About Rev. Gary Shapiro

Posts by Rev. Gary Shapiro:

The Power of Listening

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“I suspect that the most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention. … When people are talking, there’s no need to do anything but receive them. … Listen to what they’re saying. Care about it. Most times caring about it is even more important than understanding it. …

A loving silence often has far more power to heal and connect than the most well-intentioned words.”

– Rachel Naomi Remen (from Kitchen Table Wisdom)

The Marriage of a Family – Roots Intertwining and Fusing into One

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These days, for two people getting married, it is not at all unusual that one or both of them have been married before and have children. So, oftentimes now, it is not just the couple joining their lives together in marriage, but also it’s a joining of their families, their children, together. In a sense, it is the whole family getting married. At a wedding I officiated last Saturday, near Albany NY, the bride and groom married each other AND the bride’s three young children. As part of the ceremony, they asked me to share this story:

“Along the California coast, there lives a community of sequoia trees, some reaching over 350 feet into the air. Some of these giants are over 2000 years old, unscathed by wind and rain, storms, hurricanes, earthquakes, and fires. But how? How do they survive all this fury? One would think it must be the depth of their roots or perhaps their brute strength and solidarity. Actually, it is quite the opposite. The roots of a 250-foot tall sequoia are a mere 5 feet deep. 5 feet! Instead of growing down into the earth to find the sustenance they need, they grow out – up to 50 feet, in search of one another. When they find each other, their roots intertwine and they fuse into one – supporting, strengthening – an entire network of roots, spreading far and wide, holding each other, sharing with each other – their lives becoming one so that each magnificent tree can not only grow but thrive – reaching its branches high to the sun.

And so it is with this family today. We join our hands and our hearts, becoming an intertwined network of strength, support, of LOVE, surrounding and supporting, nourishing and growing together as family, facing the storms of life, More

A Safe and Caring Place to Hold and Nurture Each Other Right Now

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This past Sunday a colleague and I facilitated a post-election gathering for over 2 hours at my local Unitarian Universalist Church, near Hartland Vermont, to talk about what’s going on for each of us in the aftermath of the presidential election and to look at some possibilities for moving forward. 21 people were there – a good attendance for such short notice

The primary objective of the gathering was to provide a safe and caring space for people to share their thoughts, feelings, and concerns about the election results, particularly in regards to the huge political divide and social polarization that the results highlighted. In so doing, we wanted to lessen the sense of aloneness that many of us feel, as well as to facilitate healing and to encourage a sense of hope and connection among people, regardless of any differences between us. (The whole community was invited, included those who were happy about the election results).

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Solitude and Community

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“… we need solitude and community simultaneously: what we learn in one mode can check and balance what we learn in the other. Together, they make us whole, like breathing in and breathing out. …

Solitude does not necessarily mean living apart from others; rather, it means never living apart from one’s self. It is not about the absence of other people – it is about being fully present to ourselves, whether or not we are with others. Community does not necessarily mean living face-to-face with others; rather it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other. It is not about the presence of other people – it is about being fully open to the reality of relationship, whether or not we are alone.”

– Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness

“No News is Good News”

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My Dad was generally a man of few words, but one of his favorite expressions was “No News is Good News”. This is usually taken to mean that if you don’t hear from somebody or about something, then you can assume all is okay, because if something was wrong you’d hear about it. The absence of information is a kind of affirmation of inner strength and grounded-ness, and a quiet reassurance to carry on, no matter what. That was my Dad.

I was thinking about “No News is Good News” today, because it has been 8 days now since I stopped reading, watching or hearing the news out in the world, especially the political news. Yes, as soon as the election results were confirmed, I turned off the news. I’ve never done that before. As my wife Helen can attest, I’ve been a news junkie, checking the New York Times online frequently throughout the day, or listening to NPR or watching CNN, all the time. Through wars, murders, and other disasters, even 9/11, no matter what, I never turned off the news.

But now I have. And it feels great! It was actually easy, and now the craving is gone to where I feel like I could go on this way for many weeks or longer. Please understand, it’s not that I’m so upset and despondent about the election that I don’t care anymore. In fact, I care more than ever, as it is now so crystal clear that this dramatic change in the mentality and norms of how we treat each other and how we are governed will have a huge impact on all of us. What’s happened is a powerful call to arms to get involved, and to get more knowledgeable, not less.

Yet I need a break – not break as in escape or avoidance, but rather a letting go of the mindless attachment to mass media, to a frightfully limited perspective (however “progressive”), to the addictive adrenaline of crazy political drama, to the bombardment of information spun this way and that by talking heads, to soap opera-like tragedy and farce – to where I couldn’t hear my thoughts or feel my heart or soul in any of this. As long as the drama seemed to be headed to a happy ending I was hooked, but when it ended differently, the absurdity and utter brutality of all of it got revealed. My inner hard drive crashed, and my soul said “ENOUGH!”

Again, this time of no news is not an escape but rather a deepening of caring and connection and healing with myself and those around me. Sooner rather than later, I will turn the news back on. But for the time being, it is a precious opportunity to listen more intently and compassionately, to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to discern more wisely what is truly going on between us, beyond the noisy ups and downs of daily news. “No News” these days doesn’t mean “Good News” in the traditional sense, certainly not from the nasty or unnerving snippets I’ve been hearing from others. The news is not at all good, but if its absence in my life now enables me to recharge my batteries and to be more fully present in the world, and if it brings me deeper understanding and that “quiet reassurance to carry on”, then perhaps that is the real Good News, and a true blessing indeed. Thank you, Dad!

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