HOME DELIVERANCE – Presence From Afar

"Conjure" is a fascinating verb. Usually, it means calling upon some kind of spirit 
to appear, as if by magic. But it can also have a far less occult meaning.

That’s the kind of conjuring I do when I pray for my loved ones. Now, just so I don’t lose you in a fog of abstraction, I'm okay if we just call it visualizing, im-
agining, calling to mind…whatever.  

THE POWER OF PRESENCE
I believe there’s immense power in one’s physical presence. It’s what drew me to become a hospice volunteer. I knew I couldn’t reverse anyone’s terminal diagnosis; I didn’t presume I could end anyone’s pain.

But I did believe I could simply sit with someone. Keep them company. Help them find meaning, or at least a degree of comfort, in their precious days. If they could still communicate, I knew I could listen. Even if they couldn’t, I could still relate by sharing my thoughts, empathiz-
ing, caring. Language wouldn’t be essential.

The power of presence isn’t just some airy, theoretical notion. There’s scientific proof that the company of a caring person promotes health, healing, and a sense of connection.*

 It feels like I’m delivering the intention in person.

TELEPRESENCE
It’s one thing to be fully present with someone who’s right next to you. Where you can see, hear and feel each other. But how does one bring that kind of immediacy to bear on someone who’s 1,200 miles away? That’s what I aim to do when I pray. 

The trick, if you want to call it that, is that I don’t simply ask God ** to be present with my loved ones; instead, I will myself—with God’s help—to be present with each of them in turn. (I believe God is happy to employ me as a deputy.) 

ILLUSTRATION: dreamstime

There’s nothing all that inscrutable about it. I simply imagine the person’s face, and let that image meld with other memory to evoke what it’s like being with them. Their demeanor, their attitude, the spirit they exude. 

Then, once that virtual connection’s established, I use it as a conduit to send them my love and best wishes. It feels way more direct than simply putting a wish out there to the Universe and hoping it finds its way to a loved one. This way, it feels like I’m delivering the intention in person.

       The good news is that it might just work.

LOST AND FOUND
After doing this for a while I wondered, if I can project my virtual presence to someone I know, why couldn’t I do so to a stranger? Thus began my spiritual reaching out to folks who need the power of human presence more than anyone: 
those lost in the woods or at sea, buried deep inside collapsed mines, or trapped under earthquake or bomb-strike rubble.

IMAGE: Soldier of Fortune

In this case, my intention, my prayer, is for that poor soul to actually feel not just the presence of whatever their higher power, but my presence. To know, without doubt, that, even in their hopelessness, there’s this one fellow human being who, despite the untold miles, is thinking of them at that very moment, wishing them well, encouraging them not to give up. 

If my “friends and family” conjuring raises a few eyebrows, I imagine this audacious version might seem quite over the top. The good news is that it might just work. The other good news is that I doubt anyone can prove that it doesn't.

PHOTO: 9News, Sydney

   
         Sometimes you have to believe it to see it.

LEAP OF FAITH  
Of course, as with any endeavor—especially one this intangible—faith is the linchpin. Sometimes, contrary to that old skeptic’s adage, you have to believe it to see it. ***

And I do believe it. You can too.

              “Your presence is a miracle.” ~ THICH NHAT HANH

* Psychology Today

** “God” is the term I use to identify my higher power. Yahweh, Jehovah, Creator, Allah, Great Spirit…any title will do. I believe they’re all names for the same thing.

*** The expression, “You have to believe it to see it,” is often attributed to former National Geographic photographer, DeWitt Jones.

FILLED WITH EMPTINESS – The Power of Presence

“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing...not healing, not curing...that is a friend who cares.” 
HENRI NOUWEN                      
                                             •      ~      •      ~      •

It’s taken me a very long time to realize that just sitting, with no task, no agenda, no expectation, is not a waste of time.

“Just being” is something infants and old folks do very well. I suppose you could say that’s because they can’t walk and their hands don’t work very well. But more important than how they might have come to be so acutely in the present moment is the fact that only the most cynical observer would ever conclude from their lack of “productiveness” that they’re squandering their potential.

What a shame that the art of just being is so lost on the rest of us! For it’s in that state, devoid of ambition and guile, liberated from presumption, that we’re best able to experience what I’d argue are the human pursuits of the highest order: curiosity, compassion and wonder.

            There are some worthwhile goals
            that don’t fall within the reach
            of anyone who’s reaching.

