what I've learned from life, by Mary Elyn Bahlert
“I am not I.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives, gently, when I hate,
who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die.”
Juan Ramon Jimenez
I’m not a person who likes to wait. Maybe you’re like me, maybe you’re not like me. I like things decided, things all wrapped up, nice and tidy, the edges clean, all the details taken care of. I like closure. “Holding things open for awhile” doesn’t seem to work well given my temperament.
I’ve noticed that some folks are better at waiting than others. When I sent a Christmas gift to my sister last year, she actually waited until Christmas morning to open it, although she knew it was something she really, really wanted. When she sends a gift to me, she always makes sure she writes in large letters, on the outside of the postal package: “DON’T OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS!” She must remember, from a long time ago, that I don’t like to wait.
In my years of working with people, I learned that some people are better at waiting than others. Some people like to hold all the options open, open, open – and open! – just in case another option presents itself. And some folks like to make up their minds and go with it. I’m in the second group, for sure. When I’m ready to check out at Target, I scan the lines, looking for the shortest one. How much stuff does the person ahead of me have in their cart? Oh no – as I’m scanning the lines, a couple of other people get into the shortest line ahead of me! Now I have to look for the shortest line, again.
Most of us, culturally, don’t like to wait, I think. We’re so accustomed to our google search coming up fast that we get frustrated if it takes a moment, if the computer hesitates in its search. Communications are getting faster and faster – how much faster can it get than text messaging? Plans for a rendezvous after work used to take hours – even days – to get on everyone’s calendar. Now, plans can be made in an instant.
We don’t seem to have more time, though, do we? As fast as communication and transportation are, we simply don’t have enough time for everything. We feel more and more rushed, all the time.
***
I want to suggest that there is a wisdom in waiting. To suggest this is actually counter-cultural for a fast moving people!
If we want wisdom, I think we have to wait. A life unfolds in its own time, its own pace. The infant who is crawling has to take many steps that include falling on her butt before she can take her first walking steps. As much as any child wants to grow up, the years of childhood must be lived. Each moment is another moment of creation, the ongoing creation of a human being.
I still don’t like to wait, but sometimes, waiting is the only action I can take. It helps me to think of waiting as an action. I can breathe, right down to the soles of my feet, when I’m standing in a long line. I can notice the people around me, even chat with the person behind me. I can complain about the long wait while I’m chatting!
That’s what I can do when larger things are at stake. I can breathe, I can enjoy the view, I can meet a stranger, I can savor the living of this moment, this moment, this moment, and this moment…
Sometimes, when we wait, something new, something completely unseen before, arises. Some new information arrives. Some feelings that have been buried come to the surface. Something is learned. Some part of us begins to trust more deeply.
To wait is practice, spiritual practice. Some things will never be changed, even if we charge in to change them with our most inspired plans. But if we wait, some new wisdom may emerge.
“Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
This is one of life’s great secrets – and I’m going to share it with you, today!
To receive generosity from others, all you have to do is to give generously. That’s it. That’s the secret, and it truly is one of the great secrets of life. The secret is yours to share now, too.
The secret of generosity is something that is needed by our communities, right now. And you can begin, right now.
This morning at 8:05 AM the door bell rang. My husband and I were expecting a rep from an service company . Sure enough, the rep arrived at the appointed hour! I heard my husband ask the name of the young man who was going to set up a new system for us. I heard them exchange names. Later, I heard my husband ask the young man for the name of his supervisor. He wanted to call to let the company know what good and careful service we had received. A short time later, we decided against the service, and the company rep packed up the boxes we’d had in our front hall for a couple of weeks. Then he left.
As soon as he left, I heard my husband dialing the number of the supervisor. He left a message, mentioning the name of the young man who’d come to our place, and giving a positive report. My husband didn’t need to do that, but he did. I like that about him. He’s a generous guy.
He told me that he’s been learning that when you give generously, it comes back to you. But he did it just because it’s a simple thing and it feels good to be generous. Isn’t that enough?
