Healing is So Hard

     I should start by saying I don’t know what the truth is. I mean, about suffering. I know some people believe strongly that it has a purpose and we are singled out to have it build us. Others think it is completely random and just part of the human experience we all go through. Their belief is that some people are just luckier than others and don’t seem to have as much of it touch their lives.

     I’m not sure it even matters what we philosophically believe about it. I do know that everyone faces something at some point. And that many people have a lot more of it than we know because they don’t like revealing it. It comes as relationship troubles, health issues, money challenges, job difficulties or family problems. Often we seem to think we have, in some way, brought it on ourselves and that it shows a weakness in our character to admit it because it is, after all, something we should have been smart enough to avoid or prevent.

     People of all manner of spiritual beliefs tie it to their spirituality. The Bible says in James 1: 2-3 “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”  Let me just say right here that whatever I have believed at different times about hard times I have never quite gotten to a point of martyrdom of being joyful when I was going through them…
     The Lakota faith practiced primarily by Sioux tribes of native Americans taught and still seeks sometimes clarity and benefit from subjecting themselves to sweat lodges where the temperature gets so high they hallucinate. In extreme cases of feeling the need to purify themselves or become sanctified they participated in the Sun Dance. This ceremony involves warriors tethering themselves to a center pole by rawhide and bone that pierced their skin. They would strain against the pole in an effort to break their skin and be free of the tether. All this was symbolically freeing themselves of evil spirits or impediments to healthy and spiritual life. Their belief is that by going through that challenge they come out stronger.

     It was in the 13^th century that the Muslim poet, Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi, wrote so many passages that are still read and loved today by those seeking wisdom. His poem “The Guest House” urged people to welcome calamity and hard times and know that, by embracing them, we are accepting the lessons they bring:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

     In the 15^th century the Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross, wrote about “The Dark Night of the Soul” and forwarded the idea that our souls became mystically joined with God through difficult passages of darkness.

     There’s no question that walking through the fire makes our feet tougher. The question is whether we should keep walking for that wisdom or just out of instinct to not be burned to a crisp. Nietzsche, in a more succinct way of saying it, said “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”.

     Athletes and strength conditioning coaches know this to be true. The fire will temper and harden the steel. And running a mile further than your adversary will make you better prepared for a contest that involves strength of legs and cardio conditioning.

     But- back to the trials and tribulations of hard times. Do they make us “better”?

We’ve probably all heard it said that God won’t allow us to be weighed down with more than we can handle. That’s just not true. People routinely crumble under the weight of their tests. Divorces cause suicides. Health problems cause people to make a mental break with reality. Some guy gets fired from his job and, buckling under the financial strain it places on family, gets a military style outfit, 4 weapons and walks into a crowded place and begins killing random people- somehow believing it will help solve the problem.

     I do believe this: having gone through the fire we are certainly better equipped to help those struggling now. No one wants to hear “I know what you must be going through” when they know full well the person saying that has no earthly idea what they are going through. And you must remember that when I have gone through a difficult time and then am able to help you go through a similar one it gives purpose to MY time of struggle. I am able to say “I dealt with this and made it through and you can, too, because I am here for you”.

     I don’t know what the truth is. Not all of it, anyway. But I know that whether hard times make us better or not they certainly make us better able to sympathize and even empathize with others who are faced with similar challenges. And that is enough reason to go through them.

     I have never made it to the point of welcoming hard times and considering it pure joy when I have been faced with health issues that made it difficult for me to get out of bed or when I was sifting through the ashes of a failed relationship trying to find some piece of me I even recognized. But we have only two choices: sit down and die or keep walking. And, by walking, I am making my way to you and maybe saying one thing that can encourage you to keep walking, too.

     I have friends fighting the fires now. They are battling life threatening illnesses. They don’t know if they can pay the bills next month. They are so brokenhearted from failed marriages or problems with their families they have reached levels of hopelessness they have never seen. They have no idea why they are in the life they are in and how they got there. I have no wisdom for them other than this: Healing is so hard. If you try to help me I will try to help you. In the words of the great songwriter Roger Miller one thing is sure: The bad ain’t forever and the good ain’t for good.

