Tuesday, May 7, 2024
#608: our last breath
Sunday, April 28, 2024
#607: Loving Me, Loving You
"Would you ask someone else to obey that rule?" My Shrink asks me questions like that. "Would you treat one of your patients (he uses the language of his own discipline, here,) one of your "patients" to live up to that standard? Is that the advise you'd give someone who came to you looking for love and compassion?"
No. I'd listen. I'd accept. I'd sit with them, and walk beside them.
Like a warrior.
Like a neighbor.
Like the kind of friend I hope I'd be.
Like the kind of friend I need to be...
To myself?
I've been wondering if my life might be different, if my path might be wiser if I committed less energy to condemning myself and my neighbors for the imperfections we share. I wonder how much my own capacity to love others is limited by my contempt for so much in myself?
Its a strange business: self-love. It feels immodest. Un-Presbyterian. Un-Christian. We are supposed to hate the way we are, aren't we? We're supposed to abhor our sinful nature, and be grateful for a God who is willing to forgive and perfect us through Grace and the sacrifice of his Son. I know that's a distorted way of looking at the doctrine of salvation, but I have to admit that thread got woven into my faith tapestry somewhere along the line.
What if I've got it all wrong? What if what I really need is not condemnation but Grace? What if I could forgive myself? Accept myself? Allow myself to be seen as imperfect, and sub-standard, and, well... human? Might I find whole new reserves of love and compassion for the people I serve?
What if I loved myself the way I wish I could love other people? Would that help me to be more kind to the geezer whose stories never end or the granny who miseries and grievances well up from a bottomless pit? The ex who decided I just wasn't the one she was looking for? The never-ex who didn't requite a passionate offer? These people don't get my best. Sometimes they get my worst.
No. No, they don't get my worst. I save that for the one it hurts the most.
I save my worst for myself. And I can't help but think that unkindness is keeping me from giving others my best.
Something has to change, but what? What to do differently? What would I do for a neighbor, hell, for a stranger who needed me?
Listen, Accept. Sit with them. Walk with them. Like a warrior. Like a friend.
I have a feeling that my meditation practice can be helpful here. What is meditation if not listening? When I listen to my body and my mind, my imagination and my emotions, I find that I frequently don't like what I hear. Often when that happens, I give up on the practice. "Not a good day to meditate, I guess."
Maybe I need a different approach. What if I heard those thoughts and feelings? Those shameful memories and frustrations? What if instead of making myself busy, finding something else to do, I sit with myself like a friend, and share the unpleasantness? Maybe, instead of giving up on my friend Bob, I could wait with him while he goes through the hard times, and then get up and walk beside him as he gets on with the life through which he carries his burdens. Maybe I could fight the fight alongside him, because his fight is also mine.
Maybe then, I could fight beside you. Because sometimes your fight is also mine.
I know it sounds crazy to talk like an observer who stands outside himself, loving himself. But how is that any more crazy than standing out there passing judgement on myself?
Maybe it's time to embrace the crazy. Try finding ways to forgive, accept, and heal the well-intentioned yet deeply flawed, loving and deeply loved old man in the mirror. He may have a lot to teach me. Maybe we can learn from each other.
That's the advice I'd give to someone I loved.
Monday, April 8, 2024
#606: Slivers of Hope from the Sky
August 12, 2045. That's the next time a solar eclipse will be visible across the continental United States. That will make me 85. No out of the question, I guess, but I'm glad I caught a peek at this one, just in case. It was the third time I've witnessed an eclipse in my life. I'm grateful.
The first was in New York City, of all places. I was building a really strange set piece at the Classic Stage Company just south of Union Square. 13th street, maybe? The piece was a giant whimsical bust of Moliere that I think was the set for a production of The Misanthrope, but I could be wrong. When the eclipse started, we all grabbed dark blue gels from the lighting kit and I think I may have had my welding hood with me. I've told the damn story for so long and in so many ways, that I'm really not sure. Anyway, we went outside and the street was an eerie color - that strange greenish light that you see before tornados in the midwest. I remember looking up and seeing the corona through whatever shield I had improvised. Then I looked down. There on the sidewalk, beneath the ginkgos, millions of tiny eclipses were projected onto the concrete. Each gap between leaves became a tiny pinhole projector, and the ground was covered with sparkling sunbursts. I had never read or heard anything to prepare me for this. There were fairies dancing in the gutter and it was as miraculous an emotion as I've ever felt.
Then, a few years later, in Kentucky, I saw them again.
Thursday, August 21, 2017; 2:35 PM Lexington KY |
It's hard to picture 2017. So much has happened since then. These were the years BC - before COVID - and nothing back then seems real to me. The country had put a gun to its head the November before, and we were not yet used to the finger resting on the trigger. It had been 4 years since Mrs P decided she was done waiting for me to finally grow/show up. Thursday afternoon... I bet I had just driven home from teaching that wonderful water class at the Beaumont Y. This shot was underneath the big maple that grew outside the window of my divorced incel's cell. Not a lot of happy times in that place, but this was one. The August sun blazed far too brightly for any but the dimmest of bulbs to try looking at it. I didn't have my welding hood anymore, but I did remember the fairies. I looked down, and there they were. Dancing on the sidewalk. Beautiful crescents of hope that covered the concrete and the mulch and the clover. Hopeful slivers were hard to come by back in those days. I was so grateful.
August 21, 2017, Lexington |
Today was different. The overcast was so heavy when I went to the stoop with my book and my chair that I doubted I would see anything at all.
