Itineraries Summer 2009 | Partnerships In Aging

Contents:

Extraordinary in the Ordinary by Linda and Jim Henry

Passionate Pursuit of Purpose by Helen Harkness

Legacies of the Heart by Meg Newhouse

Excavations in Three Parts by Bolton Anthony

Wake up, Show up, Lighten Up: The Three Ups to Aging Well by Trish Herbert

The Indian Bard and the Beloved: Tagore—Poet, Mystic, and Reformer by Linda George

Summer’s Fullness by John G. Sullivan

Books of Interest: For Happiness in Old Age—Discover and Live Your Purpose by Barbara Kammerlohr

Poems on Purpose collected by Jack Clarke

Extraordinary in the Ordinary by Linda and Jim Henry

Astonishing us with her amazing voice, many people worldwide have heard of Susan Boyle, the 47-year-old unemployed church worker from Scotland’s West Lothian district whose voice and story captured the hearts of millions. Described as a very quiet, unassuming, plain, down-to-earth woman, she was greeted with snickers as she walked onto the stage to audition for Britain’s Got Talent show. The audience laughed at her drab and common appearance. However, as she began to sing, the crowd stood in amazement and cheered her remarkable voice.

Michelle Bowman, Longmont, Colorado PrestigePLUS wellness program manager, shares the extraordinary story of her visit to the home of a dear 92-year-old-friend where she happened to observe a number of cruise ship brochures laying on the table. Her friend, Irene, abruptly informed Michele that the two of them were going on a cruise together. She said, “Maybe if I take you on a cruise to find you a new husband, I can leave this planet. You know I’m ready to pass on. Besides, I booked and paid for us to go on an arthritis association cruise.” Amazing as it sounded at the time, the two friends subsequently went on the cruise. When the ship docked at St. Croix, they were met by Jon Bowman. Irene said emphatically, “That’s him! I told you we would find you a new husband.” Michele and Jon were married four months later.

These two different stories underscore James Hillman’s premise in his book, The Soul’s Code, that all humans have an exceptional component to their lives, whether recognized or not. And, when we explore people’s stories intentionally and extensively, we soon uncover the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Jim has listened to hundreds of stories in his more than 35 years in career development, and he has never met a dull person. Career guidance professionals seeking to uncover people’s satisfying talents often face resistance from people who claim their lives have no significance. Many people resist sharing their stories because they fear that it sounds like aggrandizement. However, those with healthy self-esteem and a sense of God-given personal value enjoy the process of uncovering strengths and aptitudes.

“Seasoned humans,” as we like to call them, over age 65 are especially blessed with passionate talents, many years of experience, and related stories. The metaphor of a filing cabinet comes to mind. Like the operating system of a computer, the bottom drawer of the cabinet comes filled with a working structure containing information handed down through the ages: genes, instincts, ancestral heritage, instructions on how to relate to parents, and other facets of the environment. For example, studies indicate that, even before birth, babies can process sound and respond to rhythm.

After birth and moving through the developmental stages of youth and adulthood, our imaginary filing cabinet begins to fill with input from parents, culture in general, education, and overall life experiences. The final stage of elderhood is represented by the top drawer.

One method of more clearly identifying your extraordinary history is to look through your various imaginary files and identify peak, positive experiences. These were times when you felt enthusiastically engaged in a task or project, when time seemed to fly because you enjoying yourself. You experienced a joyful concentration that energized you. If you are drawn to this approach, attempt to identify five or more such experiences during different periods of your life. Next, look for patterns of talents and skills common to most of the joyful experiences. Share stories about them with other people. You will soon discover how this will enliven you and provide a sense of pride-filled heritage. You may even uncover a sense of life purpose.

After about age 65, imagine the top drawer of the cabinet beginning to fill with experiences unique to this later stage of life. As they adapt, seasoned humans begin to embody insights and talents seldom found in younger people. Elders are not just older adults. Carl Jung, well-known explorer of the psyche, spoke about individuation in later life, broadening self-understanding of “Who am I?” Psychologist Erik Erikson studied developmental stages; the final stage of mature elderhood he called ego integrity, a tendency toward the acceptance of self and others, life completion, and a return to life satisfaction. Swedish gerontologist Lars Tornstam speaks of gerotranscendence, elders rising above the cultural demands of adulthood and moving towards maturation, wisdom, and spiritual growth.

Based upon the research of Jung, Erikson, Tornstam, and others, listed below are some developmental characteristics often exhibited by seasoned humans. Check each statement if you believe it at least somewhat describes you, or someone you know age 65+.

It is easier to embrace the mysteries of life. I welcome with awe the many wonders of the universe.
I see more clearly the many sides of myself, both positive and negative.
I see myself as part of the whole of humanity and am less self-absorbed.
The pieces of life’s puzzle seem to be falling in place, and I feel more content with myself.
I embrace a faith system that provides a coherent pattern to my life.
Desiring to simplify my life, I believe that owning too many things becomes a burden.
I am much less interested in assuming roles in life. I tend to present my authentic self.
My perception of time seems to be changing. I can look back on past events with new and experienced eyes.
The quality rather than quantity of relationships is more important to me.
I enjoy “positive solitude.”
While acknowledging mistakes and having regrets for things left undone, I sense that my life has purpose and, at least in small ways, I am making a difference during my life.
Fear of death seems to recede; I see it as a natural part of the life process.

Unfortunately, in a culture that tends to deny the value of growing old, many of these elder qualities vital to the health of society go unrealized and appreciated. It’s as though younger generations simply dump the contents of the top drawer. Thankfully, as the age wave of baby-boomers floods the coming years, the worth of elders will undoubtedly re-emerge. Extraordinary in the ordinary does not just refer to the 88-year-old person who climbs Mt. Rainier or the 105-year-old pediatrician who finally retires because her eyesight begins to fail her. They are people like social worker Marty Richard’s dementia client who has the ability to “pick up nonverbal signs of stress in my life.” All elders have an extraordinary depth of history. Adult family home provider Lisa Jackson affirms, “My women have so many interesting stories to share.” Retirement home activities director Maria Giampaolo reports about elders making “lessons of a life time” quilts designed to preserve a person’s legacy. Like many seasoned humans, they have become “big picture” people skilled at making connections and synthesizing information.

Never underestimate the extraordinary circumstances and events of your life that can also lead to extraordinary actions. Nobel Peace prize co-winner Jody Williams reminds us, “For me, the difference between an ‘ordinary’ and an ‘extraordinary’ person is not the title that person might have, but what they do to make the world a better place for us all.”

Linda and Jim Henry are authors of four holistic, healthcare-related books, the latest of which, Transformational Eldercare from the Inside Out, Strengths-Based Strategies for Caring was published by nursesbooks.org. National speakers and experienced workshop facilitators, in recent years they have presented to more than 30 nationwide healthcare and eldercare organizations. One of the workshops offered by the Henrys focuses on the theme of this issue of Itineraries: Igniting Passionate Purpose in the Second Journey. The Henrys live in Seattle.

Passionate Pursuit of Purpose by Helen Harkness

Helen Harkness, Ph.D., founded Career Design Associates, Inc. (CDA) in 1978. She is a futurist, consultant, researcher, experienced speaker, teacher, writer, and a pioneer in the development and implementation of career management programs. She has worked with more than 10,000 clients by looking at the realities of today’s workplace in light of her intuitive eye for what’s next. Her books include Capitalizing on Career Chaos, Don’t Stop the Career Clock, and The Career Chase. Dr. Harkness broadcasted a weekly show, discussing current career issues affecting the workplace. Visit her website at www.career-design.com.

Igniting our passionate purpose is seen as a rapidly increasing necessity in today’s chaotic and complex changing world. We are all aware that the 40-year “Womb to Tomb” job is totally defunct! There is no longer any safety net, except what we, the individual, create. I have labeled this career revision the “Yo Yo Model—You’re On Your Own!” You and I are responsible for learning to successfully balance our own career on the current edge of constant change, chaos, complexity, and uncertainty. Though painful, frequently fearful, and characterized by a “miserable middle,” discovering the purpose you can pursue with passion requires activating a major step of growth, creativity, coherence, and order for our work lives.

Helping adults identify and achieve their passionate purpose has been my mission for more than three decades. I can say with certainty that it is the best anti-aging medication we can possibly have in order to live long and die fast! Personally, while I usually sleep very well, occasionally I wake up feeling as if I’ve been run over by a truck! However, staying in bed is not an option since I have client appointments that are critically important to keep. I arise, ignoring the discomfort, and surprisingly 30 minutes later I feel great and am totally unaware of any aches and pains! I begin what will be a long and busy day committed to providing the process, resources, insight, and contacts to help my clients realize and take the action on the purpose they can successfully pursue with passion.

My career clients include a wide variety of professionals: 25% are lawyers, 10% are physicians, and a large number are women, many coming out of a divorce after years as a housewife and mother. Many clients have succeeded financially but now realize that meaning is missing in their lives. Daily I talk with talented, seemingly successful adults who privately see themselves stalled in inane, pointless, unchallenging, and frequently abusive work situations. Countless people feel powerless, directionless, cynical, victimized, and trapped in a career that pays the bills but has no meaning or purpose for them.

Without thought, many of my clients have been imprisoned in a vicious cycle by what is seen as material needs, so they spend money to fill an empty hole in their gut because there is little other purpose in their lives. Burned out and sensing that their work life is out of control, they long for something different and better. They can’t name it, can’t find it, suspect they wouldn’t recognize it if they ran into it or that they might be too fearful of the risk involved to take it. “I’m looking for the second half of my life. I could get it, if I just knew what it was!” The successful executives who told me this echoed what I hear constantly from clients seeking their career options today.

I urge my clients in pursuit of purpose to realize and remember always that today we are pioneers on a new frontier. To become successful today we are being forced to distance ourselves from the familiar and head toward the unknown and the unnamed. While this is fearful, it’s a challenge and an opportunity to be a modern pathfinder, creating new routes and directions for ourselves and others who follow us. The colliding and overlapping of the old age and the new age of being “here or there” (but maybe both in a single lifetime) has created a breakdown in our expectations for the ways things are supposed to be. Their loss of myth, assumptions, and rules has created great anxiety, doubt, and extreme uncertainty about the way we are to live our lives. The current reality is that we live in an increasingly complex world, riddled with chaos and the “future shock” predicted by Toffler in 1970.

We can view the chaos in our work as a cry of disappointment or a stirring call for a new purpose. Discovering this meaningful purpose and direction strengthens the will and resolve to bring work into alignment with belief—the head with the heart. Our reality is that security in the past conventional sense is an illusion, and success itself must now be redefined. “Freedom is knowing our options.” This is my mantra, but I also stress that this freedom carries responsibility to discover, develop, and creatively utilize our potential to leave our world a better place. I explain clearly that taking creative control and changing careers can be incredibly challenging, but ultimately unbelievably rewarding. A career change can happen only for a client when their pain is greater than the fear, hence the formula: CC = P > F. After three decades of focusing on helping thousands of adults make this transition, I assure them that we can achieve positive results with their thoughtful and dedicated commitment. How do I accomplish this?

