Search Results for: Inner Rings And Acceptance

We all have our own ideas and definitions about grace. To me, grace is acceping what life brings me. My own spiritual test is not about living trouble free, but accepting the hard blows of all of our lives with patience and acceptance.

I don’t speak poorly of my life, or wade in the dark pool that is self pity. The last fear years have changed the trajectory of my life. Because of heart and other issues, I can no longer  help with many of the chores I did for years on the first Bedlam Farm, and now, the second.

Maria, who has so much work of her own to do – making her quilts and potholders and hanging pieces, shipping them, creating them, all while getting up early to feed the animals and staying committed and productive. Talk about grace.

She is in her studio now as I write this making up for the time she lost today driving me to and from my car dealer, who is handling the 25,000 service in Bennington,Vt..

We finished dinner, blew out the candles and she said she had to head out to her studio to make some potholders, she just had an idea of something she wants to do.

I remember always hauling the garbage cans out to the curb in Hebron and for awhile here. Now I am told, I shouldn’t do it. I was a little surprised to see Maria go sailing past me, beaming as if she was heading out to see her favorite movie.

Bleess her,  bless her, if you cam smile while hauling a garbage receptacle almot as tall as you are, then I take my heat off to you. Thanks sweetie, for your grace.

“Wir mussen in Christus still halten.” We must reside quietly in Christ.” – from Amish writings.

Last week’s barn-raising was exciting and uplifting. It was also a powerful learning experience for me..

I am still mulling it over.

I want to share what I’ve learned before too much time goes by and I forget about it or get distracted.

The Amish workers went as quickly and quietly as they came, sometimes it seems like a dream, the barn raising was so unusual to see up close, it was so different from anything I’ve seen.

Despite the attention being paid to the raising, the Amish stayed within their close circle, people could watch them hammer and work, but they retreated within themselves for lunch, rarely spoke with spectators or mingled with them, and withdrew out of sight for dinner and at night.

When they weren’t working on the barn, they kept their isolation from the world beyond, their sense of being a people apart. This is something they never give up, no matter how friendly they may seem to visitors.

Moise is happy and proud, he is already moving onto the next thing, and I hope to move with him, in a limited way.

It is a remarkable thing to see what human beings are capable of doing when they work together and they understand what is being asked of them and when they work for things other than money.

Modern corporations simply do not generate the kind of loyalty, commitment, and challenge that I saw these Amish men show to me, to the scores of townspeople who came to watch,  and to one another.

They were infused with joy and purpose, not dragged down by obligation and pressure, complaint and resentment.

For most people, work is a job. For the Amish, work is a gift from God, something that brings joy and fulfillment, something that makes them good people to help one another.

I think only faith and love can accomplish something like the barn-raising that I saw.

What I saw was a community that stresses individual liberation over the corporate community of believers outside their world.

These workers stressed enjoyment rather than suffering, assurance of salvation rather than hope, a subjective rater than submissive experience, a vocal rather than silent experience.

They all joyously embraced and demonstrated the powerful and mystical Anabaptist themes of Gelasseneit with its many connected meanings: resignation, calmness of mind, composure, staidness, the conquest of selfishness, the yielding to life, the silence of the soul, tranquility, inner surrender, equanimity, and detachment.

All of those Amish traits were visible during the raising.

Their creed, according to John A. Hostetler in Amish Society, is “We must reside quietly in Christ, (Wir Mussen in Christus still halten), “a common phrase in Anabaptist writings.

There was little talking or joking, everyone calmly and quietly went about their business, Eli the foreman keeping close watch from below. Things do sometimes go wrong, he told me.

What I learned:

First, I am reminded that faith, community, and family are the three things that life revolves around the Amish, nothing else matters as much. Everything they say, do, or think revolves around their church, their children, and their now long-standing traditions.

They live the life of people who wish to live and work together for the good of everyone and for a shared purpose.  They do not argue about their practices, they practice them.

