Suffering, End-of-Life, Death II
SUFFERING, END-of-LIFE, DEATH II
157. Facing and fulfilling the later years (by Elsie Marion Andrews; 1968)
About the Author—Much of the wisdom attributed to the wise women of the 16th century informs Elsie’s concern for enriching the lives of people in general, and older people in particular. [She started with children] at Farmham’s Girls’ Grammar School and later at a Senior High School in Indianapolis. After her mother’s death she switched from youth to age. She joined the Society of Friends in 1943. She asks: Isn’t life explorable?
Foreword (by Anna Cox Brinton)—The answer to the old age question depends on country, culture, diet, & method of reckoning. “If you would be old, you must start young.” There are areas in the world where youth & life are still brief. For bookish people whose sight and hearing suffice, reading and writing have always been favorite pastimes. The composition of the “Quaker Journal” has occupied the later years of uncounted Friends. Elsie Andrews describes a multitude of ways in which the later years can be both enjoyed and fulfilled.
Age in a Changing World—“Advance in medical science is self-defeating if we improve health . . . without giving them meaningful ways to use their capacities in their longer life. . . There needs to be an environment more favorable to making use of people’s potential in the later years (Report of the National Council on Aging).” My concern with the wise and happy use of the later years has arisen through elderly friends and their families that have come to grips with unexpected change. Adaptation is not easy to those grown used to an accepted way of life. [Even those starved for touch and attention], could show life and hope if only someone cared.
We need each other. [But] we live at a time when human contact & understanding is threatened by a mechanized world, where human beings were in danger of becoming like the automatons they invent. [Culture has changed & brought with it] the present climate of opinion that puts youth, glamour, vigor, & production in the spotlight of popularity & worth. The whole structure of society today calls for fresh thinking on these concerns. The purpose of this essay is to consider the social & spiritual needs of the human being growing toward fruition.
Retirement in Prospect—One significant aspect of retirement is whether it comes by choice or compulsion. Free choice [is no guarantee of] a favorable attitude. Another significant factor is the degree of genuine interest [or disinterest] the individual has in his work. [Hobbies take the place of routine jobs in retirement]. [Skilled craftsmen with no hobbies in place &] being under the wife’s feet brings out the worst in the relationship of 2 people living in too close proximity for either one to appreciate the other. In cases like this some form of gradual retirement would be helpful. Ideally there should be no categorical age for retirement, but rather a tapering off as the need arises. Future legislation [should] provide for a flexibility of opportunities and alternatives: to retire and find other occupation, or to continue in a graduated and possibly protected sphere of employment.
Where to Live—A place in the [3-generation] family of which one has always been a part must mean more than any other environment—a place where devotion is shared, where in adversity the deep springs of comfort will continue to flow. Due to many causes, British adolescents grow up earlier, and adults find themselves with family-free independence much sooner than they used to; some parents find it hard to part with their children.
[3-generation] families do not necessarily want to be split, but present-day trends practically force them apart. If [there are so few grandchildren around] it results as much from the uprooting of young families to new areas of employment as from this century’s lower birth rate. Grandparents are left alone in a place they may be reluctant to leave or taken to a place where they have no desire to go.
In England, [new towns started] after the war, inhabited by young and middle-aged people taking advantage of developing industry and a lively community life. The elderly either found inadequate accommodation in these family homes, or could not settle in the streamlined, seemingly soulless modern environment. Some new towns in Britain plan suitable flats for old people. In America a number of experiments in Senior Citizen Communities have been ventured. Though in England this has not happened by design, [there are concentrations of] retired people on the south coast [that produce] a similar, if not identical, community.
Responsibility for caring for old parents is likely to fall on the available family member, usually a middle-aged daughter. In close and constant relationships some relief and variation of program is usually helpful. It requires real effort to come freshly to those we think we know well and forbear pre-judgment. In Britain as well as America supportive help for individuals living in their own homes includes meals, visits, nursing, and therapy. For both the person involved and their relatives, the assurance of help through these agencies can change a desperate situation in a manageable one while maintaining the individual in independent service, or within the family circle; residential communal care can thus be postponed.
Communal Residence—The time comes when some form of communal residence has to be considered. Unhappily, a bleak picture of institutional care persists in the minds of those over 70, who cling to the freedom they feel they have in living alone through fear of losing it in residential homes. It is important that the success stories in residential care should be publicized in order to break down certain fears founded on an outmoded conception. Appreciation of individual characteristics and ideas immediately creates interest in the fabric being woven together through social intercourse and interdependence.
The Society of Friends in Britain has sponsored [different approaches to] a number of homes for the elderly through their monthly meetings. The Quaker Housing Trust was launched through the Social and Economic Affairs Committee, offering help to those concerned to tackle emergency needs in accommodations for special groups. In November 1967, Foulkeways opened in Gwynedd, Pennsylvania under the auspices of the Philadelphia YM. Here the sometimes necessary transfer from home to hospital could be made under one roof.
Creativity—For the majority of healthy retirees, later life offers much that will complement the former years, [an almost endless scope]. Creativity comes in the simplest of everyday things: letter-writing; conversation; relationships; home management. Abraham Maslow said, “Not only is it fun to use our capacities; it is necessary for growth.” [In exploring new talents] D. H. Lawrence said, “We live too much from the head and [our] evil will. . .” [When talent is crippled by rheumatism, arthritis, and poor eyesight] new tools must be found, or some alternative offered which is meaningful and related to the individual’s interests.
But creativity need not require physical activity, nor preclude mental exercise. [A County Archivist used the reminiscences of senior citizens to fill in the] gaps in recent historical records. Dr. Dunn [U.S. Public Health Service] writes: “The older person needs to find his life satisfactions through the knowledge, memories, experiences, and creative incentives which have been stored and organized within one’s body and mind. It is in the hope and belief that one will be so used that all transcend their own littleness and reach ultimate fulfillment.
Helping the Elderly—[In particular] Solitaries and lethargics need the stimulus that comes from a demonstrated enthusiasm or a helpful prod. Helping the aged requires more than goodwill and common sense; training is also essential. No regular training pattern of instruction is yet established for volunteers and amateurs. Materially conditions are easy to improve, given the money, but less easy to provide is the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual understanding between those involved. [After information sessions with experts], trainees learned something of self-identification through films, role playing, and the seminar method and had the chance to observe that every individual reacts in their own way to handicaps and poor health.
[An excess of] health-consciousness can be a disease in itself. Where there's fear & bewilderment one must convey hope & confidence, where there's doubt, one must give strengthening toward resolution. The past is there & is a clue to present behavior. Strong characters of great age are often better equipped to cope with problems than a softer generation. In every one-to-one or one-to-many situation, both sides learn & interact.
Shaping a New Image—The most urgent need is to be understood—by others and by themselves, as to who they are, why they are as they are, and what they believe they are. [Not perceiving everything that went into the forming of this “old person”] is our loss. We cannot afford to waste the wisdom won with the years. Many older people are better at many things than their juniors. Unfortunately our present civilization tends to put a premium on productive work; strength, beauty, mental agility, sexual power, and attraction are accepted all too generally as the prime criteria. Modern communication through film and advertisement have broadcast these values. In the search for a new formula for satisfying living we must look at life’s wares, its tools and possibilities. Science may serve as an unexpected ally to the old in developing their assurance of a valid reason for living not associated with the importance and status of work. Younger generations will prepare themselves for age only when they see signs of true growth in those of advanced years.
Faith & Fullfillment—Jung asserts, “When higher interests arise on the horizon, insoluble problems lose their urgency . . . the greatest problems of life can never be solved but only outgrown.” Religion has to face the worst that happens to people & offer them love & understanding. Men & women looking back have seen that unexpected, stronger growth came from the place of trial & testing. Those who cope with serious limitations so cheerfully are called heroes. But their achievement is neither magical nor instantaneous; they have over years, built positive attitudes which make courageous effort possible & frequently unconscious. Even failing powers, by narrowing the scope of experience, may serve to concentrate interest and deepen the understanding of that interest. At every level of service and ability there is something to share, something to give, some door to enter.
But let us not confuse creativity, or, creative service, with [constant] activity. Waiting, listening—these also represent a creative force. When there is openness of mind there is also expectancy lit with a belief in the allright-ness of the unknown. Though for some it is impossible to accept religious belief, the wonder & mystery of life is something all can ponder; contemplation is a form of worship. To face life & aging calls for the courage of faith. Can we accept the sheer joy of being? To live with life is to live with death. Ultimately man can only contemplate the fact of being. He is here now. Let him absorb and give out in his very breath his feeling of at-one-ment. When men have lived openly, gathering the fruits of their experience through the adventures of youth and adulthood into the later adventure of age, there surely should be no resistance to sleep at last.
T.S. Eliot: “In my beginning is my end—In my end is my beginning.”
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368. On Retiring to Kendal—and Beyond (by Peter Bien; 2003)
About the Author—Peter Bien first came to Pendle Hill in 1952 to train for Quaker International Voluntary Service in Holland. [He taught on] modern British novels and modern Greek poetry and prose, especially Nikos Kazantzakis. In the 1980s, together with others from Hanover Monthly Meeting, he helped "invent" Kendal at Hanover; he and Chrysanthi have lived there since 2002. This is his third PH pamphlet.
Do not aspire to immortal life, my soul, but exhaust the field of the possible." Pindar
Is death an unmitigated calamity?—A retirement community like Kendal [becomes] your final home, a place you will leave in a box, ready for burial or cremation. Why have Quakers been so active in creating retirement communities? Why is it for Quakers a natural, desirable alternative to remaining in individual homes? I hope the primary reason is Friends' emphasis on the corporate nature of religious life and therefore the corporate nature of life in general. John Punshon writes: "There are not many lights, but only one ... Because it is common to us all, the light calls us into unity with one another, into the community."
Many Friends near the end of life attempt to minimize the isolation that often enwraps aging people. Elizabeth Gray Vining writes: "Old people need desperately to talk. This is the real loneliness of old age—to be surrounded by people & yet not to have anyone to hear & respond ... [At Kendal I shall find some of my closest friends ... the opportunity of helping to make it a caring community, and security for the future. And yet [if death ends all this], is not death, then, an unmitigated calamity? In As You Like It, Shakespeare's Jacques takes us through a man's 7 stages: infant; schoolboy; lover; soldier; justice; "lean, slippered, [shrunken, high-pitched] pantaloon; second childhood and oblivion. Is all our worldly accomplishment futile if it ends in oblivion?