NOT THEN OR WHEN, BUT NOW
By the time we’re in grade school, most of us have already been indoctrinated with the familiar mantras: keep your nose to the grindstone; idle hands make for the devil’s work; work hard enough and everything will be fine. You know, the good old American dream. Trouble is, there are some worthwhile goals that don’t fall within the reach of anyone who’s reaching.

We’re all conditioned to place enormous value on the past and the future. We think the past, the sum total of all our life experiences to date, defines who we are. We think the future is where all our hopes and dreams—and fears—will play out.

In fact, we tend to focus so much of our mental and emotional energy on the “then” and the “when” that we fail to fully experience the “now.” And, as much as we’d like to think we can do it, no one can be in two places at the same time.

I learned a lot about just being during my parents’ last days in this life. These lessons come naturally when you’re with someone who can no longer communicate with words. You sit there. Maybe you talk a little, hoping the person understands you at some level. But mostly, you just sit.

I continue to refine this art in my work as a hospice volunteer, in which capacity I’ve witnessed at least 30 people’s ultimate lettings-go.

Sitting with someone—or, for that matter, sitting with Nature—may seem like an old-fashioned idea, like visiting or courting. These are things no one used to think much about; there were fewer options, fewer distractions, so they just did them. 

      It’s in precisely such moments of “emptiness”
   that we are most apt to be fulfilled.

Now that most of us are on call wherever we go, connected 24/7 to each other and to all the information that ever was, it’s gotten harder and harder not to feel we should be productive to some degree nearly all the time.

But it’s in precisely such moments of “emptiness” that we are most apt to be fulfilled. That’s when we let go of any notion that, somehow, we’re in control, that there’s something we should be doing or thinking, or that anything but our presence matters.

It’s only by clearing the decks of this preoccupation with stuff from the past and future that we can be truly open to a communion with the present, whether with our own true spirit, the soul of a loved one, or the astounding beauty of Nature’s gifts that surround and fill us.

            We tend to focus so much of our
            mental and emotional energy on the
            “then” and the “when” that we fail
            to fully experience the “now.”

FINDING SOMETHING NEVER LOST
To be truly in the moment is a difficult concept for some people to grasp. After all, how can you achieve something that’s accessibly only to those who don’t try to achieve it? Is it really possible to notice the absence of everything? Can you really hear silence, feel emptiness?

You can if you’re ready. Just as a sponge can’t absorb a spill until it’s wrung out, you can’t understand these things without first wringing from your consciousness the concerns and constructs that saturate your mind.

Perhaps the one mental construct that clashes most with just being is our notion of time. We imagine our lives as linear paths; we move along a time line. Each day, each experience we have becomes another part of our past, that which defines who we are.

And the line extending in front of us, the future, holds all the experiences we will have from now on, illuminated by our hopes and dreams.

       Outside of the present moment, nothing—
       literally, nothing—exists.

Curiously, we even see the spatial aspect of our existence as linear, imagining, again, that only those places where we’ve been and where we’re to go delineate the sphere of our existence. Imagine walking through a Costa Rican rain forest, touring the Musee D’Orsay or even riding the bus home from work, looking nowhere else but straight ahead or straight behind you. Would anyone consider this a whole experience?

As Eckhart Tolle says in his wonderful book, The Power of Now, these linear paradigms are just illusions we’ve invented to help us deal with the incomprehensible reality of the infinite.

If you're looking to the past, the future or a change of scene for the secret of happiness, you're looking in the wrong place. If fact, it makes no sense to be looking at all, since you already possess it; it’s already inside of you, part of you.

This is why just being is such a compelling, articulate force. Notwithstanding its utter simplicity—or, perhaps, because of it—it is a most eloquent expression of a reality few of us are ready to grasp, that, outside of the present moment, nothing—literally, nothing—exists.

Even the most defining moments of your past exist only as you interpret and apply their lessons now. Even your fondest wish, your most compelling goal, exists only in the work you begin now to realize it.

FINAL GIFTS – Negotiating Life’s Ultimate Transition

Charlotte’s sister had been contending with cancer for some time. Sally and I would ask about her whenever we ran into Charlotte in the neighborhood. After several of those updates—reports of points made and lost—we learned that, after all, she’d lost the argument.

Soon after Charlotte returned from the funeral in Michigan, she gave us a book called Final Gifts. She explained that a friend had given it to her, and that it had helped her and her family get through those last painful months. The book was a blessing, she said, one she wanted to pay forward.

Final Gifts was written by Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley, two veteran hospice nurses who not only care for the medical and emotional needs of patients who are dying, but help them and their families understand and grow from the end-of-life experience.