They seek to avoid the greed, distractions, violence, and chaos of the outside world, the Corporate Nation.

Raising a barn is a big deal, it takes time, money, inconvenience, planning, and vast experience. It requires fearless and agile people, strong and experienced workers, and people who will travel great distances without pay to help members of their community, again and again.

Without community, none of this would be possible, and outside of the Amish world, our sense of community seems to be splintering, even in the face of pandemic danger and death. The lessons of the Amisn gain in importance.

Their radically different values have caused me to reassess my own ideas about technology, politics, child-rearing, authority, friendship, and faith.

And it has affected me on a personal level. I am drawn to the idea of a quiet life in faith, even if I have no wish to become a Christian.

The arrival of the Amish into my world and my friendship with Moise Miller triggered a small earthquake in my life.

Maria says it also revealed my deep yearning for family. This was a surprise to me, even though I instantly knew it to be true.  I see that I have never fully recovered from the death of my first two children decades ago.

My biological family is dead or scattered, or out of touch.  The Miller family’s acceptance of me into their lives touched me deeply, it meant a great deal to me.

I didn’t know how deep that old wound still goes. No family can replace another in my mind, what is lost is lost, the but love of others can be healing and very powerful.

I wasn’t prepared for that, it seems to have shaken me up in mostly positive ways. It has opened me up and softened me in others, something a lot of readers of my blog have noticed and pointed out to me.

And I do feel lighter. And I do feel calmer. And I am less angry than I remember ever being.

The Amish are so different, so content, so full of faith, family, and meaning that it is not possible to move along from the barn-raising without thinking about my own life, my country, my gender.

In surprising ways, they have what we say we want, but don’t have. I could write about that forever.

Some other thoughts: I hope the Amish will one day be able to reassess their commitment to an absolute if soft, patriarchy.

This is a matter of their faith for them, not prejudice, and it isn’t for me to judge them or tell them what to do. I won’t do that.

But I have to be honest,  I missed seeing women up there on those rafters building that barn.

That was the only discordant note for me in a day of awe and wonder.

None of the Amish women have complained to me or in front of me about their lives, about how segregated their work is from the men’s.  Change rarely comes without discomfort, challenge, or protest.

I can’t say with certainty these women would have liked to be upon those platforms, it might just be my own prejudice.

They seem at ease with their lives, grateful for the security they have, and the seminal role they play in their families and communities.

It’s just my personal response, a feeling I had.

The patriarchy is also a wall, I think, that keeps many people – women, above all – from seeing past the patriarchy and exploring the things that make the Amish strong and content.

The Amish have stirred my imagination, they have some brilliant ideas about how to live securely and find contentment and meaning in life – a plain and humble life surrounded by people who care for them.

They love Mother Nature and are gentle with her, something we can’t yet figure out how to do.

They have a passion for the land and for farming that we have lost. They consistently remind of the farmer and poet Wendell Berry, and his call for a life on the land.

They have an understanding of animals that has slipped away from us.

They don’t smother their animals or their children with warnings and lectures. They let them live and learn from life. They let children be children and dogs be dogs.

I admire and respect the Amish women I have gotten to know. They are not browbeaten, brainwashed, or cowed. They are strong, smart, and proud.

There is nothing they couldn’t do if asked, including wielding banners on a roof.

Beyond those issues, I think the Amish barn raisings can help us learn how to live together again, and to work together for the common good, even as there are many elements in their faith that are not transferable or desirable to many of the people they call the “English.”

A democracy that can’t do that, can’t work together, can’t live in that way. But the Amish don’t tell us what to do, and I will not tell them what to do.

The hidden secret of the Amish is that they have taken two ideologies – Democratic Socialism and American Capitalism – and embraced both of them to build a dynamic, prosperous and generous society.

The barn raisings are egalitarian, every man is equal and shares the work. They are also economical, smart, and meticulously planned.