Would life be better if greatly prolonged, or if death did not exist?—In Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift imagines the Struldbruggs, immortals. Gulliver discovers that these supposedly blessed immortals "pass a perpetual life under all the usual disadvantages which old age brings along with it ... They are the most mortifying sight I ever beheld ... From what I had heard & seen, my keen appetite for perpetuity of life was much abated." John Milton has the archangel Michael saying to Adam: thou must outlive thy youth, thy strength, thy beauty, which will change to withered weak and gray; thy senses then obtuse, all taste of pleasure must forgo ... in thy blood shall reign a melancholy damp of cold and dry to weigh thy spirit down, and consume the balm of life."
Immortality accompanied by perpetually sound body & mind [is touched on in] Andrew Marvell's famous poem "To His Coy Mistress": 100 years should go to praise/ thine eyes & on thy forehead gaze;/ 200 to adore each breast,/ but 30,000 to the rest ... Would it be advantageous to live forever, avoiding sickness & debility? [Why would Odysseus turn down Calypso's offer of immortality,] & deliberately choose mortality? Perhaps immortality is like an anodyne; killing [death's pain] & killing [life's] pleasures, at least the noble ones.
Paradoxically, it is precisely the passage of time, and even the hardship, pestilence, shipwreck, and dying rosebuds which it brings, that gives life its savor, encouraging us to make the best possible use of the gifts offered for each of our 7 ages. The teaching that this life is a trial designed to prepare us for eternal bliss (or damnation) is no longer a guiding principle for many of us.
The best statement we have in our modern literature regarding the importance indeed sanctity, of life itself as opposed to [just a way leading to afterlife] is Constantine Cavafy's "Ithaca." [Excerpt]: When you set your course for Ithaca,/ pray the route will be long; filled with/ adventure, filled with learning .../ harbors you have never glimpsed before .../ Always keep Ithaca in mind./ Arrival there is your destined end./ But do not hasten the journey in the least./ Better ... you anchor at the isle an old man,/ rich with all you gained along the way,/ not expecting Ithaca to grant you riches/ ... So wise have you become, so experienced,/ you already will have realized what they mean:/ these Ithacas. For Cavafy, the overriding purpose of our existence is to experience and exploit [in every way] the amazing adventure and gift of being alive.
Is life good in spite of [or because of] death?—Does death actually enhance life, make it better? Michael Platt writes: "Without time and its winged chariot hurrying near, love between a man and a woman would become lethargic, more like the dripping of a faucet than the rushing of an Alpine stream." Achievements, ardor, will, overcoming, would become meaningless to immortals; choices and decisions would be infinitely postponable. We would be deprived of all the joys and beauties of the growing child.
We may conclude that death enhances life rather than diminishing it—at least it has the possibility of doing so in many cases. Stylianos Harkianakis writes: "... death is not a black angel,/ death is my faithful/ my twin brother. Nikos Kazantzakis writes: "... The earth is a blossom-filled path that leads us to the grave/ ... But ... you can go to the grave ... while harvesting the joys of the journey. Life, he says, places us in a rowboat on a river. With vigor and joy we row against the current upstream, our backs to the deadly waterfall downstream. As the years and decades pass, our boat begins to be carried more and more downstream until the waterfall can be heard not too far away. At that point, we should turn around, ship the oars, face the inevitable, and sing!
How do we understand the inconsistency of first opposing non-being as an ultimate evil and later on embrace that evil as an ultimate good? [Opposing non-being supposes a dualism, that there is a "good" and "bad" state for the body and spirit to be in, and that the "good" state and creating our own fate needs to be strived for]. [In embracing non-being], we once again create our own fate. Yet we do not do this now in defiance of fate; instead, we transform fate into an instrument that paradoxically fulfills our earlier efforts instead of negating them. Embracing the force of non-being allows us to simulate the unity that comes only after death. At last we understand our existence as a monistic whole. [When we] calmly face the dreadful waterfall, we are absolutely free as we accept as an ultimate good that which is willed inescapably by outer necessity.
[Conclusion]—We have traveled on a literary excursion dedicated to the reality, the truth that, for those of us fortunate enough to experience some years or decades following our active careers, retirement leads to Shakespeare's 6th age of life. I believe our ultimate stance vis-à-vis the facts of life and death should be gratitude. Our gratitude in retirement needs to be with a realization that life's benefits and joys could not have occurred without finitude. [The temporary nature] and even the "futility of life" are paradoxically the herbs that supply its flavor.
When we retire to Kendal (and beyond) we need not only to develop all forms of gratitude for what we have been given, but also accept finitude as a paradoxical blessing. We need to face the waterfall, and sing when our time arrives. Kazantzakis writes of his own death: I fight to console my heart, to reconcile it to declaring the Yes freely. We must leave the earth not like ... tearful slaves, but like kings who rise from table with no further wants, after having eaten and drunk to the full ..." May we all learn to say the Yes freely when our day arrives. [If we do], we will have been true to our Quaker belief in a Light that traveled inward to guide us for a few mortal moments but that is outward, unified, and eternal, calling us into unity with human community, and with divinity's creative purpose, realized just as much by death as by life.
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142. Dear Gift of Life (by Bradford Smith (born 1909, died 1964); 1965)
Foreword [by Mark Van Doren]—No thoughtful reader of this pamphlet will ever again look at the world in quite the same way, ignore it, or take things for granted. Bradford Smith prepared himself to live the final months of his life so that no joyful secret of existence should be missed. Eternity did not mean for him endless death; it meant endless life. In his Journal, in articles to be printed, and in poems he sent to his friends he gave testimony of which the following excerpts are representative, testimonies to the “dear gift of life.” He seems to have told himself daily that he was seeing the world for the last time—and by some miracle, the first; it always overwhelmed him by its freshness. Time brought the sun up, but eternity left it hanging. God and the world was thought of by Bradford as his discovery, which he wanted with all his heart to share with us.
This Then—The discovery that you have cancer is also the discovery that you are going to die. Not necessarily from this cancer; [you may die in other ways]. The message now comes home. You are led to meditation, even if you haven't been much given to it before. In the state of half-departed anesthesia [you gain insights] & know more clearly what you want to do with the rest of your life ... No one has reached maturity until one has learned to face one’s own death & reshaped one’s way of living. Once we accept that we will disappear, we discover the larger self which relates to [the human race in ever-widening circles starting with family].
I found that human contacts grow warm, they glow, when you are in trouble. I also found myself full of an overflowing sense of oneness with all of life, whose givenness is that it must struggle to be born, to live, & then surely die. [When Marian Andersen sang “He’s got the whole world in his hands,” the words, so nobly simple expressed the whole drama of what I had been feeling; [this relatedness surely binds us to the present & future]. Once we have faced the inescapable fact of our own death, we need never fear it, but turn & live life to the hilt.
The Fun of Living—Why don’t we speak more of the fun of living? Most of the things I do are fun. Once you have faced the fact that you are mortal, eternity is bent within the arc of personal experience. Each morning is new now. The growing light is an omen, and a good one. Mornings are too precious to take for granted. I must taste them, and everything, both for the first time and the last. And so should we do always. Life is a gift so precious that we would accept it on any terms rather than never to have had it. We get life [knowing] that it conforms to universal laws. We cannot know in advance how the law will work out for us; we know we are under its wing.
A Roll of Film Snip, snap: will it be 15, 16 before the thread
Snip, snap, 20 exposures on a roll, snaps
At 80₵ a bargain, and color too. How do you finish a roll death finishes first?
Sky and sea and leaf and loam, Take pictures of my love, of growing old,
Blue and blue and green and brown, of all the tender care of you I had in mind, of
Colors that have no names spring & all the seasons we walked through
And names that have no color: together & would walk again, of places far and
Mine, Smith. Unless gold. near, of youth both far yet near as forever, of
books, house, bed, night, dawn.
Snip, snap, film unrolls, unrolls like life, Take all, take all. To keep. For you must keep
like days going by, them now.
Pictures for memory, for grandchildren, I shall go searching them in what new
their warm love too young to last, even place and way I do not know, yet always here
in pictures. with you, with pictures or without, while you live our 2 lives joined in some deeper,
different way .
Snip, snap: another gold begins to glow
in skin long used to white, Live for me—live all I lack the time for:
But nothing gold can stay; tomorrow is Live double and live deep, my love.
another day. And finish the roll in joy, nor be afraid:
It never will be finished while you live.
Not Fear—Acceptance—When I knew that I had cancer, I made up my mind that I wanted people to know the facts, to know that I knew, and that I could accept it. This led to an outpouring of friendliness, even from strangers. I wanted my behavior to be accepted as the proper norm for one who knows his number is up. If we cannot speak freely of death, we cannot really speak freely of life.
We usually refuse to face it for ourselves until something forces us to. Then, strangely, the response isn't fear any longer, but acceptance, even contentment. One can stop forcing one’s self to achieve. Thus death opens the door to life, to life renewed & re-experienced as a child experiences it, with the dew still on it. Suddenly one senses that his life isn't just his own little individual existence, but that he is bound in fact to all of life. Once given the vision of one’s true place in the life stream, death is no longer complete or final, but an incident. Since life carries death with it like a seed, and since this is normal, what is there to fear? Death is a promise rather than a threat. We are not imprisoned by death, but freed . . . I will not deny that darker fantasies of despair tried to encroach upon my meditation. But the light is too bright for them. If my life turns out to have been shortened by this disease, I know that it has also been deepened. The veil is lifted & I'm not afraid of what I see.
Branched and Leafed—[Before] the valley of death comes the valley of life. Have I walked it with my eyes open, my lung full of its bracing air? There is no valley without hills. I have climbed them and will climb again. All valleys are shadowed with death. And the shadow, as in painting, is what gives roundness and ripeness to shapes and things. This is my [shadowed] valley of life and I will live at peace in it.
The wisdom of God is manifest in this, that he has let us taste the bitters as well as the sweets of life. The willingness to accept pain and death as part of life came as a discovery and a strengthening. Before the operation, I felt tangibly that I was being upborne, lifted, supported. You are surer of yourself and your supporters. How can you help being more deeply rooted, branched and leafed in all of life?