April 8, 2024; 1:58 PM |
It looked like another April downpour blowing in. I think we were all preparing ourselves for disappointment. Then, across Broadway, a door burst open. I never see these people. No, that's not true. I see them at the Y. They workout and swim and the Mom took my CPR class once. The kids were all home from school, and Mom was home from work and they had their dark glasses on and were craning their necks toward the clouds. They looked up. They looked at each other. They looked at Mom. She shrugged and sat down on the porch steps with her littlest, while the rest of the kids went back inside to watch Rugrats on their gigantic living room TV.
It made me melancholy. How many chances would these kids get to see a total eclipse? In their lives? What might it mean to them to see the corona and to dance with the fairies under the maple trees? Would they ever have another chance? Or would they spend the rest of their lives rolling their eyes at old people who told stories about falling stars and tides that glowed and a thousand suns turning Greenwich Village into Narnia?
It made me feel gloomy, so I started reading Thich Nhat Hanh to distract myself. He was talking about suffering. These frigging Buddhists are always rattling on about suffering. I read this...
Love cannot exist without suffering. In fact suffering is the ground on which love is born. If you have not suffered, if you don't see the suffering of people or other living beings, you would not have love in you, nor would you understand what it is to love... Do you want to live in a place where there is no suffering? If you live in such a place, you will not be able to know what is love. Love is born from suffering....
Because I suffer, I need love Because you suffer you need love. Because we suffer, we know that we have to offer each other love, and love becomes a practice.
I looked across the street again. There they all were. So sad. I raised my eyes to the place where the miracle ought to be.
There! See it? |
Monday, April 8, 2024; 3:10 PM, Lexington KY |
At first, I thought I hadn't been able to snatch it with my phone's camera. Then I looked up until the cloud had covered it again. I did the little two-finger zoom thing, and there it was... a single crescent, a lonely fairie, dancing in the clouds, peeping in and out like Puck and Ariel and all the wonderful imps Shakespeare taught me to love so long ago. Old Sol had come through. I looked across, and the kids were hypnotized. They were gorgeous. I didn't even look at the ground. I saw the light on every one of them. What seeds did I see planted during that moment? What will this memory become? What will they do with a holy afternoon whose visions will stay with them for the rest of their lives?
So, there it is. My third total solar eclipse. If this old house I'm walking around in holds together for another 21 years and a summer, I may get to see my fourth. They won't be easy years. That's a lot to ask. There will be hard nights and heart breaks and break downs and funerals. I'd like to say I wish there wasn't ugliness in the world. But I think I know what the Thich Nhat Hahn would tell me. I know what the fairies would tell me.
They would remind me that all those things are real, but they are not alone. Leg cramps are real. So are finish lines. Shadows are real. So is moonlight. Loneliness is real. So are arms that pull you close. Grief is real. Love is real. We suffer. We love. Both are true. Truth is both.
Each of my precious eclipse experiences has left me with rich memories. I remember the ginkgo fairies from 13th Street. I remember hope scattered on the ground in front of my sad single bedroom apartment. And today? Today, I think I'm going to remember something really odd. I'm going to remember the couple, walking their obese, oblivious, hopelessly spoiled pit bull. She was carrying the phone. He was carrying the leash. He had an enormous umbrella. And both of them... the humans, I mean... both of them had a pair of eclipse glasses dangling carelessly from one hand. It was as if they were saying, "yes, it's a miserable looking day, and yes, we have shit to take care of... but you never know when something amazing might happen."
And so it did.
I will always love them for that.
And I am so very grateful.
Sunday, March 31, 2024
#605: Along Came Jesus
Emmanuel Garibay, "Emmaus" 2010-2011 |
The Tao [Way] that can be told of is not the eternal Tao;
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
(Lao Tzu, Tao-te Ching)
I woke up this Easter morning with Emmaus on my mind.
Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’(Luke 24: 13-17, NRSV)
I went looking for a nice image to use, and found one that was so shocking and new to me that I knew it was perfect. Plenty of the Old Masters have taken this story as their subject, but when I saw this essay on the painting by Emmanuel Garibay, it immediately became my favorite. Why didn't the two disciples recognize the risen Christ? Did God distort their vision? Was Jesus wearing a disguise? Or were they simply blinded by their own expectations? Were they so sure - so attached to their ideas of who Christ was and what he would do and say that they overlooked the truth that was right before their eyes? The men in this painting are so blinded by their assumptions that they haven't even noticed the holes in Jesus' hands.
To be honest, I missed them, too.
I miss them a lot.
I spent most of my life knowing who God was and what we could expect from one another. I would be his obedient servant. He would be my everlasting ABBA the daddy who would always be there, always hear, always care, always help. I would hallow his name and he would give me my daily bread and lead me not into temptation. My heart told me these things. My teachers did. My friends. Stories and hymns and Sunday School songs taught me what to believe. Jesus loved me. The Bible told me so.
I was so certain for so long that when my ship of faith began to spring leaks, I was lost. I watched numbly as the waves broke over the decks and pounded my Rock into sand.
All my answers failed me. Like Cleopas and his anonymous traveling companion, I high-tailed it out of town with a suitcase full of questions and one eye over my shoulder to watch out for the posse that would almost certainly find me out for the doubt-filled fraud I had become - maybe that's what I'd always been.
And then, along came Jesus.
