Made It

I was just completing the always challenging process of transferring from her car seat to my wheelchair when I said “I made it.” She heard me. Teasingly, she said that would be a good epitaph on my tombstone. That seemed right to me, so right, that it stuck in my head, and now is begging me to use this Slow Lane piece to reflect upon it. I can imagine those simple words being the last I speak. “I made it!”

 

Each life is a creation. It is the sum of all the responses had to its many challenges. When it is all over, I will relish the end point I have reached. In the last seconds, I imagine I will have a chance to look at the whole of it, and see what I have wrought. I hope I can say to myself that I have completed this course with a certain amount of aplomb. Just as transferring never held certainty, this process of living has been an uncertain, and sometimes treacherous, undertaking.

 

‘Made it’ has two meanings for me. Both of them telling. I went through everything that was allotted to me. I found my way to the presumed finish line. I am spent. And, I’ve created a wake, the vapor trail of a life, a momentary house of cards. It is the sum of having been.  It is whatever artistry I was able to muster. I made it. My death-moment assessment, of my time here, will in some way be tied to this fading presence.

 

I’m not particularly worried about how that moment will play out. I think mainly, like when my unbalanced and disabled movements come to a resting place, I’ll be relieved. The finish line gives meaning, by bringing an end to the effort involved.

‘Made it,’ is also a celebration of accomplishment, the acknowledgement of a period of initiation, the final step.  For me, my recent life of imbalance is over. And, what it has drawn out of me, is briefly evident.

 

‘Made it’ reassures me. I’m not sure why. I guess I long for the barn. There is something about a prolonged effort that is both productive and confining. I want the freedom of an ending, the mortality of being mortal. I guess I would rather be a brief thread of color on the loom of creation, than be the loom itself. I could never keep my weft and my warp clear anyhow.

 

I don’t know if anything comes next. It seems to me, that this life has prepared me for something, but I’m ready to be surprised by what it is. What I know is, that I want a sense of accomplishment out of this one. ‘Made it’ carries with it a sense of achievement that I like. It isn’t a merit badge I seek, but it is the sense that I’ve made it through the birth canal of this experience.

 

With that comment, I’ve made it through this reflection. By now, I think you can see, that the Slow Lane is a deeply human endeavor with all of its flaws, ego aggrandizement, and wonder — evident like errant underwear. I hope it isn’t too shamelessly revealing for you.

 

 

 

 

The Waiting Room

Recently, I woke up from a dream. At least, I think I did. It was a strange age-related shimmery kind of experience. Very powerful. But, weird. To this moment, I’m not sure whether I had the dream, or it has me. All I know is that this residue remains.

I am in a waiting room with a bunch of pregnant old people. We are all pregnant with ourselves. There are a lot of people in various stages of shock — of being in swollen discomfort. A few are smiling and happy, but the majority are confused and anxious. There don’t seem to be any doctors or nurses around. There is only this pervasive atmosphere of expectancy. Over it all, hangs a feeling of great distance, as if something vast is in attendance. Then there is a pop, and someone disappears.

I call this dream ‘the waiting room.’ I am assailed by the sense that I am living something like it out. There is a deja-vu quality haunting me. No matter how productive my life seems, no matter how engaged I am, since grayness has come over me, I am somehow on hold. Something inside is waiting. I am swelling up, while all this nothing is happening, and I am becoming more and more a mystery that is about to pop. Any moment now I am going to break, disappear, and give birth to the real me. It could be a happy moment, or one poignant with grief.  I sense the immanence of my coming and going.

I want to stress that what I am describing now is not the dream, but some aspect of my current-time reality. Aging has brought with it some faint sense of expectancy. It isn’t death-dread, nor is it cultural doom, rather it is some graying mirage — a kind of prospect, of an unexpected and unanticipated tomorrow. I don’t know if I am living evolution out, or if evolution is living me out. I just have the sense that the story is getting longer, more nuanced, and totally necessary.

There is a part of me that chafes at the idea that before I am done being me, a new me might come onto the scene. I am getting tired, fatigue is setting in, the old is already too heavy. The new seems, whatever weight it will be, overwhelming. I wait with more than anticipation. Life is full of dreamlike twilight-zone suspense. I bulge in all the places I used to play.

For some reason the dream seems to correspond to some mysterious part of my life. I think it actually is an aspect of getting old in this uncertain time.  I’m not sure I want to body-forth new human trait, in a time when humanity hasn’t made up its mind about surviving.  I am not in favor of still-born potential.  There is a cloud of uncertainty hanging over me.

I am generally optimistic. I tend to think Life knows what it is doing. But, for some reason, an aura of caution has come over me. I’m guessing it’s my human part in the equation that troubles me. The verdict is yet to come in. Meanwhile, I, like everybody else, gets to wait.

A Holy Symmetry

Many people believe I adopted the name “Lucky” because I survived my stroke and its aftermath. Certainly, I was lucky. But, that wasn’t the reason. Strangely, that entire episode, took me out of myself, and introduced me to a level of reality I probably could not have known otherwise.  I underwent an extreme form of initiation, which launched me into a connected life, one where I experience the length Life goes to grow us. I became “Lucky” when I felt the winds of evolution at my back.

