Lighting Candles: Dealing with Darkness and Grief

One of my lifelong teachers, Professor Arthur Seamans, aka “Doc,” has an arsenal of aphorisms—one-liners, sayings, tidbits of wisdom he’s collected from well-known quotes, mythologies, verses, and, of course, poetry. Since I’ve been lucky enough to spend lots of time in his presence, I’ve been able to gather these aphorisms, to memorize them, to keep them for safe keeping until I needed them. Over the past week, two of Doc’s sayings helped me understand something that felt completely overwhelming at first.

The first quote comes from William Wordsworth, a Romantic poet who became England’s poet laureate in 1843. During my senior year of undergraduate studies, Doc conducted an independent study for me in Romantic English Literature, and Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring” was on the syllabus. Here are two lines that stuck with me:

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man. (lines 7-8)

A week ago, as I sat down to eat dinner, a song came on my Pandora station that has always tugged at my heartstrings: the theme from the film Schindler’s List. I don’t know what came over me, but I lost it. I wept. Reflecting back to the film, which is always a difficult one to watch, and to the atrocities it displays from World War II, I was struck by the cruelty, by the hatred, by the darkness within humanity. Thinking of the Holocaust and what we are capable of doing to one another, I allowed Wordsworth’s lines to nurse my grieving heart.

Though the experience—the music playing and its ability to transport me to a specific time in history—was powerful, indeed, I knew something else was going on. I knew that my despair had been building up.

For the last two weeks, I’ve read a series of books on a subject that is both terribly appalling and utterly shocking, but to stay on task, I’ll just mention the two books that stand out most and that are relevant to this post (of course I’ll explain these books more in depth at the end of the year in my annual “Must-Reads” blog post, but for now, a snapshot will have to do).

The first book is Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. In it, Kolbert offers up as evidence a survey of scientific studies, ranging from sociology to anthropology to biology to ecology, to prove that the earth is on the verge of our sixth mass extinction (note, a mass extinction qualifies as a wipe-out of at least 50% of all species; the last time this happened was 66 million years ago, and the other four occurred before that over the span of Earth’s 4.5 billion years of life). As if that news wasn’t disturbing enough, she names the cause—humans. Our mistreatment of nature will lead to our demise, to the extinction of our species.

To corroborate and really breakdown the how and why of this sixth extinction is Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. In this book, Klein fiercely explains how capitalism (and all its accouterments—greed, materialism, consumerism, colonialism, industrialization, exploitation, power) is responsible for the changes in our climate, changes that will cause our sixth extinction if we don’t do something drastic now. Humanity’s obsession with these things has seemingly disconnected us from all that is sacred—human life, the natural environment, and morality. Klein shows us the error of our ways, not backing down for a moment in holding up the mirror to our deeply flawed ideologies—ideologies that have turned us against ourselves because their truths are too inconvenient to our current way of life.

And so, as I grieved over the Holocaust and over one of humanity’s darkest hours, the truths presented in these books accompanied that grief. Our mistreatment of one another and our Earth exceeds my comprehension entirely.

Much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of…

But then, Zachariah came home. We hugged, we sat in communion together over a meal (mine being reheated), we shared news from our days, and we feasted and delighted in one another’s company. How quickly I was reminded of the good in the world. How quickly I felt the power of love (the big-L love—the love that permeates all existence—and though little-l love—romantic love—offers up its own beauty, that’s not quite what I mean here). How quickly the veil of darkness lifted, and I could see clearly again.

And then another of Doc’s gems came to me:

It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

This one phrase has lifted me out of many emotionally overwhelming situations, has helped me make sense of the most trying times and circumstances. Once it became part of me, everything else just clicked, meaning, my entire cosmology fell into place, though it took me some time to understand that cosmology fully. When I took this phrase in, I made a silent vow to myself: I will strive to be a person who lights a candle. Though I may fall into despair when facing hard times, this phrase reminds not to dwell there for long, since cursing the darkness will never do any good.

