Post-Traumatic Stress

I’m tired. The drums of the election go on and on. I voted, and where last time I voted was the first time I felt I could vote for someone I wanted and could believe in, I’m back to voting for the lesser of two evils. I wish Obama could be the President I voted for. I’m not sure that fully explains why I am tired though. I think I just may be tired because I’m not the man I could be. I’m tired because I’m still carrying around a weight that grieves me.

I am dwelling with the possibility, I would say probability, that I know something, that I’ve been exposed to something so difficult to metabolize, that I live with the consequences everyday. What am I talking about? I’ll tell you how it came to me this time. Then maybe you will understand.

I was with a group of elders. We were having coffee and talking, like we do every Friday.

We started with a question about being happy while knowing the world was in the condition it was in. As sometimes happens in groups the conversation seemed to wander. Soon it came around to examining if I was traumatized by what happened to me? The stroke had changed my life in some very abrupt and difficult ways. I feel ‘Lucky,” the stroke has given me a special kind of awareness in place of what it had taken away. I am traumatized in a complex way.

This set me to thinking. The original question had been about the possibility of being happy despite the traumatizing awareness of the condition of our blue home. Together we more or less concluded that despite the trauma of knowing how much we have participated in screwing things up, the weight of Life circumstance dictated that we enjoy the moments that the Universe, or God, provides. Trauma was part of the equation but not ultimately defining.

It is the same for me. The suddenness and finality of the stroke changed my life completely. I now live with that awareness. Life can change radically any moment. Is that a traumatic awareness? Some would say “yes.” I, instead, feel lucky. The world is awash with transient, ever-changing phenomenon. I accept and appreciate them like never before. My life has been enriched by the trauma that altered my awareness. An abrupt, painful change, which I cannot forget, traumatized me and enhanced the quality of my life.

After this conversation I continued to think about this. I remembered when I had taught graduate school, I had once been given a student’s paper where she made the claim that because we have been exposed to this toxic culture we all were stunted by post-traumatic stress. This memory made me think that there was great trauma associated with waking up in this world at this time. While I think this is truly a painful realization, I can’t decide if this is classic trauma. Is wakefulness worth the pain? Am I a distorted being because I have weathered the pain and notice? I don’t think so, but I know I have been radically and painfully altered.

I carry around a kind of stress now, One could call it a kind of post-traumatic stress. If it is, then I am thankful for it. I wasn’t always. When I first came to realize the scale and complexity of what we have done to ourselves,  each other, and this beautiful green planet, I was chagrined, dismayed, embarrassed, and shameful. Despair followed me everywhere. Then slowly I have come back to life. I still feel the pain, mostly as grief now, and as I have learned, grieving is another form of praise.

Knowing what I know, being traumatized as I have been, I see the world differently. I’m not likely to ever forget what I’ve beheld, but I am much more likely to love the fragile and persistent beauty that I now see more clearly. The world is a traumatized reality. Existence is an overwhelming thing. I used to feel like it was too much, now I exult in having the opportunity to know this mysterious complexity.

So why am I so tired? I’m praised out. I think I’m suffering from caring fatigue. I know the Universe is going to keep going, expanding way beyond my comprehension. Thankfully! Me, I’m tired, and all I can do is rest in that assurance. Tomorrow brings new surprises. Undoubtedly, some of them will renew my rested energy.

Vulnerability

I realized, as I was approaching this subject, vulnerability, that although the definition hasn’t changed over the years, the meaning has.. This is what I really want to explore. As I’ve changed so has the experience of being vulnerable. Along with the change of meaning, I think the impact of vulnerability is also changing. If this is so, then vulnerability, of a sort, heralds a change of capability that I think might be important to note.

Being vulnerable actually means putting yourself potentially in harms way. It’s a deliberate act. An act, that involves giving up all forms of protection and standing out undefended. One is vulnerable because one has elected to defy the probability of harm in favor of some other less probable outcome, and in the process one has made themselves totally subject, wellbeing wise, to the moment. Being vulnerable is a kind of exposure to risk.

