What defines us? Is it our achievements or failures in either the past or future, or is it something infinitely more?
Perhaps it is the power we have within ourselves to persevere, to make the best of a bad situation, to look to comfort others even as we stumble. Perhaps it is our ability to learn in the midst of failure, to hope in the midst of defeat, and to love when surrounded by hate. Perhaps this, the indefatigable human spirit, is our greatest strength.
Are you broken? Lost?
Lights will guide you home.
Consider the story of The Tenth Goose told by Richard R. Powell in his book Wabi Sabi for Writers:
Nine Canada geese lift off a clear mountain lake; droplets from their wings cast lines of rings behind them on the glassy surface as they rise. Light gray feathers reflect amber light from the early morning sun, a clean glow off each curved body. You watch their broad wings grip air, watch nine bodies rise and fall in rhythm against the dark forest behind them. Each bird’s neck kinks in counter-time to its wing beats so that all nine heads remain level and each set of eyes gazes steadily out at the cool dawn, bright mystery of sight amid the shiny black head feathers. Closer now, you make out the expressionless curve of their beaks, see one goose’s thin moist tongue as she honks; hear the whistle of air across wing feathers as they pass over your head. Then you notice that there is a tenth goose far back, low to the water, working hard to catch up, honking softly, as if each wing beat hurts. This goose loses a feather as she passes close over you and you watch the feather spiral and glide to the ground. You pick it up and it looks perfect, each barbule lying neatly against its neighbor, the tiny whorl of fluff near the calamus soft to the touch. Then you see that the shaft is not perfect; it is cracked open from the middle to the tip.
You keep that feather, tuck it under the strap around your car’s sun visor, look at it every day you drive to work and remember the tenth goose. Remember your own efforts to keep up. And somehow, that tenth goose gives you courage. You wonder if she will find enough food or if winter will separate her from the rest, separate her from life. She speaks to you in a dream one night. In the distracted moments of the day she speaks to you, in the elevator or while you wait in traffic. Then one night she is there in your dream again, as silent as her feather in your car. She tips her head at you and that beak, with its lumpy prominence like a Roman nose, bobs up and down and you realize she is giving you permission to speak. In the dream you speak and she turns her head to hear you and you tell her your fear of dying and your hopes while living and she comes and rattles her beak between your fingers.
There is beauty and strength in the broken places, a beauty that continues on even when everything is a struggle, that faces setbacks with determination. Sometimes we are one of the nine geese, sure and strong, in sync, but sometimes we are the tenth goose struggling to keep up. And there is beauty in that, too:
It is a kind of beauty on the edge of defeat, a beauty tenacious and brave, and it is the beauty left behind when the warm, honking goose is gone. And not just flown away–but dead and gone. That feather remains as a testament to the beauty in living; and even when the feather dries and cracks and is eventually eaten by insects or the drab extension of time, it will live on in the imaginations of those who hear the story of the tenth goose.
Remember the Story of the Tenth Goose and take heart.
And, for a treat, here is Coldplay.
You were meant to soar. When someone tries to hold you down and tells you that you can’t do something, dig deep and say, “Just watch me.”
Who are your heroes? Were they people who stuck their necks out on behalf of others, worked to make the world a better place, gave freely and generously of themselves? These kind of heroes make the world a better place because they are in it.
You can be a hero. It doesn’t have to be a huge thing; it can be as small as seeing someone suffering and doing something to help.
The first step, though, is the seeing.
Does anything keep you from plunging into life? Whether you savor it, delight in it, enjoy it, or not, time will keep moving. You will get older; opportunities will pass. Perhaps it is time to say: I will savor this day; I will delight in these people; I will enjoy my time here while I can.
What can you tell us? With all of your experiences to date, what have you learned that you can pass on to help others? How would you advise your younger self?
For many of us, that advice would be: don’t be afraid. In this delightful video, elders counsel their juniors with some gems on how to negotiate this crazy world.
Who are the people you know who are just, frankly, hard to love? Maybe they’re irascible or mean; maybe they push people away; maybe they are flat out obnoxious. Who are those people? Is there a way for you to love them? Perhaps show them compassion or tenderness? Sometimes the people who least deserve love are the very ones who need it the most.
We need each other–our friends, our families, our communities. We would be lost alone. Consider this remarkable video of a seal who turned to a group of boaters for help when it was in dire need. (Be prepared–it’s intense!)
Sometimes we’re the seal; sometimes we’re the people in the boat providing safe harbor. With each other, we are capable of so much more than any of us is alone.
Have you ever taken a break from an exercise regime only to come back a few days later and realize you had lost ground? Your times were slower; your exhaustion quicker. Perhaps it was a break from keeping the house clean, just a few days, and then a seemingly insurmountable mess of stacked dirty dishes and heaps of dirty clothes. Or any habit, really, that takes day in and day out attention can feel like it is easily lost—like pushing forward on your dreams.
Keeping forward momentum in life is important. It is so easy to slide back, to lose ground, to let tasks build up until they are a mountain you no longer want to climb. But pushing yourself, each day, little by little, isn’t nearly as overwhelming.
Hold your ground. And then keep going. You can do this.
If you were to design a sacred space, what would it look like? Would it have four walls and a roof, or would it be open to the elements–more like an amphitheater? Would your design welcome strangers or be more intimate and walled to shelter those already within the circle?
The notion of building a place for God to come and commune with his people, and them with each other, is as old as the world itself. And, for this test or how to design a sacred space, there are probably no wrong answers. But consider this solution:
In this delightful TED talk, architect Saimek Hariri focused on luminosity, the movement of light across the space as day progressed, and the glow emitted by the temple to the outside world. He says,
You know, you aspire for beauty, for sensuousness, for atmosphere, the emotional response. That’s the realm of the ineffable and the immeasurable. And that’s what you live for: a chance to try.
Hariri’s task was challenging, and his answer novel:
And the brief was deceptively simple and unique in the annals of religion: a circular room, nine sides, nine entrances, nine paths, allowing you to come to the temple from all directions, nine symbolizing completeness, perfection. No pulpit, no sermons, as there are no clergy in the Bahá’í faith. And in a world which is putting up walls, the design needed to express in form the very opposite. It had to be open, welcoming to people of all faiths, walks of life, backgrounds, or no faith at all; a new form of sacred spacewith no pattern or models to draw from. It was like designing one of the first churches for Christianity or one of the first mosques for Islam.
How do we as created beings hope to craft a building that sufficiently honors the creator? Any such attempt is but a feeble effort to manifest our gratitude and awe at the miracle of creation all around us because, in our core, we remember that we meet our creator wherever we go, wherever we are, and wherever we will ever be.
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