BEING AVAILABLE

Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 2013

     On this special day, as I give thanks, I want to also promise, again, to be available to people. The word “avail” derives from the Latin word meaning “be of value, be strong”, and that’s how I want to be for the people in my life. I want to be of some use to them, if it only means stopping in for a visit, or sending a sunny note, or just being still and listening. I want to stay near and stay strong for them. I want them to know I am always free and unoccupied when they need me, always at hand, always handy and at their disposal, always available. 

BIRTHDAY FOOLISHNESS

Ever since I discovered, many years ago, that the basic definition for the word “immature” is “still growing, still developing,” I have hoped that I will remain immature until the moment of my death, and I am pleased to say that yesterday I celebrated my 72nd birthday in a totally immature way. Since I am still growing – still changing, still advancing, still learning – it seems fitting that I behaved in a completely boyish manner. What was wonderful was that I was with one of my favorite boys, my grandson Josh, which made it easy to have fun in a thoroughly unsophisticated and fresh-faced way. I was also with Delycia, who is more spry and sprightly than many teens I’ve known, and so the three of us formed a team of totally foolish friends. We were at Chuck E. Cheese’s for pizza and game-playing, and we played our hearts out. We raced cars, boats, and planes; we threw small balls and basketballs; we even shot monsters of all sorts. (Delycia was our best shooter, by far.) We raced from game to game like the silliest of kids. We were giddy and scatterbrained, but oh so happy. Delycia and I were in the springtime of our lives, a couple of immature teens taking pleasure in being young with a boy who does it beautifully.

THANKS

When I discovered this morning that the history of the word “thank” connects it, in a circuitous way, to the word “think”, it made sense to me, since simply thinking carefully about my life always makes me feel thankful. Only a totally unthinking person would fail to praise the beautiful things that brighten all of my days. Just the fact that I am somehow here, right now, on this startling planet, and living this always surprising life, is grounds for the sincerest gratitude. Who gave me this gift of a vast and silver sky above me, and a warm car cruising at 70, and ten fingers to type on a laptop words that sometimes win my heart when I read them? How did it happen that the “big bang” so many billions of years ago eventually presented the universe, in November of 1941, with a baby boy named Hamilton, who has now seen so many miracles it makes his 72-year-old head spin? Just thinking about my marvelous life makes me want to wave and dance, but since I’m riding in a car beside a beautiful driver (Delycia) I’ll just say a quiet “Thanks to one and all!”, and throw her an appreciative kiss as we sail down the interstate.

IDOLS

"Birds of Pray", oil,
by Tom Brown

If an idol can be defined as an image or representation of a god used as an object of worship, then some of us, myself included, have probably been occasional idol worshippers. Perhaps, for instance, we have sometimes worshipped the weather, as though it were a god. Perhaps, in our hearts, we have said to an approaching storm, “O storm, you have so much power. Please spare our town and our house.” Maybe, in a sense, we knelt before the storm’s power, like supplicants beseeching it for clemency, as though the storm was far more powerful than our small, defenseless selves. And what about illness? Haven’t some of us, myself included, bowed before an illness, as if it were a golden icon or a statue in a sanctuary, as if it somehow ruled our lives and just might, if humbly entreated, treat us lightly and leave us alone?

I guess I’m tired of worshipping these idols. They are not gods, and their power can’t come close to matching the limitless power all of us have inside us – the power, for instance, of courage and calmness and perseverance and kindness. I hope I can refuse to pay homage to future storms and illnesses and other “idols”. I hope I can say to them, “Would you like to see real power? Just look inside my mind and heart.”

STEADFASTNESS

     Each day I search for what I might call steadfastness, and it’s usually easy to find. I see it, of course, in the trustworthy sun that always shows up when it’s supposed to. For billions of years, no matter what muddles our human world might be in, the sun has reliably risen each morning to make a new start for us. I see it also, as I look out each morning, in the true and constant trees on our street. A few, I’m sure, have been faithfully there for more years than I’ve been alive, and all of them have been standing in a resolute way for the 12 months of our residence on this street. And speaking of resoluteness, where can it be found more unfailingly than in my own breathing, coming in and out in its unwavering way moment after moment after moment? Even when my world seems to have been temporarily torn apart, my breath, my steady friend, still faithfully sends me fresh oxygen, fresh opportunities to be brave. All I need to do is stay quiet in the storm and listen to my breathing, the trusty team leader of my little life, as it keeps bringing its gifts. 

