Benevolence

There are a lot of things I could and perhaps should be doing right now. There are those moments though when it is indubitably time to set everything else aside -- and write. Tonight is one of those nights. I'd like to start with a video clip from one of my all-time favorite movies: American Beauty. Unfortunately, embedding of this particular clip has been disabled on YouTube, so please click HERE to view it.

We humans are such curious animals. Our capacity to think and reason, to weigh facts against one another, to tease apart the details and reveal such splendid subtlety, it boggles the mind. To think that this life, this capacity for thought, this consciousness could emerge over billions of years from utter lifelessness seems all but unfathomable, and if science hadn't revealed such a compelling case for it, I'd certainly be inclined to question such a hypothesis. But here we are, and our story, life's story, is ultimately one of patient perseverance, one of process and not of product, one of journey and not of destination. Think of life literally eking along, embodying what must be the grandest experiment in trial and error this universe has ever seen, as the subtlest of changes over time yield sets of either adaptive or maladaptive characteristics, and ultimately result in survival and propagation of a species, or extinction. Our story is one steeped in majesty, wonder, and the most profound commitment to existence, to being.

This sense of grandeur, however, is quickly usurped by the business of living our modern lives, and often times rightfully so. Were one to sit on the couch all day dreaming of billions of years and the universe's ever expanding nature, it's entirely possible that we wouldn't be of much good to anyone, least of all ourselves. There is a present, practical reality that demands our attention if we wish to live. If we want food and shelter, we need money. If we want money, we need a job. If we want a job, we need an education or marketable skill (and these days a good bit of luck). These are just the basic facts of life, and we have little choice in acknowledging them.

However, I think there is a danger in never taking time to step back and really remind ourselves of the bigger, vaster context in which our lives are operating. After all, we are stardust! Literally! "Every atom of carbon inside our bodies was once inside a star. We are all made from the ashes of dead stars." (Polkinghorne, "Quarks, Chaos & Christianity", p. 40.) It doesn't get much more miraculous than that, and I think it's important every now and again to remind ourselves of our history, by which I mean our macro-history, our meta-history, the history of all histories, the history of life itself. And when we do, an amazing story reveals itself, a story of epic determination and fierce will, a story of profound commitment and sacrifice, and yes, a story of benevolence and grace. By whatever means, we have been given a gift that needn't have been given us. The gift of joy, friendship, pain, love, tragedy, touch, laughter, sex, tears, spontaneity, loss, romance, confusion, anger, thought, ecstasy and on and on and on. It is all a gift. It is the opportunity to compose, or at the very least take part in, a story of our own, chock full of drama and plot twists, humor and heartbreak, cliff-hangers and surprise endings. And our stories inevitably intersect and interact with the stories of those around us. The story of life itself is being spun out before our very eyes, a breathtaking amalgam of our individual and collective stories. What a gift to be given. If this is not the embodiment of benevolence, I don't know what is.

The storyteller's claim, I believe, is that life has meaning--that the things that happen to people happen not just by accident like leaves being blown off a tree by the wind but that there is order and purpose deep down behind them or inside them and that they are leading us not just anywhere but somewhere. The power of stories is that they are telling us that life adds up somehow, that life itself is like a story. And this grips us and fascinates us because of the feeling it gives us that if there is meaning in any life--in Hamlet's, in Mary's, in Christ's--then there is meaning also in our lives. And if this is true, it is of enormous significance in itself, and it makes us listen to the storyteller with great intensity because in this way all his stories are about us and because it is always possible that he may give us some clue as to what the meaning of our lives is.

Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat, pp. 58-60.

Home

For the past week I've had no cell phone reception, no text messaging, no credit card transactions, no facebook status updates, no car, no electronic toothbrush, and minimal internet access. I've never felt more alive. Words cannot describe the feeling of wholeness and peace that now envelops me. I only hope I can retain it.

I am forever changed. I am more myself than I have been in a long time, maybe ever. I feel connected to life, to humanity in a tangible way. I was getting some food during my layover in the Atlanta airport today, and, without even thinking about it, I practically sat down at a table with a complete stranger and started a conversation, as if it were an entirely common thing to do. This is the kind of openness that has grown in me over the last week. I've learned that all we silly humans (or maybe it's just me...) really need to live a joyful life is food, shelter, genuine human connection, and a meaningful goal or three. It is a wonder that we can be so advanced in so many ways and still so poverty stricken with basic matters of the soul, of living a life of wonder, imagination, and significance. I feel so intensely drawn to go on the upcoming clown trip to Costa Rica (not Peru). If I can figure out how to pay for it, I am going to go. This work is just too rich to miss.

