Search Results for: Inner Rings And Acceptance

Part two in a series: Acceptance And the “Inner Rings.”

The theologian and author gave a powerful sermon in 1940 about the human struggle to get inside the many “Inner Rings” of society, politicians, neighborhood and family. Lewis points out these groups go by many names and configurations – elites, clubs, societies, organizations, they exist at work, in schools, in the arts and literature. The insidious nature of the “inner rings” play on our hearts and desires he says, but his point is to warn against the futility of giving our lives to pursuing acceptance into such exclusive and elite circles, and he cautions it is often much worse to be accepted than not.

First, Lewis warns that a desire to be accepted into these rings – we all know them – is that such a desire often causes us to do things that are against our values and ideals in order to find acceptance within them. I learn this on a personal level every time I go near a literary organization or gather – for much of my life I have wanted to get inside this ring, increasingly I realize that they are not the place for me or for my values. I cannot do what I would have to do to be accepted there, and if I did, I would be selling my soul. I could never have attempted my new book tour within such a circle, could never had done it the way I did. On a literary panel, a writer told young aspiring writers the best thing they could to do make it in the new world of publishing was read poetry for 10 minutes a night. I am no enemy of poetry, but it broke my heart to hear this useless given to a bunch of young would-be writers heading into a world that has changed almost beyond recognition. I left the conference understanding it was not where I belonged.

Secondly Lewis argues that the desire for outsiders to be admitted to such inner circles represents a desire that can never be satisfied. What happens once accepted? We quickly find that the people we thought could provide us with identity, value, worth, acceptance do not have the power to do that – and after each “ring,” there is another right behind it waiting for us to want in. If you want to join a musical society because you like music, he writes, there is a real possibility of satisfaction. If you want to be in the know, be inside, be accepted, your pleasure will be short-lived. The circle cannot have from within the charm it had from the outside, by the very act of admitting you the ring has lost its magic.

I see acceptance in the animals I live with. I see it in Mickey, who accepts the boundaries of his life. I see it in my hospice work, where people know they are at the edge of life and only want to move out of life in dignity and comfort. What freedom they feel when they accept where they are.

I just finished reading a book by Mark Leibovich about Washington, it’s called  “Two Parties And A Funeral – Plus Plenty of Valet Parking – in America’s Gilded Capital.”  The book is packaged in a sort of flip and smart-ass way, trying to be less serious than it is, but the story Leibovich – a reporter for the New York Times – tells is very serious, it is discouraging and dispiriting, it describes Washington as a hive of “inner rings,” media people connected to political people connected to lobbyists, contractors, think tanks, producers,  elected officials, publicists, party-givers and influence peddlers. Everyone in Washington is either in an “inner ring” or trying to get in, everybody seems rich and busy, nobody seems honest, happy or grounded in the idea of service. Leibovich paints a portrait of a gilded capital today, corrupt and disconnected from the people it serves, there was nothing cute or funny about it.

I thought of the “inner rings” when I read the book, Leibovich even mentions C.S. Lewis’s sermon in one chapter. I was a reporter for the Washington Post for a few years, I remember feeling panicked at the prospect of staying there, I knew the city would suck me up and spit me out, I fled, or perhaps was driven out, I have never regretted it. Almost every journalist I ever knew went the other way, wanted badly to be there.

Lewis’s essays and life itself has led me to consider the meaning of acceptance in my life. I have a friend whose 97-year-old mother, who has been ailing and in pain for years, is dying. “I can’t accept it,” she says “I love my mother so much, she has always been there for me, I just am not willing to let her go.” How sad, I thought, doesn’t she know that we will all die, that we are not God, that a life fully lived is a sacred thing, and that death deserves to be respected, just as life does? What did she think would happen, that her mother would stay alive forever because she loves her so? I wondered what her mother would say.