What makes this so relevant to the theme of One Man’s Wonder is that these wishes often aren’t immediately apparent on the surface.

NEARING-DEATH AWARENESS
A Kirkus review of the book says, “The ‘final gifts’ of the title are the comfort and enlightenment offered by the dying to those attending them, and in return, the peace and reassurance offered to the dying by those who hear their needs.”

In one example after another, the authors describe how the fear and grief associated with death are buffered by the dying person’s deep-seated need to reconcile relationships, settle accounts, spare loved ones’ feelings and leave a meaningful legacy.

What makes this so relevant to the theme of One Man’s Wonder is that these wishes often aren’t immediately apparent on the surface. Understanding them involves curiosity and open-mindedness.

Instead of using conventional words or actions, a dying person, especially when they’ve entered the stage the authors call “Nearing Death Awareness,” may describe what they’re going through or ask for things they need using apparently inane symbolism.

THRESHOLD OF FOREVER
A reference to a map or packing a suitcase, for example, might indicate the patient’s fear of the unknown or of not being prepared for death. Talk of a balance sheet or I.O.U. might represent scores to settle or amends to be made. Or the mention of having received an invitation might signal the patient’s peaceful acceptance of death.

In all their cases, Kelley and Callanan help families of the dying to do emotionally and spiritually what many of us already know how to do with our physical sensing: to appreciate the wonder of life, discover new ways of looking and seeing, give voice to deeply-held faith and, ultimately, to embrace the unfathomable.

Like all of Nature, death has more to teach us when we appreciate its many layers. For one dying person it might be the opportunity for caretakers and loved ones to look under the surface of spoken words to discover his or her ultimate needs.

It might compel another patient to reach back through layers of time, asking someone long estranged to come back and share the letting go of resentment, hurt or blame—often for a disagreement whose reasons have long since been forgotten. In many cases, patients are able to hold on just long enough to reconcile with that person before passing away.

Suddenly, he sat bolt upright in his bed, his gaze fixed on a point somewhere
well beyond the upper corner of the room.

WELCOME TO HEAVEN
Sometimes the end of life even enables a dying person to reach across death’s threshold and sense the welcoming spirits of previously-departed loved ones.

Sally and I had no way of knowing how soon the things we learned from reading Final Gifts would apply to our own lives. But within months after Sally finished the book, her friend, Mary, after decades living with recurring cancer, finally was succumbing.

One evening near the end, Sally was sitting with her. Mary’s eyes seemed to drift away from Sally to something in the empty corner of her bedroom. “Who are they?” Mary asked.

Sally admitted later that her normal reaction would have been to try talking Mary out of her “confusion.” But, having read about this behavior in the book, she was able to embrace Mary’s experience and help her make sense of it. “Tell me more about them,” she prompted.

That simple acknowledgment helped Mary realize that the figures were those of her long-departed sister and uncle, and that joining them might not be as fearful as she’d imagined.

THE RAPTURE
Those who experience Nearing Death Awareness often talk about seeing an indescribably beautiful place, one that moves them to wonder and awe. When my dad was dying (at the age of 91), we knew death was imminent. After being knocked to the floor several times by jolts from his defibrillator, he’d decided to have it turned off.

The doctor advised us he’d almost surely die within a couple of days. My brother, Dan, and I decided to keep vigil with him for whatever time remained. We let him know of our sadness and our hope that he’d change his mind. Ultimately, all we could do was to support him, talk with him, advocate for him, and make sure he was comfortable.

It was my shift. Dad was in deep sleep, his breathing so thin that I feared each time his chest rose and fell might be the last. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright in his bed, his eyes wide open, his gaze turned upward, fixed on a point somewhere well beyond the upper corner of the room.

His expression was one of pure rapture. It was as if he were witnessing something stunningly beautiful. Even though the wonder, whatever it was, was visible to me only in his eyes, I too was struck dumb. After about 20 seconds, he lay back down, closed his eyes and resumed his sporadic breathing.

He died the next morning.

SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION
Does all of this mean that death’s a wonderful thing? It depends. For my dad, I think it was. He was ready. On the other hand, I can barely imagine what it must be like to lose a child. Or a young family’s loss of a parent. Or anyone dying alone and scared…just the thought brings tears to my eyes.

Nonetheless, Final Gifts reminded me that the pain, fear and grief surrounding death are not evil; they’re part of the human condition, part of the Creator’s plan. When I view death in that context, through eyes unclouded by all the value judgments and taboos our culture imposes on it, I can’t help feeling that, somewhere under those folds, there’s the potential for it to be an awesome, even beautiful, thing.