It is of course wonderful to be home, and there are many things here I've been missing and looking forward to. My whole view of my current life here in Boulder is suddenly reframed in a strange and beautiful way. I am curious to see how I reorient over the next few days. This concludes coverage of my journey to Gesundheit.

The last night

Tonight is our last night at Gesundheit. We had a campfire sing-along extravaganza of epic proportions. I cannot believe the week is over. It has gone by so fast, but in a way it also feels like it has stretched on far longer than an average week. I think it's mostly because I've grown so incredibly much while being here, so the person I was when I arrived seems so far away from who I am now, and somehow this translates into a feeling of expanded time. I will miss this place and these people immensely, but I know this is just the beginning. It is now 4:12 AM and I've just had a wonderful first conversation with someone who I haven't really had the chance to get to talk to yet. I sometimes feel as if I'm living in a dream, a life so richly blessed it can't be true. If I am, I hope to sleep forever.

Penultimate

Tomorrow is our last full day here, and I cannot believe how quickly the time has passed. In just one short week, I have grown to love the spirit of this place and all the wonderful people I've met here. We just got back from our second-to-last marshmallow-roasting, smore-making, song-singing, silly-exploding campfire sessions. It is a well established tradition now, and it's only appropriate that our last full day here will be concluded with one more campfire extravaganza. I plan to stay up late.

Today was another challenging, stimulating, and rich day. Our group compositions are coming along slowly but surely, and we will present them tomorrow evening. I am seeing more and more how unbridled joy, spontaneity, imagination, and creativity can be modes of activism, and incredibly powerful ones at that. People always talk about the power of laughter, so much so that it has become a cliche of sorts. But I am seeing, living, tasting, feeling, touching, smelling how laughter and joy are some of the most powerful weapons known to the human species. They are potentially radical tools that can be used in radical ways. At the heart of laughter and joy is a profound and penetrating openness, a total disarmament of the mechanisms we silly humans employ in an effort to keep our lives safe and predictable. When we laugh with one another, we invite life, real life, to come in and take up residence within us. When we practice radical joy, we make ourselves vulnerable, open ourselves up to possibility and potential. It is so inspiring to be in a place rooted so firmly in the celebration of life.

I am giving serious consideration to going on a clowning trip in the near future, especially since I didn't get to meet Patch this time around. Gesundheit hosts many clown trips, but I'm told that Patch and several others I've met here will be going on one to, I believe, Peru in a few months. We did a clowning workshop the other night where we all got dressed up in crazy clown costumes and red noses and all. One of our exercises was to take an ordinary object that we have with us all the time and act out 5 completely new "uses" of that object. I used my belt (it was literally the only thing I had on me at the time besides clothes), and treated it as a fishing line, a "gut-bucket" style bass, a razor blade sharpener, a snake, and a whip. Each person performed these imaginings in front of the whole group. I was so surprised how many people came up to me afterwards and said something to the effect of, "I really enjoyed your clowning tonight." I really enjoyed it too, as a matter of fact, and I feel strongly inclined to go on a clown trip. I am seeing that clowning is a medium with incredible potential for human transformation, and I want to be a part of it. Until tomorrow...

Wow.

I'm up far far too late, but this day was just too rich to post nothing. We had our first convergence of the respective "Activism" and "Composition" groups tonight. After some discussion, we were given our assignment which we have two days to complete. We were assigned to groups of four, with each group containing two members from the "Activism" group, and two members from the "Composition" group. Our assignment is as follows:

Compose in social action and sound a perturbation towards a society we want.

These compositions are to be presented in ten minutes or less on Thursday evening. I am absolutely delighted with the members of my group. There is Dario (a wonderful man from Italy), Andrew (hailing from Urbana, Illinois), and Judy, a totally sweet woman who is here with her husband Ted. Instead of jumping straight into brainstorming, Andrew had the brilliant idea to have an "icebreaker" session first, and for each of us to share a little bit about what activism means to us and what our goals are in regard to it. It was so amazing to hear all three of them speak, and also to share my own thoughts. I have always had highly ambivalent feelings about "activism", more with how it is so often practiced than with the concept itself. In my view, activist groups all too often fall prey to the sort of rigid, black and white thinking that they are criticizing. They are usually quite zealous, but without knowing exactly why.