One—Somehow I feel myself in the rustling of leaves, the fall of clear water over stones, the afternoon shadow on grass. When we raked up the dead poplar branches, we found them alive and green at the tip, the next year’s buds already swelling. Faith is part of the plant’s essence. Whoever heard of a doubting poplar? Anyone can see the divine every day in leaf and flower, face and form, love and kindness, music and in verse. Lord of life and lord of death, instinct in every bough!
The feeling seems one of a basic assimilation of the universe—of the all in the one—that comes of knowing the individual one cannot last forever. I know myself a part, both of the geometry 10 or 12 generations have imposed upon the landscape, and of the landscape which so easily eludes any human transformation. From the window where I stand, the snow extends me outward until it no longer falls white but hovers gray before the hills and above them. So I too fall with the snow, time’s visible, fragmented, yet unified motion. Fall it must, and drift and lie, and melt at last, [to rise again in the sap].
Pantheism has always been a dirty, implying something pagan. All matter is in a very essential way alive and moving and related to every other bit of matter, through belonging within a unified design of magnitude and beauty. In a wider sense we are in God. For if God is not everywhere, God is nowhere.
The teaching of a physical heaven in the skies is one of the worst stumbling blocks of religion. It is stubbornly maintained by established churches, and is unacceptable to any thinking man. Heaven is a state of mind to which any one may come, or at least aspire.
4,000 years ago, Ikhnaton 1st had the idea that God must be one. With rare insight, he saw that the sun which made life possible was the source. We don't know today any more than Ikhnaton did exactly what God's nature. Where do we come in? Aren't humans the only link between the life force & the world of ideas which leads to truth, love & beauty which are the attributes by which we recognize the divine?
A Demonstrable Immortality—Easter is the festival which relates the living to the dead; once its meaning is grasped, life takes on new dimension. Except it die, how can it be quickened? The connection between life & death is in the end a mystery, but it is real. Last year’s leaves make compost for this year’s garden. The mystery of the living seed ties us to an inheritance beyond recorded history. In what sense is Jesus alive today? Is it not clear that his life is in our lives? One person, yet divided among millions & more strengthened the more he is divided. Through visiting hours held after my father’s death, I discovered that my father lived on in many lives. The old house we live in, the pieces of silver or china we use—all remind us of people who live in us.
In the total view, immortality is a social thing. If immortality is universal instead of particular, does this not elevate us to a life that is far grander than we deserve, [far better than a pinched and narrow personal immortality]? Is it not clear that destruction is merciful, and that that which takes away is as necessary and as divine as that which gives?
We need not blame God for viruses and cancer and car accidents. God is spirit, the embodiment of all that a good man knows how to conceive and more. God is the spirit who informs it, not the cop who swoops down to punish offenders. Living is tough—that is one of its conditions. We have to be tough to face the blows, but thankful for the dear gift itself.
Last Entries—Strange that with so few days remaining, they are the most leisured & calm I've ever had. I have time for setting myself in the midst of nature & half entering it; I shall soon return to it fully. [Time] to watch the storm go up our beautiful valley, 1st putting haze between each pair of ranges, then passing so that all is clear & freshly washed. What else is there to do but endure to the end, & to be possessed of a quiet mind?
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About the Author—Michael Bischoff, a member of Twin Cities Friends Meeting in St. Paul, MN, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, aggressive brain cancer, in 2015. He now works with Health Story Collaborative to facilitate story sessions for people living with severe illness or other trauma. He and his wife are authors of Don't Postpone Joy: Adventures with Brain Cancer.
[Introduction]—Knowing that most people in my situation died within months, I decided to look outside the formal medical system. While I understand that George Fox's "What canst thou say? was talking about reading the Bible, I think those early Friends were also inviting us to vulnerably name what is most tender and alive in our experience. I decided to adapt "What canst thou say" as a treatment for brain cancer. I've opened myself to crafting new narratives within about who I am, telling my story to others, and letting others' stories move and change me. From within this experiment of healing, this clinical trial, I want to report that there is a healing river coming for all of us and it is unavoidable. Our comfort and our understandings of who we are break apart when we are threatened with [severe] illness, isolation, conflict and loss. That breaking can open us to participation in sacred [healing stories told and heard by us].
[My Life, Early Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Surgery]—Right before my son started 8th grade, and my daughter started 5th grade, we went to England to see my sister and her family. I was having mild headaches most of the trip; I thought it was the stress of driving on the wrong side of the road between narrow stone walls. In the 44 years until then, I'd been almost perfectly, [even annoyingly] healthy. [I was increasingly and deeply in love with my wife, and my consultant-to-non-profits business was thriving]; my life had been very comfortable. After having an MRI, my neurologist & my surgeon told me I had a large mass on the right side of my brain. It had to come out, either in 2 days or 2 weeks. I was in shock & overwhelmed. I was terrified of brain surgery & didn't know what to do. My primary care doctor reassured me it was the right thing to do and to do it soon. So I trembled for 2 more days and told people I loved them, not knowing if I would survive the surgery or be able to function after it. The surgeon took out a ping-pong ball-sized tumor.
[After Surgery, Old Stories, and Friends Gathering]—I woke up after surgery [and found that everything still worked]. I felt a lot of love for my nurse then, because of how much it felt like she was sharing in the awe and gratitude of those moments with me. The tumor was a glioblastoma, the most aggressive brain cancer. [It was a while before I wanted to hear this cancer's survival statistics; it was 15-18 months].
As a boy dealing with other boys, I was telling myself the story that I wasn't good enough—too shy and insecure—to be with other boys. I was also telling myself I was better than them. [These contradictory stories has frozen and isolated me much of my life; I spent a lot of time judging myself and others]. I now knew I needed new stories as part of my healing. My harsh judgments would drain me of energy needed to heal.
After surgery, my friends & family organized a gathering to support my healing. My friends & family surrounded my wife, 2 kids & me to sing to us, lay their hands on us, & pray for us. I told a story of what it was like to get on the brain cancer roller coaster: the terror of leaving my children while they were still growing up; [panicked] grasping for more time; miracles of doctor & nurse being [fully & compassionately] present. It took all my attention to notice & let in the love that was being offered to me. Letting the love [being offered to me] pour into & through me was more important than the number of days I lived. I believe the shift from tight grasping to receiving love is the essence of healing. Dr. Wayne Jonas says that "80% of your health comes from you using the dimensions of healing already embedded in your life." Behavior, attitude, environment, relationships, & other practices are a foundation for healing. Stories of healing can help us notice & cooperate with the 80%.
Aunt Marcia told me that she was sending me family stories about facing challenges & finding strength. Receiving these stories was just as important as chemo & radiation; 2 stories involved my great-grandmother. One was of her rocking her dying daughter, a toddler; she died in her mother's arms. Another was of my dying great-grandmother being rocked by Aunt Marcia. She said it was euphoric. Marcia's stories softened my belly & helped me focus on taking in love. [Panic & fear would set in &] the stories would keep reorienting me to love.
[Martin Luther King]—Spinal fluid began seeping out of my surgery scar. I lay on my back in the hospital for several days as nurses drained spinal fluid from my back. [I began to panic that] I'd need another operation to put a shunt in my head. [I pictured] a domino chain of complications & bad news. [Early one morning], I heard someone speaking to me, but I couldn't see anyone when I turned in that direction. [The next thing I knew], it seemed like Martin Luther King was kneeling next to my hospital bed, speaking to me. He recited the end of the speech he gave the night before he died. The last sentence was: "I want you to know tonight, that we as a people, will get to the Promised Land." I felt a peace, trust, & knowing that when we are faithful to our unique role, we can joyfully surrender to the larger healing force carrying all of us. Dr. King told me that after his house was bombed, he had to get to know God directly in a new way. For me now, too, God was with me in new ways.
I had so many plans with my wife, son & daughter, & desire to get people to move in the same right direction. What I most wanted now was to be attentive & faithful to the small parts I'm asked to play, while fully breathing in gifts of mountaintop views of where we together, can go. I wanted the rest of my life to be ... about receiving & cooperating with what God was giving me. My primary physician had told me a story about climbing Mt. Nebo, from which Moses viewed the Promised Land he would never enter; Dr. King was referring to Mt. Nebo in the speech mentioned earlier. I imagine that my doctor's story of Mt. Nebo helped invite the visit from King into my inner world.
I grieved with Moses & King for the places we could see from the mountaintop, but not go to. My professional work had to stop because of my illness, but I could see that listening to & telling stories of healing was part of what was being asked of me now. I wrote about MLK's visit & sent it to my friends. 6 months later, my regular MRI showed growth in the area of the tumor, possibly cancerous. I became angry at & mistrusting of my oncologist. I knew that feeling trust with my oncologist was as much my responsibility as his. I got signed up for a clinical trial that made a vaccine out of my tumor right before I had another brain surgery.
[After 2nd Surgery]—As I was recovering from my 2nd surgery, I wanted to feel more like an author of my story, & less like a victim. I wrote my oncologist a letter [laying out what angered me about our relationship, what I wanted from my oncologist, & my belief that] we had been put together by forces bigger than us, & that we were here to stretch each other, to love the ["difficult" parts we found both in the other & in ourselves]. I started a quest to find ways both our soft hearts could work together [spiritually] with scientifically solid medical treatment. I had a spinal fluid infection, & my doctors couldn't agree on whether or not to do surgery. A cleaning woman shared a story about her son with cancer being healed with prayer. "Doctors & prayers can work together," she said. After 2 months of intensive antibiotics to treat meningitis, [neither my doctors or I could reach consensus]. My wife Jenny, had been taking photos of our health adventures, & I had been writing about them. We opened an exhibit of the photos & writing; on opening day I chose to stop taking the antibiotics.
There is a Jesus saying from the Gospel of Thomas about hiding what's inside one's self: "When you bring forth that within you, then that will save you. If you do not, then that will kill you." [Embracing that passage, I trusted that bringing together my internal and external worlds will bring me closer to life and connect me with other people ... as I inhabit the lonely landscape of moving through brain cancer.
[Healing Stories & the Health Story Collaborative]—When I completed all the medical treatments available for me, & knowing my cancer almost always returns, I prescribed for myself the ongoing treatment of healing stories [from people & from nature, in my case] the birds & the trees along the Mississippi River. I found the process of helping other people craft their stories of brokenness & hosting those stories to be as meaningful as telling my own. My interest in healing stories & a friend led me to the Health Story Collaborative in Boston. They in turn led me to valuable questions to be answered in stories of health & illness: What do people have control over in a health journey? How do all a person's different stories fit together & make sense? What have been the "silver linings" of even a traumatic health experience? Who has been there sharing the health journey?