 

Recently, I attended the first meeting of The Ripening Room. I could feel my resistance to being there — I gave voice to it — by saying I didn’t want to be there, because I didn’t want people to see my ugliness. After a day or two, I realized that was not completely true. At least a portion of my resistance was because I didn’t want anyone to see my beauty. I realized The Ripening Room could be a place where ripening was revealed, as much as sought. It could be a place where fullness could be as evident as shortcomings. Suddenly, the holy symmetry, the relationship between Life and we humans, could manifest.

 

I have never been prepared for the change in awareness that befell me after the stroke. As the medical people said, “I was too young to be going through it.” What they couldn’t see, what their instruments didn’t show, was that I was being re-worked. Through a medical crisis a whole lifetime disappeared, and a connected luckiness arrived. Since then, Life’s medicine has been evident in all my moments. Since then, I have known that ripening was happening all the time.

 

So, that is what I want to convey. Every step of the way, Life is preparing us for what is to come. All along, hardships or grace-related events, are happening, and shaping each of us. I am amazed, realizing that Life has been embracing me long before I began embracing Life. I became “Lucky” long before I knew it. 

 

I am not really interested in becoming an evangelist. The real work is Life’s to do. I just want to act more like ripening has already set-in. Yes, I could certainly use more. But, the truth is, that getting older has made ripening all that much clearer to me. I am the beneficiary of a Life force, that pours through this life and enriches my interactions. 

 

I need to re-visualize what I am doing. Ripening, and the holy symmetry, changes my perception of The Ripening Room from a place where one acquires ripeness, to a place where one reveals ripeness. Instead of a sense of scarcity, I envision a feeling of being endowed. Ripeness is suddenly present as potency.

 

I have come to see, that the way I think about self-confrontation, shapes how I see it. If I saw The Ripening Room as a way of showing and experiencing my pathology, it is an undesirable thing — but, if I saw it as a way of demonstrating my wholeness, it is another. I know that the opportunity to demonstrate my wholeness is also true with aging, the ultimate self-confrontation. Thinking maturity is out there waiting for me (perhaps when I die), is far different than perceiving ripening as something already growing as me. I am “Lucky” because ripening is part of who I am.

 

Ripeness has brought us here. The obstacles, and challenges, are simple initiatory ordeals arranged by Mystery to draw out from within what already exists. Ripeness brings one to a place where ripeness can exercise. I can now look forward to getting older as more than an as an ordeal. 

 

The focus upon hardship and attainment, mental, emotional, and spiritual effort, the doing of it, misdirected my thinking. I am a victim of the old way of perceiving things. Ripening is not my power — it happens despite my effort. The best use of my power is to get out of the way, and help nature do its thing. 

 

My luckiness, is what I share with all of you, the joy of knowing what really is within us, what really makes things happen. Ripeness is generating more ripeness. A holy symmetry is at work. Love is purifying Love.

 

 

  

Loss

“Honesty is not the revealing of some foundational truth

 that gives us power over life, or another, or even the self,

 but a robust incarnation into the unknown unfolding vulnerability of existence, 

where we acknowledge how powerless we feel, how little we actually know, 

how afraid we are of not knowing, and how astonished we are 

by the generous measure of loss 

that is conferred upon even the most average life.”    David Whyte

Life asks so much of we humans. Most of it isn’t obvious. But losing is. The ‘generous measure’ seems to fall on us all. The quality of our response to loss ultimately determines the quality of our lives. Tragedy, pathology, heartbreak, disability, violence, death. There are so many ways to experience loss. Some seem like they are indicators of a careless deity, and others, random acts. Each sears into us our unique and totally idiosyncratic character. Loss generates something mysterious. It conveys to us who and what we are. It is the “ask” of Life that centers us in the evolutionary process.

 

Loss is perhaps the most paradoxical gift of all. It shapes us, turning each of us into someone touched, sensitized, directed, disillusioned, empowered and freed. There is a wild ache in the world. Each of us is exposed to it, shaped by it, and sometimes grief-struck. It is part of the way Life christens and certifies us — we are human to the core.

 

Loss is the way gain comes about. The two are linked in some unknown grief-saturated way. Alchemy holds no mystery compared to these two’s relationship. The light shines brightest upon the ground prepared by the darkness of grief and loss. Shoots of newness, and resounding beauty, bear the scars of what has been and now is let go of. Loss opens the way for the new.

 

We live in a human-defined world where loss is primarily seen as tragedy. There are many who labor under the weight of shallowly perceived loss, who cannot imagine the gift they received wrapped in grief. The greatest tragedy is when loss is perceived inaccurately. It still hurts — but it is a strange, seldom-welcome kind of fertility. The Universe has come calling, bringing with it, ineffable possibility.

 

Each of us has to come to terms with what is given to us. Sometimes what looks like a curse is a gift. There is no way of telling in advance. Providence seems to match loss to us very carefully, but we humans don’t get to know about this justice. All we have is this kind of wondering and awe.

 

 

 

  

The Ripening Room

Aging is still controversial. There are those who think it is a kind of natural disaster, the bitter broken end of the story. There is a growing minority who believe that old age holds the key to personal uniqueness and fulfillment. At the moment, amongst other big changes, the traditional view of the latter part of life is undergoing a metamorphosis. The old is becoming new.   

This changing of the fall of Life, is only welcome in some corners. It’s scary. Life has more to offer. It also asks more of us.  The newness arising, is a mixed blessing.  Longer, more complex lives, with less functional bodies, and greater losses, more death of loved ones— all add-up to a challenge like no other. Some would say it is these hardships, that make old age such an undesirable part of life.

