Let Us Commence

Lately I have been reading a lot of Anne Lamott, which for now seems to be a great cure for my current state of funk. As I stated in the last post, I have a lot of things on my mind and I lot of things that I need prayer for. What I'm currently trying to do and pursue is to essentially beat the odds and create a life for myself where nothing is easy. But I have never done something just because it was easy, and in fact, have probably done the opposite. Its hard though when your heart is alive while living in a third world country feeding the poor, knowing that the gnawing truth inside you cries out to give up more and more of yourself and your desires to gather things closely around you that give you the illusion of being happy. Clothes, shoes, pedicures, insurance policies, whatever it may be. As I feel myself digging deeper and deeper into this heart-cry of mine, I also find myself seeking a lot of spiritual counseling and a lot of time with God. Sometimes all I want is confirmation that I haven't lost my mind, that I haven't tortured my family by my choices, and that I'm walking in the path that God has laid out before me.

In my readings, I came across this chapter by Anne Lamott, who is currently one of my favorite authors. I read this chapter, had tears well up in my eyes, and decided to post it. This is where I'm at, and I feel like this is a little dose of advice that many of us could use on a daily basis. Enjoy!

This must be a magical day for you. I wouldn't know. I accidentally forgot to graduate from college. I meant to, thirty some years ago, but things got away from me. I did graduate from high school--do I get partial credit for that?--Although, unfortunately, my father had forgotten to pay the book bill, so at the graduation ceremony when I opened the case to look at my diploma, it was empty. Except for a ransom note that said -See Mrs. Foley, the bookkeeper, if you ever want to see your diploma alive again.

I went to Goucher College in Maryland for the best possible reason--to learn--but dropped out at 19 for the best possible reason--to become a writer. Those of you who have read my work know that instead, I accidentally became a Kelly girl for awhile. Then, in a dazzling career move, I got hired as a clerk typist in the Nuclear Quality Assurance Department at Bechtel, where I worked as a typist and sorted triplicate forms. I hate to complain, but it was not very stimulating work. However, it paid the bills, so I could write my stories every night when I got home. I worked at Bechtel for 6 months, but I swear that I had nothing to do with the company's involvement in the Bush administration's shameless war profiteering. I just sorted triplicate forms.

It was a terrible job, at which I did a terrible job, but it paid $600 a month, which, augmented by food stamps, was enough to pay my rent & grocery bills. This is a real problem if you are crazy enough to be an artist (**sidenote** or a missionary in MY case)--you have to give up your dreams of swimming pools and fish forks and take any old job. At 20, I was hired as an assistant editor at a magazine; I think that was the last real job I've had.

I bet I'm making some parents nervous---here I am, bragging of being a dropout & unemployable & about to make a pitch for you to follow your creative dreams, when what parents want for their kids is to do well in their field, to make them look good, and maybe assemble a tasteful fortune.

But that is not your problem. Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to live it trying to look good and create the illusion that you have control and power over people and circumstances, or whether you are goingto taste it, enjoy it, and find out the truth about who you are.

At some point I started getting published, and experienced a meager knock-kneed standing in the literary world, & I started to get almost everything that many of you graduates are hoping for--except for the money. I got lots of things that society had promised would make me whole and fulfilled, all the things that culture tells you from preschool on will quiet the throbbing anxiety inside of you. I got some stature, the respect of other writers, even a low-grade fame. The culture says these things will save you, as long as you manage to keep your weight down. But the culture lies.

Slowly, after dozens of rejection slips & failures & false starts and postponed dreams--what Langston Hughes called "dreams deferred"--I stepped onto the hallowed ground of being a published novelist, and then, fifteen years later, I started to make some real money.

I'd wanted to be a writer my whole life. But when I finally made it, I felt like a greyhound catching the mechanical rabbit she'd been chasing for so long--discovering it was merely metal wrapped up in cloth. It wasn't alive; it had no spirit. It was fake. Fake doesn't feed anything. Only spirit feeds spirit, your own & the universal spirit, in the same way that only your blood type (and O negative, the universal donor) can sustain you. "Making it" had nothing that could slake the thirst I had for immediacy and connection.

From the wise old pinnacle of my years, I can tell you that what you're looking for is already inside you. You've heard this before, but the holy thing inside you really is that which causes you to seek it. You can't buy it, lease it, rent it, date it, or apply for it. The best job in the world can't give it to you. Neither can success, or fame, or financial security--besides which, there ain't no such thing. John D. Rockefeller was once asked "How much money is enough?" and he answered, "Just a little bit more."

It can be confusing--most of your parents want you to do well, to be successful. They want you to be happy, or at least happyish. And they want you to be nicer to them, just a little nicer--is that so much to ask??

