Any time I am in the
neighbourhood, I see him there. On the pavement of the courtyard of the
nursing home. So far, in every season of the year. In today's
almost-spring morning chill, with a blue toque, grey sweatshirt, yellow plaid
scarf, black pants and grey full-back slippers.
Sitting in a
wheelchair. A gentle and still presence, quietly attentive to all that is
around him. An old man with a beard worthy of Santa Claus, and a manner
maybe worthy of God.
He takes an occasional drag
of a cigarette, but that hardly seems his reason for being out
there.
Maybe ten or fifteen feet
from his chair, a scattering of broken bread pieces. Every day. And
him quietly watching the coming and going of the birds that he
feeds. I have never been there early enough actually to see him do the
breaking and scattering. I just believe he does.
He also looks for, and
follows the movements of any and every squirrel that comes into and through his
field of vision. Patiently following every stutter-step and burst of
speed.
When people happen by, he
nods and says hello. Chats a few minutes.
Today he also sees and keeps
an attentive eye on the Cogeco service van parked just off to one side of him,
blocking and interrupting part of his normal field of vision. Or does he maybe just see
the van as, this day, what fills this part of his field, and thereby earns his
attention?
The grace of his gaze.
I am tempted to wonder what
he thinks. How he feels.
More deeply, I wonder at how
his quiet, attentive, daily presence draws me into a quiet space of my
own. And helps me see. And accept. And deep down peacefully
know myself within a landscape of gracious connected-ness.
I am thankful for him.
She was a few machines over from me. On one of the stationary bikes, talking with a friend standing nearby. Remembering my own age, I assumed she was in her seventies.
And when I heard what she was saying, I thought I had her pegged.
She was telling her friend about a play she saw at Theatre Aquarius the night before -- that some of her companions gave up on at intermission, at which she stayed to the end only to get her money's worth. It was "The Invisible Hand" -- a story of a kidnapped American banker held for ransom in Pakistan, who has to earn his freedom by helping his captors with his financial know-how. It's apparently not an easy play to watch.
And my friend (I don't know her name. She doesn't know mine. We have never talked. Why do I suddenly call her "my friend"?) was telling her friend that the play was simply "too dark" for her taste, which set them both to wondering and lamenting at the change in theatre from lighter fare to more heavy, controversial, "thought-provoking" stuff.
I thought I had her pegged. I began to see myself as somehow superior for liking the darker stuff. I prided myself on my restraint in not making any comments, and just keeping out of the conversation.
But then I began to wonder.
I realized she was, actually, quite self-aware in the way she straightforwardly admitted to her friend that she likes to go theatre for something light and enjoyable. And I had to ask myself, what's wrong with that?
And then came the real surprise. From theatre, this seventy-something woman's conversation moved on to cars, and why she bought the one she did, and the relative merits (including engine size and accessories) of the Honda CRV and HRV ("There are two Honda RV's?" I found myself wondering) and some Subaru I have never heard of. Then on to the newset cell phones and what they have to offer (again something I do not understand at all). And then to the new leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives and his relative weaknesses and strengths against the platforms and leaders of the Liberals and New Democrats.
In other words, that seventy-something woman on the stationary bike left me in her dust.
By this time I was over on the treadmill, and beginning to despair that I don't know nearly as much as she does. Nor about as many things.
I wondered if I would ever know that much, no matter how old I live.
And then I began to wonder about maybe the thing that really counts.
Why don't I just stop comparing and wondering how I measure up, and just open my ears and my mind and no doubt my heart, to be happy to listen and learn what someone else might have to tell me?
Recently a number of books and research projects have been exploring the role of luck in success. The findings seem to be that while talent, hard work, passion and creative commitment are all important to success, luck is a very big factor in the actual distribution of success.
One study, in fact, found that "in general, mediocre-but-lucky people were much more successful than
more-talented-but-unlucky individuals. The most successful [persons in the study] tended
to be those who were only slightly above average in talent but with a
lot of luck in their lives." (From https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-role-of-luck-in-life-success-is-far-greater-than-we-realized/)
While not discounting my own role in the successes and failures of my life, somehow this finding does seem to diminish somewhat my tendency to compare my success or failure relative to others, and to draw moral conclusions (usually negative about myself) about myself in comparison to others.
