I’ve been feeling a little shaky this past week and a bit. I won’t bother you with the details. Suffice it to say that the instigators of my shakiness are things in life that are both common to all and utterly individual. In other words, they are like the things that might cause you to feel shaky, too.
When you are in those places where awareness of fragility is acute, it can be curious, strange even, what it is that makes you feel better. Distraction can help, something supposedly mindless. Fresh air is good, as is exercise. However, the things that stuttered your stride, emotionally and mentally, usually remain.
One of the things that has helped me is a wonderful chapter in Susan Cain’s book, Bittersweet. You should read it or listen to it if you can. It is chapter 8, “Should We Try to Get Over Grief and Impermanence?”.
At the beginning of the chapter, Cain cites Japanese poet, Kobayahsi Issa. She mentions that he had experienced more than his fair share of difficulty and suffering in life and was overjoyed at the birth of a daughter. Sadly, the child died while still young and Issa wrote a poem that has become very well known:
I can see that water can never return to its source
Nor scattered blossoms to the branch
but even so
the bonds of affection are hard to break
In another poetic expression of grief, Issa wrote:
It is true that this world of dew
is a world of dew
but even so
With the things that have caused my shakiness unresolved, those three words struck me as healing.
But even so.
In the chapter, Cain goes on to consider the work of Dr. Laura Carstenson, a psychology professor and director of The Stanford Lifespan Development Laboratory.
Carstenson says that the richest feeling that humans can experience is something called poignancy. This is the feeling of being happy and sad at the same time. It is felt at, in Cain’s words, “precious moments suffused with their immanent ending.”
Poignancy is why the most powerful words of Issa’s poem are “but even so.” Cain calls them the three words that unite us with everyone in the world. Issa is writing from the context of Buddhist tradition and, in some ways, clarifying the concept of detachment. Cain’s chapter on impermanence identifies that most religious traditions have a similar call to live with awareness of mortality. I remember, in my Christian context, hearing about the monastic injunction Memento Mori, “Remember your death.” This was not a morbid and sombre directive, but rather a teaching that life is fully lived in awareness of impermanence. In accepting impermanence, we are not imprisoned, but rather freed.
The non-profit that I help to run is hosting a conference in Vancouver next weekend. The theme is Vocation and Rest. One of the presenters recorded her submission in advance because she is going to be speaking at a medical conference in England during our conference. Rosemary is, and this is her official title, a “nurse specializing in wound, ostomy, and continence” at a local hospital. This means that she sees people and helps them often at their shakiest, their most vulnerable. She helps people post-surgery or in the process of recovery. Often, she works with people who have had surgery after a terminal diagnosis. Rosemary takes up her work (and vocation) with a beautiful - and I think sacred - sense of how she can truly help people. She speaks of being privileged to do what she does.
Our keynote speaker for the conference, Julian Davis Reid, speaks of vocation as often understood as either “building castles in the sky” or as “dressing wounds.” That is, we will focus either on acquisition, achievement, status, and even wealth (materially and spiritually), or we will focus on how we can each day make a difference, however small, for other people.
Rosemary told us that she often plays music for her patients. She knows that she is there for what she can bring professionally. She knows what needs to be done medically, physically, what is likely best for the patient. Her professional knowledge makes a big difference. But she also plays music sometimes. That is, she knows that often, what the patient needs most is calm and comfort. She finds out what music helps with that for them and she plays it from her phone.
Rosemary told us that she remembers treating a patient who did not have long to live, but needed help with an ostomy. This was one of the patients who was helped by music. When the music was playing the patient asked a question. It wasn’t medical. Rather, it was, “I would like to dance, would it be okay if we danced?” Rosemary said yes and then she danced with the patient. This took place quite some time ago, but when Rosemary told me, just yesterday, she had tears in her eyes. So did I.
That’s poignancy.
In a somewhat shaky state, I find myself so very thankful for Kobayahi Issa’s words, “but even so.” The dance could be given that name, too.
And all of this helps me to value, as well, my Christian faith in which the words of the prophet Isaiah (from Jewish scripture and tradition) are taken to refer to Jesus. He is “a man of sorrow, familiar with grief.” He is this, not to be unlike us, but rather to be like us.
Incarnation.
And I hear His words again, in light of the beauty and impermanence of our lives, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heaven laden, and I will give you rest for your souls.”
Tickets are available for the conference, Vocation & Rest, mentioned above. If you’re in the Vancouver area next week, there are going to be fantastic presenters, music, and poetry.
Vocation & Rest
Date: October 13 & 14
Venue: St. Andrew’s Wesley United Church
Click the button below to register.
I love that: "But even so....." Something to ponder and realize. Thanks!