You Are On Your Way Out

Centering:

Black Elk, Holy Man and Healer of the Oglala Lakota Sioux nation:

Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.

This is Shiva the Hindu God whose dance destroys the world. He is the god of destruction and transformation, an important part of the endless circle of creation.

You Are On Your Way Out
We have to find a theology that helps us accept that it’s not going to end well for any of us. ~Seamus O’Connor

For me, this theology can’t be:
• Everything happens for a reason
• Pretending that things aren’t that bad
• Saying that everything will be okay

Natural Processes
From Alan Parsons:
What goes up, must come down.
What must rise, must fall.

All around us we can see natural processes at work. A seed sprouts from the ground and grows upwards. At its peak growth, it will begin to fall back down and die. When a wave reaches its peak height, it naturally begins to fall down. When the water reaches the farthest point up onto the beach, it naturally begins to recede. It is in the nature of the wave to transform itself.

We know this and yet we are still surprised when things in our lives don’t continue moving in the same direction as they have in the past. We expect the ocean wave we’re riding to keep building, but when it crashes onto the beach, we’re like a swimmer caught in the rush of the water back to the ocean, struggling to come out of the surge pulling us out that’s just as strong as the wave we rode in.

Our wave builds, crests, and we ride the long roll, but then something breaks and the edges of the wave get crumbly, and then the whole thing tumbles and crashes and to our great surprise, we are still along for that part of the ride – no way of getting out. You know that feeling, right?

Although we watch those all around us struggle with aging, we often don’t want to believe it will happen our family or to us. The longer we live in denial of the truth that we all get older and we all die and that for most of us, it’s messy and hard and we’ll need a lot of help, the more we are going to feel we are being drowned by the natural processes at work.

Most of us won’t be lucky enough to live a long healthy independent life, untouched by illness, and then just die in our own bed in our own home, while we are sleeping.

It’s tragic and sad…but I’m not telling you this to bring you down – I’m telling you so that you can accept the truth that you are not going to ride the wave forever – that most of us are going to tumbled roughly and struggle to keep our heads above the water. It’s part of the natural process of Nature.

When I was younger, I used to worry about dying too soon; now that I’ve seen what people have to go through to get out of life I worry about not dying soon enough.

Here is part of my theology that helps me accept that it’s not going to end well for me…rom two great world philosophers: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you might find
You get what you need

This quote is useful to me because it not only says straight up that you can’t always get what you want, but it even reminds you that while it possible that sometimes you might get what you need if you try, it’s also possible that you won’t get what you want or even what you need, even if you do try.

Children’s Hospital Waiting Room:

When my son was young, he broke his arm playing soccer – a very bad break completely through both arm bones; the bones were pushing up against his skin. It was so extreme and unexpected and upsetting for us, but the waiting room at Children’s Hospital was filled with dozens of kids in sports uniforms with broken bones and all kinds of other injuries. The ER doctor said that the waiting room looked like this every Friday and Saturday. It was normal for them. They just prepared for it and dealt with it. It made me realize that all over the world, there are hospital waiting rooms filled with people that need broken bones fixed.

That doesn’t mean it wasn’t scary or painful, but lots of people got through experiences like this and so would we – we didn’t forget it but our memories of it faded over time.

When my mom had to go to a cancer clinic to receive treatment, 30 chairs there all had people get treatments, and I knew there were clinics all over San Diego and all over California and all over the world with cancer patients receiving treatments. When it’s you or your family, it feels tragic and appalling and calamitous – but it’s actually normal. I was sad for my mom, but instead of feeling singled out or punished or alone, I picked my mom up and chatted with her during the treatments and we met my dad for lunch. The reason my mom didn’t let him take her was because he made too much of it–the drama didn’t help her feel better.

I know there are people in this room and out there who are going through rare and extreme situations but for most of us, there are probably thousands of other people going through the same things we are. They’re still painful and tragic, but they’re normal…you’re not alone.

Here is another piece of my theology:
Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. ~Eckhart Tolle

On one hand, I like this quote as part of my theology, because it doesn’t say you chose it, it says “Accept it as if you chose it” but on the other hand, why even suggest the idea of choice? People worry enough about how their thoughts affect situations. Of course, no one would choose to have bad things happen. I wouldn’t choose for my dad to have dementia. I wouldn’t choose for my mom’s spine to deteriorate. There’s no need to bring up the idea of choosing.

Here is wording I like better:
Whatever the present moment contains, always work with it, not against it, to make the next moment better.

Another quote for my theology:
From Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master’s Lessons in Living a Life That Matters
(by Bernard Tetsugen Glassman, Bernard Glassman, Rick Fields):
There is an expression, “Do the right thing.” But how do we know what the right thing is? We can’t know for sure. Maybe we should just say, “Do the next thing.” And if we do that – whatever it is – to the best of our ability, chances are it will turn out to be the right thing as well.

I like this quote as part of my theology too, but this part is too optimistic: “chances are it will turn out to be the right thing as well.”

