Today I learned of the death of a friend's wife. I have never met her in person but have followed her story on Facebook for over a year. If not for Facebook I would never have known of her cancer. If not for Facebook I would never have known of her existence. If not for Facebook I would never have known of her husband's, my high school classmate, career, family, and life after 1975 when we walked across the makeshift stage in Goldsboro gym.
What does it mean now that some share personal stories of courage and faith on Facebook? How does that change the way we communicate about death? Does it change how we experience the death of a loved one? The way we think of our own death?
Her story reached thousands of people through the networks of her family and friends. She and her husband wanted, and did, convey a message of a woman of deep and strong faith, bravely facing the end of her earthly life. I am sad to hear of her death, sad for the emptiness that her husband and children will find in their lives. I know they will "recover" as we all do from these losses. Will having shared the story so publicly change their grief? Make it more or less? Will having heard their story change any of us who followed? Will we find strength or will we feel we can never "measure up" to that standard?
I don't know the answers to any of these questions. I'm not even sure what the questions are...
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Monday, January 7, 2013
Let it be
The other day I wanted to look up the lyrics to a song, "I meant to do my work today," by Carrie Newcomer. I've listened to it a zillion times and am always struck by the lines, "I thought I'd live a louder life....But silence called me deeper still." I wanted to really look at the whole song and think about the message. Okay, song pretty much meant what I thought, but what really intrigued me was her note of introduction. "This is the prayer my friend Richard taught me to pray at the end of the day. 'What has been done has been done, what has not been done has not been done. Let it be.'"
I was raised in the United Methodist church and we weren't all that big on sin, but I knew I shouldn't do some things--like covet my neighbor's wife, for instance. I had a boyfriend in high school who was Episcopalian and for a few years I went to church with him. There is a prayer of confession in the service that has the line asking for forgiveness for things "done and left undone." As I remember it, there was another line, "for things said and left unsaid," but I can't find that exact line anymore. My point is, it wasn't until then that I really thought about the problem of NOT doing something, sins of omission.
I was struck by the similarity in the phrases and a little Googling revealed that Richard's prayer is taken from the New Zealand arm of the Anglican church and is part of the evening prayer. Makes sense.
But, taken by themselves, even without the trappings of God, the lines give us a way to forgive ourselves for what we may have done or not done, said or not said, to accept where we are and to let it be. Of course, I don't think this gives us liberty to just do whatever we feel like or that our actions bear no consequences. For me it means being a bit more tolerant of my flaws and shortcomings and bit more appreciative of my gifts and talents. Let it be.
I Meant To Do My Work Today
This is the prayer my friend Richard taught me to pray at the end of the day. “What has been done has been done, what has not been done has not been done. Let it be.”
I meant to do my work today,
So many plans I had made.
I’d check the mail, I’d make the calls
Save the world and sweep the hall,
Finally get my accounting done,
Sort the beans one by one,
But I got waylaid by the morning sun.
And I got absolutely nothing done.
I thought I’d live a louder life.
I’d learn a lot and get it right.
I’d rent a loft I’d drink all night,
I’d be a living archetype,
And in a blinding flash of light,
I’d see that one great insight,
But silence called me deeper still.
Like nothing else ever will.
I woke to hear an owl nearby,
Hunting something large enough to cry.
Nature’s always beautiful,
The change of season always right,
The moon shines cold and true and bright,
And sets at dawn without a fight,
And yet I could not find a way,
To get myself back to sleep last night.
I never knew just what it meant
The way you smiled while you dreamt.
And why my heart can overflow,
And why mistakes can haunt me so,
Why nothing ever stops or stays,
Dust shimmers in the morning rays,
I didn’t do the work that I’d had said.
I just wandered through these thoughts instead.
I was raised in the United Methodist church and we weren't all that big on sin, but I knew I shouldn't do some things--like covet my neighbor's wife, for instance. I had a boyfriend in high school who was Episcopalian and for a few years I went to church with him. There is a prayer of confession in the service that has the line asking for forgiveness for things "done and left undone." As I remember it, there was another line, "for things said and left unsaid," but I can't find that exact line anymore. My point is, it wasn't until then that I really thought about the problem of NOT doing something, sins of omission.