I am learning acceptance more. I am a good writer, I will never be a great writer, I will never make it into that circle. I will never have a lot of money and the freedom to do whatever I want wherever I want to do it. I understand that death is closer than it is far away for me, I  want to live well and die well, and accept the sanctity of human existence – life and death, forever joined. I will not buy into the notion that I can live a meaningful life forever, or that technology can or should keep me alive beyond my time.

In exchange for learning acceptance, I have kept myself intact. This does not mean I am better than anyone else, it means I am who I am. For better or worse, I am learning to be me, to accept me, to be honest about me. I see the deal clearly that Lewis writes about – the inner ring versus the soul. Speaking for myself, I can only have one or the other.

I’m good with my choice.

“Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity...” Thomas Merton.

When I was a political reporter in the 1980s, I loved flying around Pennsylvania – I was writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer – with the seasoned old pols visiting their vast and thinly-populated districts.

It was great fun; we stopped in Mason Halls, American Legions, bars, and visiting the old men who sat in parks.

Politics was, of course, different then, a friendly and often corrupt fraternity, not the blood sport of fanatics and ideologues. A colleague told me that on my beat, a genuine conviction was as rare as a sober priest. Politicians were, above all, deal makers, not fanatics.

Still, I loved those guys; they were nothing but real.

We would usually fly around in a chartered and tiny plane visiting the gritty coal towns of the central part of the state. The old hands were amazing politicians – they could hit the ground running, day or night, rain or sun, drunk or sober.

It was understood that conversations inside of the plane late at night were off the record, but they were the best conversations for me, as the pols would let their guard down and reveal their true natures.

I remember one late night, Patrick, the powerful Assembly candidate I was writing about, had had some wine and was relaxing, the view out the window was all black.

“Politics is like a marathon in the Olympics,” he said, “it’s not a short race. You have to have the long view; you have to keep your feet on the ground, you have to find your cruising speed.”

It was all about perspective, he said. If you didn’t have one,  you couldn’t last. It was never personal. That idea took hold.

This year and the last few are all about finding a cruising speed for me.

We have a president with a genius and passion for disturbing and obsessing people. We have a Pandemic that crept up on us and upended our lives, sickened and killed thousands, as well as expectations, freedom, and peace of mind.

On top of that, there is a presidential election coming up sure to arouse anger and divide us even farther.  This year, it’s as easy to be frightened or angry as to breathe. There are lots of good reasons to be unsettled and worried about the future.

As someone who has been treated for mental illness for some years, and spent almost 30 years in therapy, I’m learning that it’s the crazy ones who sometimes end up sane since we get help if we are messed up enough, and the sane people are often the ones to snap when there’s trouble.

They never see it coming.

I know an awful lot of sane people who seem to have gone mad this year. The crazy people feel right at home, the world is coming around to them.

I think there is no better way to get rational than if I have no other choice. This year, I have no other choice; I don’t want to get sick again.

There are obvious ways to stay grounded – therapy, medication, exercise, meditation, fencing or tennis, obsessing on work, binging,  carving or sewing, or knitting. But this year may ask more of us than that.

And those things don’t seem to be cutting it for a lot of people – just look anywhere on Facebook or Twitter or any cable news channel. People are worried, unhappy. Listen to your friends at dinner (you remember friends and dinner?)

I look upon it this way. My soul and my psyche is a cup. I get to decide what I put in it and what I don’t.

What goes in my cup:

Loving my wife, daughter, granddaughter, dogs, donkeys, barn cats, and sometimes, even sheep. Good music, good books, good friends. As for the news, I find one outlet that I trust, and I look at it twice a day, once in the morning, once just before dinner. Never at night, never after 6 p.m., I look for a place that offers facts, not arguments or opinion or much commentary. I learn what I need to learn.

What does not go into the cup:

politics, argument, opening my news apps all day, dismemberment movies, anything to with Scandanavian serial killers, gardening for hours, the political ruminations of friends, or anything else that makes me feel bad or angry or scared.

This has been easier since my parents passed away.

I just put that stuff in the cup, I don’t want it in me.