Just leave it at “Do the next thing to the best of your ability”… because it’s hard to evaluate if you’ve done the right thing and it’s too easy to judge yourself harshly if you end up feeling what you did wasn’t the right thing…which is impossible to really know anyway, because you don’t know what would have happened if you did something else.

Sometimes you just can’t find anything good about what you’re going through. When this happens to me, all I can do is think of other parts of my life. For me, sometimes this is thinking about the past and instead of being angry or sad for what’s gone, I try to feel grateful for the time I had the way it used to be. Or thinking about the future and feeling hopeful for what might be coming once I get through this. Or being happy that my kids are healthy when I’m dealing with my own health issues or my parents. Or being happy that it’s sunny or that we’re getting rain or that I got to take a bike ride, or happy that my friends are doing well.

We all have shady places and sunny places in our lives. Nothing in life is so sunny that it doesn’t have a bit of shade – or so shady that there’s no light.

Remind yourself to be fully aware of the light and dark in everything. I understand how hard it is for us to see the light when we’re surrounded by darkness. What’s sad is that even when we’re surrounded by light, we tend to live in the dark area.

You Are On Your Way Out

When I was pregnant, it was a beautiful feeling growing a baby. I completely surrounded them in the tightest embrace I would ever share with another person. And I wanted to hold them there in that snug, protected space for as long as possible. It was so easy taking care of them there and keeping them safe. But they kept growing, and when they started to outgrow me, it became uncomfortable. I began to suffer and it was time for them to be on their way out. And the delivery was surprisingly painful, but as we all know that’s completely normal – it’s been that way a long time, ever since human mothers started having babies.

But can you imagine how birth felt for your babies?

As they grew inside you, they must have felt like their world was getting smaller and closing in on them. How could they know instead they were outgrowing it?

And all of a sudden, their world began to contract and squeeze them and the squeezing got harder and more frequent and then they got pushed into an even tighter place, and then they were ejected out of the safe, dark, warm, quiet embrace – out of the only world they had ever known – into a cold, bright, loud world without comforting boundaries – and then even the final tenuous connection to their past life was cut.

It must have been incredibly painful, shocking and unpredictable. How could they imagine that it wasn’t their death but the beginning of a new life?

All birth involves suffering – it’s normal.

We overcome it, our memories of it fade and we move on. Every birth also brings a sense of relief and eagerness to begin the next stage of life.

And each stage of life brings its own suffering, along with its own sense of relief and eagerness to begin the next stage. It’s complicated.

Parent responsibilities give your life purpose, connect you to your children and ground you, but they can also weigh you down.

As my children grew, my responsibilities were lightened, which felt liberating, but also made me feel less important to them and less connected, and little lost and unanchored.

Preschool, kindergarten, driving, moving out…I reveled in their increasing independence from me. However, each time they make their way farther out into the world, it highlights the stark reality that as they’re riding the height of the wave, my wave is starting to crumble, and my parents are tumbling in the surge that’s pulling them back out to the ocean. Their world is getting smaller and closing in on them and they are on their way out.

It makes me feel sad knowing that when I was riding the high wave my parents were feeling what I feel now and I had no clue – and even sadder that someday my children will feel this way too. It’s tragic and completely normal. But after 20 years of being a mother, if my kids don’t need me, what’s my purpose?

Black Elk said “Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.”

I have a new purpose – helping my parents on their way out. My father’s dementia is making him very childlike now. As my parents age, they are becoming less independent and they need more and more of my care. It’s tragic and completely normal.

At first I resented it because it seemed like I moved straight from taking care of children right into taking care of parents. Where was my carefree midlife? Then I realized I needed to take a longer view of my entire life.

I had conveniently forgotten the 20 or so years when my parents sacrificed part of their carefree lifestyle to take care of me and my siblings. And I also wasn’t remembering my approaching old age when, hopefully, my children will sacrifice some of their carefree lifestyle to take care of me.

What better way for me to encourage my children to help me when I’m old, than for me to model good parent care by showing them how I lovingly take care of their grandparents?

Yes, rather than resenting the middle years of my life when it is my responsibility to shoulder care-taking of the both the generation that came before me and the generation that will follow, I’m grateful that at this stage of my life, I’m capable to love and care for young and old.

Taking care of my parents makes me feel more connected to them. I hope that someday my children will be able to connect with me in this way. Our care-taking years are sandwiched between two childhoods when others take care of us. The power of the world moves in a circle.

Suffering is Nature’s Way of making it easier to let go and move on…

The side effects of getting older make it easier to let go of life.

As I see what my parents are having to go through to be alive, and how enjoying each day is becoming more difficult for them, it makes me more accepting about their death. It gives me a glimpse of how I can come to terms with my own death; to learn how to let go of the continuing adventures of being alive – and to accept or even welcome the end of life.

Dying is as unpredictable, painful and shocking as being born – it’s tragic…and completely normal.

Maybe death is the end of the adventure, or maybe like our birth into this world, we are on our way out into a completely unimaginable place.

After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. ~Albus Dumbledore

Here’s what to remember in this life:
• What goes up, must come down.
• You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need.
• Whatever the present moment contains, always work with it, not against it, to make the next moment better.
• Just do the next thing to the best of your ability.