I was struck by the similarity in the phrases and a little Googling revealed that Richard's prayer is taken from the New Zealand arm of the Anglican church and is part of the evening prayer. Makes sense.
But, taken by themselves, even without the trappings of God, the lines give us a way to forgive ourselves for what we may have done or not done, said or not said, to accept where we are and to let it be. Of course, I don't think this gives us liberty to just do whatever we feel like or that our actions bear no consequences. For me it means being a bit more tolerant of my flaws and shortcomings and bit more appreciative of my gifts and talents. Let it be.
I Meant To Do My Work Today
This is the prayer my friend Richard taught me to pray at the end of the day. “What has been done has been done, what has not been done has not been done. Let it be.”
I meant to do my work today,
So many plans I had made.
I’d check the mail, I’d make the calls
Save the world and sweep the hall,
Finally get my accounting done,
Sort the beans one by one,
But I got waylaid by the morning sun.
And I got absolutely nothing done.
I thought I’d live a louder life.
I’d learn a lot and get it right.
I’d rent a loft I’d drink all night,
I’d be a living archetype,
And in a blinding flash of light,
I’d see that one great insight,
But silence called me deeper still.
Like nothing else ever will.
I woke to hear an owl nearby,
Hunting something large enough to cry.
Nature’s always beautiful,
The change of season always right,
The moon shines cold and true and bright,
And sets at dawn without a fight,
And yet I could not find a way,
To get myself back to sleep last night.
I never knew just what it meant
The way you smiled while you dreamt.
And why my heart can overflow,
And why mistakes can haunt me so,
Why nothing ever stops or stays,
Dust shimmers in the morning rays,
I didn’t do the work that I’d had said.
I just wandered through these thoughts instead.
Friday, January 4, 2013
The You You Will Be
There is a new study that is getting a fair amount of media attention. The article, "The End of History Illusion," appeared in this week's Science. The article starts with the question, "Why do people so often make decisions that their future selves regret?" The authors wanted to test the idea that we are pretty poor predictors of our future selves. We don't expect ourselves to change or grow and so make decisions today assuming that we will stay the same into the future...our preferences, tastes, and desires will be the same.
Interestingly, we are pretty good predictors of our PAST growth, we can look back at our lives and see how different we are today from the past. Still, we fail to project that trajectory into the future. The authors, psychologists, performed a variety of studies to determine if this effect was due to errors in memory, reporting, or interpretation and conclude that the effect is "real" and not an artifact of the design.
So, why are we so bad at predicting? They conclude with this statement about cognitive processes, "Prospection is a constructive process, retrospection is a reconstructive process, and constructing new things is typically more difficult than reconstructing old ones...If people find it difficult to imagine the ways in which their traits, values, or preferences will change in the future, they may assume that such changes are unlikely." Now, home builders and remodelers may disagree--new construction is probably easier than reconstruction if we are talking about a kitchen. But isn't that only because you are constrained in reconstruction by what is there already and you have to do some de-construction first? When we reconstruct our pasts, perhaps we do little destruction. When we look to the future, however, there are so many options and choices, so many paths to take, so many experiences yet to have. How can we possible know where we will be? But, knowing this we can now start to imagine a whole host of possible future selves!
Interestingly, we are pretty good predictors of our PAST growth, we can look back at our lives and see how different we are today from the past. Still, we fail to project that trajectory into the future. The authors, psychologists, performed a variety of studies to determine if this effect was due to errors in memory, reporting, or interpretation and conclude that the effect is "real" and not an artifact of the design.
So, why are we so bad at predicting? They conclude with this statement about cognitive processes, "Prospection is a constructive process, retrospection is a reconstructive process, and constructing new things is typically more difficult than reconstructing old ones...If people find it difficult to imagine the ways in which their traits, values, or preferences will change in the future, they may assume that such changes are unlikely." Now, home builders and remodelers may disagree--new construction is probably easier than reconstruction if we are talking about a kitchen. But isn't that only because you are constrained in reconstruction by what is there already and you have to do some de-construction first? When we reconstruct our pasts, perhaps we do little destruction. When we look to the future, however, there are so many options and choices, so many paths to take, so many experiences yet to have. How can we possible know where we will be? But, knowing this we can now start to imagine a whole host of possible future selves!
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