I have heard it said that a man who lives fully is prepared to die fully, and at any time. Today, I saw the gray hen, who I believe to be dying, sitting out in the middle of the grass yard near the pasture gate.
She had been sitting there for hours in the warm sun, observing, the other hens were busy pecking for bugs. She looked so peaceful and so beautiful out there. Chickens never sit alone out there like that, she has moved into her own zone.
She is very calm these days, not like a chicken. She is sometimes on the porch, sometimes in hiding. She laid an egg the other day. The other hens have nothing to do with her, they don’t come near her. She sleeps up in the trees or hiding in the bushes, she has abandoned the roots and we can’t find her after dark.
Something is going on with the gray hen these days, she is mysterious. She comes and goes, vanishes for hours, even days, has become fearless, as if she is ready to die and accepting of it.
I came within two or three feet of her with my camera, and normally, she would have been long gone by then, but today, she just sat on the grass and looked at me, I even reached over to touch the side of her neck, and she didn’t run. She seemed to want me to be there. Maybe she wanted to talk.
Are you dying?
Do you have anything to teach me about death, I wondered? She tilted her head at me, you could swear she was listening. Or maybe addled, to let me get that close.
When it’s time, I told her, I am the one that has got to die when its time for me to die. So I will live my life the way I wish.
I think Jimi Hendrix said that, she said.
Okay, I said, did you know that the fear of death follows from the fear of life?, I countered. Do you know who said that? I asked.
Mark Twain, she said.
Are you afraid of dying? I asked.
No, she said, not really. We don’t know fear in that way. We don’t understand death. We mostly worry about things eating us.
But death must be so beautiful. To life in the soft brown earth, and the meadow grass waving back and forth over me, and to sink into the silence, no yesterday, no – tomorrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace.
Beautiful, I said. Sounds like Oscar Wilde.
I took my photos – the Gray Hen is very happy to pose for me these days – and then I went into the house. I looked out the window, and she was gone.
Can good people have ideas that are hateful to me? Should that matter in my therapy work?
It’s the kind of question that always sends me back to the writing of Hannah Arendt, the great, late moral philosopher. She believed that good people are quite capable of ideas that others find hateful.
She also believed, as I do, that moral choices are personal, it matters what I believe, not what others believe.
In my work with the Mansion residents, and sometimes even with immigrants, I am confronted with ideas and beliefs that are so different from mine.
But there is a boundary there for me, the residents’ beliefs are not my concern, I am not there as a judge. I do not believe that compassion and empathy only go to people I like and agree with. I think the very point of empathy is to feel what other people feel, especially if they are very different from me.
I believe part of the sickness in my country is this deepening idea that people who think differently than us are our enemies, and must be hated. I am not a good hater, for all of my troubles.
I’ve been raising money for Mansion residents and refugees for some time now, and Art is the first person I’ve tried to raise money for that almost no one wanted to help. I bought a portable air conditioner, an audio reading of the Bible, a CD Player and a reclining chair.
For the first time since I’ve been seeking donations for this work, people did not rush to contribute to Art. In fact, nobody wanted to contribute to Art.
I got a $50 today for Mansion work from a good woman who worked hard for it, and she stipulated that the money should go to the Mansion for any purpose I wished, but she did not want a penny of it to go to Art. She is not the first. A gay man sent me an angry message yesterday saying it was wrong for me to be helping Art, his said his beliefs were offensive and he would never send him a nickel.
I do understand why people would not wish to send him their money.
I respect that, that is part of the deal, nobody should ever feel any pressure to spend a dime for anything purpose they do not believe in or feel comfortable about. I don’t generally like to be told what to do, but people who work hard and send their money have every right to say where they want their money to go.
If their stipulations makes me uncomfortable, as they sometimes have, I will send it back, as I have sometimes done.
Art is responsible for his words and deeds, just like me.
With the arrival of his reclining chair in the next few days, Art will have what he needs, or at least what it is that I can give him. The Army of Good is interesting, because even though few people wanted to send money to help Art, a number of people of faith have written to him.
That has helped him tremendously, he feels as if he has a ministry (Art, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.)
Art is a fundamentalist Christian, he is well aware that his views are offensive to many, and sees himself as something of a martyr, warring on behalf of God.
I believe he is comfortable in that place, people can’t get too close that way. There are no fellow believers at the Mansion, not in Art’s fire-and-brimstone way, and he admits he has angered or troubled many people on his journey. He says he has no choice, he has been called to this work by God. It is his fate to suffer for his beliefs.
But his choices have left him very alone.
I got an e-mail earlier today from someone in Oregon, she asked me if working with Art make me uncomfortable. It doesn’t. I am there to help, period, and if I help him in any reasonable way, then I feel good. I don’t get to judge who is worthy and who is not, that is not something I do.
Art says he hopes to save me. I wish him luck with that.
I find a number of his religious beliefs to be offensive, yet I do not find Art to be offensive.