The patients and families depicted in the book struggled with the apparent contradiction between that possibility and the stark reality of their own loss.

                                              ~     •        ~     •        ~         
PASS IT ON!
I’ve given away that copy of the Final Gifts that Charlotte gave us, as well as several others I’ve bought. The initial reaction I’ve gotten from some recipients, especially those under 40—from whom thoughts of death and dying are still far removed—has fallen a bit short of gratitude: “What a downer!” “Why such a creepy gift?” “Are you dying?”

Most, nonetheless, have dutifully read it. Everyone who’s done so has thanked me for the discoveries and the comfort it’s brought them. I hope you’ll read it too—and then continue the sequence by passing it forward.

Final Gifts – link to Amazon

(Final Gifts and a few other books and articles I’ve read about death and dying have led me to become a hospice volunteer—with Health Partners Hospice—which has deepened my understanding and appreciation of the end-of-life experience.)

MY BAD – Taking the Rap for Hope

The last month or so here has been laden with what seems like more than its share of death and dying. I’ve lost a former hospice patient and dear friend (He “graduated” from the program five years ago.) and a member of my 40-years-and-running men’s group. Another, current hospice patient is fading. And my long-time shrink has cancer.

What if the outcome I pray for is different from that being invoked by the patient?

WHOSE PRAYER IS IT?
When someone—especially a loved one—is facing a scary diagnosis, naturally I want to do something. I guess we all do.

So, besides the usual nuts-and-bolts support—visiting, offering respite to the care-givers, perhaps dropping off a nice pie or casserole, I put my fondest wishes for the person out there into the Universe to assimilate and perhaps factor into its next rendering of The Big Picture.

In other words, I pray. But for what, exactly? Do I pray for the dying person’s ability to gracefully let go of life and pass away in peace and comfort? Or do I pray for them to beat the odds, kick cancer’s ass and get back to a normal life? It’s a real dilemma. And what if the outcome I’m praying for is different from that being invoked by the patient?

Well, for the hospice patients I volunteer with, the answer’s usually easy. Typically, they’ve lived good, long lives, suffer any number of discomforts and indignities, and in many cases are quite ready to die. It’s when the patient’s younger— chronologically and/or in their attitude—that I’m conflicted.

PROFESSIONAL DETACHMENT
Right now I’m channeling all the positive energy I can marshal into the prospects of the man who’s been my “behavioral health” counselor (I’ll call him Bob). For the past five-plus years Bob’s been the only person in my life whose time I’ve felt I could commandeer to just sit there and listen to my personal problems. He’s helped me cope and hope and grow into a better man.

A couple of months ago, the day after my last appointment with him, Bob had a sudden seizure. Next day, they operated on his brain and confirmed the worst: glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer. He was admitted to hospice.

Maybe it’s not typical of such patient-provider relationships, but I love Bob. Though I’m sure any reciprocity on his part has been unintentional, let’s say we’ve come to know each other pretty well. He’s a kind, gentle, compassionate man.

And now, though I want desperately to see him and help him as a friend and supporter, a veil of confidentiality imposed by his employer separates me not just from offering that help, but from even the most basic information about his condition or whereabouts.

So, for Bob, it’s come down to praying. But I’m facing that give-up or give-‘em-hell dilemma. What if what I’m praying for isn’t what he’s praying for? What if he’s decided to commit himself fully to dying with grace?

          I picture every single cancer cell in
          his body as turning a bright, Day-Glo
          red, no longer able to hide.

EXPANSIVE THOUGHTS FOR A SHRINK
I thought about it for several days, simply wishing him peace and comfort. And then it hit me. So what if I wish for a recovery he can no longer envision? Could that be any worse than cheering for an athlete who’s resigned to losing a race, or for that matter any underdog who doesn’t believe they can beat the odds?

So I’ve taken part of my daily meditation—the one visualizing my own body as healthy and pain free—and turned that biofeedback toward Bob. Maybe I’ll call it tele-biofeedback.

I picture every single cancer cell in his body as turning a bright, Day-Glo red, no longer able to hide from his body’s natural defenses and the search-and-destroy raids of chemo drugs. I see all those pinpoints of red getting zapped, darkening to burgundy, then dark gray, and finally blowing away as so much lifeless ash.