I wanted to write up this blog post the very next day, on Thursday. But time ran away from me, and in my procrastination, the world was tormented by terrorism, by the darkness that exists in humanity. So now seems as important a time as any to pass along the wisdom I’ve been blessed with from Doc, wisdom that has me choose against cursing the darkness and instead opting for prayer—prayer for the world, for the Earth, and for humanity. Even though Wordsworth’s sentiments may someday resonate again, I trust in my ability to help raise our collective consciousness, to uplift others toward love, and to light my candle.

Missouri and Illinois: The Midwest and a Lesson on Perspective

All my traveling begins the same, and that is by asking one question that will guide my experience: What lesson will this trip teach me if I am open to it? For this journey to the Midwest, the answer didn’t hit me until the last day, but once I realized what it was, I saw its threads running through everything, waiting for me to notice, trusting that I would see.

On the flight across the country, I decided to get some work done, and so I read New and Selected Poems Volume I by Mary Oliver (one of the poets I am writing about in my dissertation). Oliver, I argue, sees the world from a chosen perspective, and this choice informs her perception and understanding of all life in the universe. In other words, Oliver’s poetry advocates this one basic lesson—we all have the power to choose how we see things, how we approach trying to understand this world, this universe. Here is an excerpt from Oliver’s “When Death Comes” to illustrate what I mean:

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

So on that flight to Kansas City, Oliver’s poems instilled in me a mindset, one that encouraged active choice about perspective and that promised a higher understanding as a result of that choice.

After arriving in Missouri, I headed straight for Liberty, where I was fortunate enough to participate in celebrating the 2015 cohort of Truman Scholars in what they call the Truman Scholar Leadership Week. Undoubtedly, I have never been in a room with so many movers and shakers, so many altruistic humans who have dedicated their lives to acts of service and to making the world a better place for all of us. Saturday evening ended with a talk from Professor Marcia Chatelain, former Truman Scholar who recently published her first book entitled South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration. Though her entire talk was inspirational, the piece that stirred me most came out during the Q&A session after the talk. When asked how to handle a conversation with someone about an issue where the two views are entirely opposing (in this case, we were discussing the events in Ferguson), Chatelain advised this: ask the person what value guides that particular understanding or interpretation of the event or issue. She said, and I’ll do my best to get it right here, that we all have a frame of understanding that informs what we think, and in order to expand or deepen our understanding, we must shift the frame. Shift the frame, shift the perspective. To give a little more depth to her answer and to her talk, she was especially advocating the value of studying history and the total value of education in relation to this process of shifting one’s frame.

My next lesson came when Zachariah, his mom, Jami, and I arrived in Henry, Illinois. We were driving across some areas of tall grass, and I kept seeing little sparks of light in the distance, hovering over the grass. I assumed it was just flashes from the reflecting headlights approaching us, until Jami said that this was the first time this year she’d seen the fireflies out. I was amazed! I had never seen fireflies before, and to see them scattered out in the field at night was incredible. I was also stunned that my limited knowledge about these tiny creatures prevented my ability to fully comprehend what was real in that moment. I thought back to Chatelain and the value of education in terms of informing our understanding of all things, including the mating habits of fireflies. I was grateful for Jami’s wisdom that illuminated and made richer my own interpretation of those lights in the field. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a photo of this scene, but here’s one to give you some sense of what it was like, along with a photo of Jami, Zachariah, and me at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Liberty and another of us with his sister, Molly, and her baby, Barret, in Henry:

A few days later, Zachariah and I walked all across his hometown, Henry, talking about his memories of the place and the events that occurred during his childhood there. We marveled at the difference in our perception of the little town. To me, it was idyllic, picturesque in terms of what I’d imagine quintessential summer in America to be. I imagined running through sprinklers on the lawn, swimming in the large river skirting Henry, watching the fireworks in the park on Independence Day. It seemed a place of innocence, of the good life, of small-town values. But to Zachariah, because of his not-always-so-fond recollections of the place, Henry was full of ghosts, of hauntings, of a troubled past. The town for him could never be what it was to me because of the vivid memories encroaching upon his perception. Though both of our perspectives were real and valid, time and the past shaped our views in a drastically different fashion.

