Bucket List

Ontological Mystery: Gabriel Marcel wrote that all too often as humans we define ourselves --our identity, value -- based on what we do, our routine, various roles or functions we are assigned or assign ourselves to.
Who am I?
a student
someone who likes to sleep in but lately gets up before 8 (early! ...for me) every day
member of several faith sharing groups
a thesis writer


there is a routine to my day, an expectedness, this structure is good and helpful, as long as I remember that whatever my routine is is not a definition of me.

and there are other functions i assign to myself: the organizer; the connector. Especially this last one can be very limiting to me in my relationships with others, that in my desire to bring other people together, I forget to include myself in that.

and this is the mystery -- ontological (the word about being). The Mystery of Being is that I am not a sum of parts. There is more. I be. And there is something intrinsically good and important and valuable about that BEING -- and the way that I be is different, unique just to me -- and it is from this core am-ness that my identity flows, that determines my worth and value as a person being.

and this is not to completely discount what i do and my various roles and functions and routines. That surely those too are part of me, and part of a manifestation of who I am, but the thing that is easily lost is that it is just a part.

but how is this mystery? well...who are you? try making a list of you that doesn't include what you do. and then how do they come together.

I asked my philosophy professor... well what if I forget about the things I do in how I think about myself and think only of that being part? his answer: we live in a very physical tangible active world and everythign arround us brings us back to : you are your successes and your failures, your schedule, your function, your routine. This, actions and do-ings, are what we see of one another. and so constantly we are brought back to ourselves in terms of functionality.

hang on to the mystery that there is more.

what does this have to do with a bucket list?

i was thinking about the Rilke quote:

"... and the point is to live everything. "
in context, he says to be gentle with unresolved questions in the heart, to not seek answers that couldn't be lived, because the point is to live everything, live the questions now.

but that one line "and the point is to live everything" has been reverberating around me this past week. To live everything. To take risks. to not live in fear-- i guess that's what i thought of first.

and it makes me think: what I haven't i lived, and silly enough, but some of the first things that come to mind are things like: drugs, gotten drunk ... And I'm pretty happy with that, though it seems like I skipped the stereotypical high school experience -- and maybe college for that matter. and i wonder how much of that was done out of respect for my body and how much out of fear. and are both reasons legit? "Do not be afraid" is a common theme throughout the new testament, do not be afraid to be to live, but some fear maybe is legit and self protective.

and then... what do I want to live before I die? And I thought of the movie the Bucket List.

But the truth is there isn't a list for me of things I want to do before I die. but if the list were about HOW I wanted to live. Yes, there is a list for that.

I want to live dangerously. And while the first thing that may come to mind with that statement is a motorcycle and tatoos (though that's pretty cool) or extreme sports, that's not what I mean.

I mean I want to live un-comfortably, in a way that is continuously putting me in contact with reality. Relaity buzz word from my El Salvador program. What I mean is I want the world: pain suffering hardship hand in hand with joy hope love faith generousity. I've written about this before, but the hard and the joyful are inherently connected and to truly live there must be room for both. So that means living at risk: living in a way that is open to pain and deep hurt that can puncture the protective walls i sometimes desperately try to throw up around myself. It is those some puncture wounds that let in (and maybe sometimes even bring) deep joy hope.

Living dangerously-- loving wastefully, as a friend once said. To approach both myself and those around me with this wasteful, this deep appreciation of our BEING.

This is a being (this ontological mystery) that is the core of humanity and no where is this seen more clearly than in the presence of those who are different, who live and speak and think and approach life differently. WHo have been wounded in ways I could never dream of and yet... and yet we, them and I, we share this being in common.

Living dangerously because to appreciate my being does not mean that I must protect myself from hurt. Appreciating my being (my creation -- which begs the question of a CREATOR)means not reducing myself to a function, to means constantly striving to be toe person I am created to be -- that I am a being in progress and to live in that knowledge, seeking to be faithful to that which is my core identity. And like anything else, faithfulness takes discipline and dedication and commitment because it won't always be easy, it will be hard, there will be people or events or situations that will challenge me, that will hurt me, that maybe will make me want to curl up give up on living into myself. Christ is a perfect example, right? He loved his created being -- who he was and who he was created to be -- so much that he stayed faithful to the end, which meant his death. Through such constant and faithful appreciation of Himself, he died, when he could have denied his being (his created being) and avoided the pain, saved His life.