There’s a chance I’ll never, ever know what happens to Bob. But whatever it is, at least I’ll know I did my best by him. I think that’s what I would want from my friends and loved ones. Cheer for me even if I cannot cheer for myself. Even if it turned out to be an outcome I couldn’t have, I think I’d forgive them for their misplaced hope. Wouldn’t you?

And Bob? What if he just happens to end up among the five percent of patients who survive this cancer…do you think he’ll blame me?

A HOLE IN TOMORROW – Seeing Right Through Mortality

You may have noticed the gradually increasing frequency of my posts touching on aging, death and dying. This is partly due to my perspective, which I can no longer pretend is anything but that of a senior citizen. It’s also inspired by my experiences as a hospice volunteer. (I spend a few hours every week with people whose days are numbered.)

Despite my long predisposition to the present moment, the older I get, the more often I seem to stray to thoughts of the ever-more-precious future. Like imagining how, when the time comes for me to face my own life’s end, I might do so with half as much grace as my patients do.

       In just the past couple of years, five of my 
       family members and friends have faced a 
       cancer diagnosis.

TOMORROW…AND TOMORROW
I know, I know…worrying about tomorrow is pointless. While it’s probably more useful than worrying about the past, either way there’s little any of us can do to affect the consequences of time.

But there’s tomorrow…and then there’s TOMORROW. For someone simply living out their last days or one facing a grave health crisis, the term could mean, literally, the next day; one might not dare look ahead much further.

But for those of us still fortunate enough to still gaze out on an indeterminate horizon, the view is quite different.

Yes, there’s still that sense—especially if gratitude is part of your daily spiritual practice—of each tomorrow being a precious gift, one you should appreciate as if it were your last. But even that self-imposed filter doesn’t keep those of us in reasonably good health from fully expecting another tomorrow after that…and another…and another...

How cruelly that expectation must change when one receives, say, a cancer diagnosis. These days, I find myself thinking about that all the time, because in just the past couple of years five of my family members and friends have faced that reality.
        It’s an opportunity to introduce ourselves 
        to our faith—or at least an aspect of that 
        faith we may never have been in the same 
        room with before.

CLOSER STILL TO HOME 
Even as I’ve been writing this post, one of those loved ones dealing with cancer—a dear old friend—has experienced a dramatic change in his condition. Steve had been responding quite well to cutting-edge treatment which aimed to seek out and destroy cancer cells no matter where in his body they lurked.

But now, quite suddenly, the cancer has gained the upper hand throughout his body. There’s nothing left to do for him—at least in terms of cure-oriented medical treatment. He’s entered hospice, and doctors advise him and his family not to think in terms of months, but weeks…or maybe even days.

What a fickle friend hope can be. I can only imagine what he and his family must be going through, given that initial ebbing of the disease’s leaden horizon and then its abrupt rushing in and imminently crashing over them.

PERMEABLE PERMANENCE
I guess this is one positive effect of death—a silver lining, if one thinks broadly enough—in the whole human scheme of things. It causes those left behind to confront the reality of our own mortality.

It’s also an opportunity to introduce ourselves to our faith—or at least an aspect of that faith we may never have been in the same room with before.

It’s that faith that renders the dreadful, absolute finality of death somewhat more forgiving. As if that barrier to yet another tomorrow becomes, rather than a dark, impenetrable, tombstone-granite wall, perhaps more like a fine-mesh screen which, while it certainly inhibits our free, physical movement from one dimension to the other, at least allows the free flow of air and sunshine and spirit between the two.

As death becomes an ever-more-frequent visitor to my aging circle of loved ones, I’m asking myself if my faith is up to the task. Can I, as with any other aspect of wonder, learn to be fully present with my mortality? Might I, if faced with a terminal diagnosis, be able somehow to see beyond—if not right through—death’s dark curtain?

Could you?

BEYOND WORDS – A Dialog of the Spirit

I’ve been visiting Harold (not the man's real name) as a hospice volunteer for three months now. His diagnosis is Alzheimer’s disease, and the reason he’s in hospice is that it’s quite advanced.

When I first met him, Harold could talk. That is, he had enough breath to make sounds, and he could move his lips. He’d even punctuate his comments with hand gestures and the occasional little chuckle. But very little of it came across clearly enough for me to understand.

As for my end of the conversation, I’d tell him what kind of a day it was outside, report on how the Minnesota Twins were doing, or maybe recount one of my experiences I thought might resonate with one of his. Occasionally, when he was tracking, he’d respond to something I said quite clearly, “Oh, is that right?” That was nice to hear.

