
Over the past few years, the remaining contents of my bucket has been devoted to issues such as Indigenous rights and decolonization, the Residential School fiasco, and locally to the lack of facilities for the homeless and addicted people living on our streets.
In spite of this, social media continues to hint that if I do not get on board with climate issues, blatant dis-information posted by political parties with their own agendas, right wing ideology, the world-wide refugee crises, the loss of Constitutionally guaranteed rights, etc. then I am the problem, not part of the solution.
So, with emotional circuit breakers which keep overloading and buckets which are almost empty or have holes in them, where does all this leave those of us whose parts were built for an older, simpler time?
Doing nothing is simply not the answer. That, in itself, can and does bring on feelings of guilt and anxiety.
Suzanne Stabile*, a highly sought-after speaker and teacher, known for her engaging laugh, personal vulnerability and creative approach to Enneagram instruction has suggested that, every day, we ask ourselves three discernment questions:
What’s MINE to do, and what’s NOT mine to do?
What’s MINE to say and what’s NOT mine to say?
And the third one is harder:
What’s MINE to care about and what’s NOT mine to care about?
To clarify, that is not to say that a thing is not worthy to be cared about by someone, only that our effectiveness in the world cannot extend to every situation which requires care.
The bottom line is, we get to a certain age when we have almost no water left in the bucket and, unless we can find a way to refill it, we have to choose where to throw it. So, it is okay to do what is yours, to say what is yours to say and to care about what is yours to care about. That is enough. Be at peace with that.
And I pray
Dearest God,
help us to know when our wires are becoming frayed and overloaded.
Help us to know when there is but a little water in our buckets and which fires to throw it on.
Help us to be patient and trust that you will give us what we are to keep and what we are to give away.
Please be merciful when we are anxious and overwhelmed, and help us show this same mercy to ourselves and others.
Amen.
In peace
Pastor Beryl, DLM
*Suzanne Stabile, The Enneagram Godmother, Road Back to You, The Path Between Us, The Enneagram Journey Curriculum, The Enneagram Journey Podcast, teaches invaluable lessons on what to look out for in our own behavior, thoughts, feelings, and motivations, while giving ourselves and our families and friends.