So much of living is grief, I’ve found. Grief at the loss of people, places, times we’ve loved. Grief over relationships that are now stilted and strained which once felt unbridled and free. Grief over the not knowing, and sometimes the knowing. Grief over lost faith you once had in people who now are difficult to recognize. Grief everywhere, and it can lead to separation. Pulling away in anticipatory fear of yet more grief. And, that will lead to loneliness.
Perhaps our loneliness epidemic would be eased if we all were to slow down and notice each other, pause to realize we are here for each other, and be vulnerable enough to allow ourselves to see and be seen.
Perhaps the antidote to grief is attention, not because you will avoid the ultimate loss, but because you will capture the moments now. Cherishing our children while we are here. Nurturing our friendships while we are here. Noticing
Mary Oliver’s poems open us in so many ways– to nature, to each other, to our own hidden places. Perhaps this one on loneliness will speak to you today:
Loneliness
When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider the orderliness of the world. Notice something you have never noticed before,
like the tambourine sound of the snow-cricket whose pale green body is no longer than your thumb.
Stare hard at the hummingbird, in the summer rain, shaking the water-sparks from its wings.
Let grief be your sister, she will whether or not. Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also, like the diligent leaves.
A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life.
Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away. Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.
In the glare of your mind, be modest. And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling.
I was robbed recently. I was enjoying lunch with a treasured friend, undoubtedly lost in the delightful way she tells stories and looks at life, when my purse was taken right off my chair as I sat there unaware. The restaurant’s security cameras showed two women, the perps, dressed in hot pink and bright orange, casually taking my purse and then driving off in their Mercedes (!) to Target where they started to put my credit card to work. The nerve.
I realized this incident had affected me more than I realized when the dreams came. Home invasion dreams where I was in my childhood home trying desperately to figure out how to protect my mother. I grabbed her and ran to the bedroom door, but men were trying to get in there, too, in tactical gear and heavily armed. I was running through all the escape possibilities in my head, realizing we might be trapped and I wouldn’t be able to save her, when I woke up, heart pounding.
So how do I quell these troubled waters. First, of course, was to cancel the cards and block my phone. But the next step is maybe the best for easing the troubled mind. Mr. Rogers reminded children to look for the helpers in any crisis. For me, helpers would include that friend, a retired nurse, cool under pressure, who dashed to my car to prevent the thieves, who now had my keys, from stealing it. I had visions of her clinging to the hood while they used the windshield wipers to dislodge her, but that’s my brain in overdrive not the reality. Instead, there was another helper who found my purse, sans phone and credit cards, abandoned in the bushes. Due to the kindness of the people eating around us who had responded to my yelps of distress and pointed me out to her, I got my purse, and key, back. And then there was the restaurant manager who calmly rebuffed my repeated and emphatic suggestions to plaster warnings about thieves everywhere, but instead saved all the identifying information on video for the police to follow up. He mentioned we all need to cultivate situational awareness.
Situational awareness. And therein lies the rub. I want to live in a world where I can have a leisurely lunch with my friend and no one is casing the joint, looking for some unsuspecting mark to rob. That would be a better world! But it’s not this world. So if one of us needs to change, the world or me, it will need to be me.
And as I stewed on these words—situational awareness—it occurred to me that they apply to pretty much everything. We have to stay focused on the world we have, the reality, and bring our attention to that place and circumstance and base our decisions and actions on that. Not on the world we wish we had, but the one we do have. The place we are. The reality we must confront. That’s where the real work gets done and progress gets made.
In his book, The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck starts with the given, Life is difficult:
He goes on to say some equally profound things about how if the world isn’t aligning with our understanding of it, it is our understanding that must change, not that we should lie to ourselves to pretend the world supports our image. He likens it to maps. If the map you’re using isn’t getting you to where you want to go, it is the map that’s wrong, not the reality. The map must change.
As we look around, where are the places that things don’t make sense? The places our maps aren’t getting us where we want to be? Maybe things that are different now than they once were? Where do we need new maps?
