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“Only in quiet waters things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world” (Hans Margolius).
IT TAKES A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF QUIETNESS AND STILLNESS FOR IMPORTANT TRUTHS TO MAKE AN IMPRESSION ON OUR MINDS. But modern life, much to our detriment, tends to make us fidgety and frantic. Neither quiet nor still, our minds are usually racing, moving at full throttle from one item on our agenda to another, or from one interesting entertainment to another. We think about many, many things, but rarely do we think about any of them meditatively. We don’t give ourselves a chance to reflect and ponder and consider. And as a result, a number of important thoughts pass through our brains without any real chance to take up residence there.
To “meditate” means to think about something quietly and at length. “Meditation,” as William Grimshaw said, “is the soul’s chewing.” Indeed, one of the synonyms for meditate is “ruminate,” which means to “chew” something over in our minds. But sometimes, we meditate by just quietly reflecting, without any words or mental action at all. Often, this is the most helpful kind of meditation. It’s a beneficial thing simply to grow quiet and . . . LISTEN. We can be powerfully reminded of important principles when we are receptively still.
Meditation is important because that’s where we usually see the meaning and significance of what we know. Without meditation, we may have much information in our minds, but there’ll be little wisdom in our hearts. It takes meditating on matters to move from the question “What?” to the more important question “So what?”
But we can’t have the BENEFITS of meditation without making the SACRIFICE that meditation requires. For one thing, genuine meditation requires a discipline that has to be learned. But not only that, it takes being willing to let go of some of our activities in order to have the time to meditate. We can’t have it both ways, and it’s foolish to try.
If, like the lake that has the boon
Of cradling the little moon
Above the hill,
I want the Infinite to be
Reflected undisturbed in me,
I must be still.
(Edna Becker)
What is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.
(James Russell Lowell)
A “CYCLE” IS A PERIOD OF TIME DURING WHICH A SERIES OF REGULARLY REPEATING EVENTS OCCURS. There is, for example, a cycle that takes place as our hearts beat. First one thing happens, then another, then another, etc. — all in an orderly sequence, until the cycle is finished, at which time the cycle repeats itself. This happens over and over and over again as long as we live.
As the spelling of the word indicates, “cycle” is closely related to “circle.” Cyclical things are circular: their ends are connected back to their beginnings, and they go around and around. Some of the cycles that we invent are tedious and tiresome, but those in the world of nature should never grow old to us. They are marvelous.
If you live in a climate where there is a marked change of seasons, be glad. The cycle of spring, summer, autumn, and winter is a thing of wonder, and its wonder ought not to be lost on us.
There are many things in the world, like the seasons, whose enjoyment stems mainly from the fact that we don’t have them all of the time. To enjoy something, not have it for awhile, and then see it come around again is one of life’s most pleasant experiences. As the seasons cycle through their yearly round, we are refreshed, replenished, and reminded of things that we’d forget if we didn’t have the seasons.
Today, of course, it’s in our thoughts that summer has come around again. Here is a season that most of us find it easy to enjoy, and this, it seems to me, is because summer is tied in so many of our minds to the intense happiness of childhood. I, for one, couldn’t agree more with Edith Wharton, who said, “Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” In the cycle of the seasons, summer will come around again next year, just as it did last year. But on this day of this year, summer’s just beginning. Let’s welcome it with high spirits.
“In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out, and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth” (John Milton).
The keen spirit
Seizes the prompt occasion –
Makes the thought
Start into instant action, and at once
Plans and performs, resolves and executes.
(Hannah Moore)
INSTANCY IS URGENCY OR IMMEDIACY IN OUR ACTIONS. It is, as Hannah Moore tells us, the thing that “makes the thought start into instant action.” It’s not only planning but performing, not only resolving but executing. And what a powerful virtue instancy is! It takes dreams, kind intentions, and loving impulses off the “drawing board” and injects them into real life, where they can do some good.
Not everything should be done instantly, of course. Some things should not be done at all, and we need to guard against the rashness that would do “now” what, on later reflection, would clearly be seen as foolish. But even when something needs to be done, wisdom often indicates that now is not the best time to do it. So there is a time to be instant and a time to wait. We can’t let our lives be tyrannized by the pressure of all those things that are only superficially “urgent.”
Nevertheless, when we know full well that the time to do a certain thing is now, instancy needs to be the quality that our character demonstrates. It’s an exceedingly dangerous thing to ignore our conscience when it’s urging us to act. Every time we say no to our conscience, we make it that much harder to say yes to it in the future.