He shaved his head and wore orange robes on YouTube, talking about karma and attachment and begging bowls. He grew his hair long, stopped bathing, and came to the lobby five times a day asking if anybody turned in the cell phone he left plugged in outside the Y. She passed out in the parking lot, barely breathing, a vape pen clenched in her hand. When I checked to see if she was dead, she blinked red eyes at me and mumbled, "It's OK. I'm going in a minute." I stood at the front door and watched as she carefully tiptoed along the sidewalk - going anywhere she liked, as long as it was away from here. He saw me at his son's funeral, gave me his trembling, 90-year-old hand and said, "You know, I'm a gym rat, too." He showed me the FIFA team he had assembled on his phone. She interrupted my lecturing with words so true that they took my breath away. He asked if his friends could play soccer on our fancy, new pickleball courts. I told him no, so they spent the whole day playing in the grass outside the fence, welcoming every new kid who came along. She scolded at me the minute I walked in the door because her supper was late, then she curled up on my lap and purred herself to sleep as I meditated my silent Easter Vigil. Right now, she is in the upstairs apartment, on Sunday afternoon, high as giraffe tonsils, playing her music too loud, screeching out of tune, stomping through the ceiling, and celebrating her solitary quinceaƱera while mama is at work mopping hallways and bathrooms so hospital patients have a clean place to piss and her daughter has a chance to do something besides scrub other people's toilets.
Christ was there all the time.I never once recognized him. Yet, there he was. Is. Ever shall be.
Good morning, Jesus. I'm glad you could make it. I'm sorry I didn't notice you. But I appreciate the second chance. Chances.
Thanks for showing up anyway.
And thanks for the chocolate. That was you, right?
Happy Easter, my friend.
Monday, March 25, 2024
#604: The Weight
Grieving
is a journey. Living after the death of a friend or relationship can be
brutal. It's confusing. It's painful. It seems like it's going to last
for ever, and some of it will get easier. But god, it can be so heavy.
I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead;
I just need some place where I can lay my head.
"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"
He just grinned and shook my hand, and "No!", was all he said.
Take a load off Fanny, take a load for free;
Take a load off Fanny, And you can put the load right on me.
Robbie Robertson, The Weight
The Weight is very much with me today. I know the losses won't always weigh this much. Like my wise sister Beth always reminds me, "This too shall pass." But today, The Weight of grief is right there in the middle of my chest, the bottom of my gut, and binding my distracted mind with oily ropes. I've tried to meditate a couple of times, but that means looking things in the eye, and accepting the ones I can't change. I'm just not up to that yet. I hope I can soon. My eyes are so bleary; how I wish I could remember how to cry. Like Robbie's weary pilgrim, I could really use a place to lay my head.
I picked up my bag, I went lookin' for a place to hide;
When I saw Carmen and the Devil walkin' side by side.
I said, "Hey, Carmen, come on, let's go downtown."
She said, "I gotta go, but m'friend can stick around."
"A place to hide." Yeah. That's the problem, isn't it? There are too many places to hide. Screens to scroll through. Wine to gaze into. Books to read, chores to avoid, crossword puzzles to fill the time. A dim apartment, away from the sun and the air and the people whose company I know would help, if only I could find the will to reach out. Oh, Carmen. couldn't you have stuck around instead of leaving me with your friend? I used to love to lay my head in your lap and sob till my body shook. Your cool hand would stroke my face and pat my hair and whisper, "Poor baby. My poor, poor baby." He just stands in the door telling me lies about myself. He's lousy company, and it seems like he should be a busy guy, but he always finds the time to chew on me.
Go down, Miss Moses, there's nothin' you can say
It's just ol' Luke, and Luke's waitin' on the Judgement Day.
"Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?"
He said, "Do me a favor, son, woncha stay an' keep Anna Lee company?"
Sometimes it seems like everyone you love is either going away or staying behind. "Look at all the lonely people." Dad. Mom. Aunts and Uncles. Loved ones lost to death or distance; stolen by accident or illness. The ones who gave up because they just couldn't bear The Weight anymore. And we are left to carry the load... Yes, I know. We can do it. We will do it. But sometimes, you just have to put your pack down and sit in the grass and ask the hard questions.
How much longer is this road?
Is it worth the walk?
Do I really need all the stuff in this bag?
How much more am I going to have to carry?
What happens on the day I can't lift it any more?
Yeah, Anna Lee's company looks mighty appealing, but there's something over that next hill calling to me. She doesn't want to go that way, and I can't stay here. Put the load on me.
Crazy Chester followed me, and he caught me in the fog.
He said, "I will fix your rack, if you'll take Jack, my dog."
I said, "Wait a minute, Chester, you know I'm a peaceful man."
He said, "That's okay, boy, won't you feed him when you can."
Oh, Chester. I know you well, my friend. You've rolled into my life with your lunatic stories and dreams. You usually need something, and I usually say yes, because that's just the kind of schmuck I am. I hate to say no, so I give it away until i can barely recognize what's left. Then I get pissed and run you off, and you get pissed and leave Anna Lee or your damn dog (whose company I prefer, to be honest,) and here I am with one more ghost and one more load on the rack. I'd blame you, but you can't help yourself. I'd blame me, but blaming doesn't really make the load any lighter. Sometimes i regret giving myself away so easily. Then I regret not giving more. Then the damn dog puts his chin in my lap for an ear scratch and a nap and I have to admit I'd miss having him around if you'd taken him with you.
Catch a cannon ball now, t'take me down the line
My bag is sinkin' low and I do believe it's time.
To get back to Miss Fanny, you know she's the only one.
Who sent me here with her regards for everyone.
It's time. Or nearly time, anyway. I can't hang around hurting forever. Sometimes you just have to let it hurt and get back up on the road, I guess. Sooner or later, the hurt will ease. It doesn't go away, you just learn to accept it. Carry it. Forgive it. "Let it be." Interesting. That's the second time the Beatles have sneaked into this meditation. Maybe it's time to cue up the Fabs for a listen. Or maybe that's just another place to hide.
