When discussing the fate of the world recently I made the statement that human beings will never run out of problems. I think my friends mistook this for a negative Nelly, Eeyore-esque moment when in actuality, I meant it rather hopefully. Problems are problems. They aren’t good or bad. They are puzzles. Conundrums. Challenges. Reasons to grow.
Deepak Chopra describes happiness as “Divine discontent.” If you haven’t viewed his Metaphysical Milkshake Soul Pancake interview with Raine Wilson, you simply must. It’s deep and hilarious! The gist of his very succinct wisdom-pearl is that as long as we have discontent and the creative impulse we will be happy. Seeking, building, creating, solving problems are crucial to our vitality. Without them, bliss becomes feckless lunacy. Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for feckless lunacy but only in moderation.
There is another video circulating now with a Rabbi talking about lobsters. Is that kosher? Anyway, he says that the lobsters grow because of discomfort. It becomes uncomfortable in it’s shell. It hides under rocks, loses the old shell, and grows a new and larger one. The basic parable here is without pain and discomfort no one grows.
In race relations and diversity work, all of my mentors espouse the philosophy that you must get comfortable being uncomfortable. The only way to bridge our differences is to jump into the mess and start to dogpaddle.
I do believe the world is getting better, even if we still have a looooong way to go and the pendulum has recently begun to swing erratically. Personally, I wouldn’t want to live in any other time in human history no matter how pretty the dresses were.
Problems and solutions are in a perpetual spiral dance. Answers beget new and different questions. This is the cycle in which awareness evolves. And I do believe consciousness is expanding despite the current state of world affairs. This is not to deny that great sorrows exist. Unfathomable tragedies. Dark forces. But, that alongside those things, or even, perhaps within them, great works of heart and mind are also happening. Heroic sacrifices. Sisyphean efforts. Great awakenings of the everyperson’s Jedi nature.
Really, I am more like Pooh and less like Eeyore: Ever in search of honey. In love with our hundred acre wood. Trusting in the kindness and ingenuity of friends to overcome today’s pickles and predicaments.
We will survive this episode. Just as we have overcome every snafu throughout human history. And then new problems will come along. The band plays on. The dance of divine discontent continues. Hopefully.
I would like to share with you two stories, three wishes, and an important secret.
I have always been a wonderer. I wonder about stuff. Constantly. Curiosity led me into many embarrassing predicaments. For example, when I was little I wondered if mothers to be got that way because they swallowed a watermelon seed. I wondered what would happen if I tried it. I knew seeds needed dirt so I ate some of that too. Then I sat in a sunny spot until I threw up. But this didn’t stop me from wondering if I could make my own gum. That brought the fire department to my house which is a longer story for a different day. I wondered what was in the glove compartment of people’s cars parked on our street. I was driven to examine the items the doctor’s cabinets and try to figure out what they did. Let’s face it, who doesn’t wonder about that?! I became obsessed with the idea that there were hidden rooms in every house and wondered what I needed to do to reveal them. Twist a knob on a mantlepiece, play a few notes on their piano, pull out just the right book from a shelf, and I was hopeful the floor would open up to a descending staircase leading to a chamber filled with magical samurai swords and dusty potions. I admit that I was influenced by the story of Anne Frank, my favorite book, The Secret Garden, and a fair share of Scoby Doo cartoons. Even though my nosey-ness often led to trouble, and I was almost always caught in the act, I never stopped wondering. I wonder about the word wonder. It can be a synonym for questioning or curiosity but also for awe, astonishment, luminous enchantment, and speechless reverence.
Recently scientists have studied the phenomenon of wonder, the speechless reverence awesome kind, the moments when we are stunned by the elegance of something in nature or life that humbles us and makes us realize that we are part of something grander than we ever imagined. What the scientists have discovered is that these moments change our lives in profound ways. The more often we experience astonishment, the less likely we are to suffer disease, the greater our personal happiness, and the more likely we are to want to contribute to the betterment of the world.
