fourfeetsixinches

Today I am reminded of a quote by Henry David Thoreau that says, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them,” and honestly, it leaves me unsettled a little. Or maybe a lot.

I recently retired after three decades of working as a counselor. People now seem inclined to ask this question of me in one way or another: “What are you going to do now?” Often times this leaves me thinking/feeling like I still need to be working somehow. It also leaves me wrestling with a concept I have wrestled with over the years, and that is making sense of the difference between a human being and a human doing. What does that need to look like now? [I am not looking for answers here necessarily, but it is something that I am thinking about quite a lot. Praying about. Trying to make sense of. ]

Maggie gave me a new tattoo for my birthday last week. It is just the addition of a few arrows in combination with a greek word I had inked on my forearm several years ago. And for me the arrows derive meaning from a book I read a few years back, and am now rereading, called The Last Arrow, by Erwin McManus. It has been and continues to be a challenge to me to strive to live more fully. To not get to the end of the life and have a quiver full of arrows that have never been used. That feels especially important to me now that I am in a later season of my life. Perhaps the last season. I’m not sure anyone ever lives fully in the ideal, but I am sure that it is worthy of our pursuit.

McManus says this: “The tragedy of a life that is never fully lived is not solely the loss of that one life. The tragedy is the endless number of lives that would have been forever changed if we had chosen to live differently.” This is a challenge I am attempting to take on in this new season of my life. To do it better than I did in the last season. To push toward living more fully, during this thing called retirement. And as Thoreau writes about, to not end up in the grave with the song still in me…

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“Our lives leave a trail of words, even when we’re not speaking or writing.”                          – Parker J. Palmer, On the Brink of Everything

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I’ve been thinking of what my intentions were in coming up here alone. In coming up here to be quiet and have some solitude. Some time to do nothing. To not have to be responsible for other people, especially work. To read and think. To write. To listen: to God, to my own heart, to His call on my heart and life. To know Him more deeply as I get to know myself more deeply. All of that, and maybe more…

Sometimes our own intentions don’t have a clear enough view of what God is actually up to in our lives, and it takes some quiet, some solitude, some isolation from the normal day-to-day stuff to change our view. To change our perspective. To offer some fresh insight and inspiration.

I snapped this photo last evening at the shoreline. Leaves have been falling to a sort of watery grave for a while, it seems. But this green one was a pretty fresh fall. And I couldn’t help but think of my fears, that I may fall too soon. Before my call is complete… Before my purpose is fully realized.

“We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.”

– Thomas Merton

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I worked at the office this morning, and then took a quick trip to the Iowa Arboretum this afternoon. It’s amazing to me how a hundred miles south of our home in Forest City can be so much farther ahead in the growing season. It was a peaceful and beautiful time that allowed me to snap some photos, reflect, and write for a while. Thirty-one years ago on this day I began a journey from a different vantage point, after a third-story fall. I talked with Shaffe on my drive down there, and we both agreed that life has been so much richer, so much more beautiful than we could have ever imagined in the days and months after the accident. We were working together that day, and I would say it has forever changed us. Strangely, I believe it has brought out some of the best in us. Not a whole lot of words today, but just wanted to share some of the beauty of the Arboretum…

“Listen to your lives for the sound of Him.                                                                                                                               Search even in the dark for the light and the love and the life because they are there also…”                                                                                                                                                                                       – Frederick Buechner

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I re-read some familiar words from Brennan Manning’s book Ruthless Trust this morning after I snapped this photo in my front yard. “The basic premise of biblical trust is the conviction that God wants us to grow, to unfold, and to experience fullness of life. However, this kind of trust is acquired only gradually and most often through a series of crises and trials.”

I think that most often human types are not so patient and accepting of words like gradual, crisis, and trial.  But they are part of our reality nevertheless. I see these things in my work, in my closest relationships, and even in the mirror. And the amazing part of it all is that out of those conditions of crisis, of trial, and of slow change, there is the possibility of growth, of unfolding, and experiencing the fullness of life. Today, its my hope, my prayer, that none of us will be content to stay in this dewey bud form of life, but rather that we would be open to unfolding, to growth, to experiencing the fullness of life.

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In this November season of north Iowa terrain, most of the surroundings have transitioned to shades and tones of brown. But as Chris Orwig says in his book  The Creative Fight, looking at our worlds through a camera lens helps us to slow down, to focus, to look more closely. And that is what I did on the way to the office this morning. A short but slow and intentional trip down a “browned” Mallard Marsh Road  displayed some remaining rich colors, if only visible to the eye that takes time to see. It was worth the detour this morning for me…

As Henry Miller advises: “Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music –the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls, and interesting people.”  Take the time to discover some rich treasures, not just in nature, but in all the things around you, and especially in the people that cross your path.

