The Whole Inexpressible Thing
The Whole Inexpressible Thing: 15 May 2020
I am nostalgic for the future.
I am already missing the time I won’t have in my beloved Montreat this summer. Already missing the experiences my children won’t have in Montreat. Missing time alone in Greenville while my children are having experiences in Montreat. I’m missing what won’t happen and trying to find God in what is happening right now.
Here’s what I’ve noticed. God shows up when I’m looking for God, because God has been there all along, waiting for me to notice. Boundless, creative, playful God who delights in variety and abundance. See if you can find me in this camouflaged frog! Check out me in this purple iris! Watch while I turn that whole hillside golden. And don’t forget the people! Look at me looking at you through this stranger’s eyes. See me in that boy pushing past boredom in online learning, that first-grade girl researching the Statue of Liberty. I’m here in that warrior recovering from surgery, that woman insisting that no-one underestimate her students, that colleague digging deep to deliver on time. The miracles are everywhere.
I notice a lot on my walks. Twice under a bridge I’ve seen a snake with its slim, lithe body swaying in the current like the snagged branches it was under. I’ve found blue-tailed skinks in tree stumps. The adult male Plestiodon fasciatus has a red head and neck and less distinct lines on his back. The juveniles have five dark lines and blue tails, to keep territorial males from attacking them. I’ve enjoyed catching them sunning themselves or hiding in the crevices of the stumps. It’s probably not mutual, but I like knowing their address and feel a new connection with their limited-radius habitat. I’ve been on the lookout for their southern cousin Plestiodon inexpectatus—but if I see one it will, indeed, be unexpected.
These days while I walk, I listen to inspirational or funny podcasts. No news analysis or self-help or current events. About a year ago I started listening to Conan O’Brien’s podcast and I often laugh out loud, which is such a gift. Plus, since everyone’s kinda crazy right now, no one looks at me strangely when I laugh out loud. O’Brien is a thoughtful interviewer and able to draw out his guests much more in a podcast than he could in a television bit. I love listening to him dissect comedy and I love how he uses his platform to encourage and support other comedians and entertainers. I love that he strives to stay genuine in an industry built on make-believe. The whole thing is worth a listen, but here is the end of the commencement speech he gave at Dartmouth College in 2011.
“It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It’s not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention. Whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality. Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen.”
As we know, those amazing things may turn out to be inexpectatus.
We are all living through a season of disappointment. What will we do with this opportunity? I want us—each individual—to choose to use it as a catalyst for reinvention. As so many people have said, we will not return to ‘normal’ after this pandemic. The world is irreparably changed. But we have the opportunity to reinvent ourselves. What do we want the future to look like? I want us to restart the economy, and I want us to recognize that we don’t have to be dependent on non-renewable energy. We can create a future of green technology and jobs. We can put a new premium on open spaces and our suddenly cleaner air and water. We can decide to learn from the glaring inequalities in our health system and focus on fixing them instead of denying or dismissing them as an unfortunate byproduct of modern society. Society doesn’t have to look like the past—in fact, it can’t. How can we re-envision a shared future with less inequality, with individual freedom tempered by collective liberty?
Eugene Ionesco said, “Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.” The pandemic gives us a chance to overcome ideologies and to dream big dreams, even as we work to relieve the immediate suffering of those in need.
Here’s another thing I’ve noticed. With our changed schedules, other people in my house have been getting up later and I’ve been getting up earlier, which has led me to dust off my meditation practice. There have been fits and starts and many times I just find myself staring at the beech tree, watching the changing light. One morning last week I was chewing my lip and staring at the beech tree when God sorta said in my head, Hand me that worry and let me hold it awhile and for some reason this didn’t seem weird so I grudgingly let go of that one. 13 more popped up and God said, Hand me self-image to hold. I was really resistant because I don’t trust God to weigh or appreciate the bad parts enough and the self-image might come back changed, like God loving me as I am. But I handed it over. Let me hold ‘concern about children growing up to be fine adults’ and, in fact, just hand over ‘future’ and you be here in *this* moment I’ve given you.
