Take nothing for granted

We have all suffered losses in our lives. Profound losses like the death of a parent,a child, a grandparent, a friend. Smaller losses like the end of a relationship, a job, a home. Loss changes us forever. We manage, we cope, we adjust, we survive. But we carry those scars forever. When I hear of someone else's loss I am sad. Sad for the pain I know they will feel, sad for how little there is to do to ease the pain, sad for my own sense of helplessness.

 Each day I'm grateful for what I have and what I have had in my life. But more so today.

Courage to accept

The "Serenity Prayer" is quite well-known:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Most often attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, the prayer was adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous as a guiding mantra. While I won't quibble with the last line, asking for wisdom to distinguish those things that can be changed from those which cannot, I would tinker with the first two lines. 

I imagine most of us think about the first line as an admonishment to let go of the things we can't change, to accept that some things are beyond our control. I most often would apply that to accepting things about others that are beyond my control. I would guess most of us think of those words, too, as being about something negative.  After all, why would we need serenity to accept something positve? 

Lately, though, I've been challenged to look at those words in a different light. Much as I came to an understanding of the idea of sins of omission late in life, I now see that acceptance is not only accepting things in others, but in myself as well. And, not only about accepting the negative, but the positive as well--in both myself and others.  We have strengths and weaknesses, it can be as hard to allow the strengths as to acknowledge the negatives. Which brings me to my quibble--does that require serenity or courage?  Maybe we need courage to accept the things we cannot change. Courage to allow ourselves and others to be who we are.

Now, the second line, courage to change. This must clearly apply to ourselves, after all, how can we change others? We can't. We can change circumstances--feed the poor, heal the sick--but we don't make a fundamental change in others, that can only come from within.  I've been thinking a lot lately about change. Do we really change in our lives, or is it better explained as learning to work around our weaknesses and play to our strengths?  We can try new things--new clothes, new hair, new behaviors, new friends.  Some we may like, some we may discard.  If we adopt a new behavior have we changed? What part of us unchangeable?  

I will admit that some attempts at trying something new will require a certain amount of courage.  It can be scary to venture to the unknown (to the edge). But, maybe there is a certain amount of serenity required, too. A sense that we will be at peace. Maybe confidence is closer to the feeling than courage. 

God, grant me the courage to accept the things I cannot change,
The confidence to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Being in the Middle

I had lunch today with an old friend...that is "old" as in age, not in the length of our friendship.  Bill has memory problems and although we've had lunch together nearly every week for a couple of years, he doesn't clearly know me anymore. Our conversations drift along, meandering through his memories of growing up, playing in the park, spending summers at the shore. One thing he loves to talk about is helping his father who was a tree surgeon. Bill remarks on how fearless he was as a boy, climbing "200 feet or more" up a tree. (I have to admit, it is only recently that I realized how improbable that height is.  I guess he is making the point that it was "high.")  Today that comment took us on a conversational trip through phobias.  He shared that he had no fears--not of heights, spiders, mice, water, enclosed spaces.  I could not name a fear he would claim.

When I revealed that I wasn't so much afraid of height as of "edges,"  he laughed, shook his head, and said, "Chris, that is weird!"  I tried to explain that I didn't mind climbing a ladder, even looking down, but I didn't like crossing bridges. I told him that when you cross a bridge you might fall off the edge. I didn't mind being high, I was afraid of falling. That may sound like a fine distinction, but seems to be an important one to me.

There is a songwriter, Cheryl Wheeler, who wrote that she didn't live in the Midwest because she didn't like "being in the middle."  She went on to write a whole song about her desire to be at the edge, always having one side free.  There is excitement at the edges, that rush of adrenaline, and some thrive there and search out more and more boundaries to cross. I like to visit the edge, step up and peer over.  Sometimes the risk of a fall is worth it.  But, living at the edge can wear you out, I know that as a certainty.  And there is a lot of work to be done in the middle, too, many discoveries to be made and adventures to seek.


One Side Free...Cheryl Wheeler
......
I am living on the coast
'cause it's the edges I like most
I don't know, it's just my style
Always sitting on the aisle.
.........

Houses and Homes

There are two regular columns in the NY Times that I enjoy reading--Modern Love and Anxiety.  Both are sort of "human interest" essay features, where known and unknown writers reflect on some aspect of life. While many of the stories in Modern Love deal with romance, the topic is much broader addressing parenting, families, pets, and all sorts of relationships. Similarly, Anxiety, while focused on the issues that make us anxious, often drifts into the land of Modern Love, and, too, is about our relationships and their meanings in our lives. This week there was an entry in Anxiety titled, "You Are Going to Die." Written by a middle aged man, it is a story of all the emotions that go along with watching your parents age.

I've started to look for a new house and have been thinking a lot about what it is I want in my abode, what features are important, what, if any, things are essential?  Do I need a garage?  I think so.  Do I need 2 bathrooms?  Pretty sure.  One story or two?  Brick, vinyl, wood?  Fireplace would be nice. Modern or colonial?  Light or dark?  Lots of decisions.  What will this house say about me?

Thinking of the house I grew up in, a patchwork of odd sized rooms and mismatched levels, I can't imagine any other home really being "mine." So, I was struck by this line in the essay, referring to the author's childhood house, "However infrequently I go there, it is the place on earth that feels like home to me, the place I’ll always have to go back to in case adulthood falls through."

"...in case adulthood falls through."  What a great phrase.

My siblings and I sometimes talk about what will happen to our childhood home when my father dies or can no longer live there. My dad moved to that street nearly 70 years ago, living first with his parents and then, after marrying, moving next door. The house itself has undergone many transformations. Rooms added on, color changed, landscaping altered.  But, it is the place on earth that feels like home to me.  And the place I would still want to turn to if adulthood falls through.

                

Death in the age of Facebook

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...

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.

 

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!