This squares with my early experiences of vulnerability. I don’t like being vulnerable very much. Even to this day. In the early days I really didn’t like it. My experience of vulnerability was accompanied with a sense of fear. If I became vulnerable it was usually an accident, or a situation where I felt out of control, and in over my head. The experience of being exposed was very vivid and beyond my control. I always felt threatened, destined for a kind of jeopardy. The unpleasantness of the experience was always a feeling of naked smallness before something greater.

The smallness I felt, the involuntary nature of what befell me, made the experience one that was seared into my awareness, and one I didn’t want to have again. I couldn’t perceive any benefit, any reason to want to voluntarily have the experience of being vulnerable. Life was hard enough, scrabbling to have a place at the table.

In those days I was very aware of what, and who, was around me. I chose to act out of my awareness of my external situation. I wanted desperately to fit in. I felt vulnerable when I didn’t, when I couldn’t. My sense of vulnerability didn’t really have a voluntary component, not unless one was insane, or masochistic. Vulnerability was a sign of weakness, a sign that one didn’t have the ability to cope with Life.

Thankfully, after years of feeling vulnerable, believing myself to be defective, unable to cope with the complexity of Life, things changed. I ripened into another kind of awareness. Sure, I spent years in therapy, doing spiritual practice, being a social activist, having challenging relationships, discovering what being a man was, and working on myself. These things contributed, but what really brought everything together, was something I had no control over. I, inexplicably, ripened into a new bigger, more complex being. Now I feel vulnerable differently.

Being vulnerable now is more of a voluntary experience. I can still get caught up and overwhelmed by the moment, but it tends to be less unpleasant than it used to be. I have learned through living and practiced desire to regulate myself. I have more choice now. Thankfully. I may have feelings, I probably do, but I have a lot more discretion about revealing them. I can be feeling-full and discrete.

Being vulnerable can be a lot of things, but here, I want to focus upon the voluntary display of the amalgam of complex feelings that makes vulnerability a strength not a weakness. Vulnerability has an infectious nature. That doesn’t mean others feel the same thing in the same way, but it does mean that others are impacted, they notice. Vulnerability is composed of a set of human emotions that communicate something important.

As I’ve grown older I have begun to find a more existential kind of humor funny. I can’t help but smile, sometimes, when something makes me recognize the hilarious situation I’m in. Sometimes, I can’t help being impressed by how funny being here is. I often laugh at my own difficulties. I am so grateful I can.

Vulnerability seems similar to me. I am incredibly vulnerable if I let myself know the fix I’m in. What’s more, is that I can feel vulnerable if I really get the fix some one else is in. The truth is, that for me, the human condition makes me feel pretty vulnerable. I guess that is why I sometimes feel moved to let my vulnerability be seen. It seems to most accurately express the predicament that I find myself, and others, within.

Vulnerability, for me, means that I may laugh or cry. Being human is ridiculously hard. It makes me grieve, praise, laugh and cry. I am vulnerable from head to foot, in every moment, in every way, and I laugh, curse and wonder within such an incredible existence. Vulnerability seems to be my natural state, maybe yours too! Can we connect with each other around this shared experience? I believe we can. In part, that’s why I want others to see and know my vulnerability. Openness is vulnerable. It hurts good. So does living. Hah! What a humorous twist there is to this whole deal!

Happiness

Today I want to write about happiness. I don’t feel that I am any kind of expert on the subject. Probably my real reason for writing about it has to do with my own surprise that I am happier than I have ever been. I didn’t really expect to be happy. I never made it a particular focus (a priority) of my life either, so you can imagine my surprise and curiosity about this burgeoning feeling of well-being. A part of what I want to write has to do with my suspicion that my happiness has come with getting older.

What makes us happy? Probably, the answer to that question is as diverse as we humans are. Still, I can’t help but notice that I am experiencing a kind of happiness that doesn’t seem to be emanating from the world around me. I don’t know about you, but I grew up, until now, with the notion that when things, and I mean stuff like money, jobs, homes, relationships, vacations or enlightenment, lined up, then I would be happy. I have almost none of that today and I’m happier than ever, so what gives?

Happiness, at least for me, seems more to be an internal phenomenon rather than being something out there. The happiness I find in the world, I seem to find first in me. That is a radical change from the idea of happiness I first learned.  Strangely owning my own home doesn’t make me as happy as owning, and being comfortable, in my own skin. One is an economic achievement, the other is a harder-won acheivement with my self. The sense of being at home in my home is more gratifying and sustainable when I occupy myself.