STAYING

I would like to learn to “stay” more often, to remain right where I am without wandering off to some other place or task. There’s something special, I think, about staying put. I sometimes think about the staying power of stones, the way they seem to easily persevere, just sticking to where they are for months and maybe years and centuries. The stones in our stone fence have stayed there for years, precisely where they were placed, and stones in fields and forests have been sitting in the same places -- maybe we might say peacefully -- for possibly eons. Perhaps I’ll try a little staying today. Maybe I can just leave myself somewhere and silently stay there. Maybe I can persist in being just where I am and just what I am, suspending all stirring and rushing and simply staying, a senior-citizen “stone” sitting in peace.

A GENTLE HAND

      Interestingly, the word “tact” takes its meaning from the Latin word for “touch”, suggesting that people with tact touch the world around then with care and consideration. They connect with things and people in an understanding way. They stroke the world instead of shoving or striking it. They don’t push against you, but just sort of brush you with their thoughts and words. Whatever they come into contact with – the weather, their work, other people – they do it with subtlety and savoir faire. Having tactfulness, they can put out a gentle hand to everything.

TWO WISE TEACHERS

Many  years ago, a good friend was dealing with considerable pain and fear, and I can still recall being deeply impressed by his attitude toward these enemies that all of us have faced. Actually, he told me he tried not to consider them as enemies, but rather simply as conditions that had come along in his life – conditions he wasn’t able to avoid and may as well try to get to know and understand and – who knows –maybe even appreciate. He told me he tried to think of the pain and fear as teachers, and he said they might be the best teachers he had ever had. He said he was even grateful, in a strange sort of way, for their presence in his life, for he had spent many years in -- as he put it -- a closet of anxiety and closed-mindedness, and this pain and fear might force the doors of his life open. For one thing, he thought it might open him to a greater awareness of the pain and fear that billions of people are feeling at any given moment. His situation, as he put it, would make him a member of the vast community of sufferers on our planet. He said he had high hopes for his journey with pain and fear as he looked ahead to what he would be learning from these two ancient and wise teachers. He said that when the pain or fear arrived, he would try to say, “Welcome. Please come in. I will do my best to be a good student.”

THE STEADFAST PRESENT

All of us hope for a few faithful friends in our lives, and, strange as it may sound, I’ve found one in the always-steadfast present moment. I’ve discovered, as the years have passed, that no matter how unstable and inconsistent my life might sometimes seem, there is one thing that is constantly beside me – the present moment. It’s like a trusted friend, always there in all its fullness and vitality, all its comprehensiveness and verve. The present moment is unfailing in its loyalty. Look where I might, I’ll never find anything more reliable. It stays alongside me at all times in all circumstances, as if to say, “No matter what, I’m here for you.” And it’s essential that I remember that every present moment is, indeed, here FOR ME. Since each moment can’t be anything other than what it is, in that sense each moment is absolutely perfect, and thus it offers me, over and over, a flawless gift. Each moment can make my life better in some beautiful way, but I must make myself see its excellence, its totally dependable ability to unfold new miracles for my life. The present – or perhaps The Present would be a more fitting way to refer to it – is as trusty and constant as a friend can be.

RE-VISION

I always do a fair amount of revising with my writing, and it came to me this morning that revision should also be a steady pursuit in other parts of my life. The word derives from the Latin for “to see again”, and surely that is something I need to do – to see, to actually look at, the customary wonders of this world again and again, with ever fresher and more heedful eyes. We get the words “visor” and “vision” from the same Latin root, and I guess I need to put on my inner “visor” so I can have a better vision of the everyday miracles in my life, the routine wonders that usually slip past my notice. As I’m typing, for instance, there are tremulous little shadows on my wall from the sunshine outside, and there are lovely light-filled reflections on the glass in a picture frame on the same wall – the kind of everyday spectacles I almost never notice. This morning, lucky for me, I paused in my writing and used what I might call my re-vision to see these simple but delightful displays with re-vised eyesight.  

A SOLEMN SEASON

These days, there’s almost nothing in nature that doesn’t carry itself royally. It’s almost as if there are crowns of glory on every tree and bush and scurrying squirrel. That may sound strange, since this is the time of the year when nature appears to be fading and saying farewell until springtime, but, still, I do see a peculiar kind of majesty when I stand outside. Even with just a few glittering leaves left, many trees glow now like the crowns of queens and kings, and even old shrunken shrubs and flowers present themselves with a kind of elderly stateliness. The squirrels in our yard seem as self-important as small emperors as they survey the land they now essentially own, and the birds at the feeder are almost statuesque as they take their meals in small, stately groups. And the sky! Somehow there’s always solemnity above us these days, particularly in those slim, resplendent clouds of autumn. It’s as though the sky is being especially silent and magnificent to honor this august and solemn season.