Later in the week when Zachariah and I arrived in Chicago, one of our first destinations was Millennium Park to see The Cloud Gate, or what some unfortunately refer to as “The Bean.” Architect Anish Kapoor designed this art installation from stainless steel, and the effect is that viewers can peer into a mirror-like surface that reflects the self in middle of the city backdrop—to see one’s self in the context of the surrounding environment. As we explored the various curves and contours of The Cloud Gate, I marveled at the myriad ways the viewers interacted with the installation, how they engaged the art. Some lay prostrate on the ground with their feet propped up against the base, some made faces to see their expression reflected back, some rubbed the stainless steel to get the tactile sensation of the cool metal, some walked beneath the dome and peered up to see the seven or so versions of their self replicated back from different angles and in different sizes. The Cloud Gate was an artistic representation of differing perspectives.

Later that day, we ended up at The Art Institute of Chicago, which houses six paintings from Claude Monet’s haystack series. The story goes like this: in 1890/91, Monet painted stack(s) of hay during different seasons and during different times of the day. What I saw when looking at these paintings together was how much the natural environment changed the appearance of the stack(s). Monet’s work is among my favorite, and his paintings never fail to teach me valuable lessons in life, and in this case, the art reminded me of the power nature can have on our impression, or perspective, of the things around us. (For more info on Monet’s series, go here).

One evening, we took the super smart advice from my friend Raul and visited The John Hancock Center to catch an elevated view of the city rather than doing the skydeck and ledge at Willis Tower (formerly known as Sears Tower). Rather than paying $19.50 for a ticket at Willis, we bought a cocktail at The Signature Lounge in Hancock. Talk about a change in perspective! From the 96^th floor, the city changed completely. From my bird’s-eye view, I got a solid geographical and spatial understanding of the layout of Chicago. It was quiet and peaceful (the wine helped with that), compared to struggling along the hustling streets below. From that elevated point of view, my understanding of the space around me shifted the frame so dramatically that I fell in love with Chicago. I saw miles of beachfront, sailboats scattered across the Caribbean-blue water, the turning Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, the green of trees filling the gaps between buildings, the expanse of the suburbs reaching beyond city proper, the gardens and pools making use of the often-neglected rooftop space, and the outstanding architecture of each of the skyscrapers jetting up around and below me. It was breathtaking, and I probably wouldn’t have understood the city’s magnificence if not for seeing it from that height and from that perspective.

On the flight home, I returned to Oliver, and her words crystalized the lesson from this trip. Here is an excerpt from “The Ponds”:

        Still, what I want in my life

            is to be willing

            to be dazzled—

            to cast aside the weight of facts

            and maybe even

            to float a little

            above this difficult world.

            I want to believe I am looking

            into the white fire of a great mystery.

            I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—

            that the light is everything—that it is more than the sum

            of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

What all of this taught me is simple. Perspective changes everything. But what I still haven’t quite figured out is what external or internal influences determine how we adopt any particular perspective. The lessons from this trip offer up a few philosophies. Oliver’s poetry tells us we have the power to choose our perspective. Chatelain’s advice encourages us to shift our frame to get a deeper understanding of things. Jami’s generosity in sharing her wisdom reminds us that everyone is a teacher. Zachariah’s view of his hometown illustrates the effect of past experiences in how we perceive things. Kapoor’s installation invites curiosity when approaching multiple perspectives. Monet’s paintings reveal how nature and the environment alter our view. The heights of The John Hancock Center allow for transcendence and seeing the world from a higher perspective. I suppose synthesizing these lessons gives us one hopeful possibility—that regardless of how we see things in any given moment, we have the power to change how we see things. In other words, if our understanding and approach to life is based on our perspective, then all of life depends upon the frame we choose to adopt. What will your choice be?

Love: Is It or Isn’t It All You Need?

In one of their most famous songs, The Beatles promise, “All you need is love.” And as reassuring and romantic and positively lovely as that idea sounds, the skeptic in me has doubted the validity of that promise. Especially when I listen to some lyrics in a song by Patty Smyth and Don Henley—“Baby, sometimes love just ain’t enough.” So for heaven’s sake, which one is it? Is or isn’t love all you need?