Capitalism is about making as much money as possible, socialism is about distributing wealth more equally. Just imagine what it would cost to hire a contractor to build a barn-like that in just a few days.

In our country, all ideologies but ours are suspect, including the dread socialist terror coming to take over our country we are told.

The Amish spread their wealth, reserve time for fellowship and community, have almost no bills of any kind to pay,  free new homes, free health care when they need it, free time off, free child care, free education,  fire and disaster insurance, and support when they were too old to work.

It is striking to me how closely Democratic socialist states resemble life in Amish communities. The big difference is that  Democratic socialist states are far more democratic than Amish communities.

In either, there is little or no debt, no health care worries. In Amish communities, there is no violence, no divorce, no ruination from fires or natural disasters, no nursing home or assisted care, no bankruptcies, no starvation, hunger, homelessness, or unemployment.

Amish communities are no paradise. But the work does set them free. And wealth is shared, a common socialist idea.

How can we not learn something from what they have done?

Make no mistake about it.

The Amish are nice to people and to one another. They build a barn in just a few days without anyone raising a voice once in anger or irritation.

They are kind to people. They forgive people. They do not judge people. They do not yell at their children or dogs.

They respect the resources of Mother Earth and protect her from the ravages of other humans.

We could benefit greatly from studying how they live. I have. My friendship has taught me the difference between the generosity of spirit and mindless consumption and giving.

My time with the Amish and watching the raising has taught me to be less judgemental and more accepting, critical needs in our fractured world.

I’ve learned that I don’t have to listen to or answer people who would hurt me or speak cruelty to me or give them a voice in my life. That isn’t courage. It’s weakness and it only makes me cruel in return. That’s a big lesson to me.

It has taught me to consider what it is I need as opposed to what it is I want.

It has taught me the power of learning by example rather than threat and intimidation.

I have learned powerful lessons in acceptance and of the power of genuine and sincere faith.

There are benefits to patriarchy, obviously.

Decisions are made and followed, the Amish are not paralyzed as the “English” are by dissent, conspiracy, dishonesty, and self-interest.

But we pay for our freedom. We can barely function at all as a country because there is no one most of us believe in or listen to.

For this control, the Amish also pay a price. There is no right to challenge, to disagree.

Obedience equals efficiency, Democracy equals a squabbling mess. But I’m with H.L. Mencken. Democracy is our mess, the best mess in the world to embrace. There is no better mess that I know of.

Trumpism has sadly proven Thomas Jefferson’s wisdom and foresight when he warned that the greatest danger to the American experiment was not a King, but an angry and ignorant mob in the thrall to a vicious and skilled demagogue.

Jefferson’s nightmare is now before us, and our future as a democracy will ride on the way in which we all respond.

I kept thinking the barn raising was the complete opposite of Trumpism: no whining, no grievance, no scapegoats, no second-guessing or argument.

It is confusing for me to see a culture that works so well and functions so efficiently and is so shockingly resilient in a time of immense change.

I wonder what I can take from it. I have already taken some things from it.

The Amish are helping me continue my determination to accept life as the fates bring it, not as I would necessarily like it to be.

That is quite a gift. I don’t believe God is watching over me so closely as the Amish do, but I am more determined than ever to live in the now, and accept the life I am given.

Like everybody else, I can’t imagine being Amish or joining the faith, nor is there any evidence they would want someone like me, who is sure to be a troublemaker and rebel in such an obedient system.

If I admire them so much, even love them, then why wouldn’t I want to become one?

I think I know the answer to that. I love democracy, I love the argument, the sense of freedom, the struggle over ideas, the never-ending battle for equality,  the choices, and the safety and security it has brought me in my lifetime.

This chaotic culture is a part of who I am. I can’t be anyone else, not at my age. And I don’t want to be.

But still, I am committed to not sitting in judgment on the way other people choose to live.