Happiness has become more of a reality to me as I have aged. I don’t think that merely aging did it. I think something happened inside me. I ripened into happiness. For me the happiness accompanied my gratitude with living. I came through a lot, through a long time of being more dead than alive, through a time of realizing I was being given a second chance, and through being surrounded by a host of others, mainly old folks, who similarly struggled, endured and found a way to happily persevere. It appeared that I was happy because Life had put me through the wringer and I had emerged more solid than I once had been.

I came to being happy not because I aged, but because I aged well. What do I mean? Well, I’m still formulating this, but it seems that I have something to do with the fact of my happiness despite being disabled, and having to ask others for help (a widespread fear), and having no insurance (the economic social net), I am still somehow happy. I know, in part, it’s the company I keep, but I also know I can keep company with some pretty unhappy people and retain my appreciation of Life. I am happy for no good conventional reason. No, I don’t think it is because I’m crazy. I’m weird but not over the bend. I’m happy for a non-conventional reason, because I’ve become what the Universe intended — myself.

If I sound a little like Walt Whitman, so be it. Life has shaped me into a misshapen, dysfunctional being, which is a horror story of possibility for anyone who really takes my life in, and has conferred happiness upon me. How can that be? I haven’t been able to believe it for the longest time. So I wouldn’t blame you, if you don’t. But, it seems with all that has gone wrong — with all that Life has put me through —happiness erupts.

I can explain it, at least I think I can. If words don’t fail me now, then I can explain that the miraculous (that’s how it sometimes seems to me) can happen in anyone’s life. Happiness is a by-product of inner life, not dependent upon anything external. It is what happens when one really gets how lucky they are to be in this vulnerable, teetering, human-scarred world. It isn’t a state of denial, a refusal to know just how bad things are, it is an appreciation of what is. I’m not happy because Life as we know it is in jeopardy. I’m happy because it exists, and I get to know it for a time.

My happiness emanates from the ground I wheel around upon. That is dirt for sure, earth of the most perishable sort. But it is more than that too. Not more, in the sense of other than that, rather in the sense of that extended. I am happy because I wheel upon the soil of my self. The two are not really two. The Universe, and Life on Earth, are composed of both, and both are part of the same thing — the life force of the Great Mystery. Check it out, it’s going on right beneath your feet, and right within you.

I’m happy now because I can perceive the movement of the whole happening most anyplace. It hurts, in some different kind of way, to experience so much denial, fear and hatred, but my sense of happiness can embrace those pains too. Mainly, because I can feel Life welling up, happiness wells with it.

That Much

There is a story that I love. I first came across this story when I read the prologue to Scott Peck’s book A Different Drum. I subsequently loved it even more when it was read at the beginning of every community-building workshop I ever attended. The story conveys something of the radical power of respect, and I share it with you because I am still learning its lessons.

“ There is a story, perhaps a myth. Typical of mythic stories, it has many versions. Also, typical, the version of the story you are about to experience is obscure. The story, called The Rabbi’s Gift, concerns a monastery that had fallen upon hard times. Once a great order, as a result of waves of anti-monastic persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth, all of its branch houses were lost and it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others, all over 70 years in age Clearly it was a dying order.

In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. Through their many years of prayer and contemplation the old monks had become a bit psychic, so they could always sense when the rabbi was in his hermitage. “The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods again,” they would whisper to each other. As he agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot at one such time to visit the hermitage and ask if by some possible chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.

The rabbi welcomed he abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. “I know how it is,’ He exclaimed. “The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore.” So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. Then they read parts of the Torah and quietly spoke of deep things. The time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each other. “It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet each other after all these years,” the abbot said, “but I still have failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would me save my dying order?”

“No I am sorry,” the rabbi responded. “I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that The Messiah is one of you.”

When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, “Well, what did the rabbi say?”

“He couldn’t help,” the abbot answered. “We just wept and read the Torah together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving —it was something cryptic — was that the Messiah is one of us. I don’t know what he meant.”