Miss Sophie needs dinner. And Miss Fanny is down the road somewhere. I guess she'll have more Weight for me to carry. That's OK. My back is still strong, and there's a little room in my pack. Time to get moving. Maybe I'll find some answers along the way.
Take a load off Fanny, take a load for free;
Take a load off Fanny, And you can put the load right on me.
Sunday, March 24, 2024
#603: I could be wrong.
"I could be wrong." My shrink has suggested I make more liberal use of this phrase. I have to be honest... I can't really remember why. It was in the middle of a difficult session. We were rolling around in the mud of my depression together, and the phrase stuck to my boot. Since I can't seem to shake it off, there must be some part of me that needs to sit with it for a while, and you, my unfortunate reader have slipped into the muck with me.
I could be wrong, but there is a lot more to this serenity bullshit than meets the eye. There are mornings when I can't wait to get to my chair with Sophie and begin my meditation. Often it's when I anticipate a long, challenging day ahead, and want to start from a place of physical, mental, and spiritual peace and preparedness. It always helps me to face the day with energy, compassion, and focus. It's like I'm always telling people about physical activity, "I've had lots of days when I hated getting a workout started, but I've never finished one that I regretted." But then, I've always tended to only remember the good times. So, I could be wrong.
On the other hand, there are mornings when I'd rather have oral surgery than sit quietly with my thoughts and emotions. Mornings like today when I opened my eyes to memories of one of my people who I won't be seeing again. He is one of the cancer survivors who come to the Y where I serve to ask me to help them find their strength. From the day I met Terry, we both knew that cancer would take his life. He was determined live every second he had left. His prognosis grew more dire as the months passed, and the time the doctors gave him grew shorter and shorter. Through it all, he stayed courageous and strong. I know I'm not wrong about that.
Terry, Coach Deb, and Pennsy |
I was hoping to see him on Thursday afternoon when the winter group graduated. I missed him, and figured he was having one of his bad days. I was wrong.
Terry died Thursday morning.
I'd like to say I received the news with gentle grace. I guess I'm not that far along the noble path yet. My heart clenched like a fist when I read the words, and those fingers have been wrapped tight ever since. It wasn't a surprise. Wasn't unexpected. Wasn't unplanned, and we weren't unprepared. There hasn't been a day in the past few years that I didn't know that news would be coming. But I wasn't ready. I could be wrong, but nothing could have made me ready.
I always feel this pain. I used to cry, especially for the ones I knew well, the ones I had come to admire and love. Their courage feeds mine, and their deaths diminish my tribe. I don't have many tears left. But it hurts like hell. It hurts like hell.
Losing a brother or sister scares the members of my tribe in a secret place, deep inside. We all know we could die the same way. Maybe that's why celebrities who get cancer strike us in such a personal way. There's nobody on earth I have less in common with than the members of England's royal family, but hearing about Princess Kate and King Charles and their diagnoses strike much closer than makes sense. We are as far apart as anyone could be, but we're family now. I think that's a universal thing for survivors. But I could be wrong.
Woke up with all that crushing my heart and clouding my mind, and my body decided the best thing was to feed the cat, fluff the pillow, and go back to sleep. 3:00 in the afternoon and I still haven't practiced my meditation today. I wish I could explain why. I just don't want to look at what's inside me right now. Maybe I'm afraid it will take me down so deep that I won't find my way back.
I could be wrong. But I'm definitely afraid of something. That fear may be reason enough to stop typing, light some incense, and turn off the screens for a while.
There are lots of reasons not to. My imagination generates more reasons by the second. But it's like a 6 mile run or a session on the heavy bag: I may be sore when I'm finished, but I won't regret doing it.
Or... well... you know.
I'll let you know.
Namaste, y'all.
Pennsy
Sunday, March 17, 2024
#602: A Prayer for the Morning
Letchworth State Park. Photo by Michael Philbin |
The time I spend in silence in the morning is becoming so precious to me. I have always been a seeker; of meaning, of purpose, of contentment, of truth. For much of my life, I found those things in religion: scripture, tradition, church membership, Christian fellowship. I always saw the flaws and contradictions, but overcame them by reason, rationalization, faith, or denial. A few years ago, those strategies started to fail me.
I am grateful for this new day,I embrace impermanence,I cultivate compassion,I walk the path of wisdom,I am at peace with myself.
Gratitude
Change
Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?’ I Kings 3:9 (NRSV)
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrumps, that rejoiceTo hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war...William Shakespeare, The Tempest V.i.
And, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.
I am grateful for this new day,I embrace impermanence,I cultivate compassion,I walk the path of wisdom,I am at peace with myself.
Monday, March 4, 2024
#601 The Two Monks and The Beautiful Woman
Image from Wellness and Wisdom Quest |
The two traveled together without a word throughout the morning and into the afternoon. When the sun was overhead and the heat almost overwhelming, they stopped to rest in the cool shade of a grove of willow trees. The master saw that the young monk was uneasy and deep in thought. "What is troubling you, my son?"
"Master, you know that as monks we take a vow never to touch a woman. You broke your vow. How could you have carried that beautiful girl across the river?" His voice broke as confusion and disappointment in his master threatened to overwhelm him.
The elder monk smiled tenderly at his young companion. How well he knew the weight of the feelings and questions that burdened the earnest novice.
"Little brother, I left her on the shore of that river. But you have carried her all the way to this willow grove."