I do not dislike them, I do not disapprove of them, I do not believe I am superior to them in any way.

Moise is my friend, and I am grateful for his presence in my life, he has taught me more in a few months than my parents did in years. I hope our friendship lasts forever, I will do what I can to make that so.

And the curious part of it is that Moise wouldn’t be bothered one bit by my hesitations and concerns. The Amish don’t permit a lot of junk to enter their consciousness, there is no Fox News or CNN.

Moise does what Jesus Christ and God ask him to do, not what other people think he should do

He doesn’t judge other people. He doesn’t try to tell me what to think or what to do. And he doesn’t read my blog.

But still…I’m not the one to accept everything from anything. I’m a genetic skeptic and doubter. I am wary of certainty, and especially of self-righteousness.

The Amish system requires absolute obedience at all times.

It also requires women to focus on traditional women’s roles – cooking, sewing, quilting, gardening, housekeeping, selling produce, and baking donuts and pies.

I believe in freedom and I believe in equality, those two things have been bred into me. They can’t be reconciled with the way the Amish choose to live.

That doesn’t mean I can’t know them and love them. It just means I can’t love everything about them.

In fairness, they don’t love everything about me and do not judge me for it or turn me away. I appreciate that. I’ve learned from that.

Those two things keep me from fully embracing people who are good and honest and hard-working and full of faith, generosity, love of the land, love of family, love of God, and who are bristling with enterprise and innovation.

They have brought our farm culture back to life. Horses are working with people again, crops are growing in long-dead fields.

It is stunning what they have done with their faith, bare hands, and plain and simple tools.

Their love for one another has brought me to tears more than once, as has the image of Amish workers coming from all over to build a barn for another family. It happens all the time in their world.

What waste anger, labels, argument, division, partisanship, and hatred are, what did they ever build?

There are a lot of lessons that have come to me from the Amish. I very much look forward to learning whatever I can from them and taking what is good for me.

I hope in some ways I can one day do the same for them.

 

I spent 90 minutes with my Amish friend Moise this afternoon.

I drove him to the Glens Falls, N.Y., bus station to ride five hours upstate on a bus to visit his daughter and see his new grandson.

His daughter is moving down here from way up Upstate New York; she will be just a couple of miles away in a couple of months. His sister lives five miles to the South.

Amish people cannot drive cars or motorized vehicles to enlist friends and neighbors to drive them. I was happy to agree and spend more time with Moise.

Moise knows all the train and bus schedules by heart.

When we got into the car – I picked him up at his farm – I told him he shouldn’t feel any pressure to talk; if he wished to rest or remain silent, he should feel free to do that.

He nodded but said he could rest on the bus if he was tired.

He has been working feverishly and non-stop to finish his farmstand shed and get his farm ready for summer and plow 30 acres by himself and his horses.

I thought he might need some quiet time.

I was wrong.

We made at least a dozen stops.

I only got out of the car two or three times.

Still, I was exhausted just watching Moise as he asked me to pull over so he could check the soil and grass of nearly a dozen pastures and farms, search for a credit union, stop at a convenience store to get food for the bus ride, inspect his daughter’s new land, eyeball some homemade fence posts,  and direct me as I went online on my Iphone so we could study the price and details of fencing for the sheep and goats he plans to buy for his farm.

We looked at many fences, every fence online, it seemed,  as Moise decided he would make the fenceposts himself and just needed to buy wiring.

Then he decided he might make the wiring himself.

My only gaffe on the trip was to suggest he consider two-ply electric fencing for the sheep, which was so much cheaper.

I realized by the horrified look on his face that he could not, of course, use electricity, something I already knew but forgot.

When I got home, I nearly collapsed in the living room.

I did fall asleep.

The thing is, I think we both had a great time.

We were an odd couple, for sure, yet it seemed we had known one another a long time.  On top of everything else, Moise is a lot younger than I am.

I’m not sure if this is possible or how it might be.

It felt good, though.