I communicate carefully to my clients that discovering and gaining their purpose is a four-step process of: 1) Looking Inward to identify values, skills, strengths, and possible career matches; 2) Looking Outward to research career realities; 3) Looking Forward to name the specific career matching the purpose; and 4) Action Steps to gain the purpose.

The Looking Inward Step is critical to identifying and igniting the purpose to pursue with passion. While I use countless assessments and exercises to achieve this, the main activity is completing the following chart.

This list of “glass balls” becomes their written prescription for what they are seeking. After careful thought, we analyze their list to determine their Meaning Magnet, their tap-root, the passionate purpose that ties all their glass balls together. As an example, mine is the following: I am a grower—of people, ideas, trees, and plants. As a teacher for thousands of clients, I follow up and am delighted when a client moves forward toward their career purpose. As a naturalist, I have an 8-acre yard that was originally a burned-out Texas cotton farm with one tree. Currently there are over 600 plants of all sizes and species which I water and look forward to their new leaves or branches. It isn’t necessary for the plant to be exotic or the client to be famous or unusual, but merely for both to grow in its natural way and place.

A 30-40 hour Skills Workshop for about 10 clients of various ages and careers represents a major component of discovering one’s purpose. Participants write about talents from various times in their lives and then share their stories in group sessions. These are stories about skills they (1) did well, (2) intensely enjoyed, and (3) remember with pride. Each listener in the group takes notes about the skills they have heard and shares the results with the speaker.

Frankly, this Skills Workshop is ranked the best part of my Career Design process by my clients. I am frequently amazed at their positive response gained from the interaction with each other and the opening up and trust that develops. They bond and stay in touch, helping each other and frequently starting businesses etc. together.

The following is the final summary sheet my clients complete: (Notice that Purpose is listed first..)

Pursuit of Personal Power

Balancing Life and Career at the Edge of Chaos

In summary, to know and ignite your passionate purpose, our current “Yo Yo Model—You’re On Your Own” requires the following: (1) Assess and verbalize your skills; (2) Identify achievements where you successfully used these to bring successful outcomes; (3) Know your Success Criteria, your “Glass Balls,” the fundamental bedrock essentials necessary for your success and motivation; (4) Align these with the direction and needs of your profession; (5) Exude energy, intensity, stamina, and flexibility; stress enthusiasm for challenges and the ability to creatively cope with complexities created by change; and (6) Lead—don’t merely follow! Act—don’t always wait to react.

Legacies of the Heart by Meg Newhouse

Among the things that make the “second journey” something to anticipate rather than dread are the developmental “tasks” or “urges” that we now understand come with the territory. Most salient among these catalysts to continued growth are finding purpose and leaving a legacy. My own recent absorption in the topic of legacy has made me think more about its relationship to purpose. I believe they are separate but overlapping, or perhaps flip sides of the same coin. They nourish and reinforce each other. Our most authentic and powerful legacies come from living “on purpose,” that is, giving our unique gifts, guided by our core essence. These gifts of ourselves, both tangible and intangible, the imprint of our lives that reflect our purpose, will necessarily be legacies of the heart. For this and other reasons, I advocate clarifying our purpose and being intentional about our legacies early in our second journey, as we harvest and pass on our inner wealth while there is still time to reap the many rewards.

Purpose and Legacy “Defined”

Both purpose and legacy are huge, multifaceted subjects. Since this entire journal is devoted to purpose, I offer here only a rudimentary working definition that shapes my understanding of the relationship between purpose and legacy. I’m using purpose in the sense of “life purpose” or “calling” — our unique combination of core values, gifts, passions, and essence (Soul/Higher Self) that, when recognized and offered in service, give our lives meaning, wholeness, and joy.
Despite its narrow, concrete primary dictionary definition, namely, “a gift or bequest of property,” to me legacy is:

as broad as the imprint of one’s life that lasts at least into the next generation and as specific as a single piece of property (e.g., a family heirloom) willed to a survivor;
as mighty as a religious or scientific paradigm shift or great artistic output and as mundane as a single family recipe passed down the generations;
as public as an architectural monument and as private as a letter written to your children or grandchildren;
as tangible as a bank check and as intangible as a seemingly casual word of advice;
as life-enhancing as a lifesaving Heimlich maneuver and as life-denying as the Holocaust.

In navigating this thicket I have found
a few distinctions particularly helpful:

Macro/Micro: Macro refers to the level of societies and cultures, the traditions, values, and world views we inherit from our cultures, typically unconsciously and unquestioningly. It also includes legacies left that change cultural mores, esthetics, knowledge, religions, paradigms, etc., occasionally by a truly great individual and, commonly, by the cumulative small acts of thousands of individuals over time. In contrast, micro refers to the individual or family and is the focus of this essay.
Intentional/unintentional: My assumption is that most of us are relatively unintentional about our legacies until late in life, if then. That is, we don’t think in terms of what we are leaving and want to leave behind. I argue here for intentionality earlier rather than later.
Heart/Soul-based/Ego-based: By the former, I mean legacies stemming from our life-purpose, essence/Soul, which I assume reflect higher-order values such as love, compassion, generosity, tolerance. Ego may well be involved, but only in the service of these values. Legacies of the heart are true gifts, without strings or expectations. In contrast, Ego-based legacies reflect egoic values and instincts such as fear, competition, lack, exclusion, control. I hypothesize that the more aware and intentional we are, the more we will want and try to leave “legacies of the heart.”
Tangible/Intangible: Tangible legacies include monetary and other material things, such as real estate, family heirlooms, memoirs, photos, and recipes; more public buildings (financed, designed, built); organizations founded, funded, or shaped; and artistic creations of all genres. Intangible legacies range from the beliefs, world view, values, life lessons, accrued wisdom we transmit, to the love we model and the forms in which we do or don’t communicate it, to the imprint of our core essence and our deepest values to benefit those we love and to improve the world. Ideally, tangible legacies express and symbolize intangible ones.

It is worth noting that on their deathbeds, most people want to know only three things: 1) Have I given and received love? 2) Did I live my life or someone else’s? Do I feel complete? 3) Have I left the world a little better than I found it?1

Legacies Received

Most people, when they start to think about legacies they have received think first of intangible legacies. For example, 80–90% of participants in workshops and legacy discussion groups I’ve led respond to an open-ended request to “Think of a legacy — any way you want to think of it — that you’ve received from someone who cared about you,” by mentioning intangible legacies, such as:

a social justice ethic from one or both parents (or grandparents) — or thrift ethic, work ethic, or (name the value).
a scientist father’s essential curiosity, wonder, amazement, and optimism that now shapes his daughter’s work of integrating science and spirituality.
support and life-changing advice from a mentor teacher, in one case, receiving a B instead of the expected A in a graduate counseling course, with the comment: “You think you know more about other people’s lives than they do.”
watching a brother transform himself in his last year of life, redefining success, living fully, and creating an end-of life ritual of forgiveness and gratitude.
a 100-year-old grandmother’s question “When are you going to finish your studies?” that caused her granddaughter to get a valued Ph.D. in mid-life.
a few ensuing “real” conversations with my family

Some of these legacies were negative or at best mixed:

Seeing a father die relatively young unfulfilled in his work, which sent his daughter the message: “If you don’t do what you want to do, it will kill you.”
A tradition of martyrdom from a woman’s maternal Italian side, which it has become part of her life work to interrupt
Family feuding or squabbling over property “unfairly” bequeathed
Family secrets causing lasting shame

Even when material legacies pop up first in this workshop exercise, they almost always reflect the values, beliefs, or other intangible emotional or spiritual gifts of the giver. For example:

a family vacation home that represented the strong value placed on family
family recipes and food traditions that recall broader family values and experiences around the dinner table
In my own case, four material legacies from my revered grandfather that profoundly shaped my life: 1) a savings bond given at my birth that paid most of my college tuition, 2) a loan when I was 16 that allowed me to buy an excellent second-hand flute, 3) his autobiography, written shortly before his death, a tangible record of his values, wisdom, and life story, and 4) a typed collection of about 100 of his favorite poems, most of which he knew by heart.

Leaving Legacies

It is much easier to recall and ponder legacies we have received than it is to contemplate the legacies we are leaving. For one thing, our hyper-busy lives discourage being conscious about our legacies. For another, we can be discouraged by feeling inadequate (“I’m not leaving anything worthwhile behind”) or overly humble (“I shouldn’t feel proud of this thing I did”) or overwhelmed at the perceived gap between what Frederick Buechner called “the world’s deep hunger” and our own capacities. Moreover, being intentional about our legacies requires us to confront our mortality and the meaning of our life, which this culture discourages.

And yet, as we age and begin inexorably to confront our own mortality, many of us begin to think and care more about the meaning of our lives, our contributions, and the legacy we want to leave behind for those we love as well as for generations to come. We want to bequeath our inner wealth and the question becomes: How do we want to do that beyond what we have already inevitably left behind simply by living and working in the world, with more or less awareness?

What I’m seeing is a widespread desire to leave material “legacies of the heart,” concrete evidence of our passions, purpose, and learning from life. I see it in the importance discussion group members come to place on material (mostly non-monetary) inheritances or keepsakes from loved forbearers. I infer it from the exploding interest in memoir/life story writing or scrapbooking as evidenced by numerous books and courses. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi captures this idea memorably: “Are you ‘saved’?” he asks. “I don’t mean it in a theological sense but in a computer sense. Are you saved? Have you downloaded your life experience for coming generations? Have you started doing your legacy work?”2

It is not uncommon for purpose-based legacies to grow out of the dying process. For example, lung cancer struck a 40-year-old nonsmoking friend of mine who was a lawyer specializing in health care. As it advanced to a terminal stage, he wrote an influential article, published in the July 16, 1995, Boston Globe Magazine, on the importance of compassionate caregiving within the entire medical community. This led to his planning with family and close friends to found the now thriving Kenneth B. Schwartz Center, whose mission is “to support and advance compassionate health care…in a way that provides hope to the patient, support to caregivers and sustenance to the healing process.” More recently, Randy Pautscher, facing a diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, gave a “Last Lecture” at Carnegie Mellon University (created mainly for his young children), which spread through the media — news, web, Oprah and, finally, Jeffrey Zaslow’s book by the same name, leaving an unexpectedly broad and powerful legacy.

Obviously, these are legacies of unusual scope, and there are many more examples of “small” private legacies that are inspired by the immediacy of death, including the example of a brother’s dying ritual mentioned above. While we are blessed with these inspired deathbed legacies, how many people never leave any legacies because they put it off until it is too late? And how might our families and communities and even the world benefit from our leaving them sooner rather than later?

Examples abound. A friend of mine, who was widowed with three very young children and few financial resources, 15 years later created The Wildflower Camp Foundation, which enables children who have suffered the loss of a parent to attend summer camps. This legacy grew out of her loss and the healing role such camps played for her and her children through the generosity of several camp directors who provided scholarships to them.