This is my own version of a traditional zen koan or parable. Like all great parables, it is complicated and sometimes troubling (Isn't the kid right? And why does she have to be a beautiful, young woman?) We'll put those controversies in a basket for another day. For now, I have to acknowledge that this story has popped up like an echo in my life in several different contexts over the past week, and today it seems particularly appropriate for me to spend some time with it.
I see myself in all three of the characters in this story. Once, when I was working in the theatre, I was on a scaffold with another rigger, high above the stage floor, helping to install new equipment in the ceiling. My partner needed me to cross a narrow plank that spanned the frame of the tower to help him operate a drill. I took two steps out, and froze. I could not move my feet, could not et go of the beam above me, certainly could not move my eyes to look down. If my partner had not stepped nimbly out onto the plank and taken my hands in his to walk me back to safety, I would still be up there. So, I understand the fear the young woman must have felt as the water rushed all around her.
In my current work as a personal trainer and coach, I am often part of conversations that remind me of my own experiences. The middle-aged man whose weight has gone up and down again and again for years - maybe his whole life. The woman whose struggling marriage has finally failed who can't stop accusing, regretting, and despairing. The cancer patient, newly diagnosed, who wants to know what's coming, and is terrified that he won't have the strength to face it. Or the caregiver who feels guilty for not doing enough, or for doing the wrong things. I have been blessed to have lived a long time, survived many trials, and made many mistakes. Those experiences have taught me compassion, like the patient old master whose young charge lashes out at him in confusion and disappointment
But mostly, I guess I recognize myself in the novice. I mean, hell, there are a couple of pretty, young girls I've been carrying for years. Failures remembered. Words I regret. Insults I've taken to heart. Old wounds. Old mistakes. It's a wonder I can walk at all, with all these things in my backpack.
I wish I'd had a wise old monk to remind me to set these things down gently by the river, bless them, and then continue on my way. But then, I wonder if my younger self would have listened or even understood his kind counsel. Its a little disappointing to me that, at a time in my life when I ought to be playing the role of the wise old master, I'm still weighed down with foolish, childish burdens, re-playing and re-writing movie scenes that were shot and in the can long ago.
My meditations have been difficult lately. Thoughts and images, emotions and memories have kept me drifting far away from Sophie the cat and my quiet chair. Some mornings, I don't even try because I just don't want to face the chattering inside that troubles me so. I'll turn on a video so I don't have to think, and try to go back to sleep. At night, I distract myself with idle eating, aimless scrolling, and one (or two) too many glasses of cheap chianti. It's been a difficult couple of weeks, and all it has done is to put a little more weight into my pack.
Anniversary dates are hard. February starts with the anniversary of my Father's death. It ends with the birthday of the finest woman I've ever known; one whom I loved - badly, but with all my heart - and failed so disastrously that I doubt I will ever really recover from the guilt and shame of letting her down. It's a hard time for me to be present. I'm not a very nice place to be this time of year.
Depression, that old booger-man doesn't make it any easier. A lifetime of faulty neurochemistry and destructive thinking keeps one eye fixed in the rear-view mirror, no matter how many miles I put between myself and yesterday. And sooner or later, I always seem to find myself passing through a town I've visited before, and the thorny past snatches out at me like briars.
What's a gray-bearded novice to do? The burdens I've chosen to carry make it painful to walk, and setting them down seems impossible. I'd like to tell you I have an answer or even a plan, but to be honest, it's a little overwhelming. Here I am, in the cool breeze and lovely shade under these graceful willow trees, with my empty pack beside me, and its contents spread out at my feet. I know what I ought to do. I ought to bless it all, turn quietly with a bow and a smile, and leave them there on the dark mossy earth as I continue on my way. It's the only thing that makes sense. But I've been carrying them for so long, I'm not sure I know how to walk without them. I'm not even sure I know who I'd be without them.
I'm like a slave who is afraid to lay down his chains.
I have no love for Depression, but it has taught me one important lesson. No matter how bad things get, they do not stay bad forever. Change will come and I'll see sunshine again. But the dark times are hard, especially when they are self-inflicted.
When I read it again, I can't help but notice that the story of the two monks and the woman has no real ending. The novice doesn't learn a lesson. He doesn't let go of his fixation on the girl. He doesn't even condemn the old man as a hypocrite and abandon his service. We don't find out what he does. And maybe that's how it should be. It doesn't really matter if the young monk left his burden there, under the weeping willows.
What matters is, will we? Will I?
Do I dare?
"Little brother, I left her on the shore of that river. But you have carried her all the way to this willow grove."
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
#600 A New Path?
What does it mean to live? To embrace life? To fight for your life? I keep returning to the same ideas lately. If you've been following along, I'm sure you've noticed. That may be a symptom of an increasingly disordered mind, or it may be a result of the more contemplative personal habits I've been practicing. Whichever better describes my state of mind these days, I want to talk about fighting some more.
I have another friend who is dying. There's no easy way to say that. The doctors have lowered his prognosis from "a couple years," to "a few months." He isn't in physical pain right now. He can still get up, go out, drive himself places. He still exercises. He doesn't need you to feel sorry for him. He isn't giving up on life.
He's a hero to me. I wonder how I would respond in his place? I hope I would have some of the courage and strength that he has.
He and I are part of a community. We meet a couple times a week. Our bond is wonderful and horrible. Each of us has experienced hearing the words, "You have cancer," and lived the aftermath of that moment. We all reacted differently, some with hope, some with anger, some with grief, most of us with a combination of all those things. What we didn't do - what we never allowed ourselves to do - was to give up. We never gave up on life. When our community - our cancer family - when we learned of the change in our friend's medical status, we reacted differently, too. Some laid hands on him and prayed. Some held back tears. Some related stories of miraculous cures and sudden scientific discoveries. We made jokes that would scandalize outsiders. We listened silently, feeling our friend's suffering in our own darkest fears. Each in our own way, we tried to project some of our own strength into our brother. He will need it. And we will not give up on him. I don't see him giving up on himself, either.