In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered the possible this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the rabbi’s words. The Messiah is on of us? Could he possibly mean one of the monks here at the monastery? If that’s the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Bother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Eldred! Eldred gets crotchety at times. But, when you look back on it, even though he is a pain in people’s sides, Eldred is virtually always right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Eldred. But not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah. Of course the rabbi didn’t mean me. He couldn’t possibly have meant me. I’m just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God not me, I couldn’t be that much for You could I?

As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. And on the off off chance that each of the monks himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.

Because the forest in which it was situated was so beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed this aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.

The story ends with the monastery being renewed and becoming a center of light. I’ve loved this story because it has had so much to say to me about the renewal of community, but as I was slowly typing the story into my computer, I found myself substituting in the word world, in my mind, for monastery. I have a feeling that if we could have the story’s kind of extraordinary respect universally, then a wider spread renewal could happen.

I primarily have loved this story because it has helped me to consider myself in a different light. Besides looking at myself as something unimaginable, and worthy of respect, I have been dwelling with the off hand chance that I could be “that much” to anyone. As I have come to respect that possibility, I have come to experience how much this world of others, means to me.  “That much” has turned into so much.

My regard for the possibility that I might not know myself well enough to be sure how much I could mean to another has turned out to increase my regard for everybody. I am learning that just opening to the possibility of being “that much” to anyone, opens me to noticing how everything is “that much” to me.

I share this with you, because I’m still leaning how to be and see “that much,” and because it means that much to me.

Ceremomy

I don’t know why I want to write about this subject. I just know that I feel called to it, and have been for a while. I’ve been captivated these last few weeks by grief and a growing sense that the quality of my life, perhaps of all life, depends in large part upon a relationship with death. I could more easily be writing about that. But, for some reason, the thought of ceremony has been hanging around like a hungry orphan begging for my attention. I don’t exactly know why, but I’m going to use this writing time to inquire into what ceremony might hold for me. I hope this process of discovery might prove fruitful for you too.

When I think (which hasn’t been much until recently) about ceremony, I think about elaborate rituals that generally I don’t understand, relate to, and that I feel forced to endure. You can smell the old catholic in my reaction. I haven’t tended to think of ceremony as the little things I do each day to remind myself how lucky I am to be here, and how reliant I am upon the Mystery that keeps feeding me. I haven’t yet made the journey from ceremony being what someone else does, and I have to endure, to something I do, that infuses my life with my gratitude.

I think I started making that journey when I witnessed the casual reverence of a man giving a little tobacco offering to the Sun at the beginning of a day. I’ve never felt moved to do such a thing, I could, but I don’t really want to. What observing this did is stir me up. I think that is why I’m making this inquiry.

I’ve been a little critical of many of the social situations I’ve been in lately. It seemed like they had forgotten or ignored the sacredness of our gathering. Of course the real truth is more about me than about the group I’m in. Groups by-and-large seem to ignore this dimension of meeting, probably to avoid the issue of who’s idea of the sacred gets expressed and who’s doesn’t. That makes sense to me, but it has become less and less satisfying over time. I find the quality of what happens suffers without a sense that “something larger” has a stake.

I haven’t, until just this moment, held myself accountable for the fact that I tend to go along with the program. I don’t mean that I think I should impose my will upon everyone else, but maybe I should honor the truth of the situation as I see it. I need to create for myself some little ritual that reminds me of how I want to honor the moment. This line of thought is too potent, too hard to pursue, too slippery for me to approach head-on. I have to sidle up to it.

I find myself thinking about the little daily rituals I do now: the affirmations when I awaken in the morning, the thoughts of dreams as I go to the bathroom, my morning shower, eating, my at–the-table gratefulness, checking the computer, glancing at the news, throwing things in the garbage or recycle, dealing with clients, thinking about my relations or ambitions, listening to music, readying for bed, letting myself relax and fall asleep. Those are discrete moments when I have to be a little more awake to do them well. Maybe they are already little forms of ceremony I am currently doing?

Yes, and no. These moments are discrete enough and have been infused with a certain amount of holy awareness, but they pass-by commonly without me noticing, and caring enough to take the time to remind myself of the grace inherent in those moments. I could pay greater attention. Ceremony, as some little way of reminding myself, could help me to be more present. And, as one famous Sufi’s said, “He who isn’t present experiences no Presence.”