The Amish are not permitted to lie, so I believe him when he said this was the most fun he had had since plowing his fields himself with his horses, which he said is his absolutely most favorite activity in the world.

“I first plowed a field when I was five,” he said, “I loved it from the very beginning.” It is heart-stopping to watch him wrestle with his hand plow right behind three giant horses, fighting every step of the way with boulders and shards of rock.

Mosie asked me what my favorite activity in the world was. I didn’t have the stomach to tell him it was driving into Bennington to get Ramuntos pizza once a week or watching British mysteries on my Iphone deep into the night. (Maria says my favorite thing is writing, but I wasn’t about to say that or suggest anything raunchy.)

I learned a big lesson about the Amish from Moise today. There is no such thing as idle time, no time when there is nothing to do or plan to do or consider doing.

I turned off my GPS out of consideration for Moise since the Amish do not use electronic devices for anything.  Before he got in the car, I checked the mileage. The Ridge Street Bus Terminal was 29 miles from us, a trip that was estimated to take 52 minutes.

As it happened, we got there just in time. Mosie was curious about many things, but he does move quickly and doesn’t dawdle – ever.

As we headed out, I asked him if he and his wife Barbara ever accepted dinner invitations at the houses of “English,” which refers to all non-Amish people. (I thought what my grandmother might have made of our being referred to as “English.” She was born in Kyiv, then part of Russia.)

I wondered if he would be comfortable about having dinner at hour farmhouse. I said it was fine to say no.

He paused a bit and looked out the window.

“Well, yes, sometimes,” he said. “As long as there is no partying,” I assured him there was no partying of any kind at Bedlam Farm.  We only had gatherings of animals.

There was sometimes loud music, I said, but it would be turned off.

 

(Moise kept asking to stop so he could run up the hills to check on the pastures. I took this photo from the car.)

We went over our options, and we agreed to have an early dinner in the summer, perhaps out in the yard with some of the children.

He said then in the winter, perhaps we would come and have dinner with them, inside of his new house, not yet under construction. It sounded great.

I got the sense it wasn’t something he and Barbara did often.

Moise had a keen eye for the color of grass and pastures – he could spot a crop a half-mile away and quite often asked if I could stop so he could run out and check the grass close-up.

He bounded up the hills like a deer.

Moise loves grass or anything green.

We talked about many things.

He told me of the numerous regulatory battles the Amish have to wage with local building and safety inspectors and the times he had to go to court to fight “stop” orders on his houses because he wouldn’t install the various fire smoke detectors required by building codes.

He explained that he saw no point in having smoke detectors when he had a dog, Tina, who slept in the house every night and came into the bedroom if there is smoke. All of the children are regularly instructed in fire safety.

And then he paused. “And besides,” he said, “We put our trust in God to keep us safe.” I think that was the biggest reason. God is often in conflict with government officials.

That prompted a revealing talk about how faith drives the lives of the Amish. I told him of my own religious feelings, how I had always admired Christ but was disappointed that so many Christians had abandoned him.

He asked if I ever went to Church, and I said no, I always ran into the same problems with religion: they kept telling me what to do and think.

Moise said he had to build up his courage to challenge government rules, but there was no choice. Things had to be done in a certain way. I could see there was really no compromise.

The Amish always seek to avoid conflict and argument, he said, and there is almost always a way to work things out.

Moise believes God watches over him and his family. If something bad happens, it is God’s choice.

I told him I believe in what some call radical acceptance – accepting life as it happens, rather complaining about my life or regretting it. That was my idea of God.

One time, he said, a code inspector came to his house with smoke detectors, installed them himself, and then gave him a passing certificate. I didn’t ask him what happened when the inspector left.

Since Moise won’t lie, I’m careful about what I ask him about.

I gave Moise a bunch of books last week, knowing he had little of any time to read, but he shocked me by talking about the Washington County history book I gave him, which he said he read last night.