I wonder also -- going a little more theoretical and big-picture for a moment, if it reveals the lie in the Protestant work ethic that has so shaped our society over the last few centuries -- the teaching that God (or life or society, if you are not overtly religious) rewards those who work hard, and that we earn (and therefore deserve, and deserve to keep and use as we wish) all that comes our way.
When we consider the pride that this ethic can generate in the lives of those who are successful, and the self-loathing, bitterness, depression and anger it can nourish in the hearts of those who are not successful, it makes me wonder at how much our religion can be part of the problem.
But also at how religion -- re-examined and carefully understood and practiced, can also be part of the answer.
This morning I came across this passage quoted from the Qur'an 4:36:
Serve God and do not associate any thing with God, and do something beautiful to both your parents, and to the near of kin, and the orphans, and the needy, and the neighbour who is near and the neighbour who is farther away, and the companion by your side, and the traveller, and those whom your right hands possess; surely God does not love the one who is proud, boastful.
The Jewish Scriptures say the same thing. In fact, the commandments to care for the orphan, the widow and the alien are the most-repeated commandments in the Old Testament.
The Christian ethic is no different.
And even the scientific mind comes to a similar conclusion. The article cited above ends by noting that "the researchers argue that the following factors are all important in
giving [all] people more chances of success: a stimulating environment rich in
opportunities, a good education, intensive training, and an efficient
strategy for the distribution of funds and resources."
I wonder if what's different, though, because of the research about the role of luck in life and in the success anyone has, is that we now have reason to see the redistribution of resources (i.e. better sharing of what people have) not so much as good-hearted charity by those who have, but as simple, humble honesty about what and how we have.
Well, I guess I no longer have to wonder when I'll first miss my Wednesday deadline!
Where on Earth did this week go? And how did it get to be Thursday evening already?
And where did the Olympics go? All week Japhia and I have spent a few moments each evening looking together at the empty TV screen, lamenting the end of the nightly feast of what great things men and women are capable of.
I wonder, what did you see of heroic humanity? What lingers in your mind from the 17-day buffet of human achievement?
Did you see, for instance, the moment in the decisive sixth end of the gold-medal game of mixed-doubles curling, when after struggling through uncharacteristic nervousness and errors in the early game, John Morris passionately urges Kaitlyn Lawes on what ended up being the game- and medal-winning rock, to sweep "hard, Kaitlyn ... hard, Kaitlyn ... harder, Kaitlyn." And she did. And they won.
Or the much-anticipated perfect final skate by Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue, which they actually delivered for all the world to see?
Or the powerful final skate of Kaetlyn Osmond that won her a bronze medal only three years after planning to quit competitive skating because of injuries?
Or maybe something like the sight of the skeleton racers -- athletes sliding down an iced track at more than 100 kms/hour lying head-first on their stomach, unprotected save for a crash helmet, on the merest little sled that would barely hold a ten-year-old?
And do you also remember some of the commercials? Like the one about the young woman born without complete legs, and the way in which the odds against her becoming a world champion downhill skier diminish and keep diminishing through miracle after miracle of the human spirit until she truly does become a champion?
Or the one about a young gay man who comes home to his mom with a figure skating flourish and a black eye he suffered at the hands of others who could not accept him, and a young woman wearing a hijab and ostracized for it by the other girls in her skating club, and the boy with a prosthetic foot struggling to be one with the other speed-skaters? All of whom maintain their passion, and win their chance and their place in the light?
It is amazing what the human spirit -- what we, are capable of, individually and together.
Sadly, no more Olympics until the summer of 2020 and the winter of 2022.
But I wonder what will remain between now and then on the daily table of my life? And what images and visions of true achievement and what glory of real humanity from the past few weeks will persist and be incarnated in my own days and nights of human-divine-olympian living?
Ever wonder about the things that rise unbidden from your memory?
Today at breakfast I was humming "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder." I haven't thought of that hymn for decades, but it was the closing hymn at a funeral service I led yesterday. And somehow it became the soundtrack for my oatmeal and smoothie this morning.
I remember liking it as a kid. In part because the tune has some life to it, and you can be so dramatic with an elongated "ro-o-o-o-ll" and "yo-o-o-o-o-nder" in the last line of each verse and all the way through the refrain. In part, too, because I really found something comforting in the promise of being part of a company of happily saved souls. And I think it really was the promise of being part of "that company" more than of escaping hell, that attracted me. Overall I was probably more lonely than convicted, even though at the time I would have told you the opposite.