I had a lot of energy this morning so I started to go through my closet, to finally take out some things I’ve been thinking about for awhile. I’m in the mood to get rid of having so many “things,” lately. I took 3 large paper bags filled with my stuff out to the car and drove directly to the American Cancer Society store in the neighborhood, where I parked my car at the curb and emptied my car of the bags full of stuff. I had a couple of loads, and I waited for a moment to get a receipt. When I came back out the door and onto the street, a meter attendant from the city was in his vehicle, idling right next to my car . I stopped. I looked at him. “You’re giving me a ticket?” I asked. “yes,” he nodded. “I was stopped here to donate,” I said. He got out of his car and I explained. “You were donating?” he asked. “Yes.”
He let me go without a ticket!
As I drove away, I was thinking about how magical and mysterious life can be. It all depends on our focus. My husband’s generosity seemed to have mysteriously rubbed off on others. It is a sunny beautiful day, and as I drove away, I was taken with the simple kindness of the ticket-giver.
Were the two events connected? I don’t know that. In one sense, I’m sure they were not, at all. But as taken with generosity as I was, I took them to be connected. It’s about perspective.
We all can be generous to those we know well and love. That’s easy, well… easier…! But generosity just for the sake of generosity is another thing. It’s a kind of magic.
About 40 years ago, “Mike” was my supervisor at my first professional job. We were both in our 20’s, and although Mike was just a couple of years older than me, he always seemed so much older. Maybe it was his role; maybe it was my being so young, even too young for my age. Mike was smart, and he was funny. He was 40 years ago, and he is now.
I was involved in the evolving feminist movement of the time, and I brought my growing consciousness to my job. I read every month’s issue of “Ms. Magazine” from cover to cover. Now, young women do not realize what women of the last generation confronted; sometimes, when I remember or tell the stories of those times, it seems as if it cannot be true, as if those were ancient times instead of the 1970’s. When I think about the treatment of women the world over, the wage inequalities in this country, the limited rights of women as human beings in other countries, I realize these are still ancient times. We have a long way to go. And that’s an understatement.
Because of my feminist consciousness, Mike said to me one day: “You have to meet my wife.” She worked in the same job as I did, in another office. Many months later I was sent to that office to work for several days, and I met “Jane” for the first time. I remember sitting across from her at her desk for a moment, the conversation beginning. The conversation we began that day would continue until her death, in her early 50’s, over 10 years ago now. I miss her every day. Mike was right. I did need to meet his wife.
Over the years, our lives evolved and changed, as lives do. Mike and Jane moved away, to another state. They had two children, two beautiful daughters. I remained single until my 30’s. Every few months, Jane would visit me for a weekend. She’d drive to my apartment late Friday afternoon, arriving in the evening. We’d sit in my living room, talk for hours, Jane smoking one cigarette after another. At some point, we decided we were hungry, so we’d dress up, put on evening-out makeup, tell each other how wonderful we looked! – and go out to dinner, talking all the time.
What did we talk about? What didn’t we talk about? What do we talk about with those particular people who meet us on so many levels? Still, when I think about Jane now, I realize our conversations were mainly about our thoughts, our thinking, our opinions, our politics, our ideas, our hopes. We didn’t talk about feelings, or motives, or foibles. We didn’t go to those darker, those deeper places in ourselves. Now, I wish we had. Now, I’m not sure Jane could go there at all, although she was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known.
Our lives unfolded in different ways. We took different paths. I moved across the country, went to seminary, married my beloved at 34, and stayed. Jane and Mike divorced, although I remained friends with both through the years. When Jane met her second husband, I liked him, too, and I was proud to be asked to officiate at their wedding. Ten years later, Jane died of complications from surgery, after she developed lung cancer. I saw Mike next at her memorial service. He came up to me after to say: “Jane would have liked it.” I had my own grief, and I was grateful for his thoughtful comment, but we didn’t connect that day.
