My idea for the structure of the event was simple.

We already conduct an event every week for Saying Goodbye to what we have lost.

People we love, jobs we had, ideas we believed in. We need to mourn. It’s hard. Where is the place where it is OK to do that?

Our Saying Goodbye event gives permission to name what we are grieving. It doesn’t take the sadness away, but it starts a process of acceptance. There is a facilitator, but no one preaches or tells people how to mourn.

We scheduled the RBG Memorial to lead into our weekly event.

But the Memorial needed to be just a little different, a little more ceremonial. It needed two of us to lead off, speak in a personal and distinctive voice, so the leadership of the event would be an expression of the community.

I spoke first.

I’m not a historian and I was not making any kind of statement about Justice Ginsburg other than what I had come to understand myself after a few days of reflection.

I said that Justice Ginsburg had a deep understanding of change. To describe her as the slow, cautious type of reformer, as she almost always is, does her a major disservice. She was careful because she wanted to win and she wanted to hold on to what she won.

Most advocates of change are not sufficiently focused on the forces of opposition. This is a mistake Justice Ginsburg could never make because she knew from life experience that every step she took would be opposed, would be counterattacked, and would be punished if possible.

Her core principle was equality. But instead of focusing on the many virtues of equality, she focused on what would happen every time she attempted to extend and implement the principle. When her case was advanced, she wanted it to stay advanced and she knew that was the hard part that never ends. The counterattack in support of inequality is relentless.

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg was not yet Justice RBG, she was told to her face by men that she was wrong to be taking a man’s place at Harvard Law School. That story has been told many times. When I first heard it, I was incensed.

If Ruth Bader Ginsburg was incensed, she didn’t show it. She knew that her personal step in the direction of equality would be attacked and she was prepared. She knew what was important and what was the distraction.

In meditation, there is usually an object to attend to, the breath, a sound, a candle flame. When distractions happen, as they always do, the idea is to not get engaged with them, not to follow the train of thought, not to play and replay the emotion. Just notice them and go back to the breathing.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg just noticed the men opposing her steps toward equality and went back to the breathing. If she had gotten engaged in their bullying tactics, she would not have been the first woman to make the Harvard Law Review.

I talked a little more about the last stage of her career, in which she passed out of life and into legend. The tiny indomitable powerhouse who could hold off the forces of inequality all by herself while battling cancer to a stand-off.

I’m glad she can rest.

Source: https://arvrjourney.com/remembering-rbg-in-vr-9ebcf61d7b35?source=rss—-d01820283d6d—4