I found Jenny at the end of a long, gravel drive overhung by a thick canopy of maple trees. The road pitched slightly downward to the left and so had become deeply rutted in places from the runoff of rainwater and the years of vehicles traveling over it. She and her husband lived in a small, neatly kept and sparsely furnished house which sat at the end of this drive, invisible to the one or two neighboring homes.
Jenny and I went to high school together. I don't remember exactly when we met, my memories being more impressions than specific recollections. Impressions of long denim skirts with fabric sewn into the seam or at the hem, hair worn straight down framing a pair of round lens eyeglasses, an easy smile and eyes which would set firm in their sockets when speaking. The earnestness of an activist with the fluid expression of a poetess. I remembered her as someone who spoke with an easy intelligence , idealistic without being sentimental, a reasoning mind expressed with the delight of an artist. I had not spoken to Jenny in many years when I came across a letter she had written to a magazine, on the subject of voluntary simplicity, specifically hers. I contacted Jenny and made arrangements to visit.
I can tell you that in the twenty years that had passed my impressions of her had not changed. And as we caught up, I began to think that, in all of what I saw and heard, here was someone who was living everything I had said I wanted to do. Who had made a choice to have less, to do less in order to open up a space in her life for simply being, taking walks together, thinking, writing. So different from my life working for a large corporation, squeezing myself in to the spaces between the lines in my planner . I was completely envious of her and feeling as if I had missed a turn somewhere. She had made her decisions and their results resonated with my own desires, yet my circumstances were very different, and the disparity between her reality and mine kept intruding on my consciousness, interrupting our conversation as my distracted thoughts tried to sort out the past twenty years or so. Her home, her daily routine, the lack of material padding spoke a truth to me which made me squirm just being there. I wondered if I had changed so much without noticing and if so, was that good or bad? Had I chosen this life I was leading or had it happened of its own momentum as I watched? Should it have been different? Could it have been? What pivotal events in our lives had brought us down such different paths? Had I sold out? What did I really believe, want?
Back in NY, I was discussing this with Sophie and how it seemed that in some ways my life had worked itself out in ways which I would not have guessed, in some way in which I seemed more a spectator than a participant.
During that visit I had begun to think about the way life unfolds, how in spite of our ability to make choices, to choose our paths, there remained a wildness to life, an element of something out of our control.
On the trip back this had been made particularly vivid. I saw a man who looked to be in his twenties. He was wearing shorts and a tank top, tall and strongly built like an athlete. He had a pleasant, even handsome face. He was pushing a wheel chair in which sat another man, whose features so closely resembled the first that I was sure they were brothers. But the resemblance stopped below the chin as the other mans body was thin, his legs bent and emaciated, shoulders twisted away slightly to the side though he was facing forward in the chair, with one arm drawn up to and across his chest, his hand contracted like a claw. The first man bent over his brother, smiling and talking, adjusting his position, and maneuvering the chair with the easy familiarity of many years, and I wondered what questions both men might have struggled with as they considered how their respective lots had fallen. What went on in their thoughts, what were the dynamics of their relationship? Did one feel the more blest of the two? And if so, which one? But for birth order, they could be living the other’s life. There was a deep mystery being played out in the lives of those two men. Watching them, the world suddenly felt like a very arbitrary place.
We were back at the Vanderbilt again, underneath one of the bridges down a small hillside and against the stream which was fast running with the late spring rains. Questions of what we can control and what we can’t, and how do we know the difference?. And how to view that which we can’t control, accept them passively, see them as gifts?, as curse? as neither?
Sophie had taken off her shoes to wade across the fast moving stream and was leaning over a rock on the opposite side, watching a tiny rivulet of water flow out of the hillside, across and down the rocks and detritus of the bank and into a small pool caused by a fallen tree which had obstructed the running water, twirling in a quick spiral before spilling over this natural dam and continuing on it’s way downstream. Sophia had her back to me as I spoke but I was sure that she had been listening. Still, she continued her inspection, apparently fascinated with whatever it was she was looking at, without answering right away. When she finally straightened up and walked over to where I was sitting, she spoke and I then wondered whether she had heard me after all:
"I’ve been thinking about water. Have you ever heard what Lao Tzu said?:
"What?"
