A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough (11 page)

Naomi Shihab Nye, the Palestinian-American poet, reveals
how our most deeply authentic kindness and compassion must first be seeded in the ground of heart-shattering loss:

KINDNESS

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever
.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive
.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow
.

You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth
.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters
and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend
.

The Wealth of Small Things

H
ow do
we
measure
our
wealth? Our culture tends toward size, scale, or some predetermined idea of perfection as evidence of success. Not only in the bigger house or the newest electronics, but in a feeling of success in our work, always answering all our emails promptly, completely clearing our desk, being able to take our family on the most fabulous vacation, have the biggest Thanksgiving or Christmas, make sure our children have the most popular friends—these are things that grab our attention, or things we use to convince ourselves we are wealthy or successful.

But we are also driven by a more subtle thirst. Ultimately, we want to feel important; we want to believe that our lives have meaning, that we matter. In service of this, we seek and accept all manner of responsibilities, tasks, opportunities to help, and chances to feel useful. I have witnessed countless good people seduced by what my friend Mark Nepo calls “experience greed”—namely, an insidious grasping not so much for material possessions but rather for a seemingly benign cacophony of socially active networks, service opportunities, ecological adventures, community activities, helpful organizations, sacred gatherings, and spiritual experiences. This “experience greed” is more subtle, as it most likely appears as a
noble and unassailable form of altruistic service or emotional, spiritual, or community growth.

But all excesses invariably have their cost. Regardless whether our craving is for material, emotional, or spiritual gain, too much of anything is still, in the end, too much. Most spiritual traditions have little use for such excesses. Instead, most tend to teach how to pay very close attention to small things, how they grow, and what they can reveal to us about the larger things. To find, as the poet William Blake reminds us, the world in a grain of sand.

What is true wealth? What might it feel like? Often, we imagine a feeling of ease, or peace, perhaps a melting of worry into a deep pool of contentment, or leaning back into trustworthy arms of care and support and knowing we are safe; or maybe it is a simple feeling of joy, nearly forgotten, slowly remembered.

How do we find this kind of wealth? It sounds a bit like heaven, unattainable in this life on earth. Many traditions speak of heaven as a place far away, a final release from bondage, free of troubles, lifted up in happiness and joy. But in the Christian Bible, when Jesus described heaven he rarely spoke of a place but described a quality of heart, a practice of attention, a way of being lovingly awake, awestruck by the beauty and grace of ordinary things we might easily overlook.

When Jesus spoke, his words were often kind, and easily understood. They were doorways for the most humble seeker—deeply comforting, simple invitations for anyone seeking refuge. When he spoke of heaven, he surely spoke with an easy familiarity, perhaps describing heaven by saying
Heaven is like the mustard seed; it is so small, if you drop it on the ground by
mistake you may lose it. But if you place it carefully in the earth and give it water, a little time and care, it grows by itself into a beautiful bush, lush and full. On a hot day you could sit beside the shade of it and be cooled. The birds of the air build nests in its branches and sing songs that make your own heart sing. Heaven, is just like that
.

Then Jesus might say,
You mix flour and water into dough for bread, and you take just a pinch of leaven, knead the leaven into the dough, feeling the warm texture of the dough in your hands. Then you set it aside, and as you simply let it be, it rises all by itself, and you can feel, oh, heaven is just like this
. Or he might say,
Heaven is like a pearl of great price, something precious and beautiful, a delight or blessing however small—your child’s hand, a kind word spoken to your saddened heart, the color of the evening sky. The instant you feel this simple gift deep in your heart, you could sell everything you had and still be happy. Being in heaven feels just like that
.

For Jesus, the gifts and blessings of heaven—happiness, peace, contentment, ease, joy—are the natural fruits of being gratefully awake every day upon the earth. Everything promised about heaven is already here, in our midst—in the bread we bake, the seeds we plant, the small blessings we receive. Still, when the bone-weariness in us runs deep, when we are overwhelmed and discouraged by almost everything, feel pressured on all sides to take on more than we can bear, how can something small or quiet ever relieve such an enormous sense of powerlessness? We need stronger medicine, something enormously powerful, potent, and dramatic to lift us up and rescue us from our weary disappointments. We need to do great things, struggle and strain to achieve tremendous
spiritual growth and accomplishment. Then perhaps we might gradually earn our way back into some vague sense of peace.

But Jesus said,
If you are faithful in the small things, you will be faithful in the large things
. Every parent knows that our most potent interventions are in the small things—the wiped nose, the sweater hastily fastened before a child runs into the cold, the cup of hot chocolate upon her return. Heaven is born in this world, the small world of a good word, a kind touch, a loving glance, a moment of tender understanding. When we think of heaven, it need not be dramatic, grandiose, or even visible. Rather, look for what is small—the gentle rising and falling of the breath, a sip of wine and piece of bread, a prayer uttered quietly without hurry.