To live dangerously. To love wastefully.

and maybe, just maybe, i'll get a motorcycle and tatoo some where along the way.

from Rilke to Relient K

Relient K, "High of 75"

We were talkin' together
I said "What's up with this weather?"
Don't know whether or not
How sad I just got
Was of my own volition
Or if I'm just missin' the sun

And tomorrow I know
Will be rainy at best
And the forecast, I know
Is that I'll be depressed
But I'll wait outside
Hoping that I'll catch sight of the sun

Because on and off
The clouds have fought
For control over the sky
And lately the weather
Has been so bi-polar and
Consequently so have I

But now I'm sunny with a high of 75
Since You took my heavy heart and made it light
And it's funny how you find you enjoy your life
When you're happy to be alive

And the tempature is freezing
And then after dark
There's a cold front sweeping
In over my heart
And we might break up
If I don't wake up to the sun

Because on and off
The clouds have fought
For control over the sky
And lately the weather
Has been so bi-polar and
Consequently so have I

But now I'm sunny with a high of 75
Since You took my heavy heart and made it light
And it's funny how you find you enjoy your life
When you're happy to be alive

Junior year of high school I was introduced to Relient K. For Christmas, I asked for all three of the cds they had out at the time and all spring, driving to school, to play rehearsal, errands, whereever, Relient K was blasting. Whenever I hear them now, if I close my eyes I can smell the spring of my junior year in high school, feel the wind blowing through my open car windows, see the road to school zooming by and my heart swells with the hope, anticipation, nervousness for the future that I experienced so often more than 4 years ago.

And all the listening... well I suppose I could say many Relient K songs are part of my Wisdom literature. This one in partiular hist me every once in a while when I am feeling overwhelmed or sad or anxious or discouraged -- when I let these feelings overcome and I convince myself that I am surround by black darkness. Usually in those times the line "It's funny how you find you enjoy your life when you're happy to be alive"

when you're happy to be alive. and as my middle school life science teacher (another wisdom source) said, as humans, the fact that we work that we can move and breath and live is amazing.

and then i remember the wonder that it is to live and it's as if all of a sudden i've remember to look up into a black velvety night sky and all above and around me are stars, pinpricks of light and that black darkness is beautiful, awe inspiring, still terrifying but also kind of comforting. It becomes a blackness that draws me out of myself rather than trapping and confining me in my fears and worries.

at one point over the summer -- in a black and starless dark -- i decided that i didn't need to be happy, that life whatever it was, all i wanted from it was to know what was coming next. understandable, especially if put in the context that in the 2 year period surrounding today (from one year ago to one year in the future) I will have moved residences 7 (very likely to be 8) times. And so far they have been good moves, hard but who wants easy. But in this much instability all I could think of was screw the rest I just want to KNOW.

When i can name this I do a lot better living in the unknowing. When I can name it I actually often rejoice in the fact that I cannot and do not know nor control everything (or often anything...) The world and universe is a vast glorious mysterious place. and so i can breath and live and be without fear of being crushed.

And my senior year.... it's looking much different than I had anticipated. I've commented to several people that it feels a little bit like I'm a freshman all over again. Living with some lovely ladies, but women I've never lived with before. The main claim on my time are my classes and thesis (THESIS! alright fine with that word I absolutely do not feel like a freshman!) but no leadership positions in any clubs. I could, oh so easily, give into the temptation to play pinochle in the bottom of the boat : to keep my head down and myself thoroughly engaged in the darkness but oh to be on deck, even in the midst of the storm. But it seems that I'm learning my way around the boat all over again and, meaning to reach wind-blown deck, I find myself, somehow, in the galley.