 

Others, including this author, see these hardships, as the gifts of later life. They are a part of an initiatory ordeal, that quickens life, and gives it a miraculous magical quality, dignifying and connecting we humans to the processes of Creation. It is when our bodies breakdown, that our spirits become more available to us. There is an awakening, that becomes available as life ripens us. Falling becomes flying. Wrinkles, cellulite, and scars become the signs of a new phase.

 

This transition is handicapped by looking bad, appearing as a kind of demise, a failure to thrive. But that is only what’s happening on the outside. It is what is most visible. Miraculously, something else is happening on the inside. Unseen, and unrecognized, an immaterial capacity is forming. Sensitized by all the losses, an internal being is growing — an invisible wonder is ripening.   Aging is a gateway— a portal into another form of being human—another adaptation to existence.

 

We all know we are living in precarious times. No one knows what is going to happen. Your fantasy is as likely as mine. Still, there is something happening within we humans. I don’t think it has been adequately accounted for. I may not know exactly what it is, but I have noticed that the overall theme of aging seems to be that the old gray mare “ain’t what she used to be.” I think that is true, and I’m offering a new story about what that may mean.

 

Ripening, in my opinion, is happening. I think it is built into us, like a homing instinct, an integrative drive, a natural tendency towards wholeness. Ordeals, hardships, and dilemmas, ripen us, maturing our nature, and growing each of us into our unique selves. All of that development, is part of the ever-expanding Universe, guaranteeing diversity, and making sure that evolution always has something new to create with.

 

The Ripening Room, a new development — is a prayer — designed to emulate and support life. It is a social experiment, a very human attempt to aid what is already alive within us. While the focus will be self-confrontation (watch for your invitation), the truth of the matter is, The Ripening Room will be a place to celebrate what we all have in common, a vital connection with the evolving edge of Creation.

 

Being human is, with all our fragility and limitation, living at the edge, in the ripening zone.

 

 

 

 

The Self Needs

I ran across a book, The Adjusted American (1957), long ago, before I became a therapist, that has had a life-long influence upon me. It simplified my sense of what was important as I grew, and provided me with simple guidelines with which to direct my efforts.  I still find myself thinking of the guidance offered, and the subsequent gifts that came my way. The book provided a lot, from describing a “normal neurosis,” to a simple description of our “self-needs,” which I intend to pass on to you. I find that the later has served me, even as I age beyond so many other forms of guidance.

 

The “self-needs” that Putnam and Putnam put forward were so simple that I remember them today. I feel motivated to pass them along because of a conversation I had with an elder friend of mine. He was nearing another birthday, and he was in the midst of a hard time. The perspective their model offered, was so useful to him, it clarified what could have been a pathological assumption into a normalizing growth pattern. He walked away marveling about his own evolution. We were both happier, and could celebrate his getting older, because we noticed, the ripening still going on within our breaking-down bodies.

 

They posited only three simple self-needs. 1) A self-image that is acceptable. 2) A self-image that is accurate. And lastly, 3) a means of verifying the first two. If one has a self-image that is unacceptable for any reason, or one that is inaccurate, then one gets in all kinds of difficulty. The more accurate and acceptable the better. The more readily one cultivated good relationships with loved ones, family, or community, the more means for verifying the accuracy and acceptability of one’s self-image. All-in-all, a very simple and relational way of looking at one’s self-experience and grasping what’s at stake in any given situation.

 

I have had to go through some significant upgrades to my self-image. The uncertainty of these times in my life have been great. Old age has been in some ways been no different, only slower and more thorough. I’ve always, during such times, adhered to the twin needs. I steered towards acceptability (mine) and accuracy. Community has been my preferred source of verification. The diversity of community has always provided a multi-faceted way of seeing myself. I could bare the times of transition, because I had friends who helped verify my changing image along the way. 

These later years have been the most delicate for me. I keep having recollections, or friends, who help point out that I’m not who I always thought I was. My self-image is going through wild fluctuations. My approaching death has gifted me with greater clarity. I can see the path I’ve been on, and how I’ve sometimes wandered away from it. As a result, my self-image has also grown clearer. The result is, that if I can stand the strain, I get to re-discover who I am, and as importantly, I get to improve my self-image, and thru my community become more who I want to be. What a late life gift!

 

The self-needs have helped me navigate thru some difficult waters. They keep me honest. They help me hold to what is so difficult and so essential. I offer them to you. I hope they can help you like they keep helping me. At the very least, they offer an alternative way of looking at yourself, that isn’t so pathologically oriented. Ripening sometimes means seeing one’s self more clearly. That can be painful. But, invariably, that pain results in increased character. Ripening is a gift of aging. 

 

 

 

  

Miles to Go

 

“Where do we find truth? Not in society and its institutions, not in organized religions and their dogmas, not in any self-help guru or outside spiritual authority. The hope for truth and ultimate freedom can’t come from anyone telling you what to do or believe, it can only come through your own creative self-understanding.”  —The First And Last Truthby Krishnamurti

 

Humans are unusual, in that they are the only species that have a longer life expectancy, after their reproductive years, than before them. No one really knows why. The best explanation of this phenomenon, preserves the mystery that seems to abide in this strange aspect of human life — life is up to something — and although the ‘what’ is unknown now, it is something important — a trait that serves human existence, and similarly, the larger life that surrounds humanity.

