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People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive. . .of the rapture of being alive. Joseph Campbell
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. Albert Einstein
The more we allow ourselves to unfold,
The less likely we are to unravel.
The more we dive into our desires,
The more exquisite life becomes.
Rabbi Irwin Kula
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"How shall I account for the two, or the ten, missing years on my résumé? How should I explain the gap?"
These are these questions asked of Dr. Kimberley Patton, by students at Harvard Divinity School, fretful and uneasy in the application process for doctoral programs, or jobs in parish ministry. In other words, "Is this (my life) enough? How do I justify the times in my life (whether unproductive or barren or uncreative or bleak) that just don't measure up?"
Dr. Patton's advice to her students? "Tell the truth. Say, 'I took in a child whose mother was in prison and sang her to sleep every night while she cried. I worked the night shift in a rifle factory. I battled an addiction, and I won. My husband was crushed by a boulder that fell in our own backyard, and I tended his grave. I worked as a stripper to save money to go to graduate school. My marriage made in heaven turned to hell. I fled to Caledonia. I fled to Paraguay. I lived in a monastery in Thailand where I came to see that all things, all things, are empty and undeserving of our outrageous attachment to them. I swapped dirty needles for clean. I took photos of skulls left by the Khmer Rouge. I cut down trees all day and made them into tables.' "
Every one of these stories happened.
Every one of these stories happened during the "gap" in the student's résumé.
And yet. Each story is discounted or underestimated, because we live in a world mesmerized by the obsession with productivity.
"What did you do today?"
"What have you done for me lately?"
"Are you somebody. . .yet?"
And, we feel compelled to answer. . .
Yes. We want our lives to matter. But we sure go about it in an odd way. We have forgotten Albert Einstein's reminder that "not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Not that we don't try. This is from Hillary Price's comic strip, Rhymes with Orange.
First character, "I've done it all--the 12 steps, the 7 habits, the 4 agreements."
Second character, "And what'd you learn?"
First character, "Happiness is rarely numerical."
Are you sure it doesn't matter? I mean, I've seen the books. "A better you in 30 days!" It is on the same shelf as "Become a better you in 7 days!" I guess it all hinges on whether I'm in a hurry. One thing I know: I've swallowed the notion that it is all seamless.
But then I guess it all depends on where I'm looking. Yes, sometimes (like those students) we live with the gnawing sense that something is missing. But then, we live our life like the man who lost his camel, but spends his time looking for the rope.
Or, like the man who lost his keys. On his hands and knees searching. Another man stops and asks, "Can I help?" "I lost my keys." "Where did you lose them?" "Over there." "Then why are you looking here?" "The light's better here."
So. "How," Dr. Patton asks, "can we learn not to panic as future ministers or scholars or mothers (or fathers or friends or lovers) when we are 'not getting any work done' or when we lose direction altogether, when there is no plan, when the manuscript is delayed or the child is ill, when the love affair sours and there is no point in getting up, when the beloved sister or brother unexpectedly dies, or when we are suddenly called to make pots, to sit with dying people, or to go to Brazil?"
Here's the deal: To understand and embrace the gift of life, "in the gaps," is a paradigm shift. And it is not easy.
Perhaps we have lost the bigger picture.
Or. Perhaps we have lost the restorative power of the small, and the ordinary. The exquisite grace in what is tangible and real...
touch friendship
music tears listening
poetry
laughter
birds on my pond
"But this doesn't add up!" something inside of us protests.
Okay. So here's the deal for me. I am afraid that if I embrace those parts of my life that have been relegated to "the gaps," those parts of my life that do not make the first page of my résumé, then I am admitting that I have pinned my hopes on some construct of a false self. Some kind of artifice. Maybe if I show you what is in "the gaps," it's not the Terry I want people to see. And maybe, just maybe, you won't like it. . .
I loved the movie The Natural. Robert Redford plays an unknown middle-aged baseball player named Roy Hobbs. With a mysterious past, Hobbs appears out of nowhere to take a losing 1930s baseball team to the top of the league. His famous bat ("Wonder Boy") is handcrafted from a lightning-struck-tree. In the ultimate scene Hobbs the invincible, the home-run king, is at bat in what will be his final game, and after a long foul ball, shatters his bat. He stands there, disbelieving, holding what is left of the broken pieces, now beyond repair. He says to the bat boy, "go pick me out a winner, Bobby."
Maybe it's a stretch, but I can see how that bat represents some semblance of control, and maybe that's what I need: the artifice and the résumé to be shattered. I've written a good bit about brokenness. And I see the connection here. In the brokenness, and in the gaps, my soul is forged. And I am invited to the dance of life. . .
Or, as Shirley Valentine put it, "I've fallen in love with the idea of living. Because we don't do what we want to do, do we? We do what we have to do and pretend that it's what we want to do. And what I want is to stay here and be Shirley Valentine. . .I've led such a little life. And even that will be over pretty soon. I have allowed myself to lead this little life, when inside me there was so much more. And it's all gone unused. And now it never will be. Why do we get all this life if we don't ever use it? Why do we get all these feelings and dreams and hopes if we don't ever use them? That's where Shirley Valentine disappeared to. She got lost in all this unused life."
I've had a long week. Atlantic City to Seattle to Modesto to Seattle to Oklahoma City. It's easy to let myself feed off the wrong question, "What did I accomplish this week?" I suppose there's a tally. What I can tell you is this... I drove from Modesto to Sacramento very early this morning with a full moon as my companion in the western sky. I allowed myself to be loved. I laughed with friends. I invited a group of people to give themselves the permission to celebrate the present moment. I relished a movie with my son. And I cut a bouquet of roses from my garden--even in the gloom, the blooms still resolute and hope-filled.
--Dr. Kimberley Patton's comments from her address to graduating students, Harvard University, 2005.
terryhershey.com
terry's schedule
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Poems and Prayers
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime, Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.
Reinhold Niebuhr
At the entrance,
my bare feet on the dirt floor,
Here, gusts of heat;
at my back, white clouds.
I stare and stare.
It seems I was called for this:
To glorify things just because they are.
"Blacksmith Shop" Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass
Lord, it is night.
The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.
It is night after a long day. What had been done has been done;
What has not been done has not been done; let it be.
The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives rest in you.
The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us, all dear to us, and all who have no peace.
The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day, new joys, new possibilities.
In your name we pray. Amen.
-New Zealand Prayer Book
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Be Inspired
What Matter's Most -- Kenny Rankin
Rod McKuen - Love's been good to me
Can't Find My Way Back Home -- Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton at the Crossroads Guitar Festival 2007
Favorites from Last Week:
Begin -- The Waillin' Jennys
Rocky Votolato - Silver Trees (pure volume session)
Colin Hay - Waiting for my real life to begin
Carrie Newcomer -- Bare to the Bone
Donovan and Joan Baez -- Colours
Pete Seeger -- Forever Young
Lay down your weary tune -- Mary Black
Irish Blessing -- John O'Donohue
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Notes from Terry
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