But instancy, or the lack of it, not only has consequences for us; it also affects those around us, especially our loved ones. We probably have no idea how many difficulties we create for others when we put off doing things that should be done instantly. Instancy, then, is a great gift that we can give to those who have to live and work with us.
There is a beauty possessed by instancy that delay can never hope to attain. Our lives are made up of moments, or “instants,” and when we use these well, we honor them. Acting with integrity in each moment of choice, we express appreciation for the gift of life — and we show by the use of our free wills that there are things worth pursuing.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy . . .
(Francis Thompson)
“. . . then we learn that the storms of life have driven us, not upon the rocks, but into the desired haven” (George MacDonald).
SOME OF THE HAPPIEST “HAVENS” IN LIFE ARE THOSE THAT WE WOULD NEVER HAVE FOUND HAD NOT SOME “STORM” DRIVEN US THERE. If necessity is the mother of invention, it’s also the mother of discovery. When we have to, we find out where there is refuge, safety, and sanctuary. At other times, we’re in desperate need of finding a haven and we have no idea where to look, but the very haven we need appears anyway. Either way, storms are not to be regretted if they result in our finding a pleasant port that we never knew about before.
We need to appreciate the extent to which other people have provided rest and refuge for us. There aren’t many of us who’re not indebted to friends who’ve given us shelter in the midst of some storm, sometimes at significant personal sacrifice. The worst thing we could do would be to take those havens for granted. The best thing we could do would be to do for others what has been done for us.
For a human being, the ideal haven would not be a place of inactivity and indolence. And when it comes to relationships, those that provide the most helpful havens for us in troubled times aren’t necessarily those where everybody agrees with every word we say, strokes our ego, and tells us to just sit back and relax. Even when we’re in pain, there are times when we need to be confronted with honest truths that can cause us to grow and make progress. A true haven provides safety, yes, but the safety should be used constructively. Repairs need to be made, and then our ship needs to put back out to sea!
Wherever we are, in whatever “place” we may find ourselves, we need to see our circumstances as some sort of a haven. We may think our present situation is undesirable. We may worry that it leaves us open to certain dangers. But whatever difficulties it may be our lot to experience, it’s almost always the case that those difficulties protect us from some other, perhaps more dangerous, difficulties. In the real world, contentment often comes down to seeing and appreciating the haven-like aspects of our current condition, whatever that may be.
All places that the eye of heaven visits
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
(William Shakespeare)
“Subordination tends greatly to human happiness” (Samuel Johnson).
BEING SUBORDINATE TO SOMEONE ELSE ISN’T NECESSARILY SOMETHING TO RESENT OR TO BE EMBARRASSED ABOUT. In life there happen to be many hierarchies, and as we live and work within these arrangements, it’s no disgrace to occupy a lower rank than someone else or to be subject to the authority of someone else. Being subordinate may be more or less difficult, depending on how both we and those to whom we’re subordinate conduct ourselves in a given relationship, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with the principle of subordination itself. Our social world is no different than the natural world in that hierarchies are necessary; the normal operation of living “systems” can’t occur without them. So we need to work our way toward a healthy, wholesome concept of subordination.
WE OUGHT TO MAKE LIFE AS PLEASANT AS POSSIBLE FOR THOSE TO WHOM WE’RE SUBORDINATE. By the manner in which we relate to those whose leadership we are to follow, we can make their lives either heaven or hell. Anyone can carp and criticize those who have the duty of decision-making. That’s easy. But it takes more character to be HELPFUL to those who have to make the decisions, and that’s what we ought to aim for.
WE OUGHT TO MAKE LIFE AS PLEASANT AS POSSIBLE FOR THOSE WHO’RE SUBORDINATE TO US. There may be many relationships in which we’re under someone else’s authority, but sooner or later, we’re going to end up in other relationships in which WE are in the lead and others will be subordinate to our role. When that happens, we need to govern our attitude and our behavior in such a way that others find it a pleasure to carry out their responsibilities under our leadership.
In whatever relationships we find ourselves, our goal always ought to be to give subordination a good name, rather than a bad one. Doing that requires hard work, and it requires more strength and self-discipline than many of us have right now. It’s not going too far to say that one of the major tests of our character is whether we’re willing, with the right attitude, to be subordinate to others. If we’re so power-hungry that we demand no less than equal authority in every relationship, then we’ve disqualified ourselves from any true leadership.
“No man is safe above but he that will gladly be beneath” (Thomas a Kempis).
“Sure there is music even in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument. For there is a music wherever there is a harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres” (Sir Thomas Browne).