 

What could be the reason? How could something as mysterious as this fact have escaped our attention for so long? What follows is my speculation, a guess, having to do with some of the unheralded potential that makes human life so gratifying and difficult. You see, I think we are not a very mature species yet, and it takes time to develop some of our most refined capabilities. Later life offers us entry into our most human sensitivities. They just don’t come on-line earlier.

 

It’s hard to say if this latter form of development is solely a result of Nature, or if our cultural inheritance is a factor, but the result is that human beings are endowed with traits that only manifest after a long time. The changes that time tends to implement are substantial enough that humans seem to be another species entirely. For instance, you have been exposed to the idea that humanity is simply an extension of the blood-thirsty ape — a violent species.  But later in life, we humans are non-violent, much more prone towards relating with each other. Aging makes us mellower. In fact, it would be just as accurate to view us from the last quarter of life, and say, we are a collaborative species.

 

There is a turn that takes place during the latter part of life that is important, overlooked and confusing. Too many of us suffer from a lack of recognition of this turn and a failure to re-orient. From doing to being, from external orientation to internal, from producing in the world to producing in the self, the turn is like being dropped in a totally different world with a totally different way of living. I’ve called it a “through the looking glass” experience.

 

It is under these conditions that the total uniqueness of each member of our kind materializes. A friend calls this turn a “disorienting dilemma,” which I think it is. At the same time, it is a re-orienting opportunity that enables us to apply our creativity, and become ourselves. The latter part of life, the long last miles, the extended part, is the time for us to give birth to our own unique selves.

 

This has spiritual implications too. As Krishnamurti asserts, it is the time during which we can discover and fully occupy our own true nature.  No one knows what each of us is going to realize and bring forth. Therefore, even the best, bow down to these manifestations of Mystery.

 

Sometimes it feels like we live too long. Bodies break down, colors fade, and our mind loses its sharpness, then what is within us begins to blossom. A lot of miles have to be travelled before the best part of us becomes most evident. And, it is only encountered within the rubble of earlier life.  Confusing. 

 

It is impossible to know why Life operates this way, but something quite amazing and miraculous gets spawned. A non-material being emerges that is a product of material life. Wow! The manifestation of a long, strange, and largely unexpected life appears. The miles suddenly take on a different hue.

 

 

 

  

A Blaze of Glory

I’ve been exposed to so many apocalyptic portrayals of the future that I have suffered from a lack of desire for what is coming. Instead, I find myself with my head down anticipating the worst. I feel ashamed of being human because I live a kind of downer existence that eats away any joy I might experience. I feel so sorry for the children. The lack of any positive portrayal of the future bugs me so much that I feel something collapse inside me, and worst of all, I then tend to go along with the most pedestrian pessimism. This kind of thing promotes a dust to dust fatalism that breaks my heart.

The onslaught of this terrible lack of imagination is like ageism, a fatalism that is infectious, inaccurate, and toxic. Life is reduced. I don’t like it. I don’t support it, and don’t want to live in the neighborhood where it is the predominant attitude. So, in addition to unknowing — the truth of our ever-uncertain existence —I want to remind us that there is as much possibility of an outbreak of kindness as violence.

There is no real way of predicting the path of the human heart. It is true, the challenges of our practices of neglect will come. Neither is there a way out of our dilemma that involves not going through it. But I know, from the hardships of my losses, that an unexpected consciousness can be stirred up. Emotional intelligence could as easily arise, as some sort of regression. I know experientially — the knowledge is engraved on my bones — that Life is capable of turning the most egregious situation into evolution.

It’s way past time to be foolish (or is it wise), and start believing that the future really is unpredictable. Who would have guessed that social distancing would bring us together as much as it has?  Perhaps going down is leading to a greater emergence than we have ever known. Who knows, leftovers may be better. Expectancy, the willingness to have surprise be delivered, is more life-giving than cynical protection.

A blaze of glory is as likely as any other kind of fire. It took some kind of genius for us to even be in this incredible situation. Our imaginations were never up to that task. What makes us think that we can imagine what will become of that miracle? The mystery of our unlikely existence ought to give us pause. 

 I have found a certain refuge in not knowing. The unknown is so much bigger than what we know (or think we know). It is spacious, and fragrant with possibility. I wouldn’t put surprise past it. I will likely wear the face of the stupefied, freshly humbled, sheepishly awed, and the newly satisfied. Progression might look like regression coming.

The Universe is already more glorious than anything I could imagine. So, I suspect, will be the process of discovery of what it cooks up for me, and my kind.

Dying

I started dying when I was born. Each moment of growth was accompanied by a little death.  With respect to the French saying that orgasm is a “little death,” my experience, has been that death has been with me no matter what I have done. I didn’t know it at the time, my death-realization only came to mind a few years ago. It turns out that when I looked hard at my life, I saw that each turn toward greater being was also a letting go, a death-like release. I have grown because I died.

By now, the astute reader, will recognize that I am not referring to death in the usual way. In my reality, death is not the end of the story, or the light at the end of the tunnel. It isn’t juxtaposed with Life. Instead, it is a part of Life, a regular, albeit a poorly regarded part, of each green unfolding. It is the dark light that shines dimly on the green fuse. Death is the great impermanator, the antimatter wholeness, that makes room for further evolution. 