And then there's the other thing I found myself mulling over from yesterday -- an interview on CBC's The Current with Laurie Santos, an evolutionary psychology professor who teaches a wildly -- even insanely, popular course called "Psychology and the Good Life" in which she distils current evolutionary and psychological research about human life and happiness, into practical daily disciplines, understandings and practices that students can learn and commit to, to live good lives. When pressed, Laurie says it comes down to developing three things in your life: time for yourself so you can know your own true needs rather than just what our culture tells you to want; daily practices of mindfulness and gratitude; and a commitment to being nice to, and doing good things for others with whatever resources and assets you have.
The course is so life-changing that thousands enrol in person and on-line, students send materials back to their younger siblings still at home and to their parents, and people from around the world find ways to access it.
I was excited just hearing the interview about it while I drove to the church to prepare for the funeral I was leading. And where we would sing "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder."
I wonder how these two things connect in me.
Maybe for me it really is less about making it into "that happy company" on the other side of the distant shore, and more about being part of that company here and now.
p.s. You can find the interview with Laurie Santos at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-february-20-2018-1.4542333/the-secret-to-happiness-ask-this-yale-professor-and-the-1-200-students-taking-her-class-1.4542341
And you can hear a youtube version of "When the Roll" with lyrics, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDWZbDALuI8.
Really?
Ash Wednesday is February 14?
Valentine's Day is Ash Wednesday?
Really?
So I wonder how your day has gone? Off to church in the morning or at noon to confess your brokenness and receive the sign of ashes ... and then out for a candlelit dinner with your sweetie, hoping the low lights will help keep un-noticed the smudge on your forehead so your partner won't ask what you had to confess?
Can you really do romance and confession on the same day? Can sweet-talking to your honey and honest soul-searching with your priest and your faith community be done in the same 24 hours?
Maybe. Maybe it's even a wonderful gift that the calendar has given us this year. (And just wait till you see when we get to celebrate Easter Sunday this year!)
Anyway ... back to Ash-Valentine's Wednesday.
Roses are good (and yes, I still have to go out and buy some because I forgot on my way home!), and I'm sure Japhia will be glad for them, and I will be glad I got them.
But equally good and gladdening to us, I think, are the messy smudges of dried-out, dusty and even burned-in-the-cauldron-of-hurt-and-anger-and-honesty rose petal ashes we wear as the sign of being compelled to work over the years -- the last few especially, at the parts of life and relationship that lie beyond the first and even second or third blush of the roses.
Snowed again today.
It's stopped now and the sun is shining. But all morning and into early afternoon the air was full of big flakes, and a thick, fluffy fresh blanket of white was being laid upon the earth.
Today I loved it. It looked beautiful. It was easy to shovel. It was such a nice day to be outside. The snow was a wondrous excuse to get some exercise on a gorgeous day.
But I also know it was terrible for commuters; I saw the traffic reports. Bad too for people with mobility issues; not many at the seniors' gym this morning. And not good for people on the streets, the homeless, the vulnerable.
So I wonder about that little voice inside me that feels such an immediate need in most situations to evaluate and judge whether something is good or bad.
It all depends, doesn't it?
And maybe the real question in most situations -- today's snow included, is not whether it's good or bad, but what it calls from me.
Today I loved the snow, so I went out in it, cleaned off the car and drove to the gym, came home and shovelled the sidewalk and street, and loved every minute of it. I felt blessed and gave thanks.
And when I think about the people inconvenienced or even threatened by the snow, what's to stop me from doing something to help them -- from showing love in some way? Like contributing to a mission that brings sandwiches and new socks to people on the street. Or like also shovelling the sidewalk (and it's a corner lot -- a lot of sidewalk) of the woman who lives next door, is older than me, and for the health of her heart should not be shovelling?
So I wonder. Maybe the question in most situations of life is not at all, is it good or bad? Maybe the better question that makes more sense is rather, what does it mean and what are the possibilities in this situation for me to be a person of love -- to feel loved and to show love to others?
The question of good and bad is impossible. The question of how I feel loved and how I can show love to others really does seem much better.