For the past three years, the small but influential non-profit Civic Ventures has annually awarded Purpose Prizes (money and recognition) to passionate social entrepreneurs over 60 who are taking on society’s biggest challenges, creating new programs, and making lasting change. One of the 2008 winners was Catalino Tapia, an immigrant gardener who raises money from other gardeners, his clients, and local businesses to fund scholarships for Latino students dreaming of college. Such stories are inspiring partly because many of us could do something similar, assuming we possessed the requisite passion and purpose around a cause.
BUT we don’t have to be a social entrepreneur, and it doesn’t have to be a public or large offering. A colleague of mine, having taken good care of various family treasures (furniture, pictures, jewelry, silver, etc.), has gradually over time written short notes about the origin, family stories, and importance of individual items and attached them to the items. To her, these messages are more important to hand down than the actual items, and she has the current reward of a 9-year-old granddaughter’s rapt attention.

On a personal note, I have embarked on a legacy letter-writing project, akin to an “ethical will,” which involves writing letters over time to my family (husband, children, grandchildren, and siblings) — some individual letters of appreciation, some common letters laying out my beliefs, values, life lessons, wishes for end-of-life care and after-death rituals. I imagine that this project will evolve into some memoir or family/life story pieces. It is challenging to carve out the time, to write from the heart (as opposed to ego), to face the possibility that the recipients will react with indifference or even alienation to my bared soul, and to trust in whatever impact there may be. But the rewards have been worth it:

my own growth and learning — clarifying values, purpose; rediscovering meaning, threads and patterns, unfinished business;
a few ensuing “real” conversations with my family
a certain satisfaction in offering my vulnerable, evolving core self in the service of an unknown legacy to my children, grandchildren, and perhaps beyond. Perhaps this then becomes part of my own life purpose.

In summary, I believe most of us are best served if we reflect on and act intentionally to leave our legacies throughout rather than at the end of our second journey. And that is simpler, though not necessarily easier, than we think. We simply need to discover or clarify our life purpose — our deepest values, longings, “woundings,” gifts, passions, essence — because when we are living and acting with awareness from our purpose, we will have a powerful, positive impact on the people in our lives and a clearer idea what we want to bequeath to them and future generations. The authenticity and purity of intent is the key factor, not the magnitude of the actual legacy. What matters most is that it comes as a gift from the heart, without strings and expectations, but with love and a desire to self-express, serve, and make a positive difference. These legacies will be received if, when, and how according to the readiness of the recipients, and they will be passed on in ripples impossible to imagine.

Indeed, if enough people were to consciously leave such legacies of the heart, we could incrementally transform the culture and preserve the planet for future generations. And who is riper to leave such a legacy than second-journeyers?

Meg Newhouse is a nationally known pioneer in Third-Age LifeCrafting and an experienced group facilitator, teacher, coach, and program designer. As a catalyst for living with passion, purpose and grace after 50, she gives talks and workshops, writes, and consults to organizations, helping people create vital, fulfilling later lives that express who they are and how they want to contribute. She is currently working on a book on purposeful legacy. The founder of the Life Planning Network, she is the co-author of Life Planning for the Third Age: A Design Guide and Toolkit. Meg holds a BA from Wellesley College, MAT from Harvard University, and PhD in political science from UCLA. She is an avid learner/seeker on many fronts, a serious amateur flutist, and devoted friend, family member and grandmother. Visit her website at www.passionandpurpose.com.

Excavations in Three Parts by Bolton Anthony

The great reward from mining our life experience comes when we strike that vein of purpose and find that the seemingly diffused endeavors and commitments of our life cohere. A hidden pattern is revealed, a “strange attractor” around which the once random trajectories of our life now constellate, disclosed. And we arrive at the place where “everything belongs”—ready, as the poet Yeats says, “to cast out remorse” and “live it all again and yet again” (“Dialogue of Self and Soul”).

When I arrived, I could find no one to show me to my class. I’d been hired—mid-term—to fill a vacancy caused by an illness or death; and as I wandered the empty cavernous hallways, gently pushing open classroom doors, and climbing the wide, seemingly endless flights of creaky wooden stairs, I became increasing angry that the school was so poorly managed. I was a teacher, and somewhere in this ancient building there was a class that needed me.

Why did God make you? Every Catholic of a certain age—as part of their early catechetical drilling—will have been asked this sixth question from the Baltimore Catechism and been expected to answer: God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven. If the child took this teaching to heart, he stepped through a door and embarked on a quest to untangle the mysterious threads of purpose in his life.

Of the four parts of the answer, it was the third—perhaps because it seemed the only one I could do something about, the only area of action in my control—that ignited my passion. Like all great teaching, the “answer” is just a trove of further questions: How did I serve God in this world? What was my calling, my vocation? What was to be my work in the world?

But there was something too constricted in the way these questions came to be framed for me. For a life to be worth living, it had to be a life worth dying for. That became the test of authenticity. For the child that I was, enfolded by ritual, with a love for learning and a gift for writing, there seemed only three career paths that were legitimate: I could become a priest, a teacher, or a writer.

As I moved through my student years, then into my householding years, I found myself progressively barred from each of these paths. In puberty I discovered girls and ruled out a life of celibacy. I married, started a family, and embarked on making a living. I couldn’t do it as a writer; my gift was perhaps too small, my dedication too tepid, or the demands on my time too many. So I became a teacher.

We were standing at the edge of the playground with the high fortress-like wall behind us. To be heard over the noise of the playing children, I had raised my voice. Tamping his hand down, my colleague cautioned me. He nodded imperceptibly, and I followed the direction of his nod to where an old hag of a nun was watching us from an opened second-story window.

—The principal will hear you.

—And well she should. I’ll tell her what I think of how this place is run. Do you know what I’m doing these days… after I wander the hallways for an hour or two looking for my class? I come out and work in the garden, just to have something productive to do. No, let her come talk to me. In fact, I want to see the Registrar.

I finished a master’s degree in creative writing and, in the fall of 1967, took my first job teaching English at Xavier University, a Black university in New Orleans. I was returning to the city of my birth after an absence of 16 years—returning at a strident and tumultuous moment in our history which, in my own life and the lives of my students, seemed to call into question the value of teaching and learning. Martin Luther King was shot during the spring of 1968, and Richard Nixon was elected the following fall.

I left Xavier the following year. Though I’d intended to pursue a doctorate at Notre Dame, where I’d been an undergraduate, I found immediately I couldn’t afford that and instead ended up teaching part-time at several colleges near South Bend. I left teaching altogether three years later, after a final year at a prep school.

Though I pursued other career paths in my life—got a master’s degree in Library Science and worked as a public librarian, got a doctorate in Educational Administration and worked as a university administrator—all these endeavors somehow seemed to come up short, to lack legitimacy, measured against the standards ingrained in childhood.

The texts I have been inserting are the episodes from a dream—one of a number of powerful dreams I had the year I turned fifty. It came as a blessing and a dispensation that what had seemed like no path was indeed a genuine path:

I was using a hoe to weed the garden plot tucked into a corner where two high walls intersected, when I caught sight of him striding toward me across the wide lawn. He was a behemoth of a man, dressed in a clerical black suit that shimmered as the sun danced over it. He stopped when he drew close.

—You asked to see the Registrar? Well, I am the Registrar.

I minced no words telling him how poorly I thought the school was run. —I am a teacher, I said, and there are students here who need me.

He ignored my diatribe as he surveyed my work. Then, looking at me, he said, —So these are the magnificent gardens everyone is talking about!

I looked about me and saw the garden—lush and fragrant with flowering plants—as if for the first time. As we strolled the grounds together, he admiring the many landscaped areas we came across, I realized I had somehow managed to create all these beautiful inviting spaces, as it were, in my spare time. When we stopped at the end of our circuit, he looked at me.

—You know, at our cloister in Montreal, I was a gardener too.

The dreams of my fiftieth year presaged tectonic shifts in my life. For the second time in five years, I was dealing with prolonged unemployment. My five children were raised, and the youngest would leave for college in the fall. My marriage of 28 years was dissolving. With hindsight I see that a demarcation line, between a first and second half of life, was being drawn. Within a fortnight of my “garden dream” I had moved out of our home in Greensboro, where I’d been living for 14 years, and taken a position at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington.

In the dissolution of the partnership with Pugh in early 1862, [Darden] kept ownership of the St. Bernard [plantation which] with 600 argents, had had only forty-one slaves (all listed by family), six cabins, a smaller sugarhouse valued at $4,500, a dwelling worth $1,500 and several lesser such structures.

Wilmington had had a troubled racial history, and the grant project I was hired to manage had as its focus race relations. I remember following the news coverage during the 70s of the Wilmington Ten, a group of civil rights activists who spent nearly a decade in jail for arson and conspiracy before the questionable verdict was overturned in 1980.

The 1971 incident could be thought of, however, as an aftershock of a much more gruesome secret buried in Wilmington’s past. Wilmington near the turn of the last century had been the most populous city in the state and a magnet for aspiring Blacks who found opportunity in the city’s building and shipping trades. Blacks made up 60 percent of the population and held elected office on the City Council. On November 10, 1898, a white vigilante mob gathered before the offices of the state’s only Black daily newspaper, the Wilmington Daily Record, to protest an editorial which the engaged white citizenry thought had defamed Southern womanhood. After burning down the building, then posing proudly for their photograph, the mob marched downtown; deposed the existing council and installed a rump one in its place; and issued a manifesto, its “Declaration of White Independence.” For three days following, Republicans and Black entrepreneurs were put on trains leaving the city and told not to return. Estimates of the number of Black citizens who died in the violence go as high as 300. President William McKinley was kept fully informed of the events in this, the only instance of the illegal overthrow of a municipal government in U.S. history. He turned a blind eye.

When I arrived in Wilmington, the centennial anniversary of these tumultuous events was approaching. It took minimal investigative skills to see that dangerous memories1 of the 1898 insurrection were poisoning race relations and needed to be exorcised in a way that only their solemn commemoration could accomplish. It was, however, an initiative that the university would not lead, sensitive as it had to be to political pressure; in a quirk of history, three key leaders of the 1898 conspiracy had living grandsons who bore their exact names and were prominent citizens in the community as well as current or former members of the university’s Board of Trustees. In the end, I helped spearhead the creation of an independent Foundation and served as its director as we planned, then implemented, a year-long reconciliation effort.

There seemed to me a great deal of chance about my role in all of this. Hadn’t I taken the temporary assignment in Wilmington simply as a last resort—the only available opening that offered the remotest chance of salvaging my battered resumé and maintaining some semblance of a career path that could lead to future employment? Hadn’t I had simply fallen into a leadership role—not so much an outside as an accidental agitator? Looking back now, however, a pattern is discernible. A passion for racial justice runs through my biography—a vein of purpose—from my first job teaching at a Black college to my work in Wilmington. I cannot trace its roots to conscious experiences: though I grew up in the segregated South, we left New Orleans, where racial tensions simmered just below the surface, when I was six; and I grew up in Houston, insulated by my minority Catholic experience, from racism’s rawest cultural expressions. If I could be said to have chosen this work, the part of me that did the choosing was deeper than ego and consciousness—some sort of bedrock self that knew exactly what it needed to do.