Rachel Carson wrote, “If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.” I wish this gift for each of you. That’s my first wish.
The first time I truly recall feeling a sense of wonder or awe was when I drove across the country by myself to start a new life in Los Angeles. I had everything I owned in a cruddy little hatchback and I was driving to the second largest city in the US where I didn’t know a soul. I had no job or place to live. It was risky but also thrilling. When I got to Arizona I came down with a terrible cold and the reality that I was headed into a very uncertain future alone began to take hold. Nevertheless, I decided to drive the two hours out of my way to see the Grand Canyon. I got there late in the afternoon. When you drive in the park you don’t see the Canyon. You have to walk to the edge. I will never forget it. As I got closer and the sublime immensity of what I was looking at opened up, my legs gave out. I fell to my knees. And I stayed that way for what seemed like hours because time stopped. My life was different after that. I can’t tell you about it in words really but Annie Dillard wrote, “We wake, if ever at all, to mystery.” And that moment and others I’ve been lucky enough to experience, mostly in nature, have felt like waking up…in a good way, not like with the alarm clock, but after a long, delicious sleep. So, that was the second story. And my second wish is that life presents you with mysteries that bring you to your knees. Many of them.
Socrates tell us that wonder is the beginning of wisdom.
Einstein said, The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science.”
Rilke wrote, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” And, that is my third wish, that you learn to love and live the questions and when you find an answer, realize that this is not the end of mystery. Mystery is infinite.
I believe wonder and awe are a form of prayer. Wonder lets us see with new eyes. It connects us to the consciousness of the cosmos. Which leads me to the all important secret….Are you ready? You are the greatest wonder of the universe. Yes, you, human, sitting here in this particular body, with this unique mind and heart, in this moment in history are the greatest wonder of all the galaxies because you get to behold it all. There never was and there never will be another you who notices and feels and appreciates and hopefully loves the other wonders in quite the same way. So, open up and let it all in! Even the stuff that hurts or confuses you. Live the questions! Love the Mysteries! Or, as Dr. Suess says, “Think and wonder. Wonder and think.”
For some folks it’s Passover. Others Easter. For us, it’s porch sittin’ time.
Spring is here! Along with hopeful buds. Healing blossoms. Green, green grass and dandelions. No wonder the collective fervor.
And yet there is so much sorrow as well. Terror. Atrocities. Big men. Big egos. Bigger evil. Conflicts so ancient and twisted and complex I don’t know what to think anymore. How to help? And then there are the soul crushing issues in my own row to hoe. Prayer isn’t enough. I must DO something. But what?
My heart is so small It’s almost invisible. How can you place such big sorrows in it? Look, He answered. Your eyes are even smaller. Yet they behold the world. ~Rumi
Look. The goodness of this Earth is everywhere evident. Daffodils emerge from the thaw and offer their sunny vision.
Everything is everything. This winter was bleak. Days of gray on gray on gray. Ironically, it was not a good winter for snowflakes. Those of us left of a bleeding heart must hold our anxieties. Trust that the goodness of humankind will win out over the worst in our nature. Remind ourselves that while we are the same species responsible for creating the circumstances that put us within a psychopath’s whim of world annihilation, we also invented macaroni and cheese. It is difficult to fathom that people are capable of composing symphonies, devoting their lives or laying them down for others, and also crimes of war, crimes of privilege, rape. We produced Hitler and every despot compared to him. But Mother Teresa also walked amongst our ranks. Both wolves live inside us. Actually, an entire pack. Our choices of which hungers to feed will determine what results from this interesting time.
And the outcome is beyond my control. Or yours.
What is in my control is the decision to feed my own wolves gratitude for the first Oberon of the season. To behold what is given. To smell the sweet Spring air. And be glad for the happy heart of my dog stretched on the driveway. Watch the neighbor kid play with his shadow in the rosy hue of sunset against the garage door backdrop. Listen to birds. Glide. Taste: The warming wind. The glowing green. The promise of lilacs.
Lucky Pilgrim 