Friday, September 27, 2024 Breathing in, I relax my body. Breathing out, I smile.
A reflection by Brother Toby:
I begin by telling you about a good friend and mentor Hobart “Red” Thomas. He was a major figure in the development of the Human Potential Movement, President of the Association of Humanistic Psychology, and a leading professor of psychology at Sonoma State University. But Red was also a jazz musician. I think that was a big part of his spiritual side. His wife Rachel loved to hear him play. When she became terminally ill and had to be moved to an assisted living facility, Red managed to get a piano into her room and he would play there for her several times a day. He was holding her, and playing, as Rachel took her final breath.
Sometime later, when Red himself was seriously ill, he was in the same assisted living facility. When I went to see him for the last time he asked just as I was leaving, How should I approach this final chapter of my life? I muttered something in response, but I have always deeply regretted not giving him something more helpful. Recently as I have approached that final chapter myself I have lost any sense of guilt about what I said or didn't say to Red. Why? Because I think a person must be in that stage of life before they can give anyone else anything helpful.
The final chapter must be approached with a great openness. Many things will not be going right. There was a cosmic example of that shortly after Red died. He had asked me to preside at his memorial service which was held at the university. Years before Red had put together a small band and he wanted them to play at his service. The one instruction he gave me was “Don't let them play When The Saints Come Marching In!
I communicated this to the members of the band shortly after Red died but I don't think they listened to me well as they were very sad at the loss of a dear friend. On the day of the service the large space at the university was overflowing with friends and people who Red had known, taught and helped. The time to begin passed by because the band was supposed to start off and they were not there. Finally, the individual members of the band came in. At long last they were all there. I heard several of them asking each other what should they play? And, you guessed it, they decided the appropriate thing was to blast out with When The Saints Come Marching In! Everyone in the room was smiling, with many standing and dancing. Perhaps somewhere in the cosmos Red was smiling and Rachel was dancing in time – or it felt that way to me.
It is good to approach the final chapters of life much the same way Thich Nhat Hanh (1926-2022) tells us to experience each moment of our life; Breathing in, I relax my body. Breathing out, I smile.
The night before I started writing these words I had some very powerful dreams. Or perhaps they weren't dreams at all, but something else for which we have not invented a word. It was something like what people describe by saying their life passed before them as they were near death. That night, for several hours, I experienced great emotional stabs to my psyche. Some left me peaceful; others disturbed me greatly.
The most disturbing thing was to live again the experiences that happened when I was 14 years old and enrolled at a high school connected to a very conservative Benedictine monastery. It was designed to shape boys into future priests. A monk from another monastery who had to visit the place where I was living and studying said when he came there, he felt like he was returning to the Middle Ages.
I think that is what was happening to me. I was living in the Middle Ages during my high school days and some part of that remained with me throughout my life. That has hindered me often from becoming the authentic person I would want to be. And I wasn't fully aware of that until these manifestations hit me. This blessed night I also encountered again people who, through their love and concern, balanced my life.
I am in a stage of life experienced by everyone. Was I, as some express it, put on earth to do something? I have trouble looking at it that way. I'm more comfortable with made-up words like “Buddha-nature” or “Holy Spirit” or terms the Mystics or Indigenous peoples use to express something which cannot really be expressed but is nonetheless an influence on our lives. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) and others who have influenced me use the term Transpersonal.
Something I do know is that I have loved and been loved. I know I have shared compassion with many. I know I have done some good in life, and I was feeling some part of all that during the series of reflections passing before me this night. They ended with a canvas, an empty white canvas stretched out and ready to be painted. But I felt like it was time to unpack all the many concerns and activities that I still had in the backpack of life I was carrying.
My friend Cliff Edwards (1937- ) who is one of the great masters of Japanese poetry, like haiku, in the United States, and also who has written several books on Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), and until his retirement was frequently chosen the most popular professor at Virginia Commonwealth University has literally made use of this empty canvas. Dear Cliff is painting pictures!
I think for me the issue is to keep that empty canvas empty and thereby become aware of the sacredness and joy around me especially in nature and community.
That begins in unpacking or in my case getting things off my desk. I have piles of things that are in the many “I need to handle this sometime” stacks. The time has come to clear my desk! I think I can hear shouts of joyful approval from many of the people who have been my helpers.
I think in some way this is how I should answer for myself the question Red asked so many years ago.
-Brother Toby
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