I’d been in Wilmington two years and was deeply involved with the centennial commemoration when I received an unexpected parcel from my mother. The pamphlet it contained—the early history of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Thibodeaux, LA, written by the first pastor—gives brief biographies of the founding members of the vestry, including my great great grandfather, Richardson Gray Darden. The brief excerpt inserted earlier that describes the size of his plantation and the number of slaves he owned is taken from its text, as is the one below, which, when I first read it, sent quivers through me:

Richardson Gray Darden was born on August 27, 1809, at Wilmington, North Carolina, one of 13 children of Reddick Darden and Catherine Thomas. [He and two of his brothers] joined the swelling migration of many citizens of that state to … Deep South regions [including Louisiana, where he became] an overseer on sugar cane plantations.

There is a passage from the novel A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone where the revolutionary priest, Godoy, is described this way:

He fights for the peasants and the Indians because whether he knows it or not, he deeply desires the just rule of the Lord. Probably, he will never realize this… But I think unconsciously it is the kingdom of God he fights for.2

I have a visceral memory of a realization that happened within the past year or two. I don’t remember its context—where I was, what I was doing, what specific matter was the occasion for the realization. I remember praying silently that some aspect of my work with Second Journey would contribute in some small way to the “coming of the Kingdom,” the words we use in the Lord’s Prayer. Then, as a postscript, I remember qualifying the sentiment: May I do this good thing. AND may I do it for the RIGHT REASONS. Not because I enjoy the work… which I did, immensely. Not because it taps my creativity… which it did, immensely. But because it will leave the world a better place.

Catholic theology, distinguishing between ethics and morality, holds that the merit of an action depends on the intention of the actor:

So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that you’re giving may be in secret. Then you’re Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.3

In the incident in question I remember the two thoughts—May I do this good thing. AND may I do it for the RIGHT REASONS. Then I remember a NEW thought, that came fast on the heels of the second thought and that signaled a cataclysmic psychic realignment: “Oh, the hell with that, let me just do it!”

When we act from a place deeper than ego, from the place of our deepest joy, we come into alignment with the divine spark in us and are absolved from asking further questions.

Notes

1 “And if a community is completely honest, it will remember stories not only of suffering received but of suffering inflicted—dangerous memories for they call the community to alter ancient evils” (Habits of the Heart. New York: Harper and Row, 1985, p. 153). Information about the 1898 Centennial Commemoration and the work of the 1898 Foundation can be found at this link, which contains further links to other resources.

2 Robert Stone, A Flag for Sunrise (New York: Knopf, 1981), p. 208.

2 Matt 6:2-4.

Wake up, Show up, Lighten Up: The Three Ups to Aging Well by Trish Herbert

Society imprints us with negative expectations about late life. Our culture has not historically expected much from the older population. Older people have not been challenged to grow and become more. The expectation has been to decline, to fade, and become less. If this is our expectation, our chances of doing precisely that increase. We must consciously program our minds toward health, continued growth, and meaning.

We are so acculturated to swallow what our society has put into our minds about aging that we have no idea what percentage of how we behave is based on how we think we are supposed to behave. If we believe that old age is about declining and becoming less, what percent of our decline is due to this belief? Some studies verify this fear. In one study, researcher Ellen Langer (Mindfulness, pp. 102–113) effectively reversed the biological age of a group of elderly men over 75 years old by systematically taking them back to a time when they saw themselves as young and vital… asking them to talk, act, dress, and behave as they did in their mid-fifties. They went to a country retreat for a week to participate in activities similar to what they would have experienced at that age. Music from that era was piped in. Impartial observers judged the men to look and behave more like 55-year-olds than 75-year-olds after that week. Objective physiological measures taken before and after the retreat verified that they had “de-aged.” Their posture became more erect, stiff joints loosened, they walked with longer strides, IQ scores improved, and fingers straightened… all because they imagined themselves young again.

Ageism is alive and well in our society. Ageism is the term used to describe a societal pattern of widely held devaluative attitudes, beliefs and stereotypes based on chronological age. Any -ism is the need of one group to feel superior over another. Ageism is really the only –ism that is still on top of the table, not under it. It is not “cool” to be sexist or racist, but ageism is encouraged. The media and advertisers make it hard to feel good about how you look when the continual emphasis is on avoiding wrinkles, baldness, white hair, and so on. Older people, like any oppressed group, are asked to accept societal standards and assimilate

Is looking your age getting to be taboo? Multitudes of products and services are trying to forestall or reverse aging. Our society appears to let market interests define how we should look. The anti-aging industry reinforces the notion that old age is repugnant, that how you look in old age is to be avoided at all cost—and cost it does. Nora Efron in her book I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts about being a Woman acknowledges, “What I know is that I spend a huge amount of time with my finger in the dike fending off aging.”

Thought for the day: There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer’s research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.

Be proud of the age you are. Gloria Steinem, in response to the meant-to-be flattering statement many of us have received, “You certainly don’t look like you’re 40,” said “This is what 40 looks like.” This response is good for any age. Some people retain amazingly youthful looks into old age. It doesn’t mean they are better people. It simply means they are examples of the great variety of ways people can age. Maggie Kuhn, the founder of the Gray Panthers, when introduced by President Gerald Ford as a “young lady,” responded, “Mr. President, I am not a young lady. I’ve lived a long time. I’m proud to be an old lady.”

Wake up. The stereotypes are changing. We are part of the generation of pattern breakers. We are modeling the many ways 60-, 70-, 80-, and 90+ year-olds can look and act. When I was 60 I still liked to do adventurous white water canoe trips. I learned not to feel complimented if people let me know that I was different from other 60-year-olds. Of course I’m different. We are all different, and that is what is important to see. This is the way one 60-year-old is. If we want to be an exception and not join forces with other people in our age group, how will our age group reflect the spirit of people like us? My message is don’t even try to stereotype this huge age group. To accept the compliment I would be feeding the tokenism. I am not an exception. We are simply all different. Acknowledge, Gloria Steinem style, that this is the way one woman acts at this age and, in the big picture, she is one of many women.

In order to find life meaningful, it is important to believe that our later years are as valuable as our earlier ones. It is a time of continued growth and can be a time of great deepening. It is important to affirm this later stage of life and encourage the accompanying ways of thinking and being that promote self-appreciation. A major hindrance to positive aging is continuing to equate only paid work with self-worth, thus diminishing the value of worthy avocations such as reading, traveling, volunteering, and caregiving, or the small but mighty deeds like being kind to your next-door neighbor. Life is likely to become meaningless and empty for those who can’t expand their thinking about what constitutes basic self-worth. It is important to attribute new, positive meaning to getting older and to question and stop tolerating the deeply ingrained societal adoration of youth and negativity toward age. All stages of life have merit and problems.

The emergence of an awake and aware, wise, and meaning-filled older generation is modeling a rebirth of gentler values, of caring and appreciating, that can reestablish equilibrium and psychological health to our society. Instead of the downhill slide attributed to aging, we begin to see an upward arc.

Small p- purpose vs. Large P-Purpose

How do I know what is meaningful to me? Ask yourself these questions:

If you were asked by a child to tell about the most important thing you have learned in your life, what would you say?

What was the best period of your life? Why? What do you think was the best thing you ever did for someone else? When you think of your parents or grandparents, what do you wish that you had asked them? What projects have given you the most pleasure? What can you do for a three-hour stint and enjoy so much that you don’t even notice time? At what have you worked hardest (social causes, career, friendships, marriage, parenting)? What are you proudest of?

Think of a person whom you greatly admire? A person of great integrity? Give an example of how you saw this person demonstrate this way of being?

Reflect on your answers. Continually ask yourself, What is truly important to me, and how can I get more of it? What can I do to be the person I want to be?

Most people’s souls are hungry for purpose, for meaning, for knowing that somehow they have made and are making a difference to someone or something. Vitality depends, in part, on the supply of meaning in your life. A sense of purpose does not mean you have to save the world or think in lofty terms about meaningfulness. Being kind and caring to one other person is purpose. Realize that it takes many people doing small things to make up a much greater force of caring. You don’t have to think in terms of a capital P-Purpose… small little purposes do just fine.

It’s important to know that you have a reason for being here, a reason to get up in the morning. People who have a goal, a project, or exude purposefulness know they are living their lives fully. Those of us who continue to grow and learn about subjects that interest us, appreciate art or music, tend our gardens, care for our cat or dog, help out our bodies by diligently caring for them, attend to someone who could use our help, or even give a kind glance to a person who just might be in need of it, are also exhibiting having a reason for being here. What we do and who we are matters.

Show up for life. Reflect on some peak moments in your life. Life can be transformed, changed completely, in a moment—a moment that forces you to view things differently. Did someone ever say something to you that was transformative? Your peak moments may be those precious times when you know that “life doesn’t get any better than this,” when you stand in awe of nature or a work of art, when you know that you’ve truly connected with another person, when you have achieved a personal victory, or when you have completed a job “well done.” Some of these moments just happen. You increase the chances of having more of these moments by putting yourself in situations where they more easily occur. “Follow your bliss,” says Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth. Follow your bliss speaks to taking action versus simply appreciating little bursts of grace that just happen. Following your bliss requires you to pursue actively those things that give you great pleasure. Once you recognize what it is that makes you feel vibrantly alive, you can use this awareness as a source of guidance in your life. Perhaps you need to seek out more time in nature. Maybe it is when you give love that does not require reciprocity, or become aware of a mysterious sense of knowing that you are much more than just yourself and are connected somehow to everyone, everything… a cosmic awareness. Such moments may be sustained or fleeting but they allow you to witness what bliss is for you, to understand yourself a little better. They can help you direct your journey. What do you need to do more of to feel this aliveness?

Appreciate the ordinary. Developmentally, we appear to move from the simple awe and curiosity of a child to not even having the time to appreciate the ordinary as a middle-aged “fast track” person. Thankfully, we seem to return to this appreciation of simplicity again. This late life appreciation is much more sophisticated and hopeful than a child’s. We now choose to attribute meaning to the simple things with a deeper perception of their enormous value.

Gentler values like being kind and caring beyond ourselves equates with basic healthy well-being. We know that doing good things for others makes us feel good. Now research is backing this up. I liked the direct response of one 86-year-old woman contemplating what gives her life meaning. She said, “I try to take care of myself, keep myself alive, and tend to the little flock of people I care about.” On further inquiry I found she did just that. She exercised, took meals to a cousin, drove different friends to the doctor and to the store, checked up on some friends by phone… kept herself busy tending to her flock. She thanked me several times after the workshop, saying she always felt that the mere question, “What gives your life meaning?” was a little intimidating. Now she appreciated figuring out a response that meant something to her.

It is therapeutic to come up with an answer for yourself, for those other times when you wonder. We can do our little bit every day to move beyond focusing on ourselves and become part of the gentle but forceful critical mass tipping the scale towards enduring good.