My perception, that death has been with me from my beginnings, that it is part of my life, has changed the way I hold the decline I am experiencing. Life has taken on another hue, as loss (true little death) has reshaped my life, and prepared me for another stage. Having integrated death into living, I find myself less afraid, and a lot more peaceful and intrigued.  Now, I am just awed by how death and birth are related.

About 6 years ago, I got exposed to a Hafiz poem, that has stimulated and beguiled me. The poem, called “Deepening the Wonder” starts with the line “Death is a favor to us.” I’ve found myself thinking about how it could be a favor ever since. Over time, I arrived at the idea that death helps me clarify what really matters. It is like some kind of smelling salt, it brings me back to consciousness, where I am more prone to notice the life I am living. My life gets a little more vivid.  It seems like the more I experience death, the more I experience Life. What a strange, and interesting, paradox!

Death is an aid to Life, some kind of essential ingredient, that vivifies the dance of Creation. I would have never guessed. My culture is so busy, producing — death only represents one form of productive interruption, an inconvenience to be tolerated. Another machine stopped working. Instead, with my realization, Life and Death, take on a charge of meaning, that dignifies the process of being here. 

That is an amazing attribute for such a poorly-reputed quality of Nature!

Now, I live with a strange regard for the role death plays in making impermanence so electric. Everything is passing so quickly. I barely notice, even though I know I am one of those things. But, thankfully, death sometimes gets poignant enough, so that I get a dose of the Mystery operating within all of this. Death is a favor. I exist for only a moment on this Earth, and then something momentous takes place, altering again the trajectory I’m on. It is both: an old, and a new story.

Life Gets Better

Life Gets Better is the title of a book by geriatric social worker Wendy Lustbader. In her forward, she explains that she got the idea for her title while on vacation, taking a bus tour. The tour guide invited everyone to introduce themselves to the whole busload of people. Each person was invited to the front of the bus to use the tour bus microphone to say something about themselves. Through the process she learned that she was the oldest person on the bus. Later, after the bus arrived, she was approached by several of the younger passengers, each of whom expressed to her, how important it was for them to hear her say that Life got better.

She was led to the title of her book — whereas I was introduced to one of the answers to a question that vexed me, and many of the old people I know. What do we pass along to coming generations, and how? It seems to me that old and young alike need to know that Life can, and does, get better. Aging is far more than a death sentence, it is a period in life to bask in the Sun. There are many ways it can get better, but most of us don’t know that that is possible — only an old person can credibly make that claim. Not by talking about it, but by being it. When wrinkles come with joy, they have a delightful impact. On all of us.

Knowing that Life gets better sets a tone of expectancy that paints everything with a special vibrancy. I know I end up anticipating good things. And, just like with my gratitude practice, good things begin showing up. Somehow, expecting Life to go that way, increases the likelihood, and pleasure, I experience, when things happen.

There is a special kind of joy that accompanies this form of knowing. It’s totally experiential. There is no need to convince, persuade or otherwise proselytize anyone. The knowing is evident. The only way to make it available is by living it.

It’s a secret that hides in plain sight, and that reveals itself in plain pleasure.

I spent most of my early life depressed, caught-up in a world of pathological orientation. If life wasn’t perfect, there was something wrong. It almost always turned out to be me. So, imagine my relief, when I got old enough to really get Wendy’s wisdom. Life has its own course, and it tends toward the better — despite any limitations I might bring. A smile came over my soul, and I knew my happiness isn’t a fluke. Now, instead of a tendency toward depression, I have a tendency toward awe.

People need to know how Life becomes something else. Decline can happen, people get lost in pessimism and loss, but right there is the gain, and right there is Life’s wily influence. Knowing that Life uses defeat sometimes to create victory— the incredible outcome— reaffirms possibility, and is deeply reassuring. Life gets better, rarely in the way we expect, but inexorably.

It is too easy to fall prey to cynicism, to be convinced by the deluded chant of scientism, to succumb to our culture’s over-reliance on the material. Much harder to handle, is the simple experience of a life well-lived. That is really what some people have to offer. Life gets better. 

Deep Responders

 A lot of accolades have been heaped upon the firefighters, police, doctors, nurses, and other frontline workers. Deservedly so. They have been putting their lives on the line for all of us. They are the first responders — the ones who deal with the emergencies and protect us all. They deserve recognition for doing their incredibly demanding jobs. 

This Slow Lane, however, is not about them. It is about the unrecognized, but equally important responders who figure out what is going on, and how something else can happen. These are the deep responders, who are also doing a job for all of us, but don’t usually get the notice they deserve.

Victor Frankl, in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, wrote of survival in the death camps, “There is only one freedom that cannot be taken away, and that is how one plays the cards, that one is dealt.” That is, what deep responders do, they figure out the best way of addressing the situation at hand. They practice the very rare freedom of creative response. They are the system thinkers, intuitives, and outside-the-box players, that discover solutions to the complex challenges that also plague us.

They are deep responders. They hang out with a painful dilemma long enough to sense what matters about it, so that it can be rightly approached. They are frequently marginalized and considered exotic. Yet, they provide a most essential service. Deep responders are the ones who are more truly heroic. It isn’t their job to provide anything to us, yet they do. They alert us to how our response ensures the dilemma, and how changing our response changes everything.