We need to stay dedicated to reality, as much as it might trouble us, and adjust our maps so we can get back on track. Peck concludes :
The more effort we make to appreciate and perceive reality, the larger and more accurate our maps will be. But many do not want to make this effort. Some stop making it by the end of adolescence. Their maps are small and sketchy, their views of the world narrow and misleading. By the end of middle age most people have given up up the effort. …Only a relative and fortunate few continue until the moment of death exploring the mystery of reality, ever enlarging and refining their understanding of the world and what is true.
Mr. Rogers inspired generations to recognize the beauty of their neighborhoods, to search for the helpers for inspiration in any crisis, and to recognize that each individual has value and inherent worth. His words continue to echo through both good and bad times. He reminded us that it wasn’t our exteriors he liked or admired, but our interior selves, our character and trustworthiness.
Today consider his reminder to remember all those people who believed in you and made you who you are– someone capable of making the good choices to make this world a better place.
I’d like to give you all an invisible gift. A gift of a silent minute to think about those who have helped you become who you are today. Some of them may be here right now. Some may be far away. Some, like my astronomy professor, may even be in Heaven. But wherever they are, if they’ve loved you, and encouraged you, and wanted what was best in life for you, they’re right inside your self. And I feel that you deserve quiet time, on this special occasion, to devote some thought to them. So, let’s just take a minute, in honor of those that have cared about us all along the way. One silent minute.
Today, notice signs of hope in unlikely places. In the smile of a baby, the fledgling arguments for peace by a child, the chink in the armor of an opponent.
There are so many ways to find solace in troubling times. Lately, I’ve been paying attention to delight. What a lovely emotion is delight, and instances can be found everywhere.
For me, just this past few days, I’ve found delight in a friend’s video of their new grandson laughing, the unabashed belly laugh of the new to this world that can’t help but make me smile. In a friend’s periwinkle sweater, my favorite color, a favorite shared with my late grandmother who I adored and the color of jacaranda blossoms that takes me back to days sitting on the lawn of my children’s elementary school under the falling blooms as a best friend and I waited, chatting, for our kids to come running out at the end of their school day. In the fragrance of a new foaming bath soap, this one Winter Citrus Wreath, selected by my husband, who picks a half dozen or so out to surprise me, knowing how much I love scents. And so on.
Delight is everywhere when we look for it, and lingering for a moment in that feeling lifts us up and gives us hope.
Consider Mary Shelley’s complete list of the simple things she found to love:
Love! What had I to love? Oh many things: there was the moonshine, and the bright stars; the breezes and the refreshing rains; there was the whole earth and the sky that covers it: all lovely forms that visited my imagination, all memories of heroism and virtue. Yet this was very unlike my early life although as then I was confined to Nature and books. Then I bounded across the fields; my spirit often seemed to ride upon the winds, and to mingle in joyful sympathy with the ambient air. Then if I wandered slowly I cheered myself with a sweet song or sweeter day dreams. I felt a holy rapture spring from all I saw. I drank in joy with life; my steps were light; my eyes clear from the love that animated them, sought the heavens, and with my long hair loosened to the winds I gave my body and my mind to sympathy and delight.”
Oh, to give our body and mind to sympathy and delight. Definitely good for whatever might ail you.
Do you have a dream? Maybe to meet someone special, learn a language, write a book, learn an instrument, play a sport, travel? What is that dream?
Now, more importantly, what work are you doing to realize that dream? There are a plenty of people who dream of being musicians who never practice their instrument, or people who dream of being published who never write, or people who dream of traveling but never save up. Why is that?
One reason is it is fun to dream that you have God-given natural talent that will be discovered by the world someday like Lana Turner sitting at the counter sipping a Coke at the Top Hat Cafe. And, while those kinds of stories may happen occasionally, the much more common story is that someone who achieved their dream worked for it, and worked hard. Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school basketball team. Frank Sinatra spent hours holding his breath to improve his phrasing. Vincent van Gogh’s early work was, well, not that great.