And i try, I try, to remember to laugh and be gentle with myself and , well as long as i'm there, explore the galley see what i can find, who i might meet. The universe has an amazing sense of humor and I don't want to miss anything, even if the joke's on me, that there is something wonderful for me here, now, living and i want it--to know what it is to live it experience it taste it and hold it so close that it becomes a part of me.

not that life is a scavenger hunt and i'm afraid of missing clues but rather that if i am too afraid to take risks, if i am waiting to be found or too obsessed with finding "it", if i am so absorbed with "shoulds" and "rights" then, like sand held too tightly, it will be gone.

So I'm learning and living -- and sometimes that means I hurt and ache sometimes with pain and longing and regret but often from the beauty (and that beauty always terrible) and abundance and sweet happenstance that IS.

Wisdom Sources

Wisdom Sources: where I find truth, encouragement, a taste of reality in words and pictures that pierce my heart, that speak to me, that change me.

Sister, my theology professor last semester, said we get many wisdom sources, the Bible among but not only.

So i've been naming mine. here are some of my new ones

Mary Oliver
Shaun Tan (The Red Tree, this book and those images)
and Rainer Maria Rilke

I've been running into Rainer everywhere lately -- or his words anyway. So I've finally started to do some research on him

Before today this was the main quote i knew by him and i have this card in my room, a gentle reminder. but then i read Duino Elegies: The First Elegy -- it's here, my favorite parts bolded, and though long, i really love the whole thing

Duino Elegies: The First Elegy

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so I force myself, swallow and hold back
the surging call of my dark sobbing.
Oh, to whom can we turn for help?
Not angels, not humans;
and even the knowing animals are aware that we feel
little secure and at home in our interpreted world.
There remains perhaps some tree on a hillside
daily for us to see; yesterday's street remains for us
stayed, moved in with us and showed no signs of leaving.
Oh, and the night, the night, when the wind
full of cosmic space invades our frightened faces.
Whom would it not remain for -that longed-after,
gently disenchanting night, painfully there for the
solitary heart to achieve? Is it easier for lovers?
Don't you know yet ? Fling out of your arms the
emptiness into the spaces we breath -perhaps the birds
will feel the expanded air in their more ferven flight.

Yes, the springtime were in need of you. Often a star
waited for you to espy it and sense its light.
A wave rolled toward you out of the distant past,
or as you walked below an open window,
a violin gave itself to your hearing.
All this was trust. But could you manage it?
Were you not always distraught by expectation,
as if all this were announcing the arrival
of a beloved? (Where would you find a place
to hide her, with all your great strange thoughts
coming and going and often staying for the night.)
When longing overcomes you, sing of women in love;
for their famous passion is far from immortal enough.
Those whom you almost envy, the abandoned and
desolate ones, whom you found so much more loving
than those gratified. Begin ever new again
the praise you cannot attain; remember:
the hero lives on and survives; even his downfall
was for him only a pretext for achieving
his final birth. But nature, exhausted, takes lovers
back into itself, as if such creative forces could never be
achieved a second time.
Have you thought of Gaspara Stampa sufficiently:

that any girl abandoned by her lover may feel
from that far intenser example of loving:
"Ah, might I become like her!" Should not their oldest
sufferings finally become more fruitful for us?
Is it not time that lovingly we freed ourselves
from the beloved and, quivering, endured:
as the arrow endures the bow-string's tension,
and in this tense release becomes more than itself.
For staying is nowhere.

Voices, voices. Listen my heart, as only saints
have listened: until the gigantic call lifted them
clear off the ground. Yet they went on, impossibly,
kneeling, completely unawares: so intense was
their listening. Not that you could endure
the voice of God -far from it! But listen
to the voice of the wind and the ceaseless message
that forms itself out of silence. They sweep
toward you now from those who died young.
Whenever they entered a church in Rome or Naples,
did not their fate quietly speak to you as recently
as the tablet did in Santa Maria Formosa?
What do they want of me? to quietly remove
the appearance of suffered injustice that,
at times, hinders a little their spirits from
freely proceeding onward.