Think baby-steps—little p, not giant P –Purpose.

Trish Herbert arrived in Minnesota in 1955 to attend Carleton College, and she never left the state. She lives in the Minneapolis area with her husband, raised four children, and now has ten grandchildren. She became a licensed psychologist, receiving her PhD in her mid-fifties with a specialization in gerontology. She continues to be fascinated with people’s stories, the many twists and turns that life brings, and how well we manage to muddle through our respective journeys. As a psychologist she worked with older adults and their families, facilitated caregiver, grief, and support groups, and now, semi-retired, does some volunteering, teaching, and counseling. The excerpt below is from her new book, Journeywell: A Guide to Quality Aging. Visit her website at TrishHerbert.com.

The Indian Bard and the Beloved: Tagore—Poet, Mystic, and Reformer by Linda George

When he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, almost no one beyond the shores of India had ever heard of him. When he arrived in Sweden to accept the prize, the long, full beard framing his dark face, his floor-length white robes, and his piercing eyes caused people to turn and stare. Within a few years, his reputation worldwide equaled that of his dear friend Mohandas Gandhi.

Throughout his life, his huge extended family called him Rabi (pronounced Robby). Gandhi nicknamed him “The Great Sentinel” because of his penetrating insights into the future of India and her relationship with the rest of the world. When he died in 1941, at the age of 80, accolades and expressions of sympathy and grief poured into India like the monsoon rains. And yet, many Americans of non-Indian heritage have never heard of Rabindranath Tagore.

The passions that fueled Tagore’s whole life intertwined around each other like overgrown vines: love of God and love of humankind. Much to the dismay of many of his Brahmin peers, Tagore insisted that all people, regardless of skin color, ethnicity, spiritual heritage, gender, or class reflect God’s presence, and thus, deserve education, respect, and dignity.

From the multitude of devotional poems Tagore composed, this prayer summarizes his life-ethic:

Here is Thy footstool and there rest Thy feet where live the poorest, and lowliest, and lost.

When I try to bow to Thee, my obeisance cannot reach down to the depth where Thy feet rest among the poorest, lowliest, and lost.

Pride can never approach to where Thou walkest in the clothes of the humble among the poorest, and lowliest, and lost.

My heart can never find its way to where Thou keepest company with the companionless among the poorest, the lowliest, and the lost. (1)

Rabi’s love of humankind developed from a growing awareness of the world around him. Though his upbringing afforded Rabi many tangible luxuries, as well as the privilege of ignorance about the suffering masses, Tagore’s father, Dwarkanath, determined that his talented and sensitive son should learn firsthand about life beyond the gates of the family mansion.

At the threshold of the twentieth century, the typical education progression for a bright young Brahmin male prescribed a career as a London-trained lawyer. Rabi briefly flirted with the ivy-covered halls of law school; however, as he had previously done many times, he fled traditional schooling. And so his father decided it was time for the youngest son to earn his keep. Dwarkanath sent Rabi a hundred miles away— a significant distance at the time—to manage the expansive family estates in the rural area of east Bengal.

Routine tasks included checking on the crops, the livestock, and the ramshackle buildings; counting money from sales; distributing salaries to the low-class workers; and mediating disputes among the workers and the impoverished villagers nearby. Initially Tagore thought he had been consigned to hell. His sparse living conditions, his inaccessibility to foods he craved, the meager number of servants, and the chores and interpersonal interactions which seemed beneath his station in life struck him like a furnace blast of Indian summer heat.

Years earlier, the only adults supervising and punishing the young Rabi were frequently the family servants. The active and precocious child spent many hours imprisoned within a chalk circle drawn around his chair, staring longingly out the window. After the adult Rabi spent some time in the rural estates, living an uncomplicated life, he realized his father had granted him the greatest gift of his life. No longer imprisoned by the chalk circle of his high caste status, and finally free to interact with whomever he chose, Tagore grew into the poet, storyteller, and visionary the stars had whispered he would become.

Years later, Rabi’s son wrote this of his father’s interactions with the villagers:

[T]he most interesting function for him was to meet the tenants, hear their complaints and settle disputes. He did not treat them in the traditional manner [of a landholder]. He talked with them freely and they too felt so much at ease with him that they would tell him about their land, their families, and their personal affairs. Father had made known that any tenant who wanted to see him could go straight to him . . . Thus was established a bond of love and respect between the landlord and the tenants, a tradition that lasted in our estates till the end. (2)

Tagore’s years of living and working in these rural settings transformed the poet into a pragmatist. He learned firsthand about the villagers, both Hindu and Muslim, whose daily lives teetered on the edge of extinction because of hunger, disease, filth-infested waters, and general apathy on the part of most metropolitan Indians. Tagore’s response of solidarity with the impoverished, illiterate denizens of his motherland was truly remarkable.

It was a great event of my life when I first dwelt among my own people [the tenants] here, for thus I came into contact with the reality of life. For in them you feel the barest touch of humanity. Your attention is not diverted . . . one has to be a helper to be a real man; for then you share your life with your fellow-beings and not merely your ideas. (3)

The other fact that cried out for Tagore’s attentions was the fragile relationship between the Hindus and Muslims, all of them with an ancient heritage in India.

The greatest harm of all would be for Hindus to become inimical to the Mussulman [Muslim] community . . . our relationship with the Mussulmans has been difficult on both sides, for lack of proper contact . . . the Mussulmans are our close relations . . . I love [my Muslim tenants] from my heart, because they deserve it . . . by fighting each other we only increase the inflammation. To remain calm and try for a fundamental cure is the only solution. We must take that path without delay . . . When relatives fight each other, both victories and defeats are equally fatal. (4)

The compassionate landlord with the soul of a poet began to formulate a dream that would propel him and haunt him for the rest of his life: a school where children from all backgrounds and castes would live and learn together; a rural setting where the fields and streams and forests taught their lessons as surely as the faculty; a school where singing, poetry, storytelling, and drama shared the podium with mathematics, science, and history; and a place that would welcome guest lecturers representing varied cultural and spiritual backgrounds.

In previous generations, the Tagore name implied wealth, but by the time Rabi attained adulthood, little was left of the family fortune. To start the school, Tagore had to sell almost everything he owned. In 1901, a couple of buildings on some rural land his father bequeathed him became a school for boys. Initially, the school had five teachers, three of whom were Christian, and five boys, one of whom was Tagore’s own son.

Despite unceasing financial challenges, Tagore refused to charge tuition for several years, consonant with his ideal that all children deserved an education. The school became known as Santiniketan, which translates “Abode of Peace.” Tagore loved the children and his faculty members, but keeping the school solvent and trying to assuage his many detractors who disapproved of his unorthodox methods took a tremendous toll on the poet. The British government even issued secret circulars warning parents against sending their children to Santiniketan.

Tagore explained why he would not abandon this dream. “The growth of this school was the growth of my life and not that of a mere carrying out of any doctrine.” (5)

His Nobel prize, his knighthood (which he later repudiated), (6) and his worldwide fame grew increasingly burdensome to the man who constantly sought peace in his relationships with God and with all humankind. Santiniketan offered Tagore a place of solace, where kindness and friendliness embraced everyone.

“From Santiniketan, the boys go out to the villages, to run night-schools for the laboring classes and the lower castes. In this way, caste exclusiveness is broken down in early years.” (7)

To 21st-century Americans, the concept of caste may seem foreign, but in reality we also promote similar class divisions. Bigotry in multiple disguises continues to parade across our nation. Racism, homophobia, and immigrant discrimination top a long list of ways in which we cast people aside and label their castes.

In the early years of Santiniketan, many of Tagore’s students came from aristocratic backgrounds. When they ventured into the neighboring rural villages to teach reading and writing, to share song and drama, and to learn skills of rural life, those interactions exemplified what Tagore ultimately sought to teach the whole world: God loves all people equally, and God prays for us to do the same.

By the 1920s, the school had expanded to include a college with centers for Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, and Japanese cultures. Especially after his worldwide travels, enabled by Tagore’s Nobel Prize in 1913, he became more convinced than ever that the hope of the world rested in communication and dialogue between Eastern and Western cultures. He saw firsthand the destruction of World War I, and he pleaded with leaders of his own country and other countries around the world, including the United States, for a spirit of cooperation and trust, rather than isolationism and fear. Tagore named his expanded school Visva-Bharati, from a Sanskrit text, meaning “where the world makes its home in a single nest.”

In addition to the academic and cultural presence of Visva-Bharati, Tagore facilitated another radical innovation. He had understood for years that the impoverished villagers surrounding Santiniketan needed more than the “three R’s.” They needed to know how to build their own water wells, how to recycle human and animal waste, and how to take better care of their lands so the crops would continue to grow. They also needed some basic healthcare. He also wanted to restore, at least to a couple of villages, traditions of music and epic readings from the ancient Indian history.

I endeavored all the time I was in the country to get to know it down to the smallest detail. . . I was filled with eagerness to understand the villagers’ daily routine and the varied pageant of their lives. I, the town-bred, had been received into the lap of rural loveliness and I began joyfully to satisfy my curiosity. Gradually the sorrow and poverty of the villagers became clear to me, and I began to grow restless to do something about it. (8)

Thus began Tagore’s institute of rural reconstruction called Sriniketan. Economists, agriculturalists, social workers, healthcare workers, and other industry and education specialists brainstormed the problems plaguing the villagers. For the duration of Tagore’s life, and into the 21st century, thousands of India’s little villages still suffer incomprehensible poverty.

Tagore never abandoned his lifelong passions of loving God and loving humankind. He never quit praying to see God in “the poorest, the lowliest, and the lost.” (9) In 1938, when he was 77 years old and in very poor health, Tagore told a group of writers:

… [T]ake yourself to any village and give education to them with whom nobody has ever spoken; bring them happiness, hope, serve them, and let them know that there is a dignity in them as human beings, that they do not deserve the contempt of the universe. (10)

In January 2009, I spent three weeks on a spiritual pilgrimage in Tamil Nadu, reputedly the poorest part of India. I saw homeless lepers who had lost their appendages and their dignity. I saw widows whose families had disowned them. I saw a gypsy camp, where every girl over the age of 12 seemed to be a mother. I saw entire families bathing themselves and their cows in the same river waters from which they collected their drinking water.

One Friday night, I saw thousands of Indians dressed to the nines, worshiping at an ancient Hindu temple. Despite the crushing poverty of that part of India, our little group of American pilgrims was embraced by a spirit of hospitality and generosity everywhere we went.

I know that I can easily become immune to the sufferings and hardships of so many of the world’s outcasts. And I certainly did not have to travel all the way to India to find persons whom society has marginalized.

I am inspired by Tagore’s lifelong passion of trying to reflect God’s love in his treatment of others. Many of us seek helpful ways to empower and encourage those who feel as though the contempt of the universe has been dumped upon them. I have counseled many discouraged and distraught individuals, and I know that frequently it only takes one person to plant enough hope to restore life to another.