I worked with patients & families, who found grace in the midst of illness & grief, & physicians, who reconnected with their original compassion. Receiving a health story as part of a loving community was as energizing & meaningful as telling my own story. The community held that which was unbearable to hold alone. We shared our attempts to shelter our wives from our harsh prognoses, & our search for ways to show how lonely & amazing it is to go through intense cancer; I felt less guilt & more compassion for others & myself.
[Life Beyond the Next MRI]—I pretend to be a normal, healthy guy, [but I actually hold my breath from one MRI to the next; I didn't think I could plan beyond the next MRI]. My oncologist saw that I kept telling myself a story that I might die soon, and invited me to live in a bigger, less fearful story. I felt a need to organize a large event to demonstrate the healing-story process with a patient and a healthcare provider. At first, I thought my oncologist would be the last person I would ask to do storytelling with me. I had done storytelling with my [empathetic], primary care doctor. My oncologist was more of a detached, technically focused doctor. Surprisingly, when I asked him, he said yes, and even pictured himself as Keith Richards, playing riffs in the background, to my Mick Jagger, dancing on the front of the stage.
My oncologist told beautiful stories about how his grandfather inspired him to become a doctor in front of 200 people and video cameras, and live on the internet. John O'Donohue said: "I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding." Honest and vulnerable stories heal us, and help us notice how life is unfolding through us. [A good] story keeps raising questions and taking you on a journey to discover how the question unfolds in action, instead of [analyzing and] stating abstract conclusions; it brings us deeper into life; analysis by itself doesn't heal.
[Wading in, Flowing with the River]—There is a shallow lake connected with the Mississippi River near me, where hundreds of pelicans stop over on their migration in the spring and fall, and allow me to wade up close to them. I'm surprised that I'm allowed to be here while many others with my diagnosis are not and amused that life has been more enjoyable with a terminal illness than most of the rest of my life. Stories of unexpected beauty and vulnerability in illness and health can lead us deeper into the river of life. What is the next step deeper into the river of life? I believe that healing is not only possible, it is irresistible and unavoidable as a wholeness we can't [help but] return to. Great-Aunt Ruby and others taught me that we all return to love.
[I was hard on my family while taking chemo by being hyperconscious of germs, even my family's. My teenage son showed great empathy for my sadness & loneliness, & it moved me to tears. Eventually my whole family joined me in the bedroom as I "cried about how much I love you]." My kids taught me that healing is possible. I place my trust in hearing and telling stories of healing as a way to open up to life. [Stories are healing because of the purpose they illuminate, the community they build, and the gratitude they express].
[They made it] easier to see [where] the current is pulling us forward. [Community relieves loneliness, which] is comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes/day [Julianne Holt-Lunstad]. Gratitude correlates with decreased depression, increased immunity, lowered blood pressure & better sleep [Robert Emmons]. There is a danger [of becoming too wrapped up in our own story]. The best antidote I know to this side effect is opening myself to someone's story. Partly, I tell my story so I can let go into a larger story, & into life beyond all our stories. I'm tempted to think it is because of me & my thinking, exercise, diet, & lifestyle, but that can be vanity and my ego trying to feel special and unique. Some died quickly with a similar diagnosis [and lifestyle]; it wasn't their fault.
[Conclusion]—My stories & habits influence my health, but luck, mystery, economics, quality of medical care, racial privilege, geography, & timing also play important roles in survival & health. Healing comes primarily through relationship. In 2018, it has been almost 3 years since my diagnosis, long past the average survival time. My wife is planning a 20th wedding anniversary trip with me. I haven't done any paid work since my diagnosis; I host storytelling for patients & doctors, share my intimate relationship with the river, go on bike rides.
Healing isn't a one-time result, but an ongoing process that doesn't stop with death. My experience tells me that the same transformative fire that early Friends had is there in all our lives; that fire grows as we tell and listen to stories of it. Our loving listening and drawing each other out can peel back layers that draw us closer to the fire. There is power in telling and listening to stories about what is wounded and what is being made whole in us. There is a healing river coming for all of us, and it is unavoidable.
Discussion Questions—How can storytelling be a spiritual or healing practice for you? How can or has deep listening for and naming how we are being broken and pulled toward wholeness been part of your Quaker practice? How have you felt healing from telling your story? On looking back on the stories you have told [to yourself or about yourself], how have some of them outlasted their usefulness? How might you tell a new story? What dimensions of health do you draw on in your life for nourishment and healing? Are there new practices that you'd like to bring in? How have you tried, and perhaps succeeded in finding your unique role, or in surrendering to the larger force carrying all of us? What role does prayer have in healing for you? How have you experienced the power of stories? What role has relationships with others played in your healing journey? What is your story of healing?
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287. Milestone 70 (by Carol R. Murphy; 1989)
About the Author—She was born in Boston, Mass., Dec. 1916 (died 1994). After a childhood of home schooling in rural Massachusetts, the family moved to the Philadelphia area; Carol attended Quaker schools. In 1928 the family became convinced Friends. She graduated Swarthmore Class of 1937 & earned an M.A. in International Affairs at American University in 1941. She began her association with Pendle Hill in 1947. In this, her 17th [and final] pamphlet, the author explores the texture of her own daily life.
The only child of a poet father and a musician mother, I grew up a bookish youngster with few playmates. My abilities [and later vocation] ran in the groove of reading, thinking and observing rather than participating.
December 7-18, 1986—12/7: Today I “cracked” a new book I bought for myself, a biography of Alan Watts by Monica Furlong. How could Watts, a Buddhist non-believer in the self have so much ego? Furlong explains him as a “trickster” type[:] he was often naughty, but achieved good anyway. Possibly the denial of self is a cover-up for egoism. The best we can do is be aware of this ego-awareness & discount it as much as possible.
12/9: Among my Christmas letters, I still correspond with a woman a few years older than myself, whom I met through my pamphlet writing. She felt isolated in rural area, and wanted spiritual and psychological growth. I exchanged sympathetic comments and gave her the name of a religiously oriented counselor; she went into the field of guidance counseling; we have exchanged visits. I don’t seem to fall in love with people so much as with pursuits, temporary vehicles for some value or latent ability which I need to enrich my life.
12/16: The movie Yentl defies our usual sexual boundary lines, & is a meditation on the intellectual woman as displaced person. My path is that of a Quaker celibate, which is marginal in my very married & suburban Meeting. 12/18: I am interested to note that Isaac Bashevis Singer has touched on androgynous themes in at least 2 stories, one about a transvestite youth whose outburst of heterosexual passion leads to his accidental death, & the other about a saintly young Hasid who has a marriage ceremony for his animus & anima aspects.
Christmas Day & December 27-29—Christmas: Nowadays we think of time as linear, but on special occasions we experience it as circular. [We connect past Christmases with this one when we get out decorations from storage. There was the Christmas when my mother was in the hospital, eerily echoed 11 years later when I was in the same hospital a few days before Christmas. 12/27: The Library in America led me to recall with gratitude my library experiences in the past, from the sturdy little Carnegie library in Rockport, MA, to the great Library of Congress. Libraries were lifesavers for my mother & me during the lonely war years. In Gloucester, MA, I found Thomas Kelly’s Testament of Devotion, which spoke to the condition of my early religious search.
12/28: I finished reading a life of Teilhard de Chardin today, [& saw] resemblances between Teilhard & Alan Watts. Both died suddenly when they felt their lives no longer had anywhere to go. It’s hard not to find egotism in the use of their women as the men pressed onward & upward to some abstract vision. Does one want to adopt the “my fulfillment 1st” attitude of today? 12/29: Elizabeth Vining’s and May Sarton’s idea of making special records of their 70th year gave me the idea of doing the same as a follower, not an imitator. I must acknowledge that I’m not personally touched by ritual. Rituals have to begin in childhood to speak to the deep unconscious beyond the level of conscious beliefs. There are non-religious rituals in our communities and our sports. Baseball is its own universe with its own “sacred” history.
January 1987—1/1/87: As with Christmas, the coming of a new year cycles back to memories of previous years. A year or so ago I was dismayed at having a library “dumped in my lap.” Now, after a workshop for Friends meeting librarians, I have climbed a rung in the ladder of capability. On the other hand, my 2 remaining aunts died within months of each other. [Their approaching deaths were] the occasion of many emergency telephone calls and an occasional journey of 200 miles through New York area traffic. I thought of sheltered living for myself, but I’m not ready for such a drastic cutting of my few ties to real community.
1/2: A wet & stormy day, good for dismantling the little Christmas tree built of styrofoam balls stuck with toothpicks. I reviewed the cards I received. 1/11: In May Sarton’s, The Magnificent Spinster, the central point is the validity of a life of many friendships but no marriage. It is a relief to read of very kind people in an unkind & lonely world, yet one perversely wishes for some vinegar in this blandness. F(f)riends have played a large part in Daisy Newman’s life; my parents were relatively friendless. They lived on a small inheritance rather than looking for contacts that would connect them with the intelligentsia to which they should have belonged.
1/15: Today the train was delayed & bumped along in a desultory way. Over the loudspeaker a voice explained “The less than relentless pace” of the train was due to something wrong with the rear cars. “Thank you for your patience, ladies & gentlemen, & please include SEPTA in your prayers.” 1/18: [On my] list of “authentic” persons or endeavors motivated by religious faith and a spirit of love and dedication, [I include]: Mother Teresa; the AFSC; and Steve Angell of the FCNL. 1/30: On this gloomy, snow-covered day it was good to hear a familiar mewing call and spot a yellow-bellied sapsucker in the maple tree. There are now mockingbirds and house finches, but a decrease of the warblers, and the varieties of sparrows and thrushes that used to come.
February 8 & 15—2/8: In meeting this morning I thought of a new area of psyche to add to Freud’s id, ego & superego. I propose the 4th area would be the “meta-ego” or “extra-ego”—that which directs the person away from self-consciousness or satisfaction of needs ([e.g.] esthetic sense of beauty, absorption in creation, or meditative mysticism, [including] the Inward Light of the Quakers). 2/15: Isak Dinesen’s stories are dreamlike & archetypal. They bewilder the relentlessly factual minds of my conventional, middle-classed senior citizens group. [Here], I plead for recognition of a truth not communicated by “facts” alone. New Age literature [misses the connection] with earth, [while] scientists & engineers miss the sense of the non-measureable’s reality.