Of course, it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer,
to no longer use skills on had barely time to acquire;
not to observe roses and other things that promised
so much in terms of a human future, no longer
to be what one was in infinitely anxious hands;
to even discard one's own name as easily as a child
abandons a broken toy.
Strange, not to desire to continue wishing one's wishes.
Strange to notice all that was related, fluttering
so loosely in space. And being dead is hard work
and full of retrieving before one can gradually feel a
trace of eternity. -Yes, but the liviing make
the mistake of drawing too sharp a distinction.
Angels (they say) are often unable to distinguish
between moving among the living or the dead.
The eternal torrent whirls all ages along with it,
through both realms forever, and their voices are lost in
its thunderous roar.

In the end the early departed have no longer
need of us. One is gently weaned from things
of this world as a child outgrows the need
of its mother's breast. But we who have need
of those great mysteries, we for whom grief is
so often the source of spiritual growth,
could we exist without them?
Is the legend vain that tells of music's beginning
in the midst of the mourning for Linos?
the daring first sounds of song piercing
the barren numbness, and how in that stunned space
an almost godlike youth suddenly left forever,
and the emptiness felt for the first time
those harmonious vibrations which now enrapture
and comfort and help us.


Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

Rainer Maria Rilke

safe

safe.
sobbing softly and alone.
alone and wondering
worrying.
but safe, my heart back
inside of my chest, hidden
by my body, by me.

I used to wear my heart
on my sleeve
until i had to gather back the
broken pieces
and now nothing is the same.

it's different
giving your heart away, losing
it and having it carelessly taken
and
discarded as if i had
another, one to spare.
I will give it to you gladly
willingly -- and all of it
but don't
lose.forget.take it for granted. That's
important.

i've promised myself, now, to
look before i leap. To
see if my heart is -- if i am
--wanted.
How -- to give myself away without
throwing
myself away. Because the difference
is real. That's
important.

But to love is to play the fool and
to love truly.deeply.thoroughly is to
love wastefully;

my heart already in pieces and
in this brokenness it is, perhaps,
more whole.

But not safe. That's
important.

Living is a risky business.

es muss sein

i find that i want to write something deep and profound, something that will make anyone who reads this sit back and sigh and tumble it over in their mind. something that will come back, tap you on the shoulder in a day or so. something that has weight.

have you read "the unbearable lightness of being"? is life unbearably light -- a series of coincidences, of events, situations that have ended just so, intersected with something or someone else so that an encounter, based upon 6 or 7 "maybes" is the event that changes you. unbearably light in that we have no way to make decisions, or rather no way to know what the "best" or "right" decision is as we can only do it once and so never compare different outcomes and so nothing can ever really mean anything. those bird of fortuity falling down upon as like rain.

or is life heavy? an "es muss sein" ("it must be") that grounds us, pulls us down to the earth so that everything we do is because of that "es muss sein" : to be a doctor, to be constantly self-sacrificial. Is there an "it must be" that we each are tethered to, an "it must be" that gives weight and meaning to all we do. does everything we do have a meaning. and as it can it only be done once, that much weightier because if we mess it up the first time, it's screwed up forever.

lightness or weight? and which is the good and which is the bad? are they even any different. the birds turn to chain and i am locked in place, oh to fly.

the most important is what do i believe -- what are those birds of fortuity when, oh the stars aligned, and those 6 coincidences coincided just so and my life was changed forever. and it seems as though coincidence could never have been so good to me, there must be the work, the humor, the smile of a Creator, just for me.

really?

oh to fly.

but lightness can be hard to face. it s so fragile. so insubstantial. is it real? what if one of those 6 events had gone jut even a little differently. what if ... and life is made up of these. the most important, weightiest things rest on a spider's web, fragile thin delicate.

so i take it to heart, those coincidences and make them heavy, lend them weight. and sometimes in so doing it seems as though i'm giving away my weight, my substance so that everything in the world is weightier than me, a moth's cassock burning in the flame. (at this point you need to add 2 things to your reading list: 1 (as already mentioned) The Unbearable Lightness of Being. and 2) Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. Actually antying by Annie Diallard you can get your hands on.)

so the me that i am is defined by my fortuitious birds, out of reach in the air above me, the coincidences lent wieght from myself, surrounding me, entangling me. and me, well i am weightless, floating among my heavy, coincidence strewn, defining moment.

if i am not what i do, who am i? (and now...we'll just do my philosophy class in a blog! ... go grab Garbiel Marcel's Ontological Mystery).