But "don't give up," isn't really a strategy, is it? What is it that I'm not giving up? What is the positive action implied by that refusal to quit? What does it mean to live until you die?
Years ago, I chose the path of a warrior. I chose to fight. I battled with my weight, my athleticism, my depression, my habits... mostly, I went to war against cancer. I tried to help where I could. Raised money for organizations. Offered to listen or to help survivors to stay fit and active. Built a career around creating communities of survivors who helped themselves and one another. Went to funerals. Saved their pictures. Honored their lives by fighting beside them. Honored their memories by helping others to fight.
I've always equated "don't give up" with "don't stop fighting," but lately I have started to question that plan. Maybe fighting isn't the only option. And maybe there is a place in life's garden where the path splits. Choose the warrior's way and keep fighting, or take this other way, a path of peace.
It sounds so foreign to me, this notion of making peace with cancer. With mine. With yours. With the cancer that makes people I love suffer. With the cancer that changed my life and haunts my secret fears for the future. Cancer has always been my enemy. I've imagined its sneering face and cruel heart. I've held the hand of a beautiful, dying young man, prayed for his rattling breath to stop, and hated the murderer growing inside his frail body. How do I make peace with that? How do i accept it?
Ahhhh...
How can I not accept it? Next to death itself, cancer is just about the realest thing there is. If I say I'm fighting cancer, what am I fighting? Am I fighting reality? Am I fighting the truth?
I can't fight the truth of what might happen, because I can't know what might happen. Can't fight the truth of what has happened; that ink has long-since dried. All I can fight is what is happening now. Fight back the feelings. Fight down the nausea. Fight to stand. Fight to sleep. Jesus, no wonder I'm so tired all the time. I am living my life at war with reality.
I've been at war with the truth.
Nowadays, I'm looking for an alternative. That's why I've been meditating. I've spent a lifetime talking to God. Now, I'm listening. I'm learning to see and hear what is really there. Truth doesn't need my approval or even my acceptance. Maybe, Truth doesn't need anything from me at all. Maybe I don't have to fight for my life, because when I stop and sit and breathe for a moment, I can't help but notice that I'm alive right now. I have my life. For how long? I can't answer that. No prognosis or actuary or oracle can tell me. No tea leaves or entrails or star chart can peek into tomorrow, or even tell me what I'll have for lunch this afternoon. All I have is now. All I have is life.
Maybe my task isn't to wrestle my life from cancer. Maybe my task is to live life with cancer. I know that sounds like I'm just playing with words, But I think they describe two radically different paths.
And it feels like a part of the garden that's worth exploring. I think I'll be back again.
Peace, y'all.
Monday, February 26, 2024
Birth and Rebirth
Isn't she beautiful? Our home. Our refuge. She protects, sustains, provides, and ultimately receives us back to herself. She will surely outlive us, a little worse for the wear; but she will heal as she always does. And when the time comes for her passing, she will do it with grace, returning matter and energy back to the cosmic mother who bore her. From there, who can say? She may become part of the moon or neighbor planets. Her rock and dust and ash may bond together into new objects, never seen before, slipping easily into orbit around the sun. And when that mighty star finally meets its own end, Earth's new life may take her to distant systems, or one day become food for a whole new universe. Her elements, her heat and light and beautiful music will endure and transform into things we cannot imagine. Such is the way of eternity.
This is the way I picture eternal life, anyway. Not an everlasting reward or punishment, not a unending karmic reboot, but a glorious cycle of birth and rebirth. A beautiful economy of matter and energy, delivering the new, and receiving the old with the promise that nothing is ever lost. Everything will return.
There are ancient traditions that teach about a soul that returns again and again, staggering its way toward enlightenment. I just can't get my head around that. Others teach about eternal light or everlasting fire that wait for souls who didn't live their flash of life here on earth by the right rules. That's never sat right with my heart either.
But this, this feels like coming home to me. This is a God who makes sense. A rational God. A just God. A loving God. A God whose kingdom is contained inside itself. The Kingdom of God is within you. Among you. The Buddha, the capacity of enlightenment is within you. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
George Harrison expressed the great truth he found in the Hindu tradition when he sang "Give me Light, Give me Love, Keep me free from birth." I don't know enough about what he believed to understand that, but I feel differently. I find such comfort in the idea of rebirth. I love the idea that my Grampa Johnson and George Gershwin and Thomas Payne and Emily Dickinson all live on in me whenever I sing their songs or honor their lives or read their poetry or use the name my Grampa Robert gave me. When I climb the mountain to the place where my parents are buried, I know that the grass I kneel on is alive because they lie beneath it. And I hope that when I have returned to the earth in whatever form that takes, that my life will continue in the lives I have touched, and that the grass and trees will find good use for me. If I have blessed anyone in this life, I hope they will keep that love alive by loving someone else.
And I find great joy in the knowledge that when the Earth returns to her Mother, we will return with her.
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
I Corinthians 15: 51,52 (KJV)
I won't pretend that Paul had the same kind of resurrection in mind that I envision, but I have to admit that I like the resonance.
Peace, y'all.