I am thankful that I am noticing my disappointment in groups, because when I follow the disappointment into the recesses of myself, I am beginning to grasp that ceremony is growing in importance to me. I need to remind myself. I am capable of being happy, of having a sense of my place in this strange unfolding, of experiencing praise at the glorious and surprising nature of Creation. Besides that, I like and trust myself more when I do more than just give a shit.

What a surprise! Ceremony seems to be welling up from within me. Apparently, as my memory fails, I am finding myself even more interested in remembering what is important to me. I seem to be experiencing something like the salmon of me longing to return to the source. Ceremony seems to me, just now, to be a mini version of a much larger ritual that seems to be going on.

I like this knowing. I’m glad I took the time for it. Writing is one form of ceremony that keeps reintroducing me to Mystery. I hope this little foray does the same for you.

Trying

I have to admit I write about this reluctantly. I have an ambivalent relationship with trying. I guess these mixed feeling can be attributed to once having someone say to me, that “try was a coyote word.” By that, I took her to mean it was a word I might choose to give myself an out, a way to fail comfortably. I know that tendency too well. But, trying goes deeper for me than that. At least I hope it does. That uncertainty is the source of my ambivalence. I really don’t know how much of myself I am giving to anything. I’d like to think I am in charge, that I define my efforts, but I really am uncertain about that. So trying stays in my vocabulary and I have to live with the uncertainty that comes with it.

Life seems to constantly be asking me to be more than I see myself to be. It isn’t just that I have an inaccurate image of myself and I can do, and be, more. That certainly happens. But there are times when Life seems to be asking me to do something I know I’m not capable of. Sometimes I do know myself, and recognize my actual limitations. Life doesn’t seem to care. It asks me, in no uncertain words, to go ahead.  Then, if I have the appropriate audacity, I have to try. Trying in those kinds of moments is a leap of faith. It is going beyond myself in some desperate attempt to mollify the unknown.

I’ve told myself, and enough precious others, that I know my writing, and my work building community is on track when I’m having an “oh shit” moment. When I realize I’m thoroughly over my head, and I have put myself in this place where I can see no way forward, I know I’m doing a good job. I have to go to the place of my limitations to discover any possibilities. I can’t really explain something that is this paradoxical. I have to be hurting and totally afraid too get to a place where I have a chance of making a difference. I don’t like to be raw that much. I don’t like to ache nakedly in public ways either. But I know this is what it takes for me to do anything real. I want to try, and I want to avoid it like the plague.

Life is asking that much of me. Sometimes, if I’m really honest, most times, I just try to ignore the fact that I can feel when I’m being asked to go further than I’ve gone before. If I put it off long enough the call gets louder and I begin losing my confidence in myself, and in Life. I want to do anything else. I even fool (or so I think) myself by doing things sort of like what I’m being called to. I’ll try anything to avoid trying what I know is real. No doubt this is the real source of my ambivalence. I know I’m still susceptible to fooling myself.

I should know better. I’m just Lucky enough to have been pushed off the cliff, and to know that falling and flying can be the same thing. But, I’m still living in a world where it looks like falling can lead to suffering. I don’t want to suffer, but if I’m good at avoiding that kind of suffering, I suffer with the knowledge that I’m avoiding something crucial. In the end, I try because I make the choice of facing my lack of choice. I choose to suffer the not knowing, the leap into the abyss, the “oh shit’ moments, because I know that if I don’t I am going to suffer another kind of suffering. Either way I look at it I suffer, so it might as well be trying to be something I’m not.

Strangely, it seems as if Life thrives on this kind of choice. I don’t like it much, but you know what, being used by Life in this way, increases my respect for Life and for the level of challenge I’m engaged in. I have greater self-respect, greater compassion for others, because I have an idea how hard, and how precious, it is to really try.

Trying, if it comes too easily, is suspect, because really trying is a trial. There is doubt and no way out. The jury doesn’t render the standard verdict of guilty or not guilty. In this case the jury is within, and the consideration is the quality of life. Real trying is living uncertainly. It is leaping into the unknown without the pretense of a net. It is what Life is doing with us.