When a relationship falls into hard times, I've tended to bounce back and forth between these two catchy sets of lyrics, using one to justify staying and the other to justify leaving. So in my quest to figure out which one is right, I’ve turned to other sources of wisdom for some guidance.

American Psychiatrist and author David Viscott says, “To love and to be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” The thing I’ve always liked about this quote is the phrasing—to love, to be loved. What stands out to me is the semantics. To Viscott, love isn’t a feeling or an emotion; rather, it is an act that a lover must do constantly. In other words, to love and to be loved, as verbs, require action from both parties. The lover must DO love, and the beloved must RECEIVE love; this is to feel the sun from both sides.

So how do we do this love thing? One of my favorite books is The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary D. Chapman, who tells readers that in love, there are languages, five, to be exact, as follows: quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Chapman’s book helps you figure out your main love language, and that of your partner’s, and then you can together “speak” to your lover in his or her preferred love language. The problem here, I think, is that the book stops short. When I read this book years ago, I thought to myself, why would I only develop the one language that my partner speaks rather than developing them all to become an expert at loving? Ambitious thought? Perhaps. But if love is a do-ing, then why not do more of all five expressions of love? Wouldn’t practicing all five cultivate that to love action? In this line of thinking, love is something more than just felt; it is something that becomes part of who we are.

A few days ago, a friend posted a link to a book review on Thich Nhat Hanh’s How to Love. I was intrigued immediately because there it was again—love as an act. After reading the book, which is so full of wisdom that I would highly recommend it to anyone, I believed Hanh illuminated the hidden truth about love just by using a simple comparison: “The moment love stops growing, it begins to die. It’s like a tree; if a tree stops growing, it begins to die. We can learn how to feed our love and help it continue to grow” (13). Comparing a love relationship to a tree resonated with me (partly because I see trees as teachers in life, partly because the concept of cultivation/growth rings true, hence the title of this blog). What I get from this quote is this: in order to have true love, there has to be an act of love performed on a regular basis. Without this act, the love will die. In this way, to have a relationship that exists in true love requires constant care and tending. To relinquish that duty is to choose to let the love die, as the tree would die without water.

Taking this comparison into consideration with the five love languages, it makes sense to merge these two teachings. The watering happens via the love languages. Aha! There it is. But can it be so simple? What if there’s still more? And this is where I think the fun begins. Since every person is unique and thus every love relationship is unique, every couple has the chance to become seekers of other methods of watering—to find as many methods as possible. Building this arsenal of personalized watering systems means that as a couple, you get to design your partnership, tailor it to help both people be in full bloom all the time. Thinking about this, what a gift it would be for both parties, moves me beyond words.

So…water the tree, use the love languages to do so, explore other methods, be in full bloom. Okay. And then one more thing occurs to me, and this isn’t from a book. For a true love to flourish, it requires the constant watering, yes, but it also requires exclusive watering. What I mean is that there has to be a covenant to not water other romantic trees. It may seem obvious at first, but what I think is less obvious is that we often find little forms of watering harmless in the beginning, until suddenly there are two trees—one flourishing, one thirsty. So we must be careful where we water.  

My reconciliation of The Beatles and Smyth/Henley is that both are right. “All you need is love”… yes, assuming that the lovers consistently work toward a true and expansive love. And “Baby, sometimes love just ain’t enough”… yes, assuming that at least one party is unwilling to do constant watering.

As always, I share these musings in hopes that some of what has inspired me in trying to understand it all will also inspire you. And if you are so inspired, then here’s to a lifetime of becoming, and then being, constant gardeners.

Santa Barbara: Cultivating Curiosity

This weekend I went up to Santa Barbara to visit my friend, Jeremy. We met when I first started grad school at CGU; Jeremy was beginning his master degree and is now pursuing his doctorate at UCSB. 

During my drive northwest, I was listening to Zadie Smith's On Beauty, and though I was enthralled by the narrative, I felt compelled to turn it off once I hit the oceanfront portion of the drive. I've seen that landscape countless times before, but this time it gripped me in a surprising way. The Channel Islands seemed much larger, the ocean much more expansive, and the sun much brighter, perhaps because of the haze. It was all so much more than I remembered. Observing nature in this way, a way that felt entirely new, brought to light what would be the intention for my trip, what I hoped to learn from my time in Santa Barbara--to approach life with a renewed curiosity. 