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Today is Norman Mathiasen’s eighty-fifth birthday. And although we have both aged at roughly the same pace for all the years I’ve been thinking about aging, it seems crazy to me that I have an eighty-five year old father. Of course it also seems crazy to me that I am a fifty-seven year old man. Time waits for no man, as the old saying goes… I was scrounging through shelves in closets this morning looking for some papers that had some passwords I needed, and I came across this old photograph. It was taken sometime in the early eighties, during the time I was farming with Dad. The eighties were not a great time to be farming, at least not if a person wanted to make any money. But it was a rich season of life for me in many ways when it came to relationships. Although I lived in a great bachelor pad, I spent a lot of time with Dad, and Mom as well, learning more of the farm and what it took to make things work from season to season during that time. One of the things that was more my interest than Dad’s was what shows in the photo above. I had a herd of sheep. And though they could be incredibly frustrating to work with, they were somehow endearing to me. They taught me much of the similarities sheep have with human nature. It might be too strongly worded to say that Dad hated them, but sheep were certainly not his favorite animal. But for some reason, to this day, I have fond memories when it comes to working with them for a few years. There was something in me that was a bit of a shepherd. I think there might be some of that remaining in me to this day, in the kind of heart I have toward people. Perhaps there is just something a little askew with us mental health worker types, I don’t know. Am not sure I have anything profound to write today, but this photo took me back a long ways, and stirred all kinds of memories this morning. I am truly grateful for this man called Norm, my father. And for his wife and my mother, Jo. We have much in common. We have our individual differences. They have taught me invaluable things with both words and actions. As Donald Miller writes in Scary Close, “Children learn what’s worth living for and what’s worth dying for by the stories they watch us live.” I have learned such things in watching them live. Happy Birthday, Dad.

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I am not big on New Year’s resolutions. They just haven’t been something that I’ve ever grabbed onto in my life. But I do have to admit that there is something about coming to the end of one year and facing the beginning of the next that affects me. Kicks something into gear. Changes the way I look at the concept of  and the passage of time.

We had a few couples over last night and at one point talked a little about the 2015 thing, and how it used to seem so far off. Even when Y2K was causing people to gasp and panic, 2015 seemed a long ways off. And yet, it is only a couple of days away now. Grandpa Lee used to say that the older we get the faster time flies. Perhaps he was right, even though the length of a second, minute, hour, and day is still the same. It just seems to pass more quickly when looking back.

Last time I wrote here, I rambled about this fantasy of being twenty-five again. Twenty-five feels like a lifetime ago. So here I am, well into my fifties, with the end of 2014 staring me down, and 2015 making me wonder what all it will have in store.

I spent a few days alone in Wisconsin in early September. While there, I re-read a book by Henri Nouwen that I had read while I was in rehab after my accident. And this part of a sentence stood out to me in a potent way as I looked at some of the things I had underlined years ago…

“..avoiding the pain of accepting the responsibility for my own life…”

Nouwen has long been a writer who has found a way into my soul, sometimes inspiring me, and other times kicking my butt. The words above kick my butt. And although I have accepted the responsibility for my own life for the most part, there are ways that I have avoided as well. And I want to somehow find a bit more courage as I look to my future, and replace the word “avoiding” with “embracing.” There is always more to take hold of…

“..[embracing] the pain of accepting the responsibility for my own life…”

Philippians 3:12

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I just wrote a card and letter wishing a friend a happy 25th birthday. And as I think of him, and how he is off living this adventurous life in Alaska, it leaves me, at least in this moment, wishing that I could do my twenty-fifth year over again. Just a ridiculous little fantasy, but I sometimes indulge such thoughts for a bit. There are just a few ways that I wish I would have lived a little more fully at that season of my life…

Sometimes I go through seasons where some amount of regret is my companion. And maybe that’s where I am right now. Twenty-five. There is something about that age for me that from my current vantage point seems magical. I was single, young, strong, felt somewhat invincible. I could walk. I ran four miles a day most days. I had hair. I farmed with Dad, had a part-time painting business, worked a few nights at the local skating rink, and hung out with the high school youth group at my church. I drove to Omaha or to Michigan or Illinois or wherever to visit friends on a whim. Was kind of a confirmed single man at the time as well, in spite of all kinds of people claiming to have found me the perfect woman. Apparently there were a lot of perfect women running around during the early eighties…

So being twenty-five will have to remain reality for my friend in Alaska, and merely fantasy for me, which is really quite fine. My life is substantially rich as it is. And regret or no regret, I, like you, have only this moment in which to actually live.

In his book Iron John, Robert Bly talks of “handling ashes.” I’ve thought a lot about this concept over the last weeks and months, have gotten my hands dirty, and started to make more sense of where I am at this stage in life, more than double the age of twenty-five. Bly says that when we handle ashes, when we wrestle with our regrets, our losses, our mistakes, it helps to clarify what about us remains alive, and what is no longer alive or possible. And like this photo shows, when the ashes of something burned, something dead or lost or stolen are ground into our hands, they make the whorls and ridges of our living fingerprints more pronounced. More apparent. The ash is evidence of things that once held life or potential for us, but are no longer alive. Perhaps no longer even potential. But the life in our fingerprints, the life in who we are rises above the ashes. That is part of our present potential…

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