I did my best. Most often that meant simply maintaining eye contact with him as
he spoke, trying to keep that faintly-received channel open. Since I didn’t want to pretend to understand when I didn’t, all I could do was nod so he’d know I was, if not understanding, at least hearing him.

Once in a while I’d make out a word or two. If I heard “brother,” I’d respond, “Oh, your brother. Uh-huh” or “I’ll bet you and your brother were quite a pair.” Anything to preserve a crack in that shell of isolation the poor man must inhabit.

      I remember vividly why I originally signed 
      up for hospice work...I knew it had little to 
      do with words.

A LOSS FOR WORDS
Harold still likes to talk, but now, at this week’s visit, he’s clearly faded…a lot. He’s gazing up at me with what appears to be the intent of speaking, but I have to look hard to detect the subtle movement of his lips. I hear wisps of air coming out of his mouth, but he can no longer make a sound.

I feel so sad for him; his daughter had told me he was once been a pretty gregarious fellow. He still had the will, but not the way. I also feel an arresting sense of gratitude. Yes, of course, simply for not being Harold, but also for the opportunity– the privilege—of being with this good man at such a vulnerable point in his life.

I’m a writer; my stock in trade is communicating with words. So this is unfamiliar territory for me. Yet I remember vividly why I originally signed up for hospice work. I felt I had something spiritual to offer. I wasn’t quite sure how to describe it, but I knew it had little to do with words.

HEARING SILENCE
So I’m sitting here at Harold’s bedside, and he’s just looking up into my eyes. It’s a little unnerving, but I feel something—I’ll call it energy for lack of a better word—flowing between us. It feels good, and I can only hope Harold feels it too.

I take his gnarly hand and hope I can convey some kind of understanding that way. I don’t know how much he can grasp, but I acknowledge how awful it must be to have thoughts ambushed like that before he can get them out. “It’s okay,” I reassure him. “I’m hearing you.”

Our hour together comes to an end. I take his hand again and ask if it’s okay for me to come back next week. He just looks at me. As I walk away, I recall the moment, just the week before, when, after I’d strained the whole time to understand a word here and there, he somehow managed to say, as plain as day, “Thank you for coming.”

Today, he says nothing. But his eyes follow me through the door.

NIXED BLESSINGS – Laying Claim to Life’s Elusive Gifts

The past few years have been trying times for me. A couple of serious health problems have been taking a toll on both my body and my spirit.

When I’m down like this, I find that one of the best ways to feel better is to get out of myself and help someone else. So I enlisted as a hospice volunteer.

       Why, when she seems so lost about 
       everything else, did she sound so certain, 
       so fully present, about this?

Today I was visiting Bill, one of my patients. Though he still possesses nearly all his faculties, he lives in a facility that specializes in so-called memory care, so I’m accustomed to seeing his neighbors wandering aimlessly, misplacing what little stuff they have left, often looking quite bewildered.

Just as we’re leaving his room, one of them tottered up to me. June is a very quiet, shy woman who walks idle laps around the perimeter of the floor and often mistakes Bill’s room for her own. She rarely speaks to anyone—certainly not to me—and when she does, it’s usually just to ask for directions.

PHOTO: Imgur

Okay, I thought, maybe she’s mistaking me for a staff member or a fellow resident. So I said a casual hello, and then, just as I turned to walk away, she reached out, put her hand on my back and rubbed it sympathetically. “It’s going to be okay,” she said in a sure but gentle voice. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

That scene—the effect of June’s touch, the clarity of her gaze, the knowingness in her voice—has kept replaying in my mind all day. Was she just confused like she is about other things? Why, when she seems so lost about everything else, did she sound so certain, so fully present, about this? Could she possibly have sensed that I’ve been hurting?

    It’s as if there’s this rhythm to life. We can’t 
    always hear it because the dance hall is such 
    a cacophony of other sounds.

DEAF TO THE MUSIC
I realize now that it’s entirely up to me what the meaning of this little interaction was—and is—for me. And no matter how or why it was given, I believe it was a gift. Not only did it help me feel better; it also reminds me of how many other blessings there are in my life like this one, hiding in plain sight.

Little gifts like this come very close to us all the time—warm smiles lost in passing, inspirations not seized, narrow escapes unappreciated, coincidences rationalized away, Nature’s wonders taken for granted. It’s so easy to miss them in the muddle of agendas, expectations, worries and sheer self-indulgence that surrounds us much of the time. 