then answer: I AM. oh mystery, when data encroaches upon itself --like when the word you're supposed to be defining shows up in the definition and your thrown nto an eternal loop. I am I am I am I am I AM I. helpful right?

and that's the important thing, to be ok with a little mystery, a little ambiguity -- is it light? is it weight? is it? and what is? and if i am not my birds nor my coincidences nor those weight imbued events and "es muss seins" around me ... when what? not a function. not a routine. not even whatever 3 adjectives you or i might choose to describe ourselves or each other. mystery.

and we are surrounded by it. start with the mystery of yourself, explore it and revel in it. love it.
move on to the mystery of your neighbor.
to the mystery of suffering. of hope in sufferng. of hope.

the mystery of love.

and less abstract and kind of completely different. i am always so fascinated by conversation. one person says something and another listens, says something back, but not the same thing, related but not and somehow with our different minds, our different thought processes and values, ways of expressing ideas emotions thoughts and we can follow each other. we can make some sort of sense of each other. communicate.

crazy.

mystery: "es muss sein"

working definitions

solidarity:

sol·i·dar·i·ty Listen to the pronunciation of solidarity
Pronunciation:
\ˌsä-lə-ˈda-rə-tē\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
French solidarité, from solidaire characterized by solidarity, from Latin solidum whole sum, from neuter of solidus solid
Date:
1841

: unity (as of a group or class) that produces or is based on community of interests, objectives, and standards

solidarity:

(s{rfa}l{shti}{sm}dær{shti}t{shti}) [ad. F. solidarité, f. solidaire solid: see SOLIDARY a.]

1. a. The fact or quality, on the part of communities, etc., of being perfectly united or at one in some respect, esp. in interests, sympathies, or aspirations; spec. with reference to the aspirations or actions of trade-union members. Also attrib. and Comb.
The French origin of the word is freq. referred to during the period of its introduction into English use. Latterly also the English rendering of Polish Solidarno{sacu}{cacu}, the name of an independent trade-union movement in Poland, registered in September 1980 and officially banned in October 1982.

b. Const. of (mankind, a race, etc.).

c. Const. between or with (others). Also transf.

2. Community or perfect coincidence of (or between) interests.

3. Civil Law. A form of obligation involving joint and several responsibilities or rights.

i'm of the opinion that both miriam-webster and the oxford english dictionary missed the mark. if solidarity were based on perfect coincidence or on common interests then it wouldn't be a very shallow term.

if webster had said
"unity (as of a group or class) that produces community of interests, objectives, and standards" and left out the "or is based on..." i would be more inclined to agree.

my working definition:

solidarity

meaning derived from experience with the spanish "solidaridad" while living working being in El Salvador

the knowledge that we are all in this together. this understanding crosses socio-economic, culutral, religious, and political differences. it is the recognition that each person is a created being with dignity, worth respect, just as we ourselves are. it is namaste.

it is the understanding that not only are we all in this (life living hardship joy struggle discovery) together, but that we couldn't do it alone. that we need each other, that we must be in it together.

this knowledge, understanding, recognition binds us together and in so doing frees us.

so for me solidarity is one of the strongest forces for the creation of peace.

but a spark, something, is needed to ignite us into the deep understanding that we are all in this together. this happens, where solidarity becomes something real and meaningful, leaps into flame not when we are surrounded by those who hold much in common with us but rather when we are with those who different from us and amidst between and maybe even because of everything that is opposite, the human-ness we all hold in common , those things that we share, are right there. and there is no way to doubt that we need one another.

Harbor by Vienna Teng

We first heard this one of the evenings with Father Mark on our Silent Retreat at the very end of our time in El Salvador.

this song all at once brings me back to peace and sometimes want to cry.

so many visuals, the beautiful landscape of the finca we were staying on. my fellow casa students. sitting in that candle lit room. looking at pictures projected from the kids book "the red tree"

i miss you guys. beyond words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKDXe0FP2wc

i have an idea: can we all have a dance party? in our locations (so you know some of us may be alone...but not really). we could put together a play list, starting and ending (of course!) with casa abierta? i dunno what do you think?