March—3/11: A new Papal pronouncement against artificial insemination and fertilization [reminds] me of how traditional religion is still often ruled by fear of humankind’s increasing power to manage our biological fate. We do have to understand and cooperate with nature to guide it to a higher purpose. A church open to feminine understanding would be a better guide than negative pronouncements by celibate patriarchs.
3/12: [A Vietnam veteran & officer said] he felt he had no right to pass moral judgment on [his government’s depersonalizing the enemy]; he was merely following his government’s orders (and speaking like a “good German”). 2 vital resolutions are: never depersonalize any person or group of persons; never abdicate one’s right of moral judgment to anyone else—least of all to a government.
3/15: [My writing style does not] present the picture of an industrious writer dedicating the morning hours to writing; it takes me several years to put down in longhand at odd moments enough ideas to work with. I could use a helpful other to defrost the fridge, gather the laundry, service the car and pay the bills on time. [I am tempted to stay at home and worship in solitude and nature]. Yet there is a need for sharing with others in Whittier’s “silence multiplied by the still forms on either side.” 3/20: A rift seems to be opening up between 2 kinds of Quaker committee members. The younger people who should be taking over the [tasks the elderly are doing] are at work all day & can only come in the evenings. Must we devise a way of compensating people for taking a day away from work? Is our yuppie culture too frenetic for religious endeavor to survive?
3/24: I would agree [with Henry Cadbury] that Jesus spoke to the needs of the non-mystic; we can’t confine the religious life to contemplatives only. Cadbury & I would be outside the pale, “buses” rather than “trolleys” [i.e.] self-powered & self-steering, [rather than the mystical], always in contact with guiding rail & empowering wire. 3/27: Yearly Meeting time again. Faces have changed, some have vanished forever, [but the places, the events, & the process are much the same]. Minutes are proposed, nearly approved, then fall before nitpicking of those who wish to assert themselves; some have a valid stop in mind.
April—4/12: Our meeting fell into one of its periodic, frustrating debates about a troublesome visitor to our worship. It became apparent that we are trying to use rational argument or moral reproach to influence someone who is disturbed at a deeper level than reason or moral finger-pointing can reach. We aren’t saints or psychiatrists; hence our helplessness is manifest. 4/21: I now have undertaken the task of sending cards from the meeting to members 75 years old or older. Some of these are still very active in meeting affairs. A meeting has to reach those who share a common interest in spiritual search & expression, beyond ordinary sociability.
4/27: Is the country a mere abstraction or is it all of us protecting our social cohesion? What is the relationship between reticence and truthfulness? You destroy a person when you destroy her deepest relationship. 4/28: In college my extracurricular life took place at home, where we maintained our family activities of quiet study and reading aloud in the evening. [50 years later], as I peruse the student’s biographies, I’m in awe of their many accomplishments, while I remain a little gray church mouse. My contribution is both oddball and somewhat “square.” Most of us are nice while our lives are nice; but when under threat we can readily turn mean.
May—5/8: [Revelations in the Iran/Contra affair are] a reminder that the apparently folksy & non-aggressive are fascinated by the dark & unscrupulous. It is there they find a buried shadow side & become vulnerable to it. Hence the political teaching: we must deal with our own evil before riding forth to do battle with other “evil empires.” 5/22: [I read an] account of the Fitzgerald & Kennedy families, & noted with interest that [John F. Kennedy’s] mother went to Wellesley, as did my mother, & Joe Kennedy went to Harvard as did my father. Both Mother & Father quietly dropped the dogmatic side of their rather fitful Catholic upbringing, while keeping its poetic & mystical elements. Eventually Quaker writings brought them into the Society of Friends. 5/24: Our Quarterly Meeting got a pep talk that implied that Christ-centered evangelism is a more powerful outreach than liberal do-gooding. When our meeting joined the Sanctuary movement, we followed the Jews & Unitarians.
5/27: In pastoral counseling, the non-directive counselor’s act of acceptance & empowering attention is the situation’s Christ. [Carl Rogers began in] a hard-working, rural, religious background, went through youthful missionary idealism, lost his childhood faith during graduate studies & replaced it with scientific humanism. Experience in counseling swung him back toward faith in relationships & an openness to “New Age” thought. I expect this sort of evolutionary spiral wasn’t uncommon in his generation. Younger persons have different backgrounds, with more urban, broken homes, & religion either defensive or absent. 5/29: I have been preparing to straighten out the tangled subdivisions of the Quakerism books in the meeting library. I need to make logical sense out of the varieties of books by & about Quakers. [In the process] I get bogged down in the odd lacunae of our haphazard card catalog. I have the affection for this odd library that one might have for an eccentric old aunt.
June—6/5-7: [At Swarthmore College’s 50th reunion, I] hung around in the background while everybody else greeted old friends & exchanged shared experiences. I looked, as Elizabeth Vining has done, for a “congenial mouse,” [which I found in] A. J. Muste’s daughter. [Another reminded me of Michael Polanyi, a philosopher & physicist who combined religious & scientific wisdom in his book Personal Knowledge. As someone sought the help of our library’s resources on Quaker devotional writings, a figure of speech occurred to me that we should all respect each others’ religious roots & appreciate our flowers. We all departed amid raindrops, reminiscent of one classmate’s message likening us to raindrops merging & disappearing in the ground of daily living.
6/20-6/23: Reading and discussion of possible Pendle Hill pamphlets can stimulate my mind for days. [In committee we considered “opposing” manuscripts; one declared sacraments scriptural, the other that they were not. One wishes they had the courage to acknowledge their different spiritual needs. Suburban families plan their sociability around homes and couples, singles being odd people left out. I don’t seem to need [to be included right now]. I belong to a number of groups of poetry lovers, librarians, and editors.
Barry Schwartz, in The Battle for Human Nature, believes that “economic man” of a free market has combined with B. F. Skinner’s “operant conditioning,” to push society to conceive of everything, including people & relationships, as commodities. It’s easier to describe the symptoms of this degenerative disease than to prescribe a remedy. [However you arrive at it], you need a deep gut feeling that some values are worth sacrificing for.
6/30: I revisited places at Haverford College that seemed haunted by people and activities of Friends General Conference on Religion and Psychology. Now I am with a different group of mostly middle-aged women, [going through workshop, banquets, retiring and incoming officers]. At reunion time the weather was perfect. At the end of June it had deteriorated into the usual Delaware Valley steam bath.
July—7/8: There is drama in baseball, & more to it than wins or losses; there is a strange ebb & flow of fortune that is the central mystery of human affairs. How much of the final score is due to faith & how much to the quality of the team? Like the practitioner of meditation, the player must find the perfect mean between trying too hard & not trying enough; baseball can symbolize life. 7/9: I was reading about the fragility of natural ecological systems & how National Parks are destabilizing them in a well-intentioned effort to preserve them. I was also noting tough, enduring weeds that manage to persist in the web of railroad tracks near 30th St. Station. We might learn something from studying the survival value of unglamorous plants. The future may lie with them.
7/11: A long line of shredded bark on the trunk of the old cucumber tree by the front entrance showed that it had been struck by lightning in a storm 2 nights ago. I then saw half hidden in a bush a nest with the quivering, up-thrust necks of 3 nestlings within. [Other wildlife has moved on], but I still see a rabbit nibbling the grass in the mornings. 7/15: The journal of a quiet life runs trivia. My trivia combines a beautifully cool and inviting day with the fact that I waited for a repair man who never came.
7/16: Now I am connected to the world again. I felt helpless without a phone [as I do without a car]. Once introduced, technology shapes society so as to make itself indispensable. Ecologists now teach that to change one factor is to transform the whole. The mystics knew that we are of a seamless web, what Eastern philosophers call Indra’s net. 7/18: I was shown a new baby. I have never had the longing to have a baby, nor would I wish to have the care of one. I am glad that I have known and played with a few babies in my lifetime.
7/24: I read the delicate comedy of a Barbara Pym novel while my body melted in the 90° heat of a service station. Perhaps it was only in observing the trivia of parish doings that she could glimpse the unrealized promise of community offered by the reticent English parishioners. I returned home and read Scott Peck’s The Different Drum, about generating true community, [at the cost of commitment and possible martyrdom]. I wondered about us Quakers, balanced between tepidity and transformation. Perhaps our quiet insistence on Light-gathered consensus and meditation will keep a gentle revolution going.
August 7 & 31—8/7: I’m reading Barbara Pym’s Quartet in Autumn, about 4 lonely single people about to retire from their boring jobs, quietly withering away from loneliness. These people, 2 men & 2 women, find it hard to break out of their British reserve to need or be needed by others. This gray, depressing unconnectedness is from a society which has forgotten the art of community. Even my sending birthday cards may serve as connection in this world of encapsulated loners. 8/31: 2 TV programs in-a-row told of 2 different vanishing species—California condors & the celibate Shakers. Celibacy has little survival value today; one hopes those who go into spiritual life won’t forget the value of sublimation in directing energy toward hallowing our lives.
September—9/1: This Constitutional year is a good time to think about the myths which people create to engender a sense of nationhood. How true are these myths, these pictures, & are they necessary? We can’t embody these aspirations until we accept the shadow side & go on from there. 9/12: I’ve attended a peace rally outside the National Guard Armory in nearby Media against the covert war against Nicaragua. We listened to pep-talks that told us what we wanted to hear. 9/18: Is it farfetched to liken how we think about major purchases to certain prayers? The approach to a purchase requires definition of what one wants & this is shaped by what is available & affordable. For typing, I needed something more than an electric typewriter, but less than full processing. With a portable machine with enough memory & correction ability, I shall do tasks more cheerfully.
October—10/3: As I was preparing a program of the poetry of Vachel Lindsay, I thought of the unexpected discovery that an elderly member of our meeting knew Lindsay’s sister. He had followed Lindsay’s walking trip along the Santa Fe trail in the 1940’s, taken pictures of an Old West little changed from Lindsay’s day, and had met people who knew Lindsay and were bitter about the causes of his suicide. 10/12: I have survived the annual convulsion of our meeting known as the Jumble Sale [and its boxes of dull, worthless, & heavy books].