My friend Patrick the Assemblyman taught me a lot. Perspective is everything.

This year is going to be the year of bad news and more bad news.

Even the so-called recovery turns out to be bad news. The Pandemic will be shaping our lives for a year or so. And it seems that humans are genetically structured to mess things up, including the earth itself.

There is nothing we can do about it but be careful and wise, and to find people we can listen to and listen to them.

I like the Dalai Lama’s injunction that our lives are best revealed by how well we learn to let go, among other things.

The Pandemic is out of our hands, it will do what it chooses to do, and it brings me back to the idea of Radical Acceptance, which has grounded me for some years now. I have let go of the opinion that I can change the course of history, or that someone is always to blame when it goes awry.

Unless you went to Catholic school, nobody told us that life is tough as often as not. Nobody wants to experience pain, sadness,  loss, disappointment, or anger. I didn’t know they were such an integral part of life; my parents would never have thought to teach me that; neither did my teachers.

I found out for myself.

When I fought the reality of pain and disappointment, I also lost the ability to feel joy.

Avoidance of reality, an inability to accept life and death, and pain is the mother of depression and anxiety, the enemy of peace of mind.

I’ve trained myself to say at least once a day, “This is the situation we are in. I don’t want it, like it, or approve of it. I don’t think it’s all right, but it is what it is, I really can’t do a thing about it. I choose to live.”

I’ll offer an example that might be relevant to many of the people reading this. I’ll use our President, Donald Trump, as an example.

Radical acceptance is not about excusing or absolving or forgiving him for what you might or might nor feel he has done, to the country, and in a sense, to you personally.

Radical acceptance means you are merely acknowledging reality, a/k/a truth. He is here, millions of people want him to be here and put him here. Any shrink worth a cup of coffee will tell you that fighting reality is poison, it is the mother of anxiety, panic, rage, and depression. Liberation begins with truth.

It ends there as well.

While pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. And suffering is is what happens when we refuse to accept the pain in the world and our lives.

For at least the next six or seven months, Politics and Pandemics will be daily elements in our lives. In might be five or six years of both, we can’t know, and anyone who claims to know is selling snake oil. Best get used to it.

The way I approach it is this:  I assume that President Trump, our divisive politics, and the Pandemic will go on for years, possibly as long as I am alive. It isn’t that I know this to be true, or that I  believe it to be true – of course, I can’t say and can’t claim to know.

But by assuming that, I accept whatever reality befalls the people I love and me.

And whatever happens, is either what I expected or not as bad. Donald Trump is not going to kill me; neither is any other politician. Neither is the Pandemic if I pay attention and stay alert.

I am no longer surprised either by politics or the coronavirus. I accept both as a reality of my life. My purpose is to live fully and meaningfully around them. I will adjust. Most of us, like our dogs, are great adaptors. They are better at it than we are.

Unlike them, we know death is not only a possibility but a certainty. It makes us edgy.

I guess the past two weeks have been among the most meaningful, productive, and joyous of my life. I am not ashamed of that or afraid to admit it.

I am busy and engaged, helping hungry people eat, older people stay alive, loving my wife, dogs, and animals, restoring some parts of my broken family, writing as well, or better than I ever have.

But almost everyone around me is angry, depressed, or frightened about the future. So I accept that there is something wrong with me.

I am keenly aware of the enormous suffering and death of others, but I accept that also as part of life. It has always been a part of life; it will always be a part of life. And human life has often – continuously in fact – been much worse than our lives are right now.

There’s a good reason God wanted to drown all the people he created. Human beings are not always lovely or wise, are not programmed to be happy all the time. I look for my spots and hang onto them, savor them, remember them, and am grateful for them.

Light follows darkness; death follows life; we are hopelessly flawed creatures. But unlike any other animal, we can also find peace and joy, love, and meaning. That is the beauty of being human. We are unique in every way.

We can grow and change.

You could make a good case that it is the crazy people who are the sanest.