And plenty of people who have become successful want to perpetuate the notion that they were just born that way. It was natural talent not hard work. It was their own efforts, not a result of having many people in their corner, helping them move forward. And sometimes it seems this way, doesn’t it? We see the Olympic performance, but not the struggle that led there. We read the best-selling novel from the overnight success, but don’t see all the drafts in the desk drawer. And something in us wants to believe that those people, those success stories, are different from us. They were just born different. But that’s not the truth.
Success isn’t like winning a lottery; it’s like running a marathon. Hard, grueling, and long-term. Some people achieve their dreams because they pursue them. They don’t just dream, although the dream–something that ignites your passions–is the first step. The dream isn’t all they needed though.
But the dream gave them curiosity to explore it from every angle. And that curiosity gave them energy to practice. And that practice brought improvement. That improvement was encouraging. And that encouragement helped them stay the course. Now sometimes following the dream will result in financial or other success, but that shouldn’t be the yardstick. The yardstick should be if you are doing what you dreamed of doing.
So, yes, dream of all you can be. But then figure out some concrete steps you can take to help you get there.
In her book Almost Everything, Anne Lamott describes her struggle with hate:
Hate weighed me down and muddled my thinking. It isolated me and caused my shoulders to hunch, the opposite of sticking together and lifting our hands and eyes to the sky. The hunch changes our posture, because our shoulders slump, and it changes our vision, as we scowl and paw the ground. So as a radical act we give up the hate and the hunch the best we can. We square our shoulders and lift our gaze….
Hating the way I was feeling helped me give up Camel cigarettes thirty-two years ago, and then alcohol. It is good to surrender things that poison us and our world. Am I free of such toxicity now? Well about forty percent, and that is a pretty good deal. I’ll take it.”
She now considers the circumstances and people pushing her to hate as helpful weight-training equipment to build muscles in her soul, ‘Nautilus equipment for your character.’
As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.
Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society–things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly.
It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.
Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
In a captivating interview, Jane Goodall offers some final thoughts, filmed to be aired only after her death, with the last bit spoken directly to the camera with no one overhearing. Apparently, this is part of a series on Netflix called Famous Last Words.
It’s a sobering thought, thinking about what is the final thing you want to say to the world, to loved ones, to friends. Because they’re your last chance, these types of words hold special import.
As is unsurprising, Goodall’s final words focused, not on herself, but on others, inspiring everyone to make a difference and not give up in what she called these ‘dark’ times’.
Here are Jane’s final words:
In the place where I am now, I look back over my life. I look back at the world I’ve left behind. What message do I want to leave? I want to make sure that you all understand that each and every one of you has a role to play. You may not know it, you may not find it, but your life matters, and you are here for a reason.
And I just hope that reason will become apparent as you live through your life. I want you to know that, whether or not you find that role that you’re supposed to play, your life does matter, and that every single day you live, you make a difference in the world. And you get to choose the difference that you make.
I want you to understand that we are part of the natural world. And even today, when the planet is dark, there still is hope. Don’t lose hope. If you lose hope, you become apathetic and do nothing. And if you want to save what is still beautiful in this world – if you want to save the planet for the future generations, your grandchildren, their grandchildren – then think about the actions you take each day.
Because, multiplied a million, a billion times, even small actions will make for great change. I want to – I just hope that you understand that this life on Planet Earth isn’t the end. I believe, and now I know, that there is life beyond death. That consciousness survives.
I can’t tell you, from where I am, secrets that are not mine to share. I can’t tell you what you will find when you leave Planet Earth. But I want you to know that your life on Planet Earth will make some difference in the kind of life you find after you die.
Above all, I want you to think about the fact that we are part – when we’re on Planet Earth – we are part of Mother Nature. We depend on Mother Nature for clean air, for water, for food, for clothing, for everything. And as we destroy one ecosystem after another, as we create worse climate change, worse loss of diversity, we have to do everything in our power to make the world a better place for the children alive today, and for those that will follow.
You have it in your power to make a difference. Don’t give up. There is a future for you. Do your best while you’re still on this beautiful Planet Earth that I look down upon from where I am now.
God bless you all.
As they did while she was alive, her words inspire us to do as much as we can with what we have, to look out for others, and to cherish and care for creation. let her words be a blessing and beacon to all of us now.
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