10/18: The new typewriter’s memory rattled off the card set of a member’s book. The book’s author is opposed to the “supernatural” element in religion & would put religion on a naturalistic basis. Yet a purely naturalistic religion is one-sided. Religion speaks to what is more fundamental than nature. The proper expression of its truths is in stories & parables. 10/25: Someone in worship today gave a brief summary of the naturalistic interpretation of religion. [I saw loving-kindness demonstrated by members who followed a troubled youth who left in the middle of worship]. Before I could gather these thoughts, the meeting finished. Sometimes the balance of the meeting tips toward rational-academic tendencies, sometimes towards religious. “Secular” meetings need a religious few as “leavening,” & “religious” meetings need a few good agnostics as burrs under the saddle. As a religiously-minded intellectual, I hope to remain as a bridge between the 2 tendencies in the meeting’s life.
10/31: I have been asked to lead an adult forum in January; already ideas are coming together around the topic. It occurs to me that this is the opposite of that kind of meditation which clears the mind of thoughts, becoming a still mirror for the Light to shine on. I love the idea of meditation, but can’t empty my mind. I seem to have found my native element in the mental sea of rich coral growths and growing associations. So be it.
November 4 & 26—11/4: In Visiting Committee I found the context of those birthday cards I sent out. Visits are paid to the old and infirm & an [discrete eye is kept on the membership. The older women do it, & it is the balance to the more academic side of our meeting. [We “do not wish to intrude,”] but have we not lost that sense the earlier Friends had of being spoken through that gave them the authority to speak to someone’s condition in a “religious opportunity?” 11/26: A feast day like Thanksgiving is an embarrassment to a family-less person like myself. I was invited to dinner with a neighboring couple whose children live far away and had no one else available except myself. The 3 of us shared the meal and a peaceful meal by the fireplace.
December 1-6—12/1: My display of library books sparked lively conversation at our coffee hour. One more scholarly member wondered: where is the next generation of dynamic Quakers coming from? Last evening, Douglas Gwyn spoke in measured, worshipful tones of Fox’s illumined life, ending with James Nayler’s dying words. [During the following silent worship, there was inspired vocal ministry & song]. We need the warm enthusiasm & the cool disillusion embodied in these scholars to find our way between the skeptical & the religious.
12/6: This morning an architect showed slides during his talk on architecture’s spiritual values. A succession of slides showed buildings in their settings, from plain Vermont bar ns to Chartres Cathedral, including how the rafters intersect under our meetinghouse’s porch roof. In brief glimpses of beauty we “see into the life of things” [Wordsworth]. My past year has been kind to me & I wouldn’t mind cloning it for several years. It ends hopefully with the Reagan-Gorbachev summit. I have recorded a reflection of what has been going on in my mind & as trivial as it may seem, my life is still interesting. My message to the Angel of Death is: Don’t interrupt me!
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418. Some thoughts on Becoming 85 (by William Z. Shetter; 2012)
About the Author—William Shetter has been a member of Bloomington MM since 1965, and has served in a variety of capacities, including 2 terms as clerk. [He was recording clerk of Ohio Valley YM for 4 years]. In the wider Quaker world, his involvement has been chiefly with Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC); he has served as an English-Spanish interpreter, [particularly in Cuba]. He helped found and still works at Mt Gilead Friends Retreat near Bloomington, and is helping organize workshops on spirituality.
[Introduction]—Yes, I’m unquestionably old, & yes, my hair is white. Everybody avoids the word "old,"; I can't relate to camouflaging terms. I smile when you call me old; I've earned that badge of honor. Now it is my responsibility to find the living content in that word "old." Is it the dawning of a maturity I've been growing toward all my life? Am I drawing on 85 years cumulative experience, or 1 year's experienced 85 times?
The old can have a different, penetrating forward way of seeing conditioned by all those advancing years. I start with finding a way to tell the younger [i.e.] practically everybody what the world of 85 feels like. I'm getting closer to my ancestors & hence to the sacred ... but there's a chasm in between that will never close. Those who were part of my life & shared it with me—family, friends my age, now increasingly those younger than I am—have been dropping away. But their enrichment of my life survives & keeps growing through the years.
Physical Challenges/ The Rewards of Long Life—The physical system I've' relied on is apt to assert its presence in the form of frailities & straitened abilities & offers me some handicaps that require more & more resolution to contend with. I give daily gratitude for what the system still does reliably & uncomplainingly. I appreciate for the 1st time how each life-function has been smoothly supporting the others, [& is now compensating for the loss of some]. Half my hearing reduced to 0 means I look more intently at whom I am talking to.
The brightest spot is that none of the physical limitations interferes with simply walking. The simplest of all exercising keeps all of me vigorously alive. A doctor's blunt diagnosis and prognosis was my wake-up call, abruptly turning the time left into a gift where every moment must count and I must be vigilant not to miss any secret of existence I may still learn. I am living on borrowed time and somehow the true perspective is emerging.
A blessing of the slowing of outward vitality is the growing stillness within, bestowing increased times of solitude and silence. Silence becomes more and more my life-giving circulation and has been quietly flowing into all the crannies. I'm beginning to feel I know who I really am, without any more masks, and have learned to simply be and to [not deal in] illusions about how the world sees you [i.e.] as self-sufficient. I can say what I need and can do and be graceful in accepting and in saying no.
There are fewer and fewer things that really matter. The glamorous, the lure of shallow success, have no way of touching me anymore. My life is becoming intensely focused on presence and Presence. The quiet drawing on a lifetime's experience is slighted by my culture, which is bewitched by achievement, success---the value of youth. [I know what is good for me and what is not]. Short-term rewards are no longer the goal but the slow and patient pace that allows life's riches to mature. [When I read the Bible now], my more mature self can often sense a real, living person behind many of these words, [especially in Ecclesiastes], the old man writing from long experience. I sense a strong human identity in the book of Ruth, too and wonder if the warmth of family tenderness there might be showing a woman's hand.
Beginning Life's Journey—My childhood faith community was a close-knit Baptist one. From being "born again a new person" so as to enter the Kingdom, [my beliefs have grown], so that I have entered into an unending dynamic of inner renewal and continuing spiritual birth. I have the responsibility to bring something into the world, and I was given my heritage too for a reason. I must have absorbed the traditional sober Pietism of my numerous plain Mennonite country relatives and ancestors. As a small child I had the natural sense of the oneness of all that is in all children: the world is a wonder and everything breathes some aspect of the Sacred. I am returning closer to the Mystery of the Divine which is in me and surrounds me everywhere I am. The major task of the years I have left will be nourishing restoration of the child's sense of wonder, that "memory" of a reality beyond our conscious knowledge that we are all born with.
The Role of Family/ Our Stories—It was the awesome, life-filling experience of raising children from babyhood to adulthood that formed me into what I am today. I learned from the dramatic development of new life—part of me—things I couldn't learn any other way. My son & daughter are my teachers as regularly as the other way around. Joseph Barth wrote: "Marriage is our last best hope to grow up." It’s the central secure pole around which my life has entwined, grown, & blossomed. Sharing life with another is a growing experience unlike any other. It helps us break free of the cage of our individual self-image. The years have been creating a higher-identity unit.
When I was born movies didn't talk; for a flash picture, photographers ignited a pan of magnesium. Shoveling coal in the winter was assigned to me ... After decades of affluence, coping with deprivations in the darkness of the 1930's Depression can’t be readily related to. Our challenge here is to learn how to tell stories that will bolster & guide the lives of the younger. Can I find some way of telling the story of the riches that my life has brought? What were the losses & pains, the tensions I have worked through & managed to find blessing in, that prepare me to understand others' losses and tensions? I' m pretty much through now with the process struggling to come to terms with life. I can more confidently absorb all with equanimity, holding setbacks against the light of all that has gone right.
What is Grace?/ Eternity—In what respects is my life "grace," and what does this accumulation of years have to do with it? I am here as an act of grace. The grace of a gift need not be material: it may be some act of presence. Now I can see the world as a gift. I can at the same time be a recipient and a channel of grace. I can see everywhere the opportunities to give; this is an occasion of grace. I am on the long road of learning to awaken to the blessings that invisibly surround me, the web of grace that unites all things. Only when my still, central place comes into view can I finally begin to think of myself as awakened.
What is eternal in what I am searching for? Eternity is not the horizontal measurement of endlessness in years. Eternity is a reality independent of time, the vertical living of life into growth and insight. [I have] within me my familiar physical life and a place that no "created temporal thing" has access to. Each moment of my life I am standing on the brink of eternity, and my lifetime task is to learn to live more entirely in it, until eventually I become part of it. My journey of self-discovery means that I am co-creating. Creation is not something that happened long ago but something that takes place at every moment of my life. The goal of my contemplation is to live in the present. And my present is being constantly enriched by past and future. The richer the present is, the more light shines in my future life.
The Spirit Moves/ The Transcendent/ The Presence of God—40 years of centering practice in meditation has led me to sink slowly below the wind-disturbed surface of a deep pool, like a water-logged leaf. On the firm ground of the depths, it isn't lifeless; there is the Spirit's steady gentle movement. "Your old men shall dream dreams." Dreams are a deep mysterious realm, where the Inner Guide's voice echoes, & where I grasp more securely the mysteries of the soul. I find myself more at home in the inner world. It is in fact emerging more & more as the real one. Bishop Irenaeus in the 1st century A.D. proclaimed: The Glory of God is a fully alive human being. Is the lifelong crafting of my life co-creating divinity? We humans have always responded to something, a Transcendence, a Presence that resounds in the deepest levels of our being. [It takes a lot of practice] to learn to resonate with this.
When a compassionate life radiates beyond the bounds imposed by self-centeredness, you are in touch with the Divine, for you shall then see everywhere presence and Presence. Kierkegaard queries: "Do you ... live in such a way that you are yourself clearly and eternally conscious of being an individual? Are you conscious of your eternal responsibility before God? I have spent my life time enhancing awareness of the presence of God, only to see the realization emerge that that Presence is to be found in the most humble. More than anything else, it is music that reaches resonances within me which are forever below the consciousness of my will. God comes from, and resides in, our inner selves and the whole of universal connectedness.
The Divine in our Lives/ Stillness Within—God isn't an objective being, but our inner experience the discovers of the deity in ourselves & others. I see the face of God in the face of others—their presence is God's presence. The flaming, collapsing towers of 9/11 for some shattered forever the image of God as protective father. For others God was powerfully present on that day. Catherine of Siena has God speaking of "that goodness which I have in myself & which I measure out to them according to the measure of love with which they have come to me." I create my own limitations, & the transcending of them is creating my own immortality. The aware of God always, everywhere, inevitably, leads, ultimately to the still center, and therefore to silence.