The kind of activism I have encountered here, however, has been so delightfully refreshing, as its distinctions are nuanced and its methods carefully composed. Tonight, Dario was sharing his ideas about imagining, creating, and storytelling being potential modes of activism, with the ultimate goal being to cultivate connections between and among apparently disparate ideas, practices, fields of study, etc. This was so exciting for me to hear. Finally a group of people with an elegant approach to activism that involves more than simply getting up on a soapbox and trying to cram "facts" down people's throats, or worse yet, simply complaining loudly. I feel that art, creativity, imagining, and storytelling offer a "back door" into these issues and are in a way a forms of non-violence. When you fight violence with violence, you simply breed more violence. When you fight violence with non-violence, you disempower the fundamental mechanism that violent action relies upon, and it destroys itself. It is the difference between two people standing face-to-face, pushing harder and harder and harder, thereby creating an impass, and one person simply stepping to the side, at which point the other falls flat on its face and destroys itself of its own agency. This is the kind of activism that excites and inspires me, and I can't wait to see what we come up with for our assignment. I am in an incredibly special place, and I am so blessed to be here.

I've never had so much fun failing at something!

Tonight, like every night, we headed down to the fire pit to start a fire and sing songs and tell jokes and act utterly silly. The problem with West Virginia though, is that pretty much everything is wet pretty much all the time, no matter how hot the day or how brightly the sun is shining (I have a pair of socks that got wet on the first day. They are still wet...) One can imagine the various ways that such an environment would not be conducive to starting a big bonfire, especially when the list of wet things includes the firewood you intend to start the fire with. However, somehow we go down there every night, convinced that this night is going to be different and we'll have a roaring fire in just a few minutes. This inevitably results in us singing ridiculous, made-up songs to the fire for a solid hour before it actually gets going (and even when it does, it's only a little baby fire). But, like I said, I've never had so much fun failing at something! Other songs on the list tonight included American Pie by Don McLean, Tiny Dancer by Elton John, Piano Man by Billy Joel, and Knockin' on Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan. It was pretty great. There are these two guys here from Mexico who are volunteering on the land, Armando and Rodrigo, and they are just the funniest two guys you have ever met. There are lots of great jokes about gringos and the like. Crackin' me up!

Speaking of guys, I'm so impressed with the quality of all the people here. I generally get along better with girls than guys, but I'm actually getting close to a lot of the guys here. It's a nice change.

I feel like I'm learning almost more just in the basic experience of being here than I am in the classes themselves, which I guess is often the case in life. Not that the classes aren't good. They are very good and we're asking a lot of great questions and having some really good discussions. But I feel for me, the greatest thing I'm going to take away from this experience is just the overall spirit of this place, which is one of overwhelming joy. Nothing here is a "chore" or "work". Even the simplest tasks and moments are infused with humor, spontaneity, creativity, openness, and improvisation. And it's in no way that phony "Oh look at us, we're always happy and always have smiles plastered on our faces because everything in life is just SO GREAT!" kind of way. It all comes from a very deep, real place, and that is so refreshing to see in a world where boredom, apathy, malcontent, and cynicism are all too often the norm. There is a basic joy of living which permeates every inch of this place. I took a short 40 minute nap today, and I was dreaming the funniest dreams! I was literally laughing in my sleep. I would sort of drift in and out of sleep, waking up as I was laughing every now and again. Maybe this all sounds a bit too utopian, but really, the spirit of this place is something quite special.

When I first arrived here, during the first full day especially, I was a bit worried to be feeling so uncomfortable and so out of place at moments. It took me by surprise, and I was afraid that the personal progress I felt I had made over the last few months had not been progress at all, and that I was back to square one. Now that I've adjusted however, I feel that this place is only bolstering the progress I have made, and I am becoming more 'me' than ever, which makes me extremely happy. There is so much more to write and share, but there simply aren't enough hours in the day! I'll try to post again tomorrow. I'm off to bed.

Relax..

After a full day and a good night's sleep, I am feeling much more adapted to my new surroundings. Life here is very interesting. It's basically a good old-fashioned commune! We all eat together, do all our own dishes by hand, all help clean the place every morning (and since there are a lot of us, it doesn't take that long), and we sleep in these group tents called yurts (I'd never heard of a yurt before. What a funny word!). The only thing we don't do is cook our own meals. This is taken care of by volunteers who come to stay on the land for a few weeks at a time while workshops or other events are being hosted here. