Day: July 11, 2018

“Creativity is a little like opening the gate at the top of a field irrigation system. Once we remove the blocks, the flow moves in.” – Julia Cameron.

Once Ed Gulley, a hard-working dairy farmer,  incorporated the creative spark into his life, he and his life  were never the same.

This week, sitting with Ed in the late afternoon in his suddenly quiet room I understood why so many spiritual people are creative, the great artists of old times all believed the creative spark came into being when God created the earth, at the time considered the greatest creative work ever.

I asked Ed if he wanted me to read some spiritual texts to him, he  said he did.

The Kabbalah, the texts of the Hebrew mystics, also often speaks of  the creative spark, the unique gift God gave only to human beings, of all the creatures of the earth.

No other species has felt the call to write poets and books or compose great works of music. In the Kabbalah, a gentle God warns that it is unacceptable to fail to unleash the creative spark inside of each of us.

—

I went to see Ed around 3:30 this afternoon, Carol wanted to go shopping and Maria went with her to keep her company. It was very quiet in the house, a friend and blog reader came by with spice cake and strawberries, which Ed devoured and loved

But for most of the afternoon, I just sat quietly next to Ed with a book while he sketched. Almost every colored pencil he used fell to the floor at one point or another, and I kept picking them up and putting them back in the box.

It was mostly silent time, when I wasn’t helping him to eat the strawberries and cake and taking away the plates. Silent time is a new thing for me and Ed, we are both talkers and story-tellers and this silence is new for both of us, and deeply spiritual for me.

But now, it feels natural and rewarding.

I told Ed that when he was deep in mystical rapture, St. Francis would often hear the sounds of music.

The Little Flowers of St. Francis tells us that one he was deep in meditation, “all of a sudden an angel appeared to him in a very bright light, holding a viol in his left hand and a bow in his right hand.”

As St. Francis gazed in amazement at the angel, the latter drew the bow once upward across the viol. In an instant a beautiful melody entered his consciousness and his soul “and suspended all of his bodily senses.”

Ed nodded and smiles, he seem to get the story.

I think any writer or artist or musician or sculptor will recognize this implosion of feeling and impulse. It is the embodiment of the creative spark, it is the great joy of creation.

I thought I saw and felt this watching Ed  focus so intensely on his sketches today,  perhaps his last remaining path to dignity and meaning, the one contribution he can make, the last productive thing he can still do.

I am not sure about God, but if he is real, he was in that room, shining a light on Ed, who seemed to gain strength and power as he drew. There almost seemed to be a light on him.

Suddenly, just close to 6 p.m., he turned to me and said he thought he needed to sleep, and  we lowered the bed and his eyes closed, and I said goodbye and held his hand. He was already deep in sleep, it just took seconds.  The sketches exhausted and depleted him.

I took the pencils and the sketches and put them on the table next to his bed.

He would not awaken until much later in the night, and I would be gone.

My new afternoon activity with Ed is to just sit  with him, I think we are past talking much or telling stories or taking videos. Silence can be a gift at the right time and place. My hospice work taught me about Active Listening, and people at the edge of life need it and value it.

I don’t try to cheer Ed up or tell him things will be fine, I am not there to do that, and he would spot it as a lie right away. People at the edge of life hate it when people try to cheer them up or tell them everything will be okay.

Ed can no longer sit up or stand up, he is confined to bed, and subject to all of the indignities that come with that.

At night, I am told, he is sometimes fearful and emotional. I rarely see that in my visits.

When I see him, he is very quiet and focused completely on his sketches, they were good and colorful today. It was warm, and he chose to be shirtless. He had no lectures to give me, or stories to tell me.

There was something very powerful and very spiritual about this image above. I asked him if it was okay to take a photo, and he said, as he always does, “sure.”

When he sketches, Ed seems to go deeply inside of himself. He is transformed, he appears strong and healthy, even though his cancer is making its way through his body and changing him in real and visible ways.

When people are terminally ill, there is an initial rush of visitors, then it quiets, and most people don’t return.

It is hard for many, and they don’t know what to say. A neighbor came to the farmhouse today and told Carol she was thinking of them, but she couldn’t bear to go and see Ed. She wanted to remember as the big and powerful man that he was. Carol said she  understood.

My photography has once again become the best vehicle to tell Ed’s story, as he gathers himself to die. I thought I would have to stop taking photos, but not yet.

The farmhouse seems more peaceful to me than before, I think there is more acceptance there, almost every becomes somewhat normal if it goes on long enough.

The presence of hospice has taken a great deal of pressure off of Carol and the family to make all the decisions about his health care and well-being and comfort. Whatever happens, they are ready.

I feel some peace in Ed now, and in the farmhouse around him. And great peace in his room.

It is unfortunate that most people don’t think of themselves as creative beings, even though all of us are. Religion and politics teach people to follow strict rules of thought and behavior. There is nothing in public life less creative or thoughtful than the left or the right, both symbolize the death of thought  and creativity in public life.

Parents consciously snuff out their children’s creative urges by telling them to grow up, choose careers, find day jobs, get real, move to big cities where there is work, go to expensive colleges. At every step of their lives, children are warned to be practical, avoid daydreaming or fantasizing. So many are ridiculed for being different or thinking differently, the birth of creativity.

Almost everyone I meet tells me they are not creative, our culture has done a good job of leeching creativity out of them an robbing them of creative courage or faith. Creatives are the others, people who get paid poorly to make art and music and literature, people to not be taken  seriously in the land of money.

The author Julia Cameron teaches seminars in unleashing creativity. She  refers to God as the “Great Creator,” and says the secret of unleashing the creative spark lies in an “experience of the mystical union” with our own personal divine. Creativity, she says, is “God’s gift to us. Using our creativity is  our gift back to God.”

I know what the means, even if I have my own ideas of God.

Ed reminds us that the creative spark is in all of us. Perhaps it always needs the nourishment of creativity to rise and grow. Perhaps that’s all it needs.

I call them the Good Witches, they have been meeting for over five years now, just about every week: Maria, Mandy, and Athena. They usually meet at the Round House Cafe, although sometimes they head out on secret excursions.

Maria doesn’t tell me much about what they discuss, and I only ask if they had a good time. They talk openly with one another, I think, and confidentiality is important. They almost always do have a good time.

I am happy that Maria has a group of friends like this to talk to, I think everyone needs that. Few men have that, I’ve never had it, and I have grown older, and I don’t really expect to have it. Men are different.

Few men would take the time of out their work lives to meet so regularly and faithfully with one another, and talk openly and honestly about their lives, as Maria says they do, and men  are the poorer for it, I think. I’ve started three men’s groups in my life, and found myself with some very good men, but they almost almost find reasons to stop – they are too busy, they have too many obligations, they have work to do at night, their wives want them at home.

If I told Maria I wanted her at home for lunch, she would laugh at me, or worse. And good for her. I have no trouble occupying myself alone. She needs other people in her life, as we all do.

It’s too bad men don’t do this, because most men really need someone to talk to: just look at the news.

Maria tries very hard to never miss a lunch, she takes the commitment very seriously, and when I see the Good Witches on the street, I often think I see a white stream rising up above them, they are always laughing or smiling, or listening very intently to one another.

It’s interesting, as much as I admire them, I have no desire to join the group, and none of them have ever or would ever invited me, and I wouldn’t belong or be comfortable there. I’ve learned in my teaching that women are the most open and comfortable when men are not present.

There is something about the community of women that is just very powerful at times, and I just don’t see it happening with most men. Perhaps the next generation will change that.

I find that I do have some friends now, some men and some women, and I am increasingly comfortable with them and trusting of them. It would not really occur to me to meet with them for lunch every week. Like most men, I always think there is something more important for me to do than to have lunch, even as I know there is really nothing more important than human connections.

When I see the Good Witches, I think they have mystical powers, they can lift things up off of the ground and make frogs sing. They are very important to Maria, when I met her, she had no friends like this and as she has opened up, she found people she can trust and share almost anything with, or so I believe.

Friendship is a sacrament, I think, something sacred. I am just beginning to figure it out. It took long enough.

“Sometimes I Say To A Poem,”

“Stop Bothering me! Can’t You See

I’m Checking My Messages?

The poem, just outside of my window, looking in,

snickers and then laughs,

“Oh, poor baby,  we don’t wish to

interfere with your messages…,”

she sneered,

then, after a few seconds,

“turn the dam thing off,

don’t you know i am in your head,

and there is only one way to get me out?”

No, I say, I didn’t know, but once I thought about it

I know it’s true.

I sigh,

I’m just busy,

I’m not in the mood.

The poem looks wry,

says nothing,

she climbs up onto the bird feeder

just outside of my window,

then winks, smiles, blows me a kiss,

lifts her skirts and shakes her bottom,

and looks shy…

she has my attention now.

I smile back at her, and she leans

forward, right through the window glass,

and whispers in my year,

“Do you hear that very loud noise?…”

yes I do,

it is a very  loud, unnerving sound.

“You just made the sky fall.”

Dear Ed (not Ed Gulley), thank for your message to me this morning. It was beautiful and wrenching at the same time.  I thank you for reaching out to thank me for my work, which you kindly say has given you pleasure and hope.

Today, I hope to give you more hope.

You were writing in response to an essay I wrote yesterday, it was called “Let Us Begin Again,” and it was inspired by St. Francis of Assisi and his writings, and by his statement at the end of his life to the Friars:  “Let us begin again,  for up to now, we have done nothing.”

You wrote:

“See, I am a man of failure. I have  accomplished nothing and struggled for 40 years from Major Depressive Disorder. Many days, I have asked God to take my life as I am tired. Tired of the lack of humanity in this country, of compassion, of service to your fellow human. The leader of this country has worn me down with the constant drivel, of hate, hate, hate.”

But, he wrote, “I read your post today about St. Francis and realized that I need to get outside of this constant dark mental oppression because I too  have done nothing.  Your article hit me dead on. And if gave me spark of hope in a dark world. And  really, hope is all I have left. Without it, there is a large void...”

Ed, thank you, your letter touched me deeply for several reasons.

One is  because you grasped across time and space and pain the true message of St. Francis’s life and beliefs, and two, because you so beautifully and intuitively captured his idea of the reconstruction of life, something open to all of us, whatever our faith.

This  what St. Francis was all about, and how overjoyed he would have been to see this letter and to know that he touched a soul far across the continuum of time and saw his pain and perhaps saved him. I’m not a joiner, if I were a Christian, I would probably be angry and  frustrated today, I am not a Christian, but powerfully drawn to the moral and compassionate messages fo the founders of the faith.

They would perhaps not be happy with what has been done to their religion today, and in our country.

I have to be  honest, I am just the messenger here, Ed, you are generous, but the message was all about St. Francis, perhaps the most beloved priest in the history of Christianity

I love that  you read his message so perfectly.

He was not denigrating himself (or you) when he said he had done nothing, he was simply giving birth and rebirth to himself and showing us what he called reconstruction, the building of a new life and the path to a meaningful life.

He  was re-committing himself to a good life, again, and again, and again.

St. Francis lived  a life of service and it sounds like  you are choosing the same path. If this happened because of my blog and anything I wrote her, i am overjoyed to. This morning, my wife and I sat in the car and I read your message to her and she just shook her head and said, “that is so wonderful.” And it is.

For those of you who don’t know, Major Depressive Disorder is a very painful and difficult kind of mental illness. It is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest in life. It affects how one thinks, feels and  behaves and can lead to a wide variety of emotional and physical difficulties. People who suffer  from MDD may have trouble carrying out day-to-day activities, and sometimes one may feel as if life is not worth living.

Ed, you are a brave and worthy man, if there is a God, and he was listening to you, I doubt he would want to take you away. The God I would love to believe in would blow a lot of warmth and courage into your soul, and send you out on your journey. He would fill your cup with hope.

As is happens, I have a close friend with this disorder, and she has often thought of taking her own life. She has  learned to live with this disorder by committing herself to a life of service, and by writing and painting every day of her life. This has grounded her, and  taught her how to live in a positive way. She no longer thinks of killing herself.