Faith is experiential, not intellectual, & in advancing years it’s lived experience that dominates, & gives sure guidance to all life. The Quaker way is bringing the whole of my daily life under ordering of the spirit of God’s presence—in every situation. As years increase, it becomes natural to remain open & attentive, & know that guidance, independent of my striving, will access me. The more open the heart, the clearer the guidance received.
Desert Spirituality/ Quaker Corporate-ness—Westerners Quakers tend to say little about the "desert" in our spirituality. There I must renounce all ability to control, and surrender to a force larger than I am. The desert speaks of the emptiness of the soul and the otherness of God. By now for me the sense of not of being in control has become the natural one. If the desert teaches me anything, it is that the inward desert can only be approached through humility. [In a world obsessed with control, it becomes increasingly critical to keep open a route to the desert, to be willing to renounce the urge to control. Age makes it feel natural to dwell in the desert everyday. The stillness of the desert within is the only place where I'm able to hear that inner voice, my doorway to divine wisdom. It is a lifelong process to empty myself, the only road to the discovery of who I really am. when I have yielded to the larger force within, my inner life will flower as a result.
The human community is participating in a common journey linking the whole of life together in a new & deeper unity. I can’t be "me" without "them." [I am part] of a larger self, identical with all. We have a common drive to live in God’s experienced presence. We are faithful only when we are faithful together. The Light in the corporate life of the Meeting is deep listening to each other. Many years of sharing in the lives of others have had a way of seasoning me so that I can hear the deeper message even in occasionally unpromising words. Humility, if it is genuine, quiets me & allows me to hear the movement of the small & still voice in others.
The Light/ Wisdom—Long familiarity with standing open to leading should give one a solid confidence that the Light is always there even when its message is not clear yet. Each of us can be said to live under a lampshade muting and modifying our light. The shades give vital color, pattern, and individuality to that light, as well as obscuring the light in varying degrees. The other's light that I am seeing is coming through a shade, as is the light I am showing. I trust that as I age it is wearing thinner and becoming more transparent. In Friends' meeting we can intensify the Light in each other as if each were the lighthouse's polished lenses that focus the beam.
The Wisdom of Solomon says of wisdom: "She is intelligent, holy, unique, ... flowing, transparent, and pure; ... She is humane, faithful, sure, calm, ... all-seeing, and available to the intelligent, pure, and altogether simple." To learn wisdom is to learn to know yourself. In my own spiritual community, any of us [of any age] can serve as elder, one who supports and draws out others. At times, I have the responsibility to nurture the spiritual life of others, often in small ways beneath my ability to notice. I can share understanding drawn from my own experience, or I may unconsciously reflect the path of their own journey and even its destination.
Listening to Others as Individuals/ Growth Never-Ending—Unless my experience has occasionally earned me informal recognition as an "elder" [who listens to others, and encourages others to listen to the Inward Teacher], I have not really succeeded in living these 85 years cumulatively. Listening to another discerningly, hearing beyond the outer words, requires a large measure of maturity. The protective .instinct of my own self has faded and my ability to see into another has sharpened. No matter how long my practice in looking and listening, I know now that the channel is never completely unclouded. [I do have] an increasing instinct for perceiving with the eyes of the heart. The yard of my house where I have lived for 47 years was once all grass, but now is a designated Wildlife Habitat, with planted trees and volunteer plants, including an exuberant community of sweet peas that were simply asking to thrive here. [How do I] learn to nurture others, encourage them to "marvelously know their path" and help confront the "weeds" as I do for the life in my yard?
An inevitable separation from the younger world does not exempt us from the responsibility to continue growing. The genuine beauty of life lies in the way it is so fragile and fleeting, giving the gift of continual growth; the faster time flees and the more fragile life becomes, the more intense the growth and beauty. As I am separated more and more from the younger, I am coming ever closer to an understanding of the unity that joins us all in an unbreakable network. I have a growing trust in this deeper unity.
Death—Where do I come from? Why am I am? Where am I going? Isn't it the same spirit that continues: before birth, living the life span and after death, the time when it returns? If I cannot speak freely of my death, coming before long, that means to me that I cannot speak of life as if I had learned something about it. Dying well is a lifelong work; it must be learned while young and vigorous. Awareness of death throws the events of my lengthening life into an increasingly powerful perspective. What I do in this life echoes unendingly. When I am at one with myself I am at one with the whole of creation.
[In death], the living spiritual energy that permeated the entire body has not evaporated. "Life" is one great life that goes far beyond my tiny temporary share of it. I am looking past the promise of personal immortality to merge into—rejoin—the great universal life, absorption into the life of all others. Until I have learned to shape my way of living according to the acceptance of my own mortality, I have not reached full maturity. I feel one with those who are approaching the known conclusion of their journey, with the increasingly familiar sense of soon joining an extended family.
Lightness and Foolishness—I need to be willing to be freely silly, because play keeps a person humble and human. Cartooning is an emblem of my life, and my sure route to communicating with the very young since they are the ones who most easily live in that world. Writing comic verse for celebratory occasions has long been a way of delighting others in laughter. It is not just music that thrills but the warmth of the joined community in harmony. When I have walked long enough, I settle into a rhythm that is more of a dance than an effort. It is my daily reminder of walking my spiritual path. Leavened by [the above things], my life can become a work of art itself. The real challenge is to let it become that in other things as well. We grow old when we stop playing. Shouldn't we mid-Octogenarians, as we keep getting older, also get younger all the time as we continue learning to give new expression to the wonder and openness and imagination of the child?
Final Reflections/ Queries—If I no longer ask so many question about life it is not because I know the answers but on the contrary, because I know that I don't know the answers and never will. My home is now in that which eludes and exceeds my conceptual grasp. One thing I do know now is the path on which my remaining time is going to take me. My life of the mind has reached its due maturity, and its foundations are no longer solidly grounded. It is now time for the inner life to claim more prominence and serve as the guide on that path. The wisdom of the heart is growing and thoroughly leavening the wisdom of the mind.
Queries---Does knowing myself meaning knowing all beings as my siblings? Have I learned to hear the inner voice of my own lived experience growing beyond reliance on outward confirmation? Can allow myself to be transparent to the Light, mine and that of others? Do I have acceptance, embracing all my contradictions and those of others? Do I respond flexibly, patiently and harmoniously to the world? Can I live the Wisdom of the moment, no matter how ordinary and humble that may seem? Have I grown into the capacity for true conscious relationships? Am I able to let go of my physical existence for my part in universal whole? Do I realize at a deep enough level that I do not know? Am I willing to share what I know and what I do not know? What do you associate with being old? How do you respond to the loss of control in your own life? What does corporate worship offer that isn't available to individuals? How do you recognize wisdom? Who is an elder to you? How do you play?
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316. For Solitary Individual: An Octogenarian’s Counsel on Living & Dying (by John R. Yungblut; 1994)
About the Author—John Yunglut was born & raised in Dayton, Kentucky. He graduated Harvard, including Divinity School & the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts; he was an Episcopal minister for 20 years. In 1960 he became a Friend [Quaker]. He has been a Director of: Quaker House (Atlanta); International House, Washington, D.C.; Studies at Pendle Hill, Wallingford, PA; Guild for Spiritual Guidance, Rye, NY; & Touchstone, Inc., Lincoln, VA. He has written Pamphlets # 194, #203; #211; #249; #292, & 5 books.
“Throughout my life, by means of my life, the world has little by little caught fire in my sight until, aflame all around, it has become almost completely luminous from within … the transparency of the Divine at the heart of the universe on fire.” Teilhard de Chardin
[Introduction]—Sǿren Kierkegaard addressed a book to “that solitary individual.” I address that solitary individual in you, to whose condition this message might speak. Life is lived within a great mystery. We fear [to ask the deep questions, because] to do so might make us feel queasy & doubtful of our sanity. We don’t have a clue as to their answers. I want to share with you some convictions I have come to by way of the fragile & fallible discernment process. My only authority is that bestowed if the seeker in you resonates to what I have to say.
On Being a Contemplative—You should become contemplative where you are, in the circumstances that beset you, the responsibilities that burden you, the relationships that frustrate or encourage you. I mean learning the art of living mindfully, reflectively, watching for the connections between thoughts & events as they reveal their hidden synchronicity. I mean a practice of the presence of the Holy, a sense of the spiritual in everything & at all times in response to the transparency of the divine [in the universe]. How does one cultivate awareness of the transparency of the divine? [I] propose reading poetry & the mystics, & engaging in contemplative prayer.
As a youth, I was troubled to realize that my religious education was limited by the [history of the Episcopal Church, whose teachings were limited by its history]. Rufus Jones, my favorite preacher, recommended that I “turn to the mystics of all the living religions.” Reading in the mystics has been the secret sustenance of my life ever since. Read among the great poets and mystics until you discover those that speak to your condition. We are called to transcend our specific religious heritages. [We may retain our religious tradition, even our creedal statements, so long as they are] understood metaphorically.
The 1 thing that all living religions have in common is an “apostolic succession” of mystics. What Eastern religions call meditation, we call contemplation. You may not be called to practice this form of prayer [in your current journey]. But be receptive to the invitation from within to embark on this boundless sea. To enter into an altered state of consciousness is to open the door of access to the unconscious. You may not be ready for this.
It is my conviction that we never outgrow the need for [the different forms of meditative prayer] in establishing the health of our relationship to the Holy One. You will discover that there is an inescapable connection between contemplative prayer and motivation to engage in social reform. It is here we discover that we are not only our brother’s and sister’s keeper, but in some profound sense we are our brother and sister. We are called to be a contemplative for the sake of the world even for the sake of the survival of the species.
On Seeing Everything from the Perspective of Evolution—Teilhard de Chardin said of evolution: “It is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow & which they must satisfy if they are to be thinkable & true.” Life evolved toward complexity. When reflective consciousness was attained in man & woman, the direction was that of “complexity of consciousness.” Teilhard sees spirit & matter as 2 sides of the same coin. He perceived spirit as transparency of the divine at the heart of matter. He said: “Throughout my life, by means of my life, the world has little by little caught fire in my sight until, aflame all around, it has become almost completely luminous from within … the Divine's transparency at the universe's heart on fire.” The slow pace of evolution which achieved higher consciousness in us against enormous odds & potential abortions in the unfolding process justifies hope that the species will find a way to move [toward] ever higher consciousness.