I have found my cruising speed by accepting life, not fighting it, raging about it,  arguing about it, resenting it, or counting my grievances. I respect life, and so life has respected me in return and given me a break.

I’ve been given the gift of redemption and rebirth.

Life has given me many chances.

I won’t throw those chances away, or waste them,  not even for a mad President or a vicious disease. I’ve found my firm ground, and just in the nick of time.

I’ve not written about my most recent therapy work with Red, work with young veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, Jerry is one of the reasons why. Jerry suffered severe head and other injuries from an explosion while patrolling outside of Baghdad, he has spent four years trying to get his head and his life straight, suffering from rage, depression, trauma and great physical pain and confusion.  Soon after we saw him in Vermont, his mother contacted me to say that Jerry hung himself in the garage of their home, “he just lost hope,” she said, she thought he could not handle Christmas.

I did not know Jerry long or well – he did love Red – and I felt a good deal of rage at the old men who send young people off to war and then forget about them when they come home. Jerry may have been brave on the battlefield, he was braver in the war after – struggling through bureaucracy, pills, indifference and humiliation at home.

It has happened to many thousands of young men. I felt some guilt about Jerry – was there something I should have done? – before collecting myself, this was not about me, it was not my tragedy, there was nothing I could have done. I remember Jerry telling me that ever since Iraq, he found life a club he could not find a way to join, or re-join. Too many voices in his head now, he said. He left a wife and two young children and joined the company of many thousands of very young men who have committed suicide after going to  wars that nobody wants to talk about any longer.

The holidays seem to highlight the fragility in so many of us, despite the great pressure to feel joy and buy a lot of shiny new things. Many people do feel joy – I never mean to forget them or dismiss their happiness or make them feel guilty about it – many cannot.  I know a number of people who are losing friends, parents, dogs this week, life is sometimes a test of our highest expectations. This week I have been re-reading one of the most famous sermons of the great author and theologian C.S. Lewis, he called it the “Inner Ring,” and I thought of Jerry and of me and many others had the idea to write a series about the idea of acceptance and life outside of the “inner rings.” Perhaps it is a need.

Lewis warned that life sometimes seems to consist of a maze of inner rings, exclusive groups, gatherings, organizations and communities that people outside are trying to get into. “They are everywhere,” he wrote,”in our workplaces, our schools, our governments, and our churches. They are the unwritten hierarchies that claim to give those who are admitted a place, identity, and value.” I know this feeling well, I’ve felt it my entire life.

We all know the draw of the “inner ring,” Jerry wanted back in, I have often looked afar at literary stars, decorated academics, people with a lot of money, and wondered why I couldn’t get in, it is human nature. I’m reading a book about Washington called “This Town” by Mark Leibovich and he writes of our gilded capital as a place of inner rings – journalists, lobbyists, lawyers, contractors, politicians, government aides and White House luminaries – the people they all presume to serve locked out of the system, kept at bay.

Lewis warns of the great moral dangers in wanting to join the inner rings, we will not, he says, find what we are looking for once we get inside, we often have to compromise our very souls to get in. So I want to write this week about the inner rings and about acceptance. Accepting who we are and loving ourselves for it. Accepting that death is the twin cousin of life, they are each a part of the other.

Death and sorrow seem to come as a great shock to so many people, we somehow think we can stave it off, deny it, push it away. No many how many times we learn otherwise, this is not a lesson that seems to get shared, or perhaps it is not a lesson people ever want to hear. Is it in our nature to deny the reality of life?, is that how we get through it?

Hospice and therapy work have shown me the grace with which so many people accept life – and death. C.S. Lewis teaches me to accept who I am and come to peace with the nature of life – mine and others. I’m going to write about that all of this week, I’m dedicating the series to Jerry and thinking of his Mother this Christmas. And to all of us who live outside of the inner ring.

