I have talked before about wisdom sources -- what a liberation that is for me to be able to name my wisdome sources -- the people, the books, the circumstances that have opened my eyes, heart, understanding, that have formed me.
I got a book for Christmas, from my dad, called "Thirst" by Mary Oliver and truly it has entered my wisdom collection. Some of the poems, well it felt like I was reading words that I had been searching for, that it resonated with me so much that at times I felt as though I could have written it for all the ways it spoke to me. She writes about wonder, faith, grief and loss, of learning to be. How human we are and how beautifully terrifyingly holy that is.
This next (at the end) is not from that book, but it is one of Mary's (Mary's ...like I know her, as if she were my friend. I do. and she is) and, having just found it, it seems to capture well this life after undergrad. I life which so far -- all 3 days of it sense my Christmas break officially ended -- has sent me reeling. I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow or the next day or the next: where I will be or who I will see or what I will be doing. But I have big dreams and that is perhaps the most frightening thing of all. Fear. I talk about it a lot. One of these days I will have to do a study upon it -- and by study I mean look up quotes and maybe some of the Bible verse ("Fear not" is one of the phrases used the most throughout, if not the Bible, at least the New Testament. Beautiful.)
Colin is in a philosophy class and was asked to write a one page paper about what it means to be human. One page! I love this assignment and almost want to write a book a treatise a poem maybe -- something! What does it mean to be human? To be alive? Dreaming, I think, has something to do with it. And joy and pain (always together, everything all at once). The ability to laugh and to cry and to scream. To feel wonder, awe, a sense of smallness in the face of the twirling universe. To think and to feel. Someone told me the other day that is is important that decisions be made with both the mind and the heart -- to engage all of myself, to integrate reason and logic with emotions and desires. How much easier it could be to just follow one or the other! to ignore my mind and follow my heart and so live blindly. Funny that I think maybe my mind might be the easier thing to ignore. But to be human, fully human, demands integrity (pulling on the "whole" "complete" definition of the word) and so I must be rational.
But! how to be rational about mystery! about that which cannot be known, data which encroaches back upon itself (as says Gabriel Marcel) and being (being human!) as one of the greatest mysteries. Ontology -- a word I learned first from Madeleine L'Engle and then further explored with Marcel -- the word about being. What does it mean for me to be? I cannot agree that what I be can be simply defined by what I do. I was a student. But am no longer. I work 20 hours a month as a receptionist, will begin working 40 hours a month with a non-profit. Maybe another 80 or so a month at a coffee shop or doing... and while the thing that I do (and will be doing) that are know, I love and mean a great deal to me, have been formational to me, it cannot be the whole answer.
I had an autoimmune disease for 5 years in middle school and high school and went to school (a little bit), slept (a lot), ached (probably more than I remember) and, maybe that was when I first thought thinking this though I didn't have the words yet, is that I cannot, I refuse!, to be what I do. There is, there must be, more to being than that. Just as there must be more to God than Church on Sunday. And this I am quite stubborn about and not only do I believe that there is more, but I demand it.
So, what does it mean to be human, this question directly related to what does it mean for me to be, who (in the biggest sense of the word possible) am I? are you? And God? God, and as I am not writing this for a philosophy paper MUST come in, because some one God, the Holy Spirit -- the ultimate Life Force--is responsible for all of this Being that is being questioned and discussed. So to question to wonder to ponder about what it means to BE inherently, intrinsically, inexplicably touches upon I AM --being itself.
It's a question that can never be answered. But the question is important, essential. It must be lived, it must be asked, and sought and somehow, and this too I believe completely, that it is the seeking (the risking hurt and pain, it is risking --because these too can be overwhelming while awe inspiring -- love and hope and faith and joy) that is what it means to be, what it means to be human. Living risky. Living with arms wide open.
Mockingbirds by Mary Oliver
This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossing
the white ribbons
of their songs
into the air.
I had nothing
better to do
than listen.
I mean this
seriously.
In Greece,
a long time ago,
an old couple
opened their door
to two strangers
who were,
it soon appeared,
not men at all,
but gods.
It is my favorite story--
how the old couple
had almost nothing to give
but their willingness
to be attentive--
but for this alone
the gods loved them
and blessed them--
when they rose
out of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles of water
from a fountain,
the light
swept into all the corners
of the cottage,
and the old couple,
shaken with understanding,
bowed down--
but still they asked for nothing
but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled, as they vanished,
clapping their great wings.
Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning--
whatever it was I said
I would be doing--
I was standing
at the edge of the field--
I was hurrying
through my own soul,
opening its dark doors--
I was leaning out;
I was listening.
Copyright © 1994 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; February 1994; Mockingbirds; Volume 273, No. 2; page 80
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