Who do you protect? (11/16/08)

I believe in deep deep surrender and deep deep love.
Protection is the root of the problem.
I will support EVERYONE I love. But I will not protect them.
Ok, if a meteor was coming to hit my step sister, I'd push her out of the way.
Or if a bus was going to hit my mother, I'd... well, probably push her out of the way.
And, ok, if people are being jerks to my friends or family, I will step in and say something.
But a LOT of the time, I think "protection" is a subtle form of codependency.
It is not my job to stop someone else's growth process by "protecting" them from it.
In the Sufi way, they say "What's IN the way IS the way." And I believe it.

But perhaps I misunderstand the question.
Peace and blessings...

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My privacy. Which is silly, cuz I usually blurt out everything compulsively.

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My cat.

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A daddys gurl turned in2 a boy. this boy is starting 2 bcome a man. the man will hopefully b a good father.
=findin common ground

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I protect myself and my boundries daily via prayers for angel protection; one of the things I ask for is to be kept safe from internal and external harm. I also protect others including friends and family via prayer. ultimately, god/ goddess/ universe is the great protector.....but I do ask that my prayers and practice be of benefit to all beings.

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the ones who need it most

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I am very protective over my dogs......very are very protective to me, so where even.

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anyone who lives authentically, door to door. they are the only ones in danger of the world. as fact, danger of leaving the world for the larger pastures. i wish we could all protect this between us. but how do you protect something and set it free at the same time? i protect the little rat inside of me called Jesus.

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My sister ... my nieces/nephews ... my friends ... and most of all, my Yorkies and myself.

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No one, nothing comes to mind. I care for people and things...but "protect" seems an overstatement. I guess I protect my grandbabies from the risks of gravity and ingestion. I try to prepare my step-son for the emotional rigors of middle school. My two adult sons...I can't seem to do anything to protect them from themselves. Kinda like watching a slow motion train wreck sometimes....I don't like it, but I've learned to keep my counsel until they ask for it. I find in trying to "protect" people it's usually from themselves and they usually end up resenting any "help" and villifying or blaming the helper. I had a German Shepherd for 13 years. Now SHE knew how to protect people. I'll leave protecting to the experts.

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My daughter and husband.

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Myself, sometime wisely, sometimes not so wisely.

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my family
newcomers

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I am extremely protective of all those close to me whom I love. This can present a problem of feeling completely useless when something awful happens to someone that you are very close with. This summer I lost a very good friend and room mate in a complete "accident". He was hit by a car while jogging a few blocks from our house. He was taken from me, his family, his dreams, his hopes, his life, and there was nothing I could have done to protect him. It really is screwed up to love someone so much and feel worthless when they are caused harm. What is the use of love so deep if it can't protect them from harm.
"the gods who role the dice,
their hearts as cold as ice -
and someone way down here
loses someone dear...."

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I protect my love, my friends, my family, my privacy, and my rights!

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anonymity

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The Runnicles!

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I had to think about this one. I don't protect myself these days very much: I leave that to my Lord. I am improving my self-protection skills, with is help, every day. I'd love to say I protect my friends from my sharper edges and rougher corners, but I have to give that to my Lord as well :-)

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In the end I protect my two boys the most. Sometimes I think too much. It's the hardest part of being a parent... being willing to let your children make their own mistakes. One thinks they can prevent their offspring from making all the bad choices they made in life and, yet, those choices look different now. They are not easily recognized by someone who grew up a generation ago. I think I'm a pretty hip guy, I keep up with modern culture and fashionable trends on a number of levels. But the whole underculture is something that remains more or less invisible to me, much as it was to my parents who, for the most part, didn't have a clue what I was really up to.
What this all adds up to is the fact that I have to teach them the art of making choices and then open the door and let them go their own way, which they will, one way or another. It brings into hard relief the truth that, in order to protect them, I must be willing to set them free.

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"Whom" do I protect? All the world from bad grammar!

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And mine...

Babies, children, dogs...the vulnerable, the open. If not in act, in prayer.