They want you to love, and be loved, and find peace, and laugh and find meaningful work. But they also, some of them--a few of them (not yours of course, yours are fine)--they want you to chase the bunny for awhile. To get ahead, sock away some money, & then find balance between the bunny chase and savoring your life.

But you don't know whether you're going to live long enough to slow down, relax, have fun, and discover the truth of your spiritual identity. You may not be destined to live a long life; you may not have 60 more years to discover & claim your own deepest truth. As Breaker Morant said, you have to live every day as if it's your last, because one of these days you're bound to be right.

It might help if I go ahead and tell you what I think is the truth of your spiritual identity.....

Actually, I don't have a clue.

I do know you are not what you look like, or how much you weigh, or how you did in school, or whether you start a job next Monday or not. Spirit isn't what you do, it's...well, again, I don't actually know. They probably taught this junior year at Goucher College; I should have stuck around. But I know that you feel it best when you're not doing much--when you're in nature, when you're very quiet, or paradoxically, listening to music.

I know you feel it and hear it in the music you love, in the bass line and in the harmonies, in the silence between notes: in Chopin & Eminem, Emmylou Harris, Neil Young, Bach, whomever. You can close your eyes and feel the divine spark concentrated in you, like a little Dr. Seuss firefly. It flickers with life and relief, like an American in a foreign country who suddenly hears someone speaking English. In the Christian tradition, they say that the soul rejoices in hearing what it already knows. And so you pay attention when that Dr. Seuss creature inside you lights up and strains to hear.

We can see spirit made visible when people are kind to one another, especially when it's a really busy person, like you, taking care of a needy, annoying, neurotic person, like you. In fact, that's often when we see spirit most brightly.

Its magic to see spirit, largely because it's so rare. Mostly you see the masks and the holograms that the culture presents as real. You see how you're doing in the world's eyes, or you family's, or worse of all--yours, or in the eyes of people who are doing better than you--much better than you--or worse.

But you are not your bank account, or your ambition. You're not the cold clay lump you leave behind when you die. You're not you collection of walking personality disorders. You are spirit, you are love, and even though its hard to believe sometimes, you are free. You're here to love and be loved, freely. If you find out next week that you are terminally ill--and we're all terminally ill on this bus--what will matter are memories of beauty, that people loved you, and that you loved them.

So how do we nourish and feed our spirit and the spirit of others?

First find a path, and a little light to see by. Then push up your sleeves and start helping. Every single spiritual tradition says that you must take care of the poor or you're so doomed that not even Jesus or the Buddha can help you.

You don't have to go far. There are people all around you who are poor in spirit, worried, depressed, dancing as fast as they can; their kids are sick, or their retirement savings are gone. There is a great loneliness among us, life-threatening loneliness. People have given up on peace, on equality. They've even given up on the Democratic party, which I haven't, not by a long shot. You do what you can, what good people have always done; you bring thirsty people water, you share your food, you try to help the homeless find shelter, and you stand up for the underdog.

I secretly believe that this makes Jesus love you more.

Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. Laugh, rest, slow down. Some of you start jobs on Monday; some of you wish you did; some of your parents are asthmatic with anxiety that you don't. They shared this with me before the ceremony began.

I would recommend that you all take a deep breath, and stop. Just be where your butts are, and breathe. Take some time. You are graduating today. Refuse to cooperate with anyone who is trying to shame you into hopping right back up onto the rat exercise wheel.

Rest, but pay attention. Refuse to cooperate with anyone who is stealing you freedome, your personal and civil liberties, and then smirking about it. I'm not going to name names.

But slow down. Better yet, lie down.

In my 20's I devised a school of relaxation that has unfortunately fallen out of favor in the ensuing years--it was called Prone Yoga. You just lay around as much as possible. You could read, listen to music, you could space out or sleep. But you had to be lying down. Maintaining the prone.

You've graduated. You have nothing left to prove, and besides, it's a fool's game. If you agree to play, you've already lost. Its Charlie Brown & Lucy with the football. If you keep getting back on the field, they win. There are so many great things to do right now. Write. Sing. Rest. Eat cherries. Register voters. And--oh my God--I nearly forgot the most important things: Refuse to wear uncomfortable pants, even if they make you look really thin. Promise me you'll never wear pants that bind or tug or hurt, pants that have an opinion about how much you've just eaten. The pants may be lying! There is way too much lying and scolding going on politically right now without having your pants get in on the act too.

So bless you. You've done an amazing thing. And you are loved; you are capable of lives of great joy and meaning. It's what you're made of. And it's what you're here for. Take care of yourselves; take care of one another. And always give thanks like this: Thank you.