It’s as if there’s this rhythm to life. We can’t always hear it because the dance hall is such a cacophony of other sounds. We falter and stumble. But once we manage to turn the din down, even a little bit, sure enough, there it is. And, once we hear the rhythm, feel it, suddenly, miraculously, we no longer have to even think about where to place our feet, for the music is moving us.

Isn’t that the way it is with small wonders? When we allow the background noise of life to get too loud, they don't move us because we can’t hear them. Just like the simple gift June bestowed on me, it’s so easy to miss them, or at least to misinterpret them as chance or error or simply devoid of meaning.

Don’t we have the power—and I would suggest a compelling need—to give them that meaning?

A GOOD DAY –

Today was a good day.

I learned something. I needed a word in Spanish meaning way more than funny. My trusty old Latin American Spanish/English dictionary's definitions for uproarious, hilarious, a scream and half a dozen other terms fell short of the task. I Googled it. Finally, my ten-minute search paid off; I found just the adjective I needed: arrasador. (Its primary meaning is destructive or devastating.)

          For those four glorious minutes, 
          my spirit took wing.

I gave something. Today's the day I visit one of my two hospice patients. This one, to my great delight, has actually "graduated" from the program's six-month life-expectancy window, deciding, at age 91, that he was no longer a dying man. Now he's an active, curious, creative person with a mischievous sense of humor who not only creates digital art, but teaches art to his fellow care center residents. He inspires me.

I experienced wonder. In fact it happened twice before I'd finished breakfast. I was looking out my Minneapolis window at Nature all decked out in fresh white. I thought of how exotic the colors of a Caribbean reef or the deepest Amazon forest are to me, and imagined someone who'd never before seen snow finding this sight every bit as breathtaking. It struck me that, even for one who's seen snow all my life, this was indeed that kind of glorious moment. I just hadn't realized it before.

Just then, on the radio, they played Gershwin's Fanfare for the Common Man. I'd just started my cereal. I stopped chewing, put down my spoon and just listened. I let those sounds, the soaring and the sublime, transport me. For those four glorious minutes, my spirit took wing.

Yes, it was a good day. But such days are not uncommon for me; I seek them out...or should I say they seek me out?

What makes a good day for you?

LIFE BACKWARDS – Why We Need Nature Both Coming and Going

My recent work as a hospice volunteer has me thinking more and more about life, and how wonderful it is that the hospice movement, regardless of how quickly or slowly life may wind down, focuses not on the process of dying, but on the process of living until one dies.

The difference may seem subtle, but for hospice patients it is not. One of the reasons I’ve always feared the idea of aging is that, nearly every time I’ve visited
a nursing home, no matter how nice the accoutrements, the residents seem so isolated, so stuck inside those cheesy-art-strewn walls with companions not of their choosing, so unplugged from Nature.

MIRROR IMAGE
Have you heard this comedy shtick—attributed to several sources—about why life really should be lived backwards?

“I think the most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death! What’s that, a bonus?
I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work for forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement!
You go to college, you do drugs, alcohol, you party, you have sex, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating…and you finish off as a gleam in somebody’s eye.” *

Isn’t that a wonderful notion? Why can’t life be more like that?

Of course, I can’t help but bring to this reflection my Nature-loving, quasi-pantheist point of view—that we come from Nature and, whether we’re smart enough to stay engaged with her throughout our lives or not, we inevitably go back to Nature.

  We’ve always been here and we always will be.

It's not exactly the scenario laid out in the comedy bit; there, even though that ideal life is reversed, it still has a beginning and an end. The advantage of my truth is that, far beyond our blink-of-an-eye, flesh-and-blood presence here on this blue-
green pinprick of light in the deep black fabric of the cosmos, we’ve always been here and we always will be.

As I suggest in my previous post here, The Stuff of Stars – What Every Human Wants—this amounts to nothing less than immortality. Not the fuzzy going-home-to-God-in-heaven version I was brought up with, but one that’s equally positive and, for me at least, considerably easier to believe.

NOT JUST FOR KIDS
These days, as the Children and Nature movement and its “Nature Deficit Disorder” diagnosis of screen-bound kids gain traction around the world, it’s easy to believe that Nature is most essential to human beings when they’re young. After all, they say it’s then—mostly before the age of five—that the essential building blocks of a healthy, happy life are laid down. And Nature is, indeed, a master mason.
 

In the U.S and many other cultures of the “developed” world, we then grow up, we tie ourselves to our work and our homes, and many of us forget what it was like to be one with Nature.

But if we could accept, for a minute, that the end of life is—or should be—the mirror image of its beginning, wouldn’t it make sense that Nature play as big a role in our health and happiness when we’re very old as when we were very young?