For the next few miles, he talked about the farms and tribes and immigrants who settled the country – the size of their farms, the animals they had, the crops they grew. I knew none of these things.

He said he brought a Wendell Berry book with him to read on the bus. It was “Farm,” Berry’s poem to his farm.

Moise told me how happy he was to have chosen the Battenkill Valley, as he calls it, to move to. The hills are beautiful; the people seem friendly. It was a good place for his family.

And unlike the place he left, there are enough people to buy lumber and baked goods. Still, he said the area seemed peaceful and unchanging to him, which was very important to the Amish.

I said he was about the biggest change I’d seen in a decade.

“Why don’t we send the girls down and clean up your lawn?” he suggested. Thanks, I said, we have hired someone to do that. Well, he said, if you have chores that need to be done, just come up and tell me.

I took it as an offering of friendship.

I could sense that he was comfortable with me, as I was with him, and we were both looking for ways to cross the great divide between us and find common ground. He isn’t just different from me; he comes from another world.

His mind never stops spinning, and it is almost always spinning about farming and the land and his work.

But the time we got to Glens Falls, I could also spot alfalfa growing in a field a mile away. Common ground.

Moise kept surprising me.

He told me in great detail how he planned to build his new house and how he and his family built the old one. It doesn’t take long, he says; they have worked for centuries on simple house frames.

I could tell Moise wasn’t quite sure when I was joking or not, so I was careful not to be too ironic or smart.

He does have a ready smile and an astonishing ability to absorb information.

I was pleased when we got to the bus station that we had a few minutes to spare, and I offered to wait with him in the parking lot.

We got out of the car, and he lit up his corncob pipe, stuffed with tobacco from a pouch.

Well, we have some time, he said; let’s drive down the street to a Credit Union I know about. I was surprised. I didn’t ask but wondered why a Credit Union.

He answered without being asked. “Banks don’t let Amish open accounts,” he said, “because we don’t have Social Security numbers, and they almost always require Social Security numbers. We don’t believe in that.”

We drove a few miles down the road, and there was a Credit Union, but it had just closed. I drove back to the Bus Station, and he went inside and was told the bus was just a few minutes away.

Time to catch our breath.

“Oh, well,” he said, “there’s time to look at fence prices.”

Moise assumes I know a lot more than I do know because he loves how we fenced the farm and maintain it.

My wisdom comes from hiring good people to do this work and marrying Maria. I really don’t know much of anything mechanical or agricultural, but he can’t quite accept that. He ignores me what I say it.

So the two of us browsed fences and fence prices ( I am a killer when it comes to shopping online) on my Iphone for about 15 minutes until the bus pulled up along the road. I did a pretty good job of finding fencing sales since Moise couldn’t use the phone himself.

As the bus opened its doors, Moise thanked me and asked me how much he owed me. Nothing, I said. You don’t want to take money for having a great time.

He thanked me. “If you need anything, come up and ask for help,” he said. It was a good thing to hear.

He nodded. “I wish we’d met when I got up here,” he said. “We would have had a lot of great times by now.”

“Sure thing,” I answered, “but we have plenty of time for more.”

I was standing in line at the pharmacy the other day when I dropped a jar of skin lotion. A woman in front of me, I would guess she was in her 70’s, immediately, even urgently offered to pick it up for me.

“That’s okay,” I said, “I can get it.” She looked even more concerned.

“Are you sure?” she asked, doubtful and in a worried voice.

I leaned over and picked up the lotion and thanked her, but I did wonder what I must have looked like to her if she thought I couldn’t pick up the jar. Did I really look like someone who can’t pick something up off the floor? I do it quite often.

I was pretty sure she was older than I am. I couldn’t help but wonder what she saw that I didn’t. I do notice the sullen and indifferent clerks in the hardware store sometimes even offer to haul large purchases out to my car.

I wonder if they aren’t fearful of my dropping dead in front of them, and their getting sued.