"Nothing on earth is more gentle and yielding than water,
yet nothing is stronger.
When it confronts a wall of stone
Gentleness overcomes hardness;
the power of water prevails"
I just kept silent, nodding sagely, missing her point and waiting to see where she would go with this.
Sophie shot me a quick look, head cocked, smiling at my pretension. Caught again.
"Where is the power of water? Isn’t it to be found in it’s acceptance of the wall, it’s patience in smoothing a new course, it’s flexibility in finding another channel? You’re right, there is a deep mystery here, and I don't have the answers to the questions you ask. I don’t think anyone does. But at least a part of the answer lies in the idea of acceptance. Now, acceptance is not the throwing up of our hands in resignation of the hopeless, but the specific knowledge that that is where our power lies. In other words, acceptance doesn’t help us answer the "why this", but rather the "what now". When we flow with an event or season in our life, when we move with it in spite of the pain, we begin to enter into it’s movement and rob it of it’s power in our life. then we slowly begin to divert it’s path until we bring it, or ourselves, around to another course. Just as water will always seek its own level, or a place of balance, so too will our lives if we have the patience of acceptance which allows time for balance. Acceptance is critically important because it provides some emotional space and allows us to gain some perspective. When we accept, we do not do so out of resignation or weakness, but out of an understanding that life is infinitely varied and like water it can flow in any number of paths while still seeking it’s own level. We trust that there are many ways to flow through our times and cannot tell where a particular path or action may take us. Further, we trust that we can never have enough information to unerringly choose what is best..
I met an elderly woman who told me the story of a poor farmer who had an only son. One day as the son was out working in the field, the farmer’s horse got loose and ran off. This horse was the farmer’s only possession and his friends , upon hearing of this, came to him to express their consolation. "How terrible that your horse has run away" The farmer would only nod his head and reply "Perhaps, but we shall see"
The next day the farmer’s only son set off to find the horse and after searching many days was able to track it down and catch it. He sent news of this ahead to the village and upon hearing the message the farmer’s neighbors came again to him. How wonderful! How fortunate that your horse has been recovered. As before, the farmer only smiled and said "perhaps, but we shall see". Unfortunately, as the farmers son was riding the horse back to the village, it reared up and threw him into a ditch, breaking his leg. The son managed to get back to the village with the horse, but the doctor was unable to reset the leg and it would remain crooked for the rest of the boy’s life. Again the farmers neighbors came to him. "How good that your son has found your horse and brought it back, but at such a cost! How terrible that he is now a cripple" With perplexing consistency, the farmer only nodded his head and replied "Perhaps, but we shall see"
Later that year, war was declared on a neighboring province and the local warlord went throughout the country into all the villages , conscripting the young men into his army. Because he was crippled the farmer’s only son was not taken, but most of the other young men from the village went off to the war, never to return again. Seeing that the farmer’s son was spared from battle, the neighbors of the farmer said to him, "How fortunate you are! You must be blessed! Who could know that your son’s crooked leg would have kept him from the army, saving his life. It is a very good thing that he was not taken by the warlord" As before, the poor farmer only nodded his head, this time with a slight smile in his eyes, and said "Perhaps, but we shall see"
Do you see it? Life is full of changes and unforeseen events both good and bad. Many things happen which we cannot foresee or change, and have consequences which we may not expect. Some feel good, but some can be painful so what can we do? I told you once that I had lost a baby, what I didn’t tell you is that I also lost my husband soon after and in the days and months which followed I fought back at life, at God, at fate. I didn’t know at what or who only that everything which had seemed so certain had become capricious and foul. I would have taken my life but I was too stubborn, instead I would stand against life and drag it down with me. I was this way for a long time.