It is important to notice deep responders, and how they work. It is them, who have taught us, that the quality of our response is what makes something benign. They reveal how important the ability to respond is. They also reveal that the ability to hang out with a dilemma long enough is a necessary skill, that is essential for some situations. 

In fact, an adequate response, is often only cooked up from the juices of what is hurting. Deep responders respect the dilemma, and don’t try to get rid of it, like first responders often do. Sometimes an emergency is just that, the emergence of something essential and unseen before. Deep responders give homage to what they face, and sometimes discover the hidden gift inside a dilemma. They are the ones who innovate and allow us to evolve. In conjunction with first responders they save a lot of lives, but their unique function is saving the future, by recognizing the ineffable coming through a significant difficulty. 

Think about that. The deep responders are already engaged, In fact, you might be one of them. The uncertainty you feel might just be the essential ingredient that this, or any, dilemma might have to contribute. It might take a while to unfold, to become exasperated enough to generate sensitized attention, to become hot enough to make a real difference. Let’s hope that you and I are deep responders enough to notice, and to take our own perceptions seriously.

Deep responders, unlike first responders, are less reactive. They give time to what takes time. That is why I tend to think elders with frail bodies are better responders than the body-minded first responders. In addition to bodies attuned to hardship, elders have more experience with how some things unfold. They also have the advantage of perspective. When a deep response is wanted, I’d rather have some gray-haired wisdom on my side.

Ultimately, those of us, who have had the privilege of surviving very long, become deep responders. Life asks something of each of us. Our response is in how we craft our lives. Our response is what makes each of us unique — snowflakes in the storm of existence. Deep responders in the end.

Wonder

It’s Sunday morning and I want to write a Slow Lane. But, I’m hesitating. The things I thought I might write about, are either too cool or too hot. Neither will really do.  So, I’m just sitting here wondering. I want to write, to enjoy the respite from being so physically broken, that these little writing meditations allow. Now, I’m just sitting in silence, waiting for some inspiration to strike me.

As I do, my mind wanders.  I’m remembering the new men’s group that met for the first time yesterday. It was a complex, uncomfortable event. Every time I start-up with a set of new men, it feels like trying to start a conversation with my father — awkward silence, or small talk. 

Eventually a lot got surfaced. We marveled at being a group of old men meeting. All of us wanted to compare notes, we were sharing in something men in this culture don’t do, and never really get to experience so thoroughly. Getting old, publicly, becoming vulnerable, visibly. Out of our first meeting came a sense of wonder. We seemed to know enough, that there was widespread agreement, that we didn’t know much of anything. This left us with a lot to wonder about.

We never tried for any kind of agreement, but it seemed to me, we shared bafflement — at getting so old, at having slipping bodies, at wondering what we were for, at aching with uncertainty about what we might have to give. Losing so much left us feeling raw.

It was a good and unusual experience. There is no way to evaluate it. We were all virgins, meeting together, to do something we didn’t know how to do. Pretty extraordinary for a group of men. I liked it, except I can’t exactly say why. I guess I think meeting — if only this once — was such a courageous, and counter-cultural thing to do.

It left me wondering. I notice I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Feeling awed by what’s happening, or overwhelmed, by the mystery that seems folded into everything. There was a point in yesterday’s group, when we men surmised, that perhaps, our ability to wonder was what we have to offer. I like the notion of being aged into wonder. It makes me feel like Life knows what it is doing.

So, anyway, as I’m getting older — heading toward the horizon — I’ve found myself thinking, about whether I have anything to leave behind — for other’s coming along? My guess is no. It seems that people benefit by discovering for themselves. I care, but I’ve learned from my disability helplessness, that caring is complicated, and that people, no matter their circumstances, seem to thrive best, when they have weathered uncertainty, for what matters to them. 

In the meantime, I ponder. It seems like it is good that I’m getting slower and slower, more silent, less confident, and more uncertain. I’m slowly sinking into non-existence, becoming invisible, a shade, soon to be forgotten. I expect I’ll make a good anonymous ancestor. Though, of course, I wonder about that.

Conjecture, that is what I seem to be good at now. Living has taken away all of my certainties. It fascinates me, that all of my lifetime of losses, has brought me to this place. I wonder, if there is something inevitable, and natural, about wondering this much.

Shut-In

I discovered a part of myself recently that reflects a long-neglected aspect of my humanity, and a deeply ignored part of being alive. I guess the Covid virus stimulated a dormant sensitivity, that awakened me to a long-standing inequity. It has been painful to realize that I am part of an invisible minority, that is constantly experiencing unconscious prejudice. Worst yet, my discovery included the recognition, that I have been an unwitting participant in keeping this population invisible. 

I started being a house bound person nearly 5 years ago, when I realized I could no longer drive. My car, driver’s license, insurance and visibility went away. I became a non-entity, no longer worth saving. As I became less able to participate in the ritual gatherings of the mobile throng, I became more and more isolated, and less and less visible. Now, I exist in only a few minds, and may not even be a statistic to the rest of humanity. I am a bad combination; old, disabled and shut-in.

I’ve been disabled a while now. In the beginning of this experience I had to learn to face the prejudice against the disabled that is everywhere. That was hard, but the hardest part, was facing that same prejudice inside myself. I’ve overcome that social ignorance, or so I thought, then I recently realized a deeper dimension of that ignorance. Now, I have to come to terms with the ease with which I go along with ignoring my own humanity.