I get the same dissonant feeling sometimes when I am walking past a store window and wonder who that man in the window is. It couldn’t be me; I’m not that old.

I know I am at the brink of life, a place the dictionary defines as “the edge of a cliff or other high area, or the point at which something good or bad will happen.” The dictionary I looked at added this phrase: “The company was on the brink of collapse.”

At my age, good and bad things happen, often at the same time.

When I was younger, I was also on the brink, but it was a beginning. Maria and I argue about this all the time. I mention that I am old now, and she says, “yes, but you’re not really old, and she means it.

We all know where the brink goes when we are “really” old, it’s right off the cliff. But I’m not sure what really old means.

I see obituaries of friends and colleagues and hear stories all the time of people my age dying suddenly, or after long and painful illnesses.

The funny thing is I am comfortable with where I am in life, more than any other time in my life. I have a more vibrant and deeper perspective on my life, my present, and when I think about it, my future. It’s true, even the most obtuse and willful people will learn something if they live long enough.

Aging brings things and takes things away. I am better equipped to be a loving and supportive husband; I am softer and more useful as a father; I am beginning to understand friendship and what it means to me.

And I believe my writing is deeper and wiser than ever. I have so many things to say.

I have this strange but exciting feeling that I am not losing my creativity, but just beginning to be creative – in my blog, my photos, even my fish tank.

With Zinnia, I see I have come to a new level of patience, empathy, and experience. Our training is quiet and loving and beautiful.

As I shed my anger and impatience, I am learning to listen and to think. I take a nap once in a while.

I embrace the quiet, the solitude, the time of inner silence. I could never do that before. I love being alone, and I love getting a chance to think. I love doing good; I love learning how to do it well.

My granddaughter is on the brink of everything.

So am I, at 72, I am on the brink of the rest of my life, and of understanding what my future means, including death, which I can sometimes almost sniff.

Like most people my age, I live with some ongoing challenges to my health. They are no urgent threat to my life, but I am conscious of spending more and more time with specialists, who aren’t there to take my blood pressure. And of course, I know the pharmacy well. I am pleased to be able to report. I can still pick up things I drop.

When I call for an appointment, the nurses make it sooner rather than later; I love to joke with them about it.

I still have all my original body parts, and enough energy to do what I want to do and more than I should do some days.

I want to write more about growing older, not to lament it, but to appreciate it and capture its glory and challenge. My editor always warned me not to write too much about getting older; he said young people would run away.

But I don’t believe that. We are all getting older every minute with every breath.

I want to share what I am learning.

I intend to do it well, and occasionally.

And you know what? I am just beginning to understand that I will be okay, and I treasure this time to write, take photos, love my wife, meet my friends for lunch, walk in the woods, be alone with my dogs.

I am okay. I am going to be okay. I love saying that out loud. I want to grab my daughter and every young person I see and shake them and say, “you will be okay!” But they’d probably lock me up.

And of course, I mean to feed and nourish my precious blog, every single day. I am never too tired for that.

I love figuring out who I am, something I have never been able to do. And I am old enough to define it for myself, to not let other people do it.

I thought of myself and my life – and my wonderful wife –  when I read this quote from Thomas Merton’s Message Of Hope:

“I stand among you as one who offers a small message of hope, that first, there are always people who dare to seek on the margin of society, who are not dependent on social acceptance, not dependent on social routine, and prefer a kind of free-floating existence under a state of risk. And among these people, if they are faithful to their calling, to their own vocation, and to their own message from God, communication on the deepest level is possible. And the deepest level of communication is not communication but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech and beyond concept.”

That’s who I am. That’s where I am. On the brink, on the margins.

(As I write this, I’m listening to Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s Shaka Zulu album, Maria and I are going to see them in concert in Troy, N.Y., on Thursday.  I can’t always listen to music when I write, but their music is a meditation for me, it opens my soul.)