It occurs to me…

More from Rachel Remen’s My Grandfather’s Blessings:

“As life becomes colder, and somewhat harder, we struggle to create places of safety for ourselves and those we love through our learning, our skills, our income.  We build places of security in our homes and our offices and even our cars.  Those places separate us from one another.  Places that separate people can never be safe enough.  Perhaps our only refuge is in the goodness of each other.”

My first, shallow thought is – “Uh oh.  We’re screwed.”  But of course, Remen is correct on all fronts.  Perhaps it is because I heard my first Christmas song in a store yesterday, but this somehow connects me to that punchline from the Grinch after Who-ville goes on with its Christmas celebration despite the Grinch’s thievery:

“And he puzzled three hours till his puzzler was sore.  Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before.  Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store.  Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more.”

And perhaps that “little bit more” and Remen’s “goodness of each other” are one in the same.  We could do worse than to hope/rely on those.

Yesterday, through a series of coincidences I picked up a book that, per the note on the inside cover, was given to me by a friend in December of 2001 – My Grandfather’s Blessings by Rachel Remen.  I keep few books, so the fact that I kept this one for nearly eighteen years suggests that it seemed worthy of keeping.  So I picked it up today and the wisdom poured out of it as I read it again, revisiting previously underlined passages and underlining new ones.

“Sometimes if you stay the course long enough, divergent paths reveal themselves to have the same destination.”  My Grandfather’s Blessings – Rachel Remen

This strikes me as a simple truth and a complex truth.  Often, as my wife and I ride/drive in a car headed to a known and often visited destination, one of us comments (or on better days, just thinks silently) something to the effect of “Oh, you’re going this way.”  The suggestion, of course, is likely “…but I would have gone a different route.”  Each time this occurs I am reminded that, as Remen notes, the “divergent paths reveal themselves to have the same destination.”  That is of course true in a much larger, more complex sense.  We are all on “divergent paths” at some level, as no two lives are lived the same.  It occurs to me that I spend a lot of time and effort trying to drag people over onto my path, or perhaps more subtly, expecting them to have the same journey though they are on a different path.  Still, in the end, if we stay the course long enough, we get to the same destination.

In Remen’s words:

“Here we are too often fooled by someone’s appearance, their age or illness or anger or meanness or just too busy to recognize that there is in everyone a place of goodness and integrity, no matter how deeply buried.  We are too hurried or distracted to stop and bear witness to it.  When we recognize the spark of God in others, we blow on it with our attention and strengthen it, no matter how deeply it has been buried or for how long.  When we bless someone, we touch the unborn goodness in them and wish it well.”

And all of that is just in the Introduction!

“Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals.  If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you will be happy with more?”   Roy T. Bennett

I like that last part – “If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you will be happy with more?”  Still, there is a tendency to live life that way.  “I’ll be happy when…” gets replaced with another “when” upon achievement of the first “when,” then “when” #2 is achieved and replaced by “when” #3, and on, and on, and on.  In a multitasking world, surely it is possible to “be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals.”  The “grateful” need not be extinguished by the “pursuit,” and in fact the gratefulness might in fact just make the pursuit a bit more enjoyable.

“We must never forget that thanksgiving is a word of action.”  Robert Emmons

Well, I looked it up, and my dictionary tells me that “thanksgiving” is a noun, not a verb, not an “action word” as I define a verb to be.  Maybe technically it needs to be “thanks giving” to be a verb?  Still, once you get past the thought of turkey, ritual overeating, and football games, when you talk about “thanksgiving” and not “Thanksgiving,” it feels like a verb.  Indeed, the 1 Thessalonians 5:18 statement – “In everything give thanks” is nothing if not a call to action.  Thanksgiving calls us to to 1) recognize and 2) share our blessings.

“At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” – Albert Schweitzer

Indeed, the “light goes out” from time to time no matter how much effort is put into keeping it burning.   There is, it seems, a reluctance to seek help from others.  For some (I’ve read somewhere about people like this) the natural instinct is to try to “rekindle the spark” ourselves, preferably before anyone knows it has even gone out.  But Schweitzer is correct, sometimes, often, the rekindling of the spark must (for whatever reason) come from someone else.  So on this Thanksgiving Day I am thinking, with “deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame” within me.   It doesn’t take much reflection to understand that there are too many to list, many/much to be grateful for.

“Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting.”  Elizabeth Bibesco

There is much to unwrap here.  It is so easy to register giving, to create a mental note that suggests that I am entitled to receive something in return, whether from the recipient of my gift or from the world at large (some form of universal karma).  Similarly, it is easy to take and forget, to translate what I receive as something owed to me.  Those two might even converge.  That is, I might think I deserve to receive something because I gave something.  I might give only that I will receive.

“Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting.”

“…whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul.”  Desiderata   Max Ehrmann

I like the juxtaposition of those two phrases – “in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul.”  First, there is the recognition of the “noisy confusion of life.”  Life is rarely played out in an orderly fashion, at least not the orderly fashion as I write (and rewrite, and rewrite…) the script.  Then, the “keep peace with your soul.”  A subtle distinction, but the word choice is “with” not “in,” recognizing, as I think on it, that peace is a relationship between the mind and the soul.  In that context I can keep peace with my soul even if there is not peace in my soul.  That is, a shitstorm may be swirling around me, but I can still have peace.

Now, the challenge is in the execution of that lofty goal!

“Let us be thankful for the fools.  But for them the rest of us could not succeed.”

Mark Twain

Typical of Twain, there is a great deal of insight in this humor.  Interesting how critical observations seem so much more palatable if they are conveyed disguised in humor!  The message of course assumes one is capable of effectively distinguishing between the fools and the non-fools.  If I am honest I have to profess the limits to my proficiency at that task.  Also, it recognizes that the grading is on a curve.  In a given setting it may not be that I am so good so much as the others are not.   All of which points to yet more reasons to embrace humility, to (tongue in cheek) strive to be the most humble person in the universe.

“Do not distress yourself with imaginings.”  Desiderata – Max Ehrmann

Of all the advice Ehrmann provides in the Desiderata, this is perhaps the one that gives me the most difficulty.  There is not the wiggle room in Baz Luhrmann’s Sunscreen –

“Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.”

I chew a lot of gum.