Monday, February 19, 2024
The Way of the Wounded Warrior
For years, I've thought of myself as a warrior. The one who didn't die. The Amazing Cancer Boy® who kicked that bastard's ass. Since then, I've fancied myself to be a maker of champions, a builder of cancer victors. I've helped some people, and done some good. I've worked with survivors who have lived and a few who have died, and always my message was the same. Don't you ever give up. Don't you ever stop fighting for your life. Don't you quit on you.
I get a lot more credit for beating cancer than I deserve, I think. That's not false modesty, I'm being candid. People around me shot me full of chemicals and radiation, pumped food into my stomach tube, walked me to the bathroom, cleaned my piss and vomit off the floor. People lifted prayers and wrote notes and sent gifts and visited on the mornings when I wasn't passed out. I make myself out to be this mighty champion, but the truth is all I really did was just lie there and take my pills, too stubborn to die while the real heroes did all the work.
The one thing I never did was to stop fighting. When they told me my cancer was gone, I started fighting my way back to life. I walked around the block. Lifted weights. Jogged on the treadmill. Registered for a 3K, a 5K, a 10K. I joined the Y and found coaches and trainers who helped me take my battle to a broader field. I fought beside other cancer warriors, other survivors who refused to yield. Ran a handful of half-marathons and two full 26.2 mile marathons. And I became a coach. Thirteen years later, doctors send their patients to me and I help those courageous people to find the grit and strength to climb back to life, just like I did. I am a warrior.
I didn't start out that way. I was the fat kid. The last one to the finish line and the last one picked, whatever the sport. I worked hard at the things I was already good at, and when I wasn't good, I quit. I learned that people liked to hear me sing, so I sang. They liked to laugh when I told jokes, so I became a comedian. I went to school and became an actor and entertained strangers in the dark. When I didn't like a job, I quit and got a new one. When I didn't get the part, I blamed the world. Once, when I decided that I didn't like living, I even tried to die. I was not prepared to be a fighter. I was prepared to be a star.
Cancer had another plan for me. I could fight or I could die. So I learned to fight. And with a lot of help, I won.
But that was a long time ago. I was a young kid of 50, back then. I'm an Old Soldier now. I growl at the cocky kids and I whisper the old war stories and I remember the fallen. I have memories that will never go away, and while I wouldn't call it PTSD, there are certain medical sounds and smells that can trigger me into a state of near panic. And in the past few months, I've learned that I have some war wounds that I didn't know were there.
I've seen more specialists than I can remember, and one of them told me, "I expect these arterial occlusions started with your radiation treatments. They've probably been getting worse every day since then." So the treatment that saved my life is also slowly starving my brain of blood. Hmm. That's a lot to take in.
It isn't going to kill me. But it is going to change things. And I need to be prepared to live with the reality that I have no idea how things are going to change.
I have a great team on my side. A whole bunch of smart-as-a-whip kid-doctors and a couple of geezers I really know and trust. I saw those two today. First was my GP. She's been my doc since before the cancer, and she knows me well. (Please don't tell her I called her a geezer. She would not take it well.) We went over last week's fainting episode, and she made some changes to my meds. We're working to manage the chemistry that may be leading to my spells. I'll let you know...
Then I saw my shrink. We don't go back nearly as far, but this guy really gets me. If you have ever gone looking for a therapist, and found the wrong one, you know how scary that search can be. Finding this funny old guy with the crazy hair and the shabby office (yes, he even has a funny accent) was a godsend. We talked about things today, and he said some really helpful stuff. "So, what have you learned about these spells?"
"Well, I almost always feel them coming on. If I stop and sit down, they pass. If I try to fight them off, that's when I pass out."
"Ahh..."
He loves to say "Ahh..." almost as much as I love hearing it. It usually means that I've answered my own question. Then we both laugh.
"So cancer taught you to be a fighter. Fighting has kept you alive. But now fighting knocks you on your ass. Was do you make of that?"
"Maybe fighting this won't work. Maybe I have to accept that things are different, now. Like an old man who has to live with gout or seizures."
"So what? You just give up?"
"No. Hell no. I'm not going to stop living because I'm afraid. But I how do I live if I can't fight for my life?"
"Maybe you just live."
He loves to say this kind of shit, too. We never laugh after these moments. I look at the carpet, (which hasn't been vacuumed since the Clinton administration,) and at the sun setting in the filthy windows and the books stacked on shelves and tables and in brown paper bags, and I check the clock to see how much of the hour is left. Then I stick a toe in the water.
"I just live. OK...? Annnnd...?"
"Maybe you live your life, and you make room for this new thing that is part of it. You don't like it. You didn't invite it. You wish it were not true. But there it is. You will get dizzy sometimes. You will have to stop and sit and gather yourself sometimes. And then it will pass. And then you continue living your life. Do you think that's possible?"
See what I mean? The old kook gets me. I have always liked doing the things I already knew I was good at. I was good at singing, so I sang. I was good at acting, so I acted. I was good at fighting cancer, so I fought.
Well now, I finally have to learn to do something that I'm not good at at all: I have to learn to be weak and restricted by something that no amount of will power can overcome. I've spent my whole life wanting to be a hero. Now I have to learn how to be a human being.
My battle days are over. The Amazing Cancer Boy® has hung his sword over the mantle and tucked his cape and tights in mothballs in the bottom dresser drawer. I still have work to do, warriors to train, hearts to inspire. But not as a superhero. Not anymore. Never was, I guess. Today, I'm a wounded warrior, weary and battle scarred. Once, at great cost to many people, I kicked cancer's ass. I will carry the marks of that victory on my body for the rest of my life.