     If you're struggling right now, keep going. Don't think about the pain, loneliness or hurt. Just keep going. It's amazing how quickly things can change.

When Time Loses

One of my favorite poets, Pablo Neruda, said these words in his poem about discovering poetry called “La Poesia” (Poetry):

“And it was at that age…poetry arrived in search of me

I don’t know, I don’t know where it came from, from winter or a river

I don’t know how or when, no, they weren’t voices, they were not words, nor silence,

But from a street it called me, from the branches of the night, abruptly from the others,

Among raging fires or returning alone, there it was, without a face,

And it touched me”

              It is the way I feel about music. I have loved it for as long as I can remember and been pulled to its magic. I can remember watching music stars on our television and wanting to be like them but it really went back further to my earliest recollections of learning songs in Sunday School and hearing my mother sing to me when she rocked me. When I got my first guitar for my 8^th Christmas it was like I had been reunited with an old friend I hadn’t seen for a while. My fingers found their way over it easily and intuitively like nothing else I’ve ever tried to do.

              Music, to me, is magical in a way that other things are not. You may have heard a song a hundred times but that hundred and first it may speak to you and touch you in a more powerful way than any of the first hundred. Maybe that is possible with a painting or picture but we do not usually feel so many different things when we see a picture. The same song may make us want to smile, dance, cry or sing at the top of our lungs- regardless of our ability to do so very well.

              As I’ve gotten older, I have realized that I was fortunate enough to have had my musical tastes defined during the 60s and 70s- which were arguably the most important decades in the history of popular music’s development. And I now try to celebrate as much of that music as I can by going to hear the legacy acts of that era who are still performing.

              Over the last several years I have gone to see concerts by artists including Paul Simon, Robert Plant, The Who, Eric Clapton and Steely Dan, to name a few. Some of these acts may be touring again to pay bills, back taxes or 3 or 4 alimonies. But most of them seem to be performing because they love doing it. And many seem to enjoy it as much or more than ever.

              Last night I saw James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt perform. I have seen JT several times over the years but not very recently. I last saw Bonnie Raitt in 1974- FORTY- FIVE YEARS AGO. Just saying that seems incomprehensible. I listened to James Taylor sing “Fire and Rain” and thought…  ”If he has sung this hit only 100 times a year since it was new, he has sung it around 5000 times”. And yet, the audience almost drowned him out. Like me, they knew every word, melodic twist, inflection and breath in the original version. It is burned in our consciousness like a brand. It’s a safe bet that some of the people there experienced that song in a more meaningful way than they ever had in their lives.

              I am grateful for the magic and enduring beauty of songs. We hear them and they transport us to other places and times. We ride a wayback machine to a time when we did not know what we know now and the world was still full of possibilities. They remind us of first girlfriends and an old house we lived in or our first prom or a small transistor radio. Just when they are forgotten or worn out or unimportant they leap up and are bigger and better and we have another perspective and deeper understanding of something than we ever have because of them. Of all the powerful experiences I’ve ever had, none can compare to music when it connects with the fibers of your brain, heart and soul.

              I remember going to see Crosby, Stills and Nash at an amphitheater show one summer night. The weather was perfect- warm and not a cloud in the sky. Every star seemed to be as big as the moon. The band, it was obvious, were having fun and felt joyful making music together. There was a moment they broke into “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” and the sound was perfect, my view was great and even though I had worn that record out I felt the song in as powerful a way as ever. It was an amazing moment 20 years after I first heard the song. My memory of that moment is powerful even now, 30 years later.

              Thank you, all you artists who have lived your whole lives lonelier than us to take music to us all. Our world is bigger and richer because of you and the expression of your art. And to you who are reading this…go see that artist you missed the first time around. It may be profound in a way you can’t even imagine. You may drive home from the show saying “Music came tonight in search of me. And it touched me ”.