***
By that time, Mike had developed Parkinson’s disease, and it was hard to see him. In my mind, we will always be young. That’s something young people don’t know about – how “old folks” are never old, in their minds. We seem to stay stuck at some age, some age we have always, will always be. Some time, I’ll write about my “stuck” age.
Through the years, I heard about Mike from time to time. I heard about his new marriage through Jane. I haven’t met his second wife, although they’ve been married for many years. I expect that if I did know her, I’d like her, too. I’m connected with Mike and Jane’s daughters on social media, and I can see their mother in them, often. I see her eyes, her expression, her look in the pictures of her grandchildren. I look for her in them, in her daughters. I can hear her in the musings her daughter posts.
***
Sometimes, social media can actually help people connect. Not just through “selfies” or meaningless comments; in real ways. But the real connection is still real because we are human beings, with feelings, and memories, and relationships, and lives. This past weekend, I saw a picture of Mike on social media, posted by one of his daughters. I “liked” the photo. Later that day, when I checked in again, I had a private message. It was from Mike, and it had been typed by his daughter, who is his caregiver every other weekend.
We “old folks” know how to connect. We know that connecting isn’t simply having hundreds of friends. We know that connecting is something else, and we know when it’s there, and when it’s not. And in that message, Mike connected. He told me some things about his life now, with Parkinson’s. He told me that there had been many changes in his life. He told me a few things about what life is like for him, now. That message has stayed with me. That message has reminded me of so many happenings, so many events, so many images that are a part of the fabric of my life, and have been for a long time. That message brought me gratitude, a gift. That message opened a door in my heart, one of many doors, an important, feeling-filled door. Images arise, moments with Mike and with Jane, other moments with other friends, other connections, other times.
Sometimes, it’s just good to remember, and to be grateful.
‘As if the sorrows of this world could overwhelm me now that I realize what we are. I wish everyone could realize this. But there is no way of telling people they are all actually walking around shining like the brightest sun.’ Thomas Merton
Calla Lily at dusk – shining like the brightest sun.
[White calla (Zantedeschia aethopica) is the classic variety, with vase-shaped white flowers that rise from a clump of dark green, shiny leaves.]
You are so beautiful, beautiful beyond any beauty you have ever seen, ever will see, or any beauty you can imagine. And if you are so beautiful, so is every other living creature, every human being, every plant and tree and animal and flower and star and mountain and cloud and drop of rain. We are all shining like the brightest sun. We are part of the Great Being.
This is the truth!
For a moment, imagine what the world would be like if we all saw through the dark, shaded barriers of our small egos to the light beyond, the light that is us, the light that is the whole of this creation. How we would love one another! How we would reach out to one another with help and hope and compassion! How different this world, this one world we are given, would be!
We look at one another and at the world, ordinarily, through the lens of our small selves, our ego-selves, the part of us that is harsh and critical and demanding – of ourselves, and then, of others. What we see “out there” is only a reflection of that wounded, small self we so often identify with. And so we miss – we actually do not see – the light, the whole person, the little bit of beautiful we each are.
“You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.” – Max Ehrmann, 1927.
And that “little bit of beautiful” is all-beauty, all-whole, all-loving, all-kind, all-compassion, all-connected, all, all, all, all, all – complete. Whole. Light. Love. Truth. Peace. Hope. Joy.
As the world seems to become more and more unkind, it is going to take some of us to turn around, turn toward the Light, to let go of our small selves, to identify with our Whole-ness, our True Selves, to change the world. This doesn’t mean you have to stop doing what you are doing. Whatever you do is important. What it does mean, though, is that you will have to stop identifying with your small self, moment by moment, letting-go by letting-go…
This is the true work. This is the work the world needs us to do. If you’re too busy doing other things, other important things, then you’re too busy to do this work, this work of letting-go, of dissolving the barriers in yourself that have clouded the Light.
You are shining, like the brightest star! Yes – you! Yes – now! Yes! Yes! Yes!
