Awash in Mercy

Processing a violent death from the ground experience.

It’s been a year since I last posted on this Substack page. The main reason for this is that I have contributing most of my energies to helping my college attain re-accreditation and in helping to build a strong core for the organization through my collaboration with colleagues on several committees and as one of the last two full-time instructors (post-Covid) in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences.

I had planned on returning to the Ground Experience Substack writing with a piece that described the reasons I chose to invest my time and energies into the Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology”, but a question continually came up in my heart and mind that has delayed the writing of this piece.

Should I include my own personal lived experience in this writing? Should I mention one of the chief life experiences that led me to contribute nearly all of my energies and time commitments to “The Little College that Should”?

A series of essays I have been working on called “All We Are” has three parts, one of which includes my reflections on the doctrine of “Lived Experience” and the problem of ideological totalism in the way this doctrine has been frequently used to close down conversations and to create separation and even hostility between identity groups—especially different ethnic and racial groups. A central element of this section (yet to be published) of this series of essays is an in-depth exploration around a tragedy my family faced and the journey I had to travel to integrate that tragedy into my life in the emotional, spiritual, social, and political realms.

Though I have already begun drafting that part (which is tentatively titled “Ground Experience as Foundation of Lived Experience”), it feels too far away to hold off on expressing that aspect of my life, especially as it partly informs the professional part of my life, which is why I began to wonder whether I should include at least a little bit about this tragedy in the exploration of what I hope to convey in the post about why I chose to commit much of my life to my college.

Then today, on the birthday of my older sister Wendy Lawrence, who was shot and killed by a New Hampshire state trooper nine years ago, a Facebook Memory came up in my social media feed.

The post that came up is one in which I describe the experience of being “completely awash in mercy” and how my sister’s death came to inform my deepest commitments to helping organizations thrive—especially organizations that were set up not only to serve people from populations that are less advantaged than others but to actively empower future generations of these populations to take the reins in our societies and become captains of industry.

So, after some thought, I decided it was the right time to publicly include my personal lived experience in the examination of my professional life.

Below is something I wrote seven years ago. The feelings and experiences I describe are more subtle now, but the commitments I made at the time and the gratitude I experienced for being hired to teach at the Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology continue to this day.

Like almost all other writers, I do not have the fortune of experiencing continually unbroken confidence (or even value) in what I am drawn to say, especially around a topic that hits so close to home.

So, it was a welcome experience for me to come across something I had already written almost a decade ago that captured the essence of trauma, tragedy, hope, and grace. I needed the inspiration of reading a piece of writing that reminded myself of what really matters. I can can honestly say that the writing I am referring to did not come from “me”. It came from a much larger, spacious, and deeply genuine place than I was—and am—normally capable of.

Describing the events and inner experiences around my sister’s death is not an attention grab or even a search for sympathy. It’s just being real in a world of increasing unreality and the need to be integrated and whole. We cannot separate our inner lives from our professional lives, even while we wisely practice the appropriate amount of professional distance. This is especially true for those of us in the helping professions, such as teachers, therapists, social workers, and human rights advocates.

Note that the original title of the writing below is different from the title of this Ground Experience post.

FLOWING LIKE HONEY: A Tribute to a Loved One on her Birthday

Last night I had a conversation with a friend about gentleness. After some searching, I was able to find a metaphor to describe an experience I had in October, 2013 in the aftermath of the tragic, violent death of a loved one.

Sitting in a Chinese restaurant with friends and family, after weeks of an intense, drawn out process involving autopsies, public statements, and anguished pleas for answers, I was suddenly overcome with a deep sense of stillness. We had just attended the services of our loved one, and our collective exhaustion had settled by this time into the simple desire to return to normalcy.

But, as the food arrived, my own internal experience unfolded in some unexpected ways. As I surveyed the variety of dishes placed before us, I noticed that nearly all of them were filled with dead flesh, rusty bones, and rubbery cartilage. I immediately realized with an exquisite intimacy, the casualness of the ritual we were about to participate in -the ritual of tearing into the bones of previously living beings who experienced terrifying and physically painful deaths for the purpose of providing us pleasure and nourishment.

The kind of death experienced by our loved one.

But, as I pondered the all-pervasiveness of violence and apathy that runs through our human lives, a spacious sense of well being expanded in my body.

The best way to describe this experience is to say that my being was "completely awash in mercy." With an extraordinary subtlety, there was an absence of desire to move my limbs, to speak my thoughts, or to make even a small incursion into the territory of another, whether human, beast or insect. But, I knew, too, I had to go on living my human life in the natural world as it naturally is. In the shared community space in which we human beings must all pursue our own satisfaction and self preservation, I knew I would have to find my way through the journey of reconciling the opposites of self-interest and compassion.

Today, July 18th, is the birthday of the loved one we lost to violence, and it feels right to honor her memory by placing the tragedy in a bigger, more universal perspective. Since that violent event and its aftermath, my understanding of the world has evolved and has led to some major changes that I would like to share with you.

One major change is my increased commitment as a writer and educator in promoting the values and practices that can best create positive, high-functioning cultures within communities, organizations, workplaces and group projects. This is because I know that social services, small and large businesses, and all other institutions and community endeavors stand the best chance in succeeding in their mission when they have designed intentional cultures that include the input, expertise, well being and personal development of the least powerful people in their hierarchy.

Part of creating an intentional culture is building an environment that actively disempowers social violence and bullying behaviors. The majority of us want to do good work in the world, and our world benefits when our communities say no to those who would undermine that work for selfish gain. By holding unconscious people accountable and even removing them if necessary, we enable good people to do good work without interference in police departments, schools, businesses, communities and social institutions. Taking the responsibility to build healthy workplaces and communities will go a long way in preventing negative outcomes...

And tragic ones.

I've been writing about this theme for the past two years on the website, groundexperience.org. To my great fortune, I will be able to continue this work in my professional life as an educator. The most wonderful change I could ever have hoped for occurred in May, when I was hired as a full time college professor. This has been a lifelong dream, and it is now my great honor and privilege to serve a student population that includes some who come from similar backgrounds as the loved one I lost in the fall of 2013. While there are some significant differences, disempowerment feels very much the same for all human beings, and, as a number of my students have openly expressed the hope that they will be able to build empowering lives for themselves, I am beyond grateful to be in the position to assist them in that great endeavor.

As I come to the end of this writing, I want to use the metaphor of "honey" that I discovered last night to describe how that experience at the Chinese restaurant has been integrated into my life since that time.

Over the past 18 months, that sense of "mercy" and intense sensitivity to violence in all its forms became less overwhelming and has gradually faded into a gentle, feather-like "grace", a feeling of positive regard for others and the desire to offer whatever gifts I have to create a slightly more gentle world. Whether its promoting healthy workplaces, using a soothing tone of voice in the presence of an agitated person, or teaching students how to use language productively, it's all the same thing.

Tragic violence and brutality can harden us. Or it can smooth out our rough edges and bring our inner experience and outer actions into harmony, causing us to flow in a slow, gentle way like honey.

The word "mellifluous" comes from the Greek language, and it means "flowing like honey."

Today, on the birthday of my lost loved one, and for the remainder of my journey in this lifetime....

I vow to be mellifluous.