Ed, my wish for you is that find the reconstruction – the rebirth –  that Francis wrote about so often. He believed in  worshipping Lady Poverty, that is he was devoted to nothing but service, never money or power. His happiness came, in a way, from his very low view of himself, he called it “lowliness.”

He wrote that there was power in being a “somebody,” but that there was great truth and meaning in being a nobody, in letting go of a life filled with things other people told him he ought to have, including conventional ideas about happiness and security.

Francis’s very radical idea was to choose weakness instead of strength, vulnerability instead of righteousness, truth instead of practicality, honesty instead of influence. He stood in quite  remarkable opposition to Westernized versions of the gospel and to the wealth and surely, he would be horrified at the power of the wealth-and-success oriented electronic Church of today.

We cannot change the world, wrote Francis, except  as we have changed ourselves.

We can only give who we are and what we are.

We can only offer to others what we have been given.

We can’t just pray, we must be the prayer.

We can’t only have questions, we must be the answers.

He had enormous differences with his Church, but he never argued with the Church or railed against it, his response to arrogance and corruption was to do good, better.

He was a gentle prophet, not a warrior. His passion was to care for the poor, to be of service.

His witness has been to call and challenge people of good heart and intention for more than eight centuries, and here, Ed, he seems to have reached out and touched you. He offered nothing but the call to life.

I hope that you choose to walk on that kind of path, in your own way and time. I am not looking to be a priest or a monk, but his message inspires and encourages me, he lived in much harder times than ours, and believed that doing good was far superior than arguing about what good was.

I sense that this would fit you from your letter. You and I are different in many ways, I suspect, and similar in others. We have been broken, and  we have chosen to begin again.

Up to now, we have done nothing.

I wish  you great luck and hope you keep me informed. We have begun a dialogue, you and I, and I, for one, I am morally bound to keep it going. And I want to know how your story turns out.

What a miracle to give rebirth to ourselves, to do good, better. Again and again.

Peace and compassion to you, Ed, on your hero journey. I am hopeful of hearing from you down the road.

I got a new and updated Mansion residents list today, this is the list of residents who would like to receive your letters, messages and photographs.

You can  write to them as often as you wish c/o The Mansion, 11 S.Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

We have done a lot of good for the Mansion residents, but I think the purest and most enduring good may come from the letters and messages you have been sending them.

Many of the residents tell me their letter writers are among their closest friends, and they wait all day for the mail to come. This is a selfless task, there are often no rewards, sometimes no responses are possible. Sometimes people get sick or go to nursing homes or die.

I can never tell you when that happens, it is agains the law.

Some can answer, some can’t, some can hear the letters but not see them others forget the letters they get seconds after they get them. Giving is the best reward, perhaps the only one.

I have been supplying the residents with a steady stream of envelopes, notecards and stamps so they can reply if they are able.

One of the most difficult things for people in elderly care is their sense of disconnection from the outside world, the feeling of being left behind and forgotten, torn away from everything they know and love. Your messages have transformed this isolation, they feel known, cared for, still recognized as human beings.

Here is the new and updated list as of July 10, 2018.

Bob, Allan, Winnie, Jean, Art, Tim, John D., Alanna, Peggie, Ellen, Joan, Brenda, Jackie, Sylvie, Alice, Madeline, Mary, Blance, Bill, William H., John K., Diane, Helen, Debbie, Dottie, Ruth, Kenneth, Gerry, Guerda, Wayne, Matt.

Sylvie is working hard to respond to your messages, she sometimes gets the addresses wrong, and considers the messages prayers. Ruth is in need of letters of love and comfort now.

Thanks so much for your letters, they mean more than you might now, I think it was the best idea we have had.

My Mansion work is entirely supported by donations and contributions, large and small. You can contribute by sending a check to the Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected].

We are keeping good alive.

We are doing good, better, in the tradition of St. Francis.

There are just a few items left on the Mansion Amazon Wish List, we are seeking new tablecloths for the Mansion dining room. Just need four more sets. Take a look.