One night, everything changed. I have often looked back and cannot explain how or why and have come only to regard what happened as a gift, a moment of grace. But one night as I stood looking at an old runoff in a stone wall I suddenly remembered how my husband and I had tried to plug the runoff and how each time we plugged one hole the water would eventually reappear at another crack in the rock. We finally had decided against trying to plug the rock and decided instead to channel the small flow of water into a trickling fountain. Now of course I understood then that the water simply changed it’s course with every obstacle we placed in its path, but what I realized at that moment was that the water had not changed course on its own, but because of the cement which had interfered with it’s flow. The cement acted as a channel for it’s new path. As I sat there, staring at the rock, I suddenly realized that the cement wasn’t an obstruction to the course of the water, it was a part of it, inextricably tied up in the history of the water’s flow. Whether the cement was good or bad, whether it set it on a better course or not, whether it should have been there or not, were ultimately irrelevant. The water considered none of these things. The cement was, the water was. The water didn’t fight against the cement, it just flowed with it. That seems like a simple enough observation, even an obvious one, but it hit me with the force of revelation. All at once I remembered something my father had shown me so many years ago, which now burned clear again in my mind , something which I had thrown aside as useless but which suddenly came back to me , washed over me like a wave. The wind kicked up as if whispering it’s confirmation and I wept and laughed and wept more. I felt the release of so much anger, so many misplaced expectations and frustrations. Under the light of a new moon, I finally stopped fighting my life and accepted the truth of the unexpected, the unforeseen, and the place that difficulty and suffering sometimes hold. I stopped asking why this, and suddenly understood that the purpose of my suffering might be found in "what now?"
In that moment I understood that while difficult times are never fun, they are often the context out of which come the most genuinely real parts of who we will become. Things like compassion, tolerance, patience, balance and empathy often grow best from the soil fertilized by difficult times, irrigated by our tears. I'm not suggesting that pain should be sought out, that leads to imbalance and excess, but rather that it can be recognized as an intrinsic part of all existence, and while we may not embrace it, we can recognize it as a companion that will move in and out of our lives in some degree or another with varying regularity. The cycles of growth and dormancy in nature, rain and drought, even the birth of our children all speak the idea that newness and joy often follow close on the heels of pain and difficulty as if they somehow prepare the way. It is as if pain is the servant of joy, a herald which proceeds it, announcing its coming. But even in times of prolonged difficulties, there may be some comfort in knowing that our pain binds us to all creation and tells us that we are truly and deeply a part of it all. And like all of creation, we too have our particular meaning and purpose. We too have our place. So while we don't invite pain, when it comes it can help to know that it can bring insight and perspective that can't be gained any other way, and to try and keep in mind a few points regarding it:
First, that it is common to all creation.
I saw also that though it may not seem like it, it has an ending time as surely as it had a beginning. Perhaps abruptly and dramatically, perhaps gradually, but life does change, it does move on, time demands it. I saw that it can lay a foundation for new growth, the foundation for future successes, and most importantly ,that you are never helpless. Though change is largely inevitable, and though difficulties and pain may intrude on our lives against our will and due to nothing we have done, yet whether or not it carries the reward for our perseverance is within our power to affect. The same pain can leave one person stronger and wiser and another bitter and petty. In either case, each result grows out of how we choose to react to the circumstances of our lives. That’s not theory to me. Since that day, I have lived it and know its true.
There is much that is a mystery about why some people suffer what they do and I suppose that the only thing that we can know for sure about pain, all kinds of pain, all levels of difficulty, is that none of us wants it, all of us experience it, and so each of us is left with a very personal, very pivotal question: What are we going to choose concerning it? And not in a general, philosophical sense, but in each moment, at every junction of choice and experience...one experience at a time. What will we do with our pain? Do we curl up in an attempt to close ourselves off against it? Do we shake our fists in defiance of it? Or will we search it for truth and new understanding, accepting it as our birthright as sons and daughters of creation? We are not helpless victims, we can choose first to accept.