Arrival

A report from the Slow Lane

There is something happening, particularly with older people, which I don’t think has been commented upon. I think that this phenomenon needs to be reported and considered, for the sake of those getting older, and for the sake of everyone who is pursuing genuine happiness. There is an actualization of self that can take place, in the later years, that brings happiness, fulfillment, and most importantly, the kind of unique perspective that can make hope a real thing. I call this phenomenon “arrival”, if you keep reading you’ll see why.

What I have to report is paradoxical. It isn’t straightforward, or simple, that is probably why this change, this particular form of the initiatory attainment is not well-known. If you think about what I’m describing here, you will probably know someone who has achieved this state, it isn’t new, just not widely commented upon. In some strange way, there is a taboo here. Happiness, and even freedom, are achievable — just not the way that the mainstream is invested in. There is no wrinkle cream, other than life, that can convey this particular elixir. Some of us have come to life in a way that is both an arrival, and a real departure from the norms of our society.

What am I referring to? Lately, I’ve observed, and gotten to know, people who are genuinely happy, full of life, who feel well situated and are already making a difference. These are people, which in my way of seeing things, have ripened. They have become themselves. These folks are, by and large, the elders amongst us. They don’t make a lot of noise, don’t call attention to themselves, don’t think they’ve done anything special, but they have achieved something, I think we all need to know about. They have arrived.

By arrival I mean that they occupy the very rare space of becoming themselves while being on their journey. They have a sense of becoming whole, uniquely themselves, free to be what they need to be, and they have a destiny before them. They have arrived — and as part of their arrival — they know they are departing. They occupy a truly paradoxical, and special space.

Arrival means they have become themselves, achieved true uniqueness, and are happily reconciled to this development being only half of the story. Death will come. They don’t fear it. Certainly adventure awaits them. Because they are themselves, they are ready. Their achievement, their existence, is important for us to notice. They reveal to us one prospective way to live, the possibility of actualizing ourselves, the miraculous perception that who we are, just might be what is needed.

I’m not talking about your average old person here. Though I could be, it is never too late to become yourself. I’m addressing the fact that some people never stopped learning, and going through the hopper of hardship. These folks, it appears, found a way to use hardship, pain, and loss creatively. They have made of their lives works of art, they have found ways to become themselves, to achieve wholeness.

They have a lot to teach us, but not in the school sort of way. Their knowledge isn’t something that can be transmitted in lectures, it takes the stuff of life. A part of the reason we need to know that such a thing as arrival is possible, is because to learn the art of being whole takes time, and is best communicated by absorption in the dilemmas of life. The elder best teaches by example. The learner learns best by honoring the teacher, and in this case, by noticing the arrival of those who know something important.

I keep saying there is a paradox here. I don’t say that to show off, or to make this attainment seem more difficult than it is. I say it because I’m impressed by the unlikelihood of this development, by the life-giving, character building nature of what they have been through. Life, evidently cared about them enough, to have really roughed them up. They, in turn, seemed to have cared enough on their own, to have turned that hardship into something original.

I remember once hearing a story, a part of which, went like this, “a Zen Master said to a group of his students, “You are perfect as you are, and you could use a little improvement.” I think that the paradox of our being explains what he means, and explains how elders could be arriving just as they are departing. I think we are always connected to the larger reality. For that reason, we are perfect as we are. We are after all a part of a larger whole that is also perfect as it is. Elders, as they become themselves, are little wholes who shine with the light of the larger whole, a joined part of that great magnificence.

We human beings are part of that larger whole and we are a separate piece, responsible for our own wholeness. The journey includes becoming a part of the whole and becoming whole unto our selves. That is how the Zen students can be perfect as they are (they are manifestations of the whole, whole themselves) and need a little improvement (and they are evolving, semi-complete parts of the whole). Elders too are arriving, manifesting their wholeness, and departing, manifesting their evolving partness.

Arrival is a real thing, a possibility that we cannot afford to ignore, just because it doesn’t look like completeness. Arrival is also essential to our kind. The old look like they are over the hill. The truth is that they have lived long enough to realize there is no hill, but there is the possibility of coming home, to them selves, and to the Universe. The rest of us, if we don’t notice elder actualization, live with no knowledge of the possibility of a homecoming. What is a journey that contains no arrival? Elders do arrive, and because they do, we know we can too.