I was still resisting, and God said, You can have these things back if you want to pick them up again later. God told me just to sit with my emotions—the sadness and grief and uncertainly—just to allow them. But I started wondering whether I could write about this and God said, Stop. Just stop. Just be right here. And I said, but I won’t remember, and God said, So? And I said, but what if I forget what you want me to say? And God said, If I want you to say it, you won’t forget it. And I said, promise? And God said, Promise. And I said, really really promise? And God said, Stop it.
Did I just lose you? Did you discount the voice in my head as, well, a voice in my head?
That’s okay. I can’t prove it, I can only tell you my truth. The voice isn’t really a voice, and it both is and is not me. It is the part of me that observes myself. Have you ever said, “I can’t stand myself today” or, better, “I’m proud of myself”? That observer is how I understand the soul, how the spark of divinity within each of God’s creations shows itself in humans.
We cannot earn, invoke, incant, decant, conjure or become God. We can only accept and surrender to our original essence that is God; and then try to live out this Godliness as best we can. Recognizing and trusting this in me allows me to recognize and trust it in you. And in Plestiodon fasciatus, and these roses my friends brought to me, and that hawk that just landed outside my window.
I think it’s what my friend, Bert, is saying here: “I go to Caw Caw swamp and meditate on the alligator hole in the freshwater marsh. Sometimes it's the limitless heaving and rippling grass that goes on to the horizon, sometimes it's the movement in the water of striped baby gators, sometimes it's just the whole inexpressible thing.”
I’ve thought myself meditating when I was actually complaining and God has said, what about that purple iris yesterday? God keeps trying to break into my small world by speaking to me in my love language. People like to receive love the way they like to give love. Mark loves me by vacuuming. I give little gifts of noticing to the people I love. I show my family the secret home of the skinks. It’s not really a secret, it’s just that most folks don’t notice. God does it for me, too, when I’m paying attention. God leaves little surprises for me to find: a frog here, a hawk there, buttery afternoon light on my laughing children, magnolia blossoms glowing against a storm-bruised sky. All these things hidden in plain view for me, for my delight. God bursting out of every leaf and amphibian for all to see. Any with eyes to see.
My children might prefer me to love them with candy and Legos instead of live skinks and dead turtles, but they’ll have to settle for my noticing. The real gift is that there’s always more to notice and understand. It’s a daily practice that helps lessen my nostalgia for the future. I’m taking to heart Annie Dillard’s observation that “How you spend your days is how you spend your life.”
My sweet friend, Dorrell, was in 4th grade when we became Study Buddies. In two weeks he will graduate from 8th grade and enroll in the Fine Arts Center. I’m so very proud of him and I’m heartbroken that he will have to celebrate this accomplishment online.
That 4th-grade year there was a Study Buddy end-of-year breakfast at school. Jack made us run late and I spent a chunk of the commute berating him. “I always show up for you. A lot of kids don’t have that and you will not make me late to show up for them!” We showed up early, I felt bad about Jack, Dorrell arrived but my other buddy didn’t show up, and I was teary through the whole breakfast. It all felt like such a fail. Driving home I heard a report of a shooting at a local high school. Now I was teary with fear. These are our children! We have to do better. We have to show up for all of them.
I’ve thought of that breakfast many times while listening to the competing voices pitting public health vs. economic health. If our economic health necessitates compromising public health, I kinda think we need to rethink the whole system. But especially during a pandemic, we need to show up (sometimes by staying home) for everyone.
This pandemic is highlighting our society’s flaws—our inequalities, our selfishness, our tendency to blame others. It is also highlighting the resilient human spirit—our desire to help, our willingness to sacrifice, our collective hope for the future. We all do what we can.
Knowing that you’re doing your part gives me hope. I write to give you hope.
Hope in the whole inexpressible thing.