Spiritual practice teaches not to look
up
to find our true wealth, but rather to look here, now, to listen more carefully to the beauty, grace, and priceless value in the smallest of earthly blessings. Our wealth is as close as our breath, as close as our children, as close as the touch of a loved one, as close as the earth beneath our feet, the lilies in the field, the bread in our mouth. Here, we drink fully the blessing of Teresa of Avila:
All the way to heaven is heaven
.

Sanctuary Is Bearing What We Are Given

J
esus, in his Sermon on the Mount, said,
Do not worry about tomorrow
. In fact, the single phrase most used in the Christian New Testament is “be not afraid.” Why? Because if we are good boys and girls and believe in God and go to church, then nothing bad will happen to us? That is just silly. Look what happened to Jesus, and to his disciples, many of whom were also tortured, crucified, or murdered. The idea that being a good Christian—or a good anything—provides instant spiritual insulation from harm, or guarantees our safety and prosperity, is pure folly, a child’s belief in magic. It has nothing at all to do with the depth of being in faith to which we are being both called and challenged.

Be not afraid
. Fear and worry are not life-giving states of mind. They do not make, heal, create, or sustain life or anything like it. Instead they corrode, dissolve, and steal our very strength. We need our spirit to be strong. We need to rely on our capacity to choose wisely, to bear what we are given, to hold courageously, wisely, lovingly, and well each person and event that is offered to us in the course of the days and seasons of our lives.

In moments of genuine fear, we must make a choice. And how we respond to that choice will literally shape the way we
live our entire lives. The essential heart of all fear—stripped bare of particulars, catastrophic outcomes, numbers, and details—is simply this: Will we be strong enough to bear whatever we are given? We are not so much worried about what will happen. Nearly everyone I love has been given some terribly painful, heart-shredding anguish at one time or another in their lives. The fear is not will I be given this or that, will I face death, will something precious be stolen or someone I love hurt, will my dreams die on the vine? The answer, of course, is yes, yes, yes. All these and more will be given to you or taken from you, just as they will be given to and taken from me, your neighbor, your friends, even your enemies.

The Buddha’s ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows are embedded in a life in which none of us is exempt from loss, death, or illness. The question is not how do we worry and fret ourselves into some undiscovered reprieve; nor can we make plans to build the very best fortress against sorrow and loss. Rather, the question is, where do we go? To what fountain do we go to drink, which prayers do we pray, which friends do we gather around, so that when these things happen—as they absolutely, inevitably will—we will use the most skillful means, the proper tools to remember who we are, where our strength resides, where our light still shines in the darkness, and where we will find healing, comfort, strength, wisdom, renewal, and rebirth?

How do we bear this fear? Will it prove malignant or benign, dangerous or healing? Regardless of how horrific or gentle this particular sorrow feels right now, this practice of mindful awareness, this sacred, inner crucible, is the only possible place where we are able to discover the truth of our hidden
wholeness, our innate natural perfection. The kingdom of heaven is vital and alive within us. It is something impossible to define that will not break, refuses to be extinguished, and will now and always bear whatever we are given—no matter how searing or impossible—and lift us up so we may live. It is here that we finally, once and for all, must choose to take refuge in the sanctuary of our own deep, inner sufficiency.

In Good Company

F
or thirty years, I have explored, written, and been invited to speak about how we grow our lives more gently, how we do our good and necessary work while shaping our days with mercy, rest, and delight. Lately more people have been asking if and how I am able to live this way myself and what helps me sustain this pilgrimage of a life well lived.

I always find myself confessing that I could never live deeply, authentically, or well without the close company of my good and loving friends. They are clear mirrors. By this I mean they understand and reflect back to me my particular strengths and my more challenging weaknesses. They know when I need tenderness and when I need scolding, and they are never reluctant to provide either one. It is only their unconditional love and support that enables me to get up in the morning. This remains unquestionably true.

The summer of my fourteenth year was the most excruciating, lonely season of my life. I had no friends, stayed at home by myself, and rarely went out or saw anyone. When we are adolescents, we typically judge ourselves harshly. Our appearance, our personality, our social standing at school—everything about ourselves is put under a microscope and found wanting.
I was afraid that if I didn’t find at least one or two good friends to share my life with, it would be forever unbearable.

At school the next year, I gradually made friends with a couple of kids who loved, as I did, to sing and play music. As soon as the summer came, we found out about a camp two states away that had jobs for fifteen-year-olds. The very next day, we packed our instruments and some clothes and left home to work and play music all summer. With few exceptions, I have kept almost every friend I ever made since that glorious summer.

It is impossible to create a sufficient, contented life by ourselves. In truth, we do nothing at all completely by ourselves. We absolutely depend on a living community of countless others who accompany us each step of our lives. Have we ever grown all our own food, built our own homes, woven cloth for our own clothing, or produced our own electricity? Every moment we live, it is through the generous labor of countless lives: farmers, teachers, doctors, carpenters, truck drivers, nurses, miners, parents, children, artists, loggers, steelworkers, cows, bees, worms, trees—each offering their gifts to our families. When, in our foolish pride, we proclaim ourselves “self-sufficient,” we ignore the essential life-giving nourishment and companionship upon which our very lives depend.