What are you doing, Dear Readers, to help make a difference? How can you, like Tagore, transform your passions, whatever they may be, into a healing balm for another?

Let Your love play upon my voice and rest on my silence.
Let it pass through my heart into all my movements.
Let Your love, like stars, shine in the darkness of my sleep and dawn in my awakening.
Let it burn in the flame of my desires and flow in all currents of my own love.
Let me carry Your love in my life as a harp does its music,
And give it back to You at last with my life. (11)

Notes

1 Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali: A Collection of Prose Translations Made By the Author From the Original Bengali (NY: Scribner Poetry, 1997), p. 26.

2 Rathindranath Tagore, On the Edges of Time (Calcutta: Visva Bharati, 1958), p. 28.

3 Rabindranath Tagore, Letters to a Friend: Rabindranath Tagore’s Letters to C.F. Andrews (New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 2002), pp. 42–43.

4 Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson, eds., Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore (Daryaganj, New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 405.

5 Uma Das Gupta, Rabindranath Tagore: A Biography (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 25.

6 Tagore denounced his knighthood after British troops killed hundreds of Indians in Amritsar during a peaceful demonstration against British rule.

7 Edward Thompson, Rabindranath Tagore: Poet and Dramatist (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 190.

8 Ibid., p. 33.

9 Tagore, Gitanjali, p. 26.

10 Gupta, 38.

11 Herbert F. Vetter, ed., The Heart of God: Prayers of Rabindranath Tagore (Boston: Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc., 1997), p. 44.

Linda George served in full-time pastoral ministry for almost 30 years, 21 of which were as an active duty Army chaplain, endorsed by The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Since the fall of 2006, she has focused most of her energies on writing, research, teaching, and singing as a professional vocal soloist. She is working on a PhD dissertation on Rabindranath Tagore, whose lifelong passion was taking music, dance, drama, and poetry to the poorest illiterate villagers to break the caste system and increase self-esteem.

Summer’s Fullness by John G. Sullivan

When we were children, summer lasted forever. The days stretched out. The light lengthened. The world was playful, carefree, dream-like, endless. We were alive—with playmates real and imagined. And, at moments, we felt we could talk to the trees and the birds and all the other creatures above and below and around us. All were our kin. And this included all the elements: Wind in trees and in the tall grass. Waters of creek or stream, river or ocean. Rocks in gardens or on cliffs. The fiery sun. The languid clouds. The night sky too. Everything companioned us in a time out of time, where the heart ruled.

From this summer lyric, let us pick three images to dwell with: the sun, the heart, and relational life.

First, the sun with its light and warmth. Shining on all of us. Suggesting, in summer, fullness, fulfillment, completion. Nothing left out.

Second, the heart, calling us to care for the community from friendships to family to larger communities. Wholeheartedly, to invite each of those communions to be heart whole.

A morning poem (gatha) from the community of Thich Nhat Hanh says:

Waking up this morning, I smile
Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.
I vow to live fully in each moment
and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.1

The first line sounds the note of the heart—“waking up . . . I smile.” Wakefulness and joy. The last line reminds us that the heart is in service of our life with others. In fact, the heart promises partnership— whether in the midst of joys or sorrows.

Third, our relational life extends the resonances of the sun and the heart. We might say, “In the beginning is relationship.” We enter the world in the care of others and we learn to become, in our turn, caregivers. Again and again, we are reminded of how intertwined with others we are. We occupy a unique place in the great web of all life. Unique, yes. In the great web, yes. Holding both aspects simultaneously. As an ancient text expresses it:

Heaven is my father and earth is my mother and even such a small creature as I find an intimate place in its midst.

All people are my brothers and sisters
And all things are my companions.2

So it was in the days of summer when we were children. Might it not be so again?

In this essay, I wish to explore three themes: (a) summer sun with its sense of fulfillment, (b) the heart with its care for the community and (c) the primacy of relationship throughout. I wish to explore them as they are manifest in all the stages of our lives, but especially in the later years. So let us return to the four stages of life as articulated in ancient India: Student, Householder, Forest Dweller, and Sage.

What might fulfillment mean for the Student-in-us?
What might fulfillment mean for the Householder-in-us?
What might fulfillment mean for the Forest Dweller-in-us?
What might fulfillment mean for the Sage-in-us?

Put differently, what is maturity or completion at each stage? What is the quality of heart at each stage? What is the quality of relational understanding and love at each stage?

As prelude, notice that our life can be seen in two arcs: the Arc of Ascent and the Arc of Descent. In a calendar year, spring and summer mark ascending or rising energy; autumn and winter signal descending or falling energy. We are more familiar with thinking of fulfillment in the rising energy of a life (stages of Student and Householder); we are less practiced at understanding fulfillment in the falling energy of life (stages of Forest Dweller and Sage).

The Arc of Ascent — when life energy is rising

Part I: Summer Fulfillment for the Student-in-us

When I taught university students I held out the ideal of a lifelong love of learning. Of course, both the love and the learning must be present, and this implies that the type of study must be such that it touches and enlarges the heart. I am pointing toward the “feeling intellect” or the “educated heart.”3 Dante speaks of an “intellectual light, light filled with love, love of true good, love filled with joy, joy surpassing every sweetness.”4

Rumi also speaks of this type of knowing when he writes:

There is a kind of Knowing that is a love.
Not a scholarly knowing. That minutiae-collecting
Doesn’t open you.
It inflates you, like a beard or a fancy turban.
It announces you, saying,

There are certain plusses and minuses
which we must carefully consider.

This other Knowing-Love is a rising light,
a happiness in both worlds.5

Perhaps we could say that this love of learning is also a learning to love. Such study has a long history. In the monastic tradition, it was called lectio divina—a reflective and heart-felt tasting of the text for the sake of expanding and deepening our loves. So we begin with a type of reading—a type of study—that can nourish our soul and renew our spirit. Call it spiritual reading, yet the reality is much more. What we read must refresh the spirit and hence will usually come from the wisdom traditions. Here we are keeping company with the true, the good, and the beautiful in thought and art. And keeping company with the great-souled ones among us. How we read is equally important. The monastics spoke of tasting the words as if walking in the vineyard of the text.6 Sapere = to taste. Sapientia = wisdom. All this echoes Psalm 34:8: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” When we read in this fashion, it becomes a spiritual practice. Thus, this sort of learning to love is complete with every enlargement of our capacity to receive our life. Fulfilled and complete in each moment, ever-open to increase our longing.

Part I: Summer Fulfillment for the Householder-in-us

Summer shows up most intensely in the Householder. In other words, the sun, the heart, and life-in-relationship are at full strength in the Householder. Think first of the sun with its light and warmth. In one sense, the student comes to completion in the householder.7 The student takes his or her place in the world, learns to care for a circle larger than him or herself. This is most often seen as a couple expands their love to include children. The space of family. The sense of intergenerational time. I come to see myself in the midst of generations —my parents and their parents and their parents, my children and their children and their children. The kingdom or “kindom”8 spreads out in space and time.

Freud defined maturity as the ability to love and the ability to work. Such maturity is seen in the image of the householder who takes on the care of a community and is aware of doing so. We can also imagine the householder whose household is an institution—perhaps a college or corporation. We can imagine taking on responsibility in varying ways for still larger units—one’s nation or one’s planet. Indeed the word “ecology” derives from the Greek: “the study (logos) of one’s oikos or home.”

What is the fulfillment of the householder? In one sense, the householder is fulfilled in the children leaving home and taking on their own lives. In another sense, the family has simply changed form. As the shape of family shifts, new habits of heart and mind are called for to care for the whole and attend to its unique participants.

To have children, someone has said, is to live with your heart outside your body. Perhaps better, to live with our collective, familial heart outside our personal bodies. We have a new body and a new heart. Think of a garden where two apple trees grow. The garden is well-placed to take advantage of sun and water. The other plants are well chosen to complement the two central trees. Insects and birds, animals and people visit the garden. Gardeners care for the whole. They know when the context of the whole garden is healthy. They know when the individual members of the garden are flourishing. Robert Irwin placed this inscription on the garden he designed for the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles:

Ever changing, never less than whole
Every present, never twice the same.

So it is with the garden of a friendship or a family or a college or corporation. The sun brings light and warmth. We who tend these gardens bring qualities of understanding and loving kindness, wisdom and compassion. The family then becomes a school of love inviting us to cultivate ways of coming to life more fully in all our relationships as they form and reform in kaleidoscope-like ways.

The Arc of Descent — when life energy is falling

Part I: Summer Fulfillment for the Forest Dweller-in-us

Consider the autumn phase of life—after retirement, let us say. The children are grown and one form of tending is over. Perhaps parents move over to become grandparents. They have entered the arc of descent; they experience falling energy. Shall we regard it as positive descent or negative decline? How shall we be with this phase? Is there fulfillment in letting go and letting be? How might we think about that?

For most of our lives, we have thought of fulfillment in terms of achievement, success, fame, and fortune. Upward and onward. Our culture reinforces this pattern. Is there fulfillment in simplifying? In returning to nature and to elemental things? Can one have less and less of certain things and more and more of other things?

A famous Zen story tells of a Western professor coming to Japan to study Zen. He meets with a Zen master and the master pours tea. And continues to pour the tea. As the cup overflows and runs over the table, the professor exclaims: “Stop. Can’t you see it’s full?” The Zen master smiles. “That’s how you are,” he responds. “So full of your own beliefs and opinions. How can I teach you Zen?”

With autumn comes acknowledging and letting go. Acknowledging life exactly as it is in its surface and depth. Acknowledging fundamental worth allows us to let go of what no longer serves. Opinions and beliefs. Ideas and identities. Roles and self-concepts. Acknowledging deep value, we can let go of what is not essential to us after all. In letting go and letting be, there is stillness and a space to see. As the song from Godspell has it: “to see Thee more clearly, to love Thee more dearly, to follow Thee more nearly — day by day.”9

“My barn having burned, I can now see the moon.” So the Zen tradition puts it. Perhaps I realize I am more than my costumes. I come to see myself as a unique reflection of the great Mystery. Then I can become nothing—nothing special. And at the same time, everything. For I identify with all beings and rest in peace. Between nothing and everything, I am again something—one jewel in the great web of Indra reflecting the whole from a particular, unrepeatable perspective.

Part I: Summer Fulfillment for the Sage-in-us

I want to introduce the sage through a story:

For several weeks strange sounds had drifted over the mountains from the neighboring valley. There was much talk in the village about what these noises could be, but no one could make sense of them. Even the village elders had never heard anything like them. Finally one of the young men of the village was chosen to cross the mountains and see what was going on.

After two days of hiking he reached the mountaintop and saw in the valley far below a hive of activity with dozens of people working. As he drew closer, he saw a line of people, each with a huge stone in front of them that they were hammering and chiseling.

When he finally reached the valley floor he approached a young man at one end of the line and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Huh!” grunted the young man. “I’m killing time until I get off work.”

Puzzled, the hiker turned to the second person in the line, a young woman, and asked, “Excuse me, but what are you doing?”

“I’m earning a living to support my family,” she responded.