They say, “out of sight, out of mind.” I can personally attest to the veracity of that remark. We, who are house-bound, shut-in by circumstance, are out of sight, and thus, too often, are ignored. There is something deeply distorting about living in the invisible realm. It is too easy to believe that one is not worth being seen, known, valued, or saving. The pain of not being considered is merciless. I am wheelchair bound, but that is an unfortunate circumstance, compared to being so far out of sight, that I don’t exist.

I learned over the last couple of years, that no state or county agency takes responsibility for tracking and helping shut-ins. No city departments, including the police and fire departments, know about, and assist those who are vulnerable enough, that they cannot help themselves. Even non-profits, which generally try to help those who can’t help themselves, offer no assistance to those unfortunate enough to be shut-in. Shut-ins are amongst the most isolated humans on the Earth.

I find myself angry about this injustice. I am a taxpayer, but evidently one that isn’t worth much. I’m savvy enough to know that my anger is a secondary emotion. Below it resides the true feeling. Below my anger is disappointment. I am in grief about living in a world that practices such carelessness. I ache knowing such aloneness, not only for myself, but for our kind.

A few days ago I had another realization about this. This one was more painful and disturbing than the earlier ones. I have been an advocate for the importance of an inner life. I have spent my entire life praising the inner dimension of being human. I believe that that is our real human genius. But, when I realized that a shut-in, is someone who is cut-off, trapped with their unappreciated insides, I melted into a pool of tears. Is this what human life has come to? Are we so divorced from our own inner being — that we can tolerate letting go of inner mystery?

Being a shut-in now has a special poignancy, an uncertainty about our kind. It isn’t so much about being alone now, it is about the extinction of human sensitivity.

Feeling the weight of this uncertainty breeds in me a deeply corrosive loneliness, the opposite of solitude. I ache continuously.

Bearing Witness

There is a story, an old indigenous story, that goes like this.

Once, all the creatures in the world, gathered in a great council to clarify the jobs they each perform in the service of Creation. One by one, they step forward. The beaver is here to look after the wetlands and to monitor how the streams flow. The worm is here to burrow through the earth so that the roots of plants may find air and nutrients. The deer is here to slip through the woodlands, to watch what is happening.

The council is progressing well — but one poor creature stands away from the fire, in the shadows, uncertain of its role. This is the human. At last, this being steps forward, and haltingly addresses the assembly, “We are confused. What is the purpose of human beings?” The animals and the plants, the insects and the trees — all are surprised. They laugh, but then the laughter gives way to stunned silence.  “Don’t you know? It’s so obvious!!” “No,” replied the human, “we need you to tell us.” And the other creatures of the world all responded,    

“Your purpose is to glory in it all. Your job is to praise Creation.”

                                                                                                                                          (pg. 96 from Embracing Life)

I am overwhelmed with awe and unknowing. I know, from my stroke experience, that there is no going back. The world is changing. I marvel at how quickly, and efficiently, the Corona virus is unraveling everything. Staying in my home is re-assuring. Even as a shut-in, I take only a small measure of pleasure knowing that others are experiencing some of what I have known. Instead, I am drowning in a lonely uncertainty. Daily, I am assailed with images of death and human misery. It all fills me with a strange wonder. I am alive and vulnerable as never before.

I had the flu last week. I was really sick, afraid that maybe I had somehow contracted the virus. It was a different virus, and after wrecking me, it passed. For a time, I was desperately ill. Enough so, my loneliness and energy-less-ness, had me contemplating, even inviting, death. I was, for a moment, in pain and beyond my aspirations for life. 

As an old person, someone who has been anticipating collapse for a long time, I feel, as I watch, things like the markets dissolving, hoarding, and the disbelief of some, a surreal sense of satisfaction. Proving, I guess, how utterly human and insensitive I can be. The years of wondering how it was all going to come down have taken a toll on my compassion. Now, I am mainly grateful I had the time to attain my wrinkles, and to know the perspective that is currently shaping my suffering. I see too much.

The story of humanity’s role, the high privilege that has been granted to us, to have the wherewithal to praise creation, has been with me for a long time. It haunts me now. Does glorying in it all, praising Creation, also mean praising creative destruction? 

Unknowingness bids me to consider it. I chafe at the idea. I’m not ready to face that much reality. But, I know this is a time, like during my stroke era, when something else ultimately determines what I must face. I have often said that I am “Lucky” because I didn’t get to choose, Life instead determined the way for me. I think something like that is happening now. The virus is Life altering us forever.

I take some solace from the idea that Life might be shepherding us (humankind) through a necessarily narrow initiation. Of course, I don’t know. That is what makes this such an awesome time. Maybe, I have to steep in unknowing to become capable. 

In the meantime, I am witnessing something so huge that it grinds me into the nothingness I am. Now, I understand the bearing in bearing witness. It isn’t just bearing a weight, it is feeling open heart surgery, as the patient without anesthesia.

Pain and unknowing are essential parts of the surgery.

May we bear what we must, and become what is necessary.

Wisdom & Unknowing(part 2)

“I know enough now, to know, that I don’t know anything.”

Some say, “Life is unfair.” It is true, there is this seemingly random thing, that is throwing a major monkey wrench in all of our ideas about how life should go. This is one of the most predictable aspects of the unpredictability of our lives. Unknowing reigns — from the time and means of our death, to the chances of making it from here to there — we don’t know. It is all a crapshoot, and we have to make a life without knowing what each moment may bring.