On Aspiring to Higher Consciousness—Thomas Berry identifies 3 values that appear to characterize evolution: differentiation, interiority, and communion. The source of continuing creation through evolution has clearly invested heavily in the process of differentiation. Carl Jung wrote: “If the individual follows through his intention of self-examination and self-knowledge, he will have gained a psychological advantage of deeming himself worthy of serious attention and sympathetic interest.” If you were to identify yourself as [such an individual] you would be aligning the little straw of your inner journey with the whole axis of evolution.
[Evolution is the divine gradually becoming clearer to us], an unfurling from within, a progressive revelation of what had been hidden potential. If the individual were highly differentiated, individuated, if that individual possessed profound interiority, & evolution has moved in the direction of ever higher consciousness, it has also made possible deeper, conscious communion. Have you experienced times of profound communion with others? The new concern for ecological balance in the past few decades has made it essential that we experience deeper unity with nature & consequently more profound communion with all other creatures in nature. It means accepting the violence found in nature, from the individual struggles for survival in animals to the violent forces of nature. One of the things evolution has achieved as consciousness was raised is the advent of the phenomenon of forgiveness, which makes sustained communion possible; it makes possible the restoration of relationship. Never stop forgiving. Only so may communion be maintained, both within & between oneself & the other.
On Discerning a New Sex Ethic—Biblical injunctions [on sexual behavior] are no longer operative. Where can we turn for authority and a new sex ethic that will command respect and successfully invite obedience. I believe that new authority can be found in evolution and deep psychology. What is evolution saying to us about a new authoritative sex ethic? What has deep psychology to offer to a new sex ethic?
Evolution appears to have invented sexuality for ongoingness of the species (reproduction) & the up-reachingness of higher consciousness through mutation of genes (spirituality). It stands to reason that children who grow up in a stable home which is pervaded by an atmosphere of continuity of may be better conduits for evolutionary movement toward higher consciousness. [The 3 main instincts are: food & drink; religious (i.e. realized integration); & sexual]. Sexuality has a way of pulling into its orbit as much of one’s being as it can. But it can't serve as the center of integration. It is part of the whole of life, affecting & in turn affected by all the rest.
In sexuality from a depth psychology point of view, the health and integrity of the psyche are at stake. If one engages in sexual expression with more than one person contemporaneously, none of the relationships is what it could be if it were the only one. Both love and religious conviction demand an unconditional attitude of complete surrender. Depth psychology suggests that those individuals who postpone mating until some degree of individuation is attained have a greater chance of duration in their marriages. It seems to me that these proposals pass the test of compatibility with the values of evolution: differentiation, interiority, and communion. And they accord well with the insights of depth psychology regarding individuation and the integrity and wholeness of the self; the same principles apply to homosexual relationships.
On Cultivating One’s Gifts—Neglecting the cultivation of one’s gifts robs us of the opportunity for greater fulfillment and deprives the community of one more important resource. Answering that of God in everyone can be discerned in responding to the gifts in one another. One might have someone close who will gently call our attention to a budding gift. But one must also search the depths of his or her own psyche for signs of hidden gifts. This means being attentive to one’s dreams and fantasies and awaiting evidence of a spontaneous resonance. Frank Nelson said: “no one should go into the ministry who can possibly stay out.”
The Religious Society of Friends will bring together a small group of persons chosen by the seeker which is called a Clearness Committee. Its purpose is not to make a decision for the individual but to raise relevant questions for her to ponder in the course of her search. Questions seem to well up out of the unconscious, unlikely connections are made, intimations arise out of the silence, intuitions occur that would not otherwise come to the fore. Quakers also have a phrase, “as way opens,” implying a trust that a certain inherent rightness will be revealed in the synchronicity of outward events and inward readiness. If you have retired you will want to look for a new occupation in those areas of interest and talent which you have long neglected or suppressed of necessity. If you are in mid-life it would be well not to wait for retirement to make this decision. You could explore your “other” vocation and enjoy it when the opportunity comes. The greatest gift of the later years is what Wordsworth called “the philosophic mind,” what I call the “contemplative mind.” You don't need to wait for old age to cultivate the contemplative mind and to imbue your work with its ethos. I encourage you to begin now.
On Making a Good End—Teilhard de Chardin had an aspiration to “make a good end.” He died on Easter Day as he wished, after spending a full day worshiping and listening to music with friends. For my own death, I should like to remain sound of mind and conscious as close to the end as possible, and to be unafraid.
No matter how much we would like to believe it today, for many of us there is no assurance of personal survival [after death] in any recognizable form. [None of the “proofs” of life beyond death can] not be accounted for in terms of spontaneous uprisings from the collective unconscious. I can't accept belief in reincarnation for the same reason. How can any consciousness survive the disintegration & decay of the body? There is no way to prove that the soul is eternal. The mystical experience in which one feels a part of the whole, inseparable from “the all,” may be an intimation that there is that in us which is immortal. But this does not prove that the individual survives death in any recognizable form. [In our fear of nothingness & non-being] how do we make a good end? What shall be my approach to encountering death? We must learn to say: “Though God consign me to oblivion at death, yet will I trust God.” I must recollect my mystical experiences of being loved [unconditionally] by God. “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
The only way we can effectively cope with instinctive fear of death & oblivion, is to place our trust in intimations of something or someone at the universe's core who cares for us. We can practice letting go of the ego's demand for survival. To practice contemplation is to rob death of its sting by reason of accepting in advance the worst death can do us, to embrace life’s great diminishment. In this way we may learn how to die into God. http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
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107. Death and the Christian Answer (by Mary Ely Lyman; 1960)
About the Author—Mary Ely Lyman was the 1st woman to occupy a chair on the faculty of Union Theological Seminary, NYC. She prepared this writing 1st as a lecture sponsored by the Women’s Committee of Union Seminary, January 1959. Mrs. Lyman was ordained to the Congregational Christian Church ministry in 1949.
Eternal God, Lord of Life & Death, may we be quickened to seek those things now that are eternal [& beyond our mortal life,] that our hearts and minds may be fixed where true joys are found, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The space age has plunged us cataclysmically into a new universe. New dimensions of thought are called for in this radically different physical setting. [With the speed and volume of change], death is just the same today: the most ultimate of sorrows; the greatest of mysteries. It always has been, it is, and it always will be the ultimate tragic focus of our human existence.
Even though its inevitability is never disputed, & it colors all our experience, we will not think about it; as children we cannot believe it will come to our own small circle. [With all the chances for death, & even the chance that] our whole race might be [wiped out], how utterly strange that one should “never think of it before.” Mature men & women [share] the desire to push the thought to one side. [The prayer containing] “If I should die before I wake” [could not be uttered by most] as the true expression of their mood & temper each night of life.
Why are we unwilling to think of death and become ready for it? 1st, we are all too occupied with life’s unfinished business. [Death does not fit into our plans]. 2nd, death differs from other experience in the sheer loneliness of it. Even in the intimate fellowship of husband and wife, even then the one who goes forth must go alone. When we do not know what awaits us in death, how can we prepare for it?
We have already begun the wise course by looking at the difficulties in the eye, and by avoiding the calling of death by another name to soften its impact, or to disguise its tragic meaning. In a peopled universe what possible alternatives are there? With the monotony of the same old faces or over-population, [None] that look very good. And only when the realization comes that here are limits to our 3 score years and 10, do we begin to discriminate, to choose, to organize for completion what is permitted us to achieve. The totality of our dearest fellowship is never fully possible within the framework of daily commonplace. It is a value that we should be reluctant to eliminate, however beautiful and precious has been the fellowship of daily commonplace. Death sets measures for our estimate of the great ones of the earth. [Otherwise our appreciation of their endless production of masterpieces would slowly dull and fade]. Surely death has some real gifts to our experience, which we should hold before us, even as we face honestly its tragic meaning.
The Christian Answer—There is no proof for human survival after death that anyone can offer, no evidence that could coerce the assent of another mind. The Christian answer to which our subject summons us is determined by the Christian view of God. [Because God is Love,] fellowship with God becomes for both man and God the most prized of all possible values. God’s care for His children is one of the central emphases of Jesus’ teaching. An infinite God, [creator/parent] to all who have been, who are, and who are to be, is a God whose powers cannot be fully apprehended by our finite minds. There is too much that is unfinished in our Becoming for our destiny to be completely realized here; lives are never finished. If the concept of Growth or Becoming is accepted, then the Christian faith has power to assimilate the philosophical ultimates of truth, beauty and goodness. Under the impact of his partnership with a Heavenly Father he is impelled to bring goodness to pass in himself and in the society of which he is a part.
What kind of immortality is consistent with the Christian view of God and of human personality? [Some mean by “immortality” the continuance of a person’s influence after his death, a slowly fading echo or slowly diminishing ripples]. Others think of immortality in terms of the absorption of the individual into the Absolute, with differing views of how the Absolute should be defined.
The Christian view of immortality has 2 emphases which differentiate it radically from both of these conceptions. All pictures of a static existence in a materially conditioned heaven are unsatisfactory and must be rejected. Christian faith at its highest level does not try to describe, but accepts the great mystery in faith and hope; saying, “It does not yet appear what we shall be.” (I John 3:2)
Christian Faith’s Central Testimony—All that we know of Jesus Christ—his life; life’s meaning that he taught; his death; his continuing presence—together is the heart of our faith that God was in Christ. The conviction of his spiritual presence with those who love and follow him is the cornerstone of the Christian church. The experience of the spiritual presence of Christ has been seen through all the ages since; great souls have testified to the reality of that presence. Some achieve a good death, without fear, with transcendence over pain, and with serene faith that the next step will be adventure as truly guided by God.
Elizabeth Gray Vining wrote: “I have written of the sense that one has from time to time of the continuing companionship of the beloved dead… In a scene of great natural beauty, I have been aware of the presence of one whom I loved and could not see. The joy of the moment and the lasting vivid quality of the memory seem to speak for its authenticity.” When fears of death rise in us, faith answers that we go on beyond death to greater concerns in fellowship with God. [Work and building relationships are] enhanced when this mortal puts on immortality. Of the mystery of death” “we know that we shall be like him.” Of the loneliness of death: Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
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