Scratching his head, the hiker moved on to the third person and asked again, “What are you doing?”

“I’m creating a beautiful statue,” came the reply. Turning to the next person, the hiker repeated his question.

“I’m helping to build a cathedral,” came the answer.

“Ah!” said the hiker. “I think I’m beginning to understand.” Approaching the woman who was next in line he asked, “And what are you doing?

“I am helping the people in this town and generations that follow them, by helping to build this cathedral.”

“Wonderful,” exclaimed the hiker. “And you, sir? He called to the man beside her.

“I am helping to build this cathedral in order to serve all those who use it and to awaken myself in the process. I am seeking my salvation through service to others.”

Finally the hiker turned to the last stone worker, an old, lively person whose eyes twinkled and whose mouth formed a perpetual smile. “And what are you doing?” he inquired.

“Me?” smiled the elder. “Doing?” The elder roared with laughter. “This ego dissolved into God many years ago. There is no ‘I’ left to ‘do’ anything. God works through this body to help and awaken all people and draw them to Him.”10

The elder in this story holds the key to fulfillment in the stage of becoming a sage. What has happened is that the illusions of earlier years—the quest to be somebody and to live in the eyes of others—drops away. Always you were loved. Always I was loved. Always we were at one with the source. Nowhere to go, nothing to do. Or alternately somewhere to go and something to do, yet not under illusion.11 Seeing clearly. Acting joyfully. In alignment with the Great Work and the Great Love. So we might say: “I do not do the work for myself. I do not do the work by myself. I do not do the work with my own powers alone.”

A Jew, thinking of our true size, might recall the teaching of Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa: “Everyone should have two pockets, each containing a slip of paper. On one should be written: ‘I am but dust and ashes,’ and on the other: ‘For me, the world was created.’ From time to time we must reach into one pocket, or the other. The secret of living comes from knowing when to reach into each.”12

A Christian might say: “I live, now not I, but the Christ lives in me.”13 Or think of Jesus’ daunting words to the rich young man: “Sell all you have. Give to the poor. . . . Come and follow me.”14 Indeed there is something terrifying in truly practicing the presence of God. And something paradoxical as well. How crazy. We have everything and keep looking for more!

A Muslim might remember Abu Sa’id saying: “A true saint is one who walks amongst the people and eats and dwells with them and buys and sells in the market and marries and socializes yet never forgets God for a single moment.”15

A Zen man or woman might say with Seng Ts’an: “When the ten thousand things are viewed in their oneness, we return to the Origin and remain where we have always been.”

Eckhart Tolle, in speaking of surrender and finding God, puts all our themes together in these beautiful words: “Suddenly, a great stillness arises within you, an unfathomable sense of peace. And within that peace, there is great joy. And within that joy, there is love. And at the innermost core, there is the sacred, the immeasurable, That which cannot be named.”16

A Taoist might smile or, with the sage of the cathedral builders, laugh out loud.

So the sages listen deeply to what is occurring within and around them. Not taking things personally, they are ready to act from a center beyond themselves, willing to reinforce movement where it is flowing well. Where is fulfillment here? It is paradoxically, Nowhere and Now Here.17 And there is a further paradox as well. On the arc of descent, there is no one to take credit, so all moves effortlessly. The sage can wear any costume and even play the fool.

Coda: Summer’s Lessons

We began with three signs of summer—the sun with its fulfillment. The heart caring for the whole. And everywhere seeing life as relationship, interconnection, interbeing.

First, we found that fulfillment was far from a once-for-all phenomenon. No fulfillment is the last word. We are:

never finished with learning.
never finished with caring for our sectors of the Great Web of Life.
never finished with letting go and letting be, simplifying and returning to nature.
never finished with practicing the presence of God or, alternatively, getting out of our own way so that the greater light and love may shine through.

Second, each season has a fulfillment on its own terms.

The “heart learning” of the student issues again and again in insight. As insight expands, so likewise does compassion. Each act of insight–compassion is cause for celebration.
The caring of the householder issues in the well-being of the unit and those within its enveloping field. Think of the task of parenting. Think of the marker events of achievements as the children grow in understanding and love and the parents grow as well. Each act of caring that reaches a fulfillment—however temporary—is cause for celebration.
The acknowledgement and letting go of the Forest Dweller also has its fulfillment. Suppose that the Forest Dweller practices acknowledging and letting go of the three poisons: clinging, condemning, and identifying (with beliefs and roles, ideas, and identities). Suppose we notice we are clinging to a particular “story”—a particular way of seeing and speaking—one that causes unnecessary suffering to ourselves and others. We let it go. Each act of such “letting go” brings clarity and freedom and is cause for celebration.18
The sage practices the art of disappearing, in a paradoxical way. As more of my agenda falls away, there is more space for That Which Matters to show itself. Each moment of openness to the mystery is an instance of grace and a cause for celebration. Paradoxically, I become more of what I truly am in thus opening to the universe.

Third, I can get better at each stage through practice. And there is a sequence here.

The student drops a certain amount of egocentricity to allow the learning to be itself.
The householder drops a certain amount of egocentricity to allow, say, the family to be itself and flourish.
The Forest Dweller drops a certain amount of egocentricity by gaining skill in simplification and hence the natural world becomes more itself.
The sage becomes more skillful at a deeper allowing—allowing and listening. And “all that is” flashes forth in glory.

In such a summer day, all is complete at every moment. And laughter rings out in celebration.

Notes

1 See Thich Nhat Hanh, Present Moment, Wonderful Moment: Mindfulness Verses for Daily Living (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2006), p. 7.

2 Part of what is called the West Wall Inscription. It is from the office of Chang Tsai, an 11th century administrator in China.

3 The phrase “the feeling intellect” I take from Wordsworth; the phrase “the educated heart” I take from Robert Bly.

4 See Dante’s Divine Comedy, the Paradiso, Canto 30, lines 40-42 describing the Empyrean. The lines are especially beautiful in the original: luce intellectual, piena d’amore; amor di vero ben, pien di letizia; letizia che trascende ogne dolzore.

5 See Coleman Barks, Delicious Laughter: Rambunctious Teaching Stories from the Mathnawi (Athens, GA: Maypop Books, 1990), pp 25-26.

6 Historian and social critic, Ivan Illich, speaks of this in his In the Vineyard of the Text (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). The book, as a commentary on Hugh of St. Victor’s Didascalicon, traces the culture of reading and the book from the twelfth century to the present.

7 In another sense, the student never stops learning—yet perhaps dies to one sort of learning to be reborn into another.

8 I came across the term “kindom” in reading colleague Rebecca Todd Peters’ book, In Search of the Good Life: The Ethics of Globalization (New York: Continuum, 2004). Professor Peters writes: “I embrace Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz’s transformation of the concept of ‘kingdom’ and its patriarchal, hierarchical connotations to the concept of ‘kindom,’ which represents the ‘kinship’ of all creation and the promise of a just future. See Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the Twenty-first Century (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 103 n8.” The comments occur in Peters’ book on p. 33, endnote 16 to chapter 2.

9 The song takes up a prayer by St. Richard of Chichester who prayed on his deathbed: “Thanks be to Thee, my Lord Jesus Christ. For all the benefits Thou hast given me. For all the pains and insults Thou hast borne for me. O most merciful Redeemer, friend and brother. May I know Thee more clearly, Love Thee more dearly, Follow Thee more nearly.

10 Roger Walsh, Essential Spirituality (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1999), pp. 60-61.

11 I am echoing here a song of the Community of Thich Nhat Hanh, which I learned at a retreat with Thây at Stonehill College in Easton, MA, August 12-17, 2007.

“Happiness is here and now. I have dropped my worries.
Nowhere to go, nothing to do. No longer in a hurry.”

And the second stanza:

“Happiness is here and now. I have dropped my worries.
Somewhere to go, something to do. But I don’t need to hurry.”

12 The core story can be found in Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim: Later Masters (New York: Schocken Books, 1948; 1974), pp.249-250. Buber refers to him as Simha Bunam of Pzhysha.

13 Gal. 2:20.

14 The story appears in all three of the synoptic gospels. See Mk 10:17-22, Mt 19:16-22 and Lk 18:18-23.

15 See Mohammad Ali Jamnia and Mojdeh Bayat, Under the Sufi’s Cloak: Stories of Abu Sa’id and His Mystical Teachings (Beltsville, MD: Writers’ Inc. International, 1995), p. 95

16 See Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Novato, CA: New World Library, 1999), p. 187

17 I first came across this word play “Nowhere and Now Here” through my mentor Frederick Franck. See Frederick Franck, Pilgrimage to Now / Here (Maryland, NY: Orbis Books, 1974). This work becomes part of a larger work in Frederick Franck’s Fingers Pointing toward the Sacred: A Twentieth Century Pilgrimage on the Eastern and Western Way (Junction City, OR: Beacon Point Press, 1994).

18 The three poisons of Buddhism appear as the second of the Four Noble Truths, after the first truth that there is suffering. I would distinguish necessary and unnecessary suffering. The three poisons are, in my way of phrasing things, the causes of unnecessary suffering. As we diminish them, we diminish unnecessary suffering. This is the third noble truth. The Eight-fold Path — the fourth noble truth — is the set of practices that keep us on the way of well-being. For more on these themes, see my book, Living Large: Transformative Work at the Intersection of Ethics and Spirituality (Laurel, MD: Tai Sophia Institute, 2004), especially chapter Eleven.

Books of Interest: For Happiness in Old Age—Discover and Live Your Purpose by Barbara Kammerlohr

Most religious and spiritual traditions speak of an essence at the center of ourselves. It is what most call God and some call the Higher Power, the Soul, the Divine, the Sacred, the Spirit or the Essence, and it represents who we are at the core. People who know how to live and work on purpose know how to express this essence consistently.” (Leider, p.21)

For over ten years, books about finding and living one’s purpose have topped the best-seller lists as the number of such books on the market continues to grow. Increasingly, young people choose careers and jobs based on an understanding of their own unique purpose. Colleges, universities, and secondary schools require service learning to help students identify purpose and understand how it can be put to use for the good of society. This tendency has clearly inalterably changed the work force; but what about those of us who have ended our careers and retired from the nine-to-five routine? In this edition of Itineraries we explore four books on the subject, focusing on: definitions of purpose, new research about the need to know one’s purpose, how to discover that purpose, and the part played by purpose in conscious aging.

These books being reviewed were written by a life coach, a Christian minister, and two psychologists from different schools of thought. Given their disparate perspectives, it is surprising they all say basically the same thing.

What is purpose?

“Purpose is your reason for being, your reason for getting up in the morning” (Leider, p.1). It is “the reason you were placed on this planet” (Warren, p. 17).

“Purpose is that deepest dimension within us — our central core or essence — where we have a profound sense of who we are, where we came from and where we’re going. Purpose is the quality we choose to shape our lives around…Purpose defines our contribution to life” (Leider, p.1).

Generally speaking, purpose is one’s own unique mission of service to God, a higher power, a compelling cause, or a specific service to others. It arises from our talents, our inclinations, our life experiences, and our sense of what we want to commit to as the purpose of our life.