Yesterday, we raised nearly $7,000, so Bishop Maginn High School can have its last prom in style, the students will get the ones they want and deserve. I went to the school and helped them paint Ukraine sunflowers all over the sidewalk.

Today, the blog’s readers helped three members of a Ukrainian family raise enough money to get to the United States and join their grandparents in safety. Doing good feels good; it brings joy and meaning to life.

Hate and anger and despair do just the opposite.

Tomorrow, I’m going to the Mansion to take another portrait in my Faces Of The Mansion series. I love every one of those portraits. By now, I’m supposed to be a grumpy older man, hanging on for dear life, falling apart, squawking about kids today.

Why aren’t I?

Earlier this week, I took a Leica camera lesson and am beginning to master my aperture and shutter speed. I also took a photo editing lesson online and am polishing up my photo-painting project and taking other photos I like.

My life is whole; my life is rich and has meaning; the Army Of Good is roaring back from the pandemic and supporting small acts of kindness almost every day.

I’m doing some work on my blog, adding color and graphic improvements and a bolder typeface.

I behaved like children in a toy shop for much of my life. I wanted this, and I wanted that, and I got what I wanted, and more than I bargained for, and nothing that mattered to me.

I had many options in my life, and I was restless and anxious. I asked myself, “what do I want. If I can only have one thing, what would it be? Make up your mind!” I couldn’t.

But the truth was that I had no idea what I wanted; I wanted many things, not one, and could never find the joy and inner peace that I am beginning to experience now. I was forever looking back and ahead, not now. Life is precious; life is short.

I don’t mean to waste a single day of it.

How can this be? I’m 74 years old, I have diabetes and heart disease, stiff hamstrings and flattening feet, a sore back and plaque on my teeth, a cabinet full of medicines, and a sleep apnea mask to wear every night.

How can anyone love an older man like this? How can he love himself?

But nothing has happened the way I thought it would, another great lesson in life.

I don’t mind being old, but I am also coming to love it. It is the best time of my life. No one can take that from me.

I am happier than ever, and my life is hopeful and meaningful. I love everything I do – life with Maria,  the Mansion, Bishop Maginn, my pictures, my blog, my farm, the dogs, and the donkeys. I wake up every morning eager to go out into the world and do what I want.

And I’ve never wanted less.

This isn’t supposed to happen at my age. I have aches; I do have complaints; I cherish days without pain when they come. And doctors have become my life partners, something that never happened before.

But I am taking care of myself, and they are taking care of me, and in strange ways, I am healthier than I have been in decades for all my issues.

Finally, I am learning about my life. I am beginning to see why I am here. I never knew that.

Finally, I know what I want. Ultimately, I want only what I have and nothing more. I have everything I need. I have everything I want. I am aware of the future, I know where I am, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be happy and accept life.

Finally, I am helping my body function in better ways, eat well, lose weight, and sleep for hours. It loves me back. I’m even getting some new clothes that I love wearing and have color, and I stopped hiding behind old farmers’ clothes.

I learned that I needed to teach myself discipline, inner and outer. I couldn’t want too many things; I couldn’t have everything I wanted; I saw that most of what I wanted was pointless garbage, personally and emotionally.

People suffer, people, die, people get sick. But I still have to live and move forward in gratitude and acceptance.

I needed to pay attention to my health but also to pay attention to my soul. Nobody knocked me on the head and told me what I wanted; I had to figure that out.

I had to upend my life to do it, but it also saved my life.

I meditate every day. I walk into silence every day. I find time for contemplation and music and thought every day. Doors began to open in my mind, light shined through the fog.

I am working harder than ever on my blog, which grows and depends beyond my expectations. My typos and I are writing better and more than ever.

Finally, I know what I want and am doing what I want. Finally, I am free, inside and outside. There is no need to lie or hide when you live an open and authentic life.

Finally, I have love in my life, to give and receive. Each of those things is a miracle to me; I expected to be long dead by now.

I have no illusions. My time is getting short, but the days have been mostly bright and shining once I found my mission in life.