WHO WOULD DISAGREE THAT THERE IS “A MUSIC” MADE BY THINGS LIKE “HARMONY, ORDER, OR PROPORTION”? We don’t have to be neurotically obsessed with neatness to appreciate the beauty — and even the VALUE — of balanced efficiency and harmonious arrangement in the world around us. Freedom and spontaneity are wonderful things, but none of us would want to live in a world where total confusion and unpredictability were the norm. The marvelous spontaneity that we so deeply enjoy in nature is supported and made possible by a larger pattern of orderliness. So most of us are glad to live in a COSMOS (from the Greek kosmos, which meant “order”) rather than a CHAOS (from the Greek khaos, which meant “emptiness”).
OUR HABITATIONS. Deep down, wouldn’t most of us rather live and work and play in spaces that are made more comfortable by a reasonable amount of order? Surely we would, and the work that’s required to maintain a little orderliness in our habitations is worthy work.
OUR LIFESTYLES. Just as unmaintained spaces become chaotic and uninviting, so do our lifestyles when we default on our “housekeeping” chores. It doesn’t take long for the chaos to creep in. So what about your manner of life? Is it overdue for some serious reordering?
OUR CHARACTERS. Since other people see our lifestyles, we may try to keep them somewhat orderly. But our characters, like our back yards, can’t be seen so easily, and there, we may not be as careful. But in truth, our “back yard” speaks volumes about who we REALLY are, and nothing is sadder than a run-down character, rank with “weeds.”
Nowadays, we ought to make up our minds that we’re simply not going to let words like “orderliness” have a negative connotation to us. Orderliness doesn’t do away with spontaneity; it’s the very thing that makes freedom such a delightful possibility. As in nature, so it is in our own lives: ORDER IS WHAT GIVES US A PLAYGROUND ON WHICH TO PLAY!
“Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly” (Julie Andrews).
“There is no past we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternal now that builds and creates out of the past something new and better” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe).
WE CAN’T LIVE IN ANYTHING BUT THE PRESENT MOMENT, BUT THE PRESENT MOMENT OUGHT TO BE USED BUILDING THINGS THAT WILL HAVE SOME VALUE IN THE FUTURE. Specifically WHAT is to be built will differ from person to person, depending upon the interests, abilities, and opportunities of each individual, but in one way or another, all of us need to be engaged in the work of building. It’s hard work, of course — much harder than tearing down. But building is what we ought to be busy doing.
Actually, building is an activity that we instinctively derive satisfaction from. The world in which we live is such that a certain amount of building has to be done by us, even for our bare survival, and our natures are such that this necessary work is something that we find joy in doing, if we think about the matter rightly. Whether or not we acknowledge the fact or do anything worthwhile about it, most of us have a deeply ingrained tendency or need to be building something. And no small part of our happiness depends on whether we have a healthy means of satisfying our building impulse.
To be builders, however, we have to rise above cynicism. Defying those who say that nothing we do will make any difference, we have to believe that at least some of the building we’re capable of doing in this world is worth the effort. Despite short-term discouragements, we have to trust that, in the long run, it does good to do good.
And not only that, but we must be willing to build for the benefit of others. “The fate of the architect is the strangest of all,” wrote Goethe. “How often he expends his whole soul, his whole heart and passion, to produce buildings into which he himself may never enter.”
But finally, think about this: of all the things any of us can build, none is more beautiful, or important, than LOVE. Even if in the past we’ve torn down more than we’ve built up, today can be well spent if we build a bigger love in our hearts than has ever been there before.
And ruin’d love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
(William Shakespeare)
“Becoming a father is easy enough, but being one can be rough” (Wilhelm Busch).
JUST AS IT’S POSSIBLE TO BE A MOTHER WITHOUT BEING MOTHERLY, IT’S POSSIBLE TO BE A FATHER WITHOUT BEING FATHERLY. Fatherliness is a set of attitudes and actions that most men find themselves inclined toward, but this inclination has to be accepted, disciplined, and put to good use. Being a good father is not something that happens automatically. It’s a matter of choice.
Frankly, the present age is a tough age in which to be a father. No longer are there any social norms that tell a father what to do. Many fathers are disoriented and discouraged. And not only that, now that it’s somewhat easier for a mother to survive economically without the assistance of a husband, the role of the father in a family is coming to be thought of as unessential, if not altogether undesirable.
But if it’s a difficult time, that doesn’t mean it’s a time for complaining. When the going gets tough, the tough get going, as we like to say. We need to accept responsibility for the fact that, to a large extent, we men have created the present situation by our failures in the past, and rather than resent today’s challenge, we need to rise to meet it. As painful as growth can sometimes be, whatever provokes us in that direction should be seen as a good thing, not a bad one.