As it turns out, Jeremy's dog, Bonnie, was my best instructor for how to cultivate that sense of curiosity. Bonnie is a rescue dog, about two years old, part Pit and part mixture of other breeds. 

She is the sweetest, most affectionate dog, full of an energy I have never experienced before. For example, she frantically licked my face as she jumped up high enough from the floor to greet me with kisses, and this ensued for at least five minutes after my arrival. And every time I headed to another level in the apartment, Bonnie raced me up or down the stairs, nearly knocking me over with her exuberance. Bonnie's enthusiasm and excitement was infectious, and I imbibed it, knowing its powers would help me fulfill my intention for the weekend. 

One thing I knew I wanted to do during my visit was to walk the Labyrinth, a maze whose path is constructed with stones. To the center and out is 0.6 miles, and it is designed to bring its walkers into a state of meditation and contemplation. It sits at the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean at UCSB.

After a kale smoothie from Silvergreen's, we ventured to campus, where I walked the path of the Labyrinth. The design had its intended effect on me, for I entered a state of deep contemplation. Journeying forth in silence, I kept getting confused by the course of the path... there were times when I approached the center, the goal, and then there were times I veered farther away from it, which seemed senseless and even frustrating. Then I noticed the footprints of walkers before me, and they gave me faith to continue on, to trust the path and follow where it leads. I also noticed that even though I was never in the same place twice, there were several points along the way when the road looked familiar, similar, if not identical, to a place I had already been. Though the stones were each unique, they were all made of the same material, all laid in their place by the same hand. I took lessons from these observations, applied them to a larger trajectory, reminding myself that in all arenas of life, lessons await if only I take the time to see, contemplate, and imbibe.

After my time in the Labyrinth, I joined Jeremy and Bonnie on their trail adventures, scaling the hills around the ocean and the nearby pond.

For dinner, Jeremy and I went to a tapas restaurant called Milk and Honey. We shared an array of delicious appetizer-size plates, my favorites of which included the bacon-wrapped dates drizzled with honey and the toasted Brie with caramelized onions and apples in a balsamic reduction. The ambiance also made the meal more enjoyable, since there were draped curtains and lit candles throughout the space. I highly recommend this spot, thought it might be better suited for a romantic date!

The next morning, Jeremy, Bonnie, and I hiked up the trail at Inspiration Point, where I saw one of the most stunning views of the ocean I have ever seen. Because the mountains there hover over the sea, it reminded me of being in Hawaii or on some other island where the two worlds collide effortlessly. Though it was a strenuous hike and a bit hot because of the high sun, it was one of the best instructors for fulfilling my intention. Silence again found me, as I needed to keep quiet to preserve and balance my breath. This silence brought with it contemplation, where I studied nature all around me. The scenery invited deep appreciation, seeing wild overgrowth, powerful rock slides, and stunning ocean views. In short, the name of the hike suited it perfectly, for I was nothing less than completely inspired. And Bonnie again instructed me, showing me the way in all things. Her curiosity amazed me--she was investigating every nook and rock with a sense of wonder and delight, she greeted all hikers with a sense of joy and friendliness, and she welcomed all dogs with a sense of playfulness and intrigue. I couldn't help but follow her lead in all respects (well, save the sniffing of other dogs), adopting all she had to teach me and doing my best to take it in, to make it part of me, to let it change how I see the world and others and myself. 

The afternoon ended with a delicious meal at The Natural Cafe, which I recommend to any visitors of Santa Barbara. As the name suggests, they serve food that is responsibly raised, cooked, and prepared.

All in all, I take away the value of silence, contemplation, and following the invaluable instruction of nature and animals, as they never lead astray. And my mission to cultivate curiosity was fulfilled beyond what I had even imagined, probably because of the very nature of curiosity, which took me into realms I hadn't anticipated going, forced me out of my comfort zone a bit, and taught me to see all things anew, to marvel at all life.