Take me outdoors...where Nature can replenish my soul with her perfect, timeless beauty and wisdom.

My hospice training urged us volunteers to bring with us to patient visits a “tool kit” of things to read, pictures to look at, music to listen to, perhaps a few games to play. And, depending on my patients’ particular likes, I will have those things.

But the most important device I will bring is the turning of a door knob. For it is only outdoors where all of one’s senses are brought to life at the same time, where a person whose horizon draws near is reassured, not just of being thoroughly in each moment, but of an essential sense of belonging—today, tomorrow, forever.

      

COMING HOME
I hope with all my heart that this will be the case for me, that when I’m too feeble to easily get out and use my precious abilities to walk and climb and paddle, someone will be kind enough to lend me those capacities. Take me outdoors, with the animals and plants and moving air, where Nature can replenish my soul with her perfect, timeless beauty and wisdom.

The end of my life may not be, as the quote imagines, the gleam in my parents’ eyes, but I’m convinced I’ll see a much deeper intent, that of a benevolent universe, welcoming home, after his briefest of visits to this earthly life, one of its own.

* This bit has been attributed to George Carlin, Woody Allen, and even Andy Rooney, but there’s a pretty convincing case for its actually having been written (and performed on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the early ’80s) by lesser-known comedian Sean Morey. 
At any rate, I found this a particularly nice version of the life-backwards story, as it is audio-only—allowing one to conjure one’s own imagery. LIVING LIFE BACKWARDS

A GOOD DAY

Today was a good day.

I learned something. I needed a word in Spanish meaning way more than funny. My trusty old Latin American Spanish/English dictionary's definitions for uproarious, hilarious, a scream and half a dozen other terms for really funny fell short of the task. I googled it. Finally, my ten-minute search paid off; I found just the adjective I needed: arrasador. (Its primary meaning is destructive or devastating.)

            For those four glorious minutes, 
            my spirit took wing.

I gave something. Today I started studying for my first training session to become a hospice volunteer. It's the kind of service I've been thinking about ever since my parents died—spending time with folks who know their lives are drawing to a close. Some of them will have no one else.

I experienced wonder. In fact it happened twice before I'd finished breakfast. I was looking out my Minneapolis window at Nature all decked out in fresh white. I thought of how exotic the colors of a Caribbean reef or the deepest Amazon forest are to me, and imagined someone who'd never before seen snow finding this sight every bit as breathtaking. It struck me that, even for one who's seen snow all my life, this was indeed that kind of glorious moment. I had just been taking it for granted; not today.

I soared. While I was admiring the snowscape, as if to orchestrate my awe, they played Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man on the radio. I stopped chewing my cereal, put down my spoon and just listened. I let the sounds, the soaring and the sublime, transport me. For those four glorious minutes, my spirit took wing.

Yes, it was a good day. But such days are not uncommon for me; they seem to seek me out.

What makes a good day for you?

A GOOD DAY

Today was a good day.

I learned something. I needed a word in Spanish meaning way more than funny. My trusty old Latin American Spanish/English dictionary's definitions for uproarious, hilarious, a scream and half a dozen other terms fell short of the task. I Googled it. Finally, my ten-minute search paid off; I found just the adjective I needed: arrasador. (Its primary meaning is destructive or devastating.)

          For those four glorious minutes, 
          my spirit took wing.

I gave something. Today's the day I visit one of my two hospice patients. This one, to my great delight, has actually "graduated" from the program's six-month life-expectancy window, deciding, at age 91, that he was no longer a dying man. Now he's an active, curious, creative person with a mischievous sense of humor who not only creates digital art, but teaches art to his fellow care center residents. He inspires me.

I experienced wonder. In fact it happened twice before I'd finished breakfast. I was looking out my Minneapolis window at Nature all decked out in fresh white. I thought of how exotic the colors of a Caribbean reef or the deepest Amazon forest are to me, and imagined someone who'd never before seen snow finding this sight every bit as breathtaking. It struck me that, even for one who's seen snow all my life, this was indeed that kind of glorious moment. I just hadn't realized it before.

Just then, on the radio, they played Gershwin's Fanfare for the Common Man. I'd just started my cereal. I stopped chewing, put down my spoon and just listened. I let those sounds, the soaring and the sublime, transport me. For those four glorious minutes, my spirit took wing.

Yes, it was a good day. But such days are not uncommon for me; I seek them out...or should I say they seek me out?

What makes a good day for you?