The need for purpose

Purpose is inextricably linked to meaning, and the quest to understand the meaning of life is hardly new. “Why am I on this earth?” has been THE question humans have asked since time began. And even though the world’s most renowned philosophers and major spiritual traditions (Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) have all proposed the answer, those of us living in this 21st century continue to ask, “Why am I here?”

It is commitment to something larger than ourselves that gives our lives meaning. In identifying that greater force to which we will commit our energies and actions, we also identify our purpose. Until we identify this purpose, our lives are not whole or satisfied. Deep satisfaction with life eludes us until we begin the quest for purpose and live in accordance with that purpose.

Richard Leider, in The Power of Purpose, expressed it most succinctly by quoting Victor Frankl:

“For too long, we have been dreaming a dream from which we are now waking up: the dream that if you just improve the socio-economic status of people, everything will be okay—people will become happy. The truth is that as the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged, survival for what. Ever more people have the means to live, but no meaning to live for” (p. 34).

Discovering your purpose

Although those who write about purpose approach the task from their own unique world view and use vocabulary suited to their own philosophies, they outline the same steps we all must take in the search for purpose:

An attitude of surrender to a power or cause greater than one’s self is prerequisite to finding purpose. Without this attitude, fear, greed, anger, or other negative emotions masquerade as true purpose. Purpose is related to providing a service to something that transcends one’s self, not to alleviating one’s own negative feelings.
Do a self-assessment. Learn about your talents, abilities, and inclinations. What do you find joy in doing? The ways to accomplish this task vary—prayer, introspection, meditation, standardized tests—but learning about talent and the activities that bring joy is at the core of discovering purpose. If it does not make use of our talents and is not something we enjoy doing, it is not our life’s purpose.
Spend time in solitude and integrate what you have discovered about your talents, inclinations, and joy into a purpose statement—a statement of what you can do for the world. Warren called this identifying your ministry.
State what you think is your mission to the world. Pick something.
Consider everything in steps one, two, and three. Then, do your best. Your answer may not be perfect—or even accurate—but you must begin the search somewhere. This is the place, and your best answer is all you have.
Act on your purpose statement. Do something. Waiting to act until you are sure will not be helpful. When we act with intention, the Universe (or God) responds by opening doors that lead to the next step. Most authors call this synchronicity, and it leads to amazing places and events.
Know that the search for purpose is a continuous process. Purpose is different at different stages of life. This struggle for self-knowledge will continue throughout life, because, as long as we live, there is a purpose in our lives.

Purpose and Conscious Aging

Most who have thought about the longevity revolution and the extra years our generation enjoys claim that there must be a purpose for those extra years. While this flies in the face of the promise of leisure in old age that most of us came to view as our right, research into what makes us happy confirms that, as long as we have talents and life, we are subject to the law that says a life without meaning is no life at all. We must not only embrace a life of purpose, the evidence concludes, but the “golden years” may require a more sustained and unique approach to purpose than the earlier stages of life.

Dychtwald and Kadlec (in With Purpose: Going From Success to Significance in Work and Life ) pondered the issue enough to feel that the extra years signal another stage of development in man’s evolution. They refer to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and point out that the hierarchy is no longer sufficient to encompass man’s psychological needs. At this point in history, it is time to add another level. They label the level “legacy” and advocated their position with the following words:

“Maslow’s model did not go far enough. Longevity has changed the game. More is demanded of us if we are going to live into our nineties.

“I’ve come to believe there are elements of psychological development where you go beyond self-awareness and are primed and driven to leave a legacy by sharing your skills, wisdom and resources with those who are less fortunate. Seen from this perspective, interdependence might be a higher level of aspiration than independence. So I would add a sixth rung to the top of Maslow’s hierarchy and call it legacy. At this level, rather than retreat and retire, you go beyond self-actualization to a state of rich engagement where you take the best of who you are and the best of what you’ve cultivated over your life, and bring some meaningful involvement in activities and pursuits that light the sky for others—as well as for yourself. It’s about being involved with people and situations where you can make a difference and reap the satisfactions that derive from those kinds of self transcendent connections” (p. 53).

Most of the information about living a life of purpose and meaning comes from the following books which readers may find helpful.

Books about Purpose

The Purpose of Your Life: Finding Your Place in the World Using Synchronicity, Intuition and Common Sense by Carol Adrienne (New York: Eagle Brook, 1998).

Adrienne’s philosophy is that our own intuition and circumstances teach us about purpose. “Sometimes,” she says, “circumstances force us into taking a stand and that can affect the rest of our life. Circumstances may clarify who we are and what is important for this life and how we are going to live with integrity.” The book is full of inspiring stories and statements of her principles. She reports that her goal is to help the reader clarify his or her own purpose by using the right side of the brain to respond to the stories and suggestions of the book. It is this focus on use of the right (intuitive) side of the brain to discover meaning that sets this book apart from others that use logical steps and the brain’s left side.

With Purpose: Going From Success to Significance in Work and Life by Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D. and Daniel J. Kadlec (New York: Harper Collins, 2009).

More than the other three, With Purpose addresses purpose in later life. Dychtwald himself is close to his second journey and shares his thoughts on aging. He writes from the point of view of a psychologist and includes research from the relatively new field of positive psychology. His message is that old age is not the time to retire or retreat. It is the time to rediscover the purpose of life and to begin living that purpose. Furthermore, longevity may have given humans a new stage of development that requires more engagement, not less, as we age.

The Power of Purpose: Creating Meaning in Your Life and Work by Richard Leider (San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2004).

This is a “how to” book for anyone wanting to create meaning in their life and work. Regular readers of this column will recognize Leider as the author of Claiming Your Place at the Fire. Leider is known internationally as an expert in helping individuals, leaders, and teams discover the power of purpose in their lives. The Power of Purpose is written for everyone—not just elders; the short book (147 pages) has just about all the information you need to live a life of purpose.

The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For by Rick Warren (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002).

The Purpose Driven Life was a best seller several years ago and is probably the most familiar of the titles we discuss in this issue. It too tells you everything you need to know to live a life of purpose. The advice is straightforward, practical, and comprehensive. Many of the principles are the same as in other publications about living a life of purpose. Warren’s premise, however, is slightly different. As pastor and founder of Saddleback Church in California, one of the nation’s mega churches, he is firm in his assertion that purpose is given by God. While others counsel looking within to discover purpose, Warren believes that God reveals His purpose to those who seek to understand it in their lives. The practical steps he suggests, however, seem to be the same as the steps recommended by other authors.

Poems on Purpose collected by Jack Clarke

The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Silence — Summer

by John Clarke

Winter would seem to have a lock on silence —
the snow quieting the fields across the countryside,
muffling even big city sounds and rounding off rough edges.

But silence is big enough to hold all seasons,
and has a special place for summer —
ocean, waterfall, and subway tunnel, yes,
and not only on top of whatever barns remain
on prairies or in mountain valleys —
but deep in the city, up on the tar beach rooftops
of Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx —
maybe even Staten Island.

Where a kid goes to hear the stars,
their voices need no words, as if
he or she were Rexroth in the Sierras.

Where far below, the patriot parade or riot or wired
world of nonstop ambient sound for one or all is piped
in everywhere. Yet these can’t touch … what?
… deep soul calling without a word
to each one and all together always.

Palpable presence just behind your ear, beside
your shoulder. You can’t make out a face — you
just know someone is with you, where you must be.

The Streaker

by Bolton Anthony

He lit out across the wide lawn,
naked, high stepping, arms flailing,
his pudgy trunk in constant search
for equilibrium. Sister

darted after him, his guardian angel
not seven years his senior, sailing
behind him, the sash of her white
linen shift floating in her wake.

Then catching up with him, she matched
his pace, letting him barrel on
giddily, in his riotous play,
just out of reach and rescue.

Then she turned him and steered him back.
And at the edge from which he’d launched,
scooped him up and — enfolding him —
whirled his giggling body round.

Who — knowing it would be such joy
to collapse into His cunning
Love — would not, like St. Francis — then
and there — strip and light out running?

The Envelope

by Maxine Kumin

It is true, Martin Heidegger, as you have written,
I fear to cease, even knowing that at the hour
of my death my daughters will absorb me, even
knowing they will carry me about forever
inside them, an arrested fetus, even as I carry
the ghost of my mother under my navel, a nervy
little androgynous person, a miracle
folded in lotus position.

Like those old pear-shaped Russian dolls that open
at the middle to reveal another and another, down
to the pea-sized, irreducible minim,
may we carry our mothers forth in our bellies.
May we, borne onward by our daughters, ride
in the Envelope of Almost-Infinity,
that chain letter good for the next twenty-five
thousand days of their lives.

Untitled

by Denise Levertov

A certain day became a presence to me,
there it was, confronting me — a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day’s blow
rang out, metallic — or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.

Summer Solstice, New York City

by Sharon Olds

By the end of the longest day of the year he could not stand it,
he went up the iron stairs through the roof of the building
and over the soft, tarry surface
to the edge, put one leg over the complex green tin cornice
and said if they came a step closer that was it.
Then the huge machinery of the earth began to work for his life,
the cops came in their suits blue-grey as the sky on a cloudy evening,
and one put on a bullet-proof vest, a
black shell around his own life,
life of his children’s father, in case
the man was armed, and one, slung with a
rope like the sign of his bounden duty,
came up out of a hole in the top of the neighboring building
like the gold hole they say is in the top of the head,
and began to lurk toward the man who wanted to die.
The tallest cop approached him directly,
softly, slowly, talking to him, talking, talking,
while the man’s leg hung over the lip of the next world
and the crowd gathered in the street, silent, and the
hairy net with its implacable grid was
unfolded near the curb and spread out and
stretched as the sheet is prepared to receive a birth.
Then they all came a little closer
where he squatted next to his death, his shirt
glowing its milky glow like something
growing in a dish at night in the dark in a lab and then
everything stopped
as his body jerked and he
stepped down from the parapet and went toward them
and they closed on him, I thought they were going to
beat him up, as a mother whose child has been
lost will scream at the child when its found, they
took him by the arms and held him up and
leaned him against the wall of the chimney and the
tall cop lit a cigarette
in his own mouth, and gave it to him, and
then they all lit cigarettes, and the
red, glowing ends burned like the
tiny campfires we lit at night
back at the beginning of the world.

from What to Remember When Waking

by David Whyte

In that first
hardly noticed
moment
in which you wake,
coming back
to this life
from the other
more secret,
moveable
and frighteningly
honest world
where everything
began
there is a small
opening
into the new day
which closes
the moment
you begin
your plans.

What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.

What you can live
wholeheartedly
will make plans
enough
for the vitality
hidden in your sleep.

To be human
is to become visible
while carrying
what is hidden
as a gift to others.

To remember
the other world
in this world
is to live your
true inheritance.

You are not
a troubled guest
on this earth,
you are not
an accident
amidst other accidents
you were invited
from another and greater night
than the one
from which
you have just emerged.