He is a person of great integrity and commitment, he has suffered terribly in his life, and is now very much isolated and alone, far from home, and without the brother he moved to the Mansion to be near.
John died almost as soon as Art got here. He believes that everything he feels comes from a place of love, he is, he says, where God wants him to be.
This week, I brought my friend Sandy, to talk to Art.
She is an evangelical whose views are very different from Art’s, as are mine. Sandy follows that I believe to be Christ’s teaching, she is not a political Christian, but a true Christian, at least in my eyes. Art was very happy to talk to her. And as importantly, to listen to her.
She said she wanted to work with him to help him soften his beliefs and manner. He said he would be happy to work with her. He asked me to invite her to come back.
You don’t have to be a therapist to see that Art is lonely, and isolated, that he pushes people away, that he was terribly abused in his life, and that some of his prayers are beautiful and soft. I believe beneath the dogma there is a good heart. His views may cause pain to some, but he has also known pain almost all of his life. His first wife left him for a woman, he has only good words for her.
Art is a different man when he is praying. He was a maintenance worker in Montana, he is always trying to help residents who need work done in their rooms. He also complains loudly to the staff if he thinks things are not right. We are showing him ways to speak more softly and patiently.
Art and I have made a connection with one another, he knows how I feel, i know how he feels, but human to human, we are able to talk with one another.
He likes praying for me and talking with me, he insists I am a man of God. Sandy is going to come every week to talk with. It is good for him to talk to people. “She’s been to Africa helping people there, so she can handle me,” he confided to me with a wink. Yes she can, I assured him. She is tough as nails, and not the least bit afraid of you.
Art is estranged from his family, he has nine children, none of whom speak to him.
Tomorrow I am going to call one of them and see if he wishes to reconnect with his father, Art would dearly love to talk to him, even though he sometimes denies it. He said they had to call him first, but that is just a posture, I think. He did readily agree to give me his son’s number. I saw his eyes tear up when he spoke of him.
It’s going to be a difficult call, I imagine. I hope to persuade his son to call Art, perhaps plan a visit here, he lives far away.
So I will keep on working with Art, hoping to make him more comfortable and connected. We have found a good Church for art, they are gentle and welcoming and would love to work with him also. They are not troubled or intimidated by him, he is a big man, he can be loud. They have been coming to pick him up on Sundays and bring him back.
I don’t need to seek donations for him, which is a good thing, because I don’t think I would get too many. I think Art has what he needs right now. If the church can’t pick him up permanently, we can arrange for a taxi.
But I do wish to keep working with him, to keep trying to make him more comfortable, less judgmental perhaps, more connected to people who might care for him at this lonely time at the edge of his life. Art is complex, all the more creative I need to be.
Perhaps it is our own kinds of wilfulness that connect us to one another.
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If you wish to support my work at the Mansion or with the refugees, you can donate either through my Post Office Box, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected]. Please mark your checks or donations for the Mansion/Refugee Fund.
The most valuable things you send the residents are our letters, messages, photos and thoughts. They feel connected to the wider world, it means everything to them. The current list of Mansion residents who wish to receive your messages is as follows:
Winnie, Jean, Ellen, Mary, Gerry, Sylvie, Jane, Diane, Alice, Jean, Madeline, Joan, Allan, Bill, John K., Helen, Connie, Robert, Alanna, Barbara, Peggie, Dottie, Tim, Arthur, Guerda, Brenda, John Z, Brother Peter.
Gus got butted by Liam this morning, but just a couple of hours later, he was right back at it, standing up not just one sheep, but two of our toughest ewes. Zelda and Griselle got nose to nose with Gus, trying to intimidate him into getting out of the way, they had just chased Fate away.
Gus was having none of it, no licks on the nose here. He dig his heels in, got in their faces, barked two times and dared them to do something about it. They stared at him for awhile, and then backed right up. Go Gus, when you fall off a sheep, get right back on. Fate, I hope you are watching.
Gus worships Red and studies him carefully in the pasture, He is trying to learn from him, and when I sent Red off on an outrun, Gus takes off right behind him. Gus does not have the long and powerful legs that Red does, but he is quick as a rabbit and keeps up with him.
It is, to me, a remarkable sight to see these two – yin and yang- running out in the pasture. Red never acknowledges Gus or pay the slightest bit of attention to him, I think Gus believes himself to be a herding dog now and is quite pleased with himself. He is lightning fast too, but not as fast as Red.
It was perhaps inevitable, Liam, one of our wethers, came up to Gus, who stood his ground and got a head butt that caused him to yelp in surprise and back up. it was hot and buggy in the pasture and the sheep were irritable and anxious to get into the pole barn, where they are out of the sun and away from most of the bugs.
Gus backed up but didn’t run off. He wasn’t hurt, just startled. Liam does this to Red once in awhile, but regrets it. Gus was more shocked than frightened, many of the ewes are his good pals now.
The life of the farm dog, Gus is a bit wiser today, and I think Liam may be a nip on the nose soon. He took up position on the red bench and held court afterwards.