This is a fact of our existence. Uncertainty is inconvenient, messing with all our plans, and liberating us from our ruts. It has a capacity to change us that we envy and fear. Unknowing, like it or not, plays a major role in our lives, shaping us in unpredictable ways and forming who we are.

Unknowing is sort of like the monster in the closet. It doesn’t really exist, except it does. As we age and get more experienced, uncertainty grows. The monster of unknowing comes out of the closet, and the horrible realization that we live at the mercy of something else comes with it. 

Coming to terms with what you cannot understand, or even anticipate, is part of life. There are many strange discoveries that accompany a life. Amongst the strangest, and oddly most surprising, is the discovery that not-knowing is a friend. Aging, because it brings more experience, convinces us. 

The truth is that unknowing doesn’t grow; we do. There is no more unlikelihood now then there was then. Life, by throwing us screwball after screwball, has softened us up. The experience of being off balance — and knowing one is off balance — becomes too overwhelming to ignore. 

As the awareness of the depth of unknowing dawns, so does the capacity to begin accepting and coming to terms with it. From the vulnerability that such a realization generates there is born a new way of seeing and operating. This change occurs as the self ripens.

It introduces one to a world that is fluid, changing, and where things are not just what they seem. This “through the looking glass” reality is closer to home. Proportion shifts. Uncertainty turns us around. It introduces us first to probability, then to not knowing, the deeper vulnerability that, like death, means that things can change in an instant, and that nothing about life is predictable. 

Long ago (in the 18^th century) a French mathematician created a model that captures the paradox that lies at the heart unknowing. He pointed out that if all knowledge formed a sphere, then when knowledge grew, so grew the surface area of the sphere. What this meant, was that as the sphere of knowledge grew, its surface came into greater contact with the unknown. As we grow, as we know and experience more, we come into contact with more of the unknown, and it seems that we know even less. When Mystery dawns; the world comes alive in a new way. 

There is a poignancy to not-knowing that characterizes the elder experience. 

Unknowing is a kind of innocence that is unlike the innocence of childhood. Instead of ignorance —the unknowing described here — is a deliberate awareness, a kind of surrender, a reverence for a larger un-comprehended reality. 

Unknowingness is characteristic of late life development. Not-knowing is the way many old people are. They aren’t demented, and aren’t suffering from some other form of addled thinking, instead they have a handle on the true nature of reality. Life is festooned with uncertainty.  The Mystery that haunts and defines the moment is always disguised. Life has seen to it, and some old people have become in tune with it.

Wisdom & Unknowing

(part 3)

“I know enough now, to know, that I don’t know anything.”

The ancient Chinese were said to have a curse, “May you live in interesting times.” We certainly are. As a species we are learning to live with more uncertainty and unknowing than most of us are comfortable with. The Corona virus, as disruptive and deadly as it is, is providing us with a glimpse at how truly vulnerable we are. That came home to me when I learned that March Madness had been cancelled. Suddenly, Life, which generated this particular virus, was the terrorist, and it has means far beyond anything known.

In some respect, this isn’t the age of the virus — it is the age of unknowing. Nobody knows how long this uncertainty is going to go on. It seems that we, especially of the modern world, have forgotten what we as a species have always known. We are, and always have been, existentially vulnerable. Our lives, species-wide have always belonged to bigger unknown forces. The virus, bad as it is, is just another manifestation of the mystery we live in.

While, it is killing many like me off, it is doing the rest of us a favor. Reminding us about how truly vulnerable we are, and how uncertain existence is. Given the global environmental crisis that is unfolding around us, it seems, Nature is compassionately warning us. Times like this, bring out the best and the worst of us. Unknowing blooms. But, the bloom can be beautiful, leading to a realization that we all are in the same uncertain situation, or, it can turn into a battle, a fear-ridden run through the heart of darkness.

Unknowing is how this species came about. We know how to weather uncertainty. Yes, the businessmen are panicking, the stock market is tanking, demonstrating how dependent we’ve become on the illusion of certainty, but the greater truth is, that we humans have been around long enough to know that we don’t know. The Universe, we find ourselves within, has a life of its own. It always has. We are only a part of it, and we succeeded making a home here because we knew there was something larger going on. Mystery is having its way with us.

In fact, mystery is us. Just as the Universe humbles us, and reminds us of our place, it puts its arm around us, as an extension of itself. Who really knows what we are doing here? Somehow the Cosmos deemed it so. And, strangely, at least to some of us, being a social animal has helped. Mirroring the rest of the Universe, and its reliance on relationship for innovation, synergy, and creativity, we are capable, like the Universe, of turning toward the unknown together.  We can panic, and be afraid, or we can rally around each other, and become what we have been made capable of.

Social distancing has become one of the methods used to defeat the advance of the virus, well the truth is, that the virus is forcing us to see, how much we need each other, and how much our distrust of each other, has eaten away the foundation of our resilience. With the appropriate distance — there is a strength available to us — that is not ours, but what we are part of. It is possible to relax into that connection, even as the virus shakes us into the vulnerability, that comes with living deep in mystery.

The unknown is wising us up. This is, despite the panic and uncertainty, a period of great sensitization. Life is putting us to the test, offering us a chance to be squeezed and pressured, and to find out what we are really made of. Wisdom arises, when knowing is shattered, as in these ‘interesting times.’