Others have paid so much more dearly. I'm so very lucky to be here. I intend to stick around for a long time. But I'm going to have to learn another way of life. Fighting isn't the answer. Cancer has left me a little reminder of our time together, and I can't fight this. But I don't have to let it win, either. I can learn to carry it along with me. We can live together.
Old soldiers do die, eventually. But if they are lucky, before that happens, they learn a new way to live. That's my new job.
So, the next time you see me siting on the end of a treadmill, boxing gloves at my feet, slack jawed and glassy eyed, don't worry. Stand my water bottle back upright and give me a fist-bump. I'm just chilling with my new training partner. But we ain't quitting.
We still have a lot of races to run together.
Connections
I've been spending some time reading a little book by Thich Nhat Hahn called Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers, (Berkeley Publishing, 1999.) It isn't a book about religion, really, though it touches on subjects that have been sacred to billions of people for thousands of years. It is really a book about living, about reality, and about... well... about connections.
"Thay" |
Thick Nhat Hanh (1926 - 2022) was a Vietnamese monk whose students lovingly referred to him as "Thay" which means Teacher. His life story is fascinating, and I hope to learn and share a lot more about him in the coming months. Though I won't get the chance to meet him, I've been getting to know him through his words on YouTube and books that he has published. He is a teacher in the best sense of the word, pointing the attention of the student toward something greater, not just promoting himself and his own cleverness. He's a quiet, funny, humble guy, and I have already learned a lot from him.
In my morning reading, I came across a passage where Thay writes about interconnectedness. This is a fundamental Buddhist idea about how nothing in the universe stands alone. We are ever-changing parts of the ever-changing whole from which we come, and to which we return. He talks about how a piece of bread - whether it is a bran muffin, a bowl of cereal, or a communion wafer - contains the whole universe. It contains not only the grain that was milled, but also the rain that nurtured it, the sunshine, the minerals from the earth, even the breath of the sower who spread the seed and the sweat of the reaper who gathered it. All are taken into our mouths when we consume the bread. Our body will use the energy and the nutrients we eat to restore and repair and remake itself. When I drink my morning coffee and eat a piece of toast, I am intimately connected to everything that made them possible. I taste the hands of bakers and touch the hearts of the stars.
This isn't pseudo-spiritual mumbo-jumbo, It's self-evident. It requires no leap of faith to say that I have a relationship with the world around me. You don't have to "believe" in anything. Actions have consequences and causes have effects. Things make things happen. We affect one another. We are connected.
In another passage, Thay talks about waves and water.
Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura) Katsushika Hokusai, c.1830-1832 |
The waves are the water, but if a wave tries to understand water in terms of ups and downs, I and you, then a wave will not be able to touch water. A wave, in order to touch water, must get rid of all these notions. The wave has ups and downs, but the water is free from ups and downs. The wave believes that she has birth and death, that there is birth and the wave comes up, the the wave goes down and there is death, But water is free from all that. So if the wave is trying to understand water in those terms and notions, he will never arrive at touching water. (Coming Home, p. 100)
A wave's identity, it's "self" is only temporary. It rises from the water, and returns to the water. The wave rises and falls, but the water continues on. Think of a leaf that buds in the spring, opens its face toward the summer sun, feeds the branches through its stem, then falls to the earth and decays, becoming the minerals and elements that the roots absorb to produce the next year's foliage and fruit. Does the leaf die? Or is it reborn again and again in the living tree of which is a part?
Birth and rebirth |
There are two hard ideas here, both are foreign to my Christian brain, and both are pretty important to Buddhist thought. First is the idea of "no-self." I'm not sure yet what that really means, but think it means that there is no enduring "me" to live on after I die. I think it means that what comes after me is what came before me. Life. Breath. Water. Wisdom. Love. It's hard for me to think that there isn't a "soul" that will continue to live and move and have its being after I die, but it's kind of liberating, too. There are a couple of things about life that I'd be happy to set aside. When I compare burning lakes, wings and harps, and being used for parts by the next generation, I'm not entirely put-off by the third option.
The second hard idea - and this one will have to wait for another day - is the Eastern tradition of reincarnation. It's the idea that our next life will be determined by Karma: the consequences of actions in our previous life. At least that's how I understood it from my 10th grade social studies class. I won't lie. I could have paid closer attention. Most of my homework centered on a little brunette that year. I was pretty distracted. And yes, I still live with the consequences of that choice from time to time. Decades separate us, but we are still connected.
I don't know what I think about reincarnation. It is unlike so much of what I'm learning about Buddhism because it asserts a supernatural realm that I can't see in nature. Reducing suffering through detachment is a pretty rational idea. Coming back from the dead to give life another try feels like religion to me. I can see my tap water turning to steam when I boil it. I can't quite wrap my head around Sophie the cat coming back as the Queen of England. I'm pretty sure Sophie would consider it a down-grade.
What was I talking about? Connections. Right.
There is a pretty important question waiting out in the garden among all these lovely Buddhist flowers: how does all this interconnectedness matter when it comes to the way I treat people? I think it matters a lot. If we are all coming from the same source and going to the same destination, then the differences between us are pretty insignificant. Likewise, the things we think and say and do to separate us from one another are also insignificant. Your church, my politics, her gender, his race, their education, our nationality... All this stuff is temporary as a ripple in a pond that rolls to the shore and is gone. What remains? What matters?
Connections. That's what matters. The grace I give to myself. The compassion I receive from a stranger. The space I hold for a friend. The listening. The showing-up. The pitching-in. Connections.
I was raised to believe in a God who loved his creatures so much that he became one of them to show them how to live and love one another. Now that's connection. Can we honor our creator any more than by honoring the life and love that connects us?