Words like “responsibility” and “accountability” are of key importance. In the past, we have wanted the benefits of fatherhood without the responsibilities of fatherliness. We’ve checked into and out of our families’ lives so often that it’s no wonder our children have questioned whether we loved them dependably. In our “manly” strength, we’ve spoken so thoughtlessly that any objective observer might question whether we’re familiar with the word “consequences.”
But words and deeds do have consequences, and we need to take responsibility for them. Yes, our wives and our children are often forgiving, and they’ll probably survive our carelessness. But why can’t we live so that some really POSITIVE consequences are set in motion? Why can’t we give our children the gift of honest-to-goodness FATHERLINESS?
“What a father says to his children is not heard by the world, but it will be heard by posterity” (Jean Paul Richter).
“To understand a man, you must know his memories. The same is true of a nation” (Anthony Quayle).
EVERY INDIVIDUAL IS A UNIQUE COMBINATION OF MEMORIES OF THE PAST, ACTIONS IN THE PRESENT, AND HOPES FOR THE FUTURE. Each of these is important in its own way, but let’s think for a moment about the significance of our memories. A person’s history can’t be changed any more than a nation’s can, but it’s still important to pay attention to it. “History is the ship carrying living memories to the future” (Stephen Spender). The “living memories” of our personal past need to be cared for and kept alive.
Unfortunately, we tend to neglect the facts, stories, objects, and images that have gone into our personal archives. We don’t “study” these things as we should. If we did, we’d have a better understanding of who we are — and a better grasp of what our role is in the world.
But if there are those of us who neglect our personal histories, there are many more of us who neglect the history of our country and the history of the world. Will Durant, a man who certainly earned the right to comment on the value of history, said, “Most of us spend too much time on the last twenty-four hours and too little on the last six-thousand years.” This shortsightedness costs us dearly. We not only lose the humility that comes from seeing the larger reality of the world, we also lose the wisdom. People who never get outside of their own experience in the present moment make many needless mistakes.
We should be aware that when we give ourselves to others, we are giving them a person with a past, a history. It’s an even better gift when we give them a person who APPRECIATES the past.
If we haven’t lived so that our personal histories are rich and good and worth remembering, we need to start doing that. Today, we can begin building histories that will be a joy to be connected to later on. But for most of us, there are already many things in our past that can enrich us when we remember them. These are things we should meditate on from time to time, humbly and respectfully. Lest we lose touch with our roots, we need to remember where we came from, from whom we came, and what we’ve done in getting to the present.
“A people without history is like wind on the buffalo grass” (Sioux Proverb).
“Unless you make allowances for your friend’s foibles, you betray your own” (Publilius Syrus).
IF NOBODY MADE ANY “ALLOWANCE” FOR ANYONE ELSE, IT WOULD BE A TENSE WORLD, WOULDN’T IT? Mistakes are a fact of life, and if every one of them had to be fully rectified, life would soon grind to a miserable halt. None of us can stand up to a zero-tolerance audit of our performance. We need there to be some ease, some slack, in our relationships. We need others to make a reasonable allowance for our less-than-perfect efforts to get things right.
Making allowance for others doesn’t mean that we condone wrongdoing or that we’re indifferent to matters of excellence and quality. It doesn’t mean that we’re neutral as to whether things turn out for the better or the worse. Allowance is not the same as apathy.
Neither does making allowance mean that we’re weak. Quite to the contrary, it takes extraordinary strength and self-discipline to make the kinds of allowances that need to be made. People who never make allowances are not strong; they’re weak in the worst sort of way.
What allowance does mean is that THERE IS MORE TO ANY SITUATION THAN WE ARE AWARE OF. When what appears to be a mistake has been made, there is almost always more than one possible explanation for what has happened. When we make allowance for others, we’re willing to give them the benefit of any possible doubt, both as to what happened and why. Until the facts make it impossible for us to maintain a more positive view, we put THE BEST POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION ON THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM. And even when the facts demand a negative verdict on someone else’s conduct, making allowance for them means showing AS MUCH MERCY AS WISDOM WILL LET US SHOW. Allowance means safety: it means that we make it safe for those around us to stumble.
But we need not only to allow for others’ less-than-desirable traits — we should also “allow” those that are praiseworthy. In fact, “allow” comes from the Latin allaudare, which meant “to give praise to,” and the older meaning of “allow” was to honor or praise. So think about this: if we want others to allow (in the modern sense) for our bad deeds, shouldn’t we allow (in the older sense) for their good ones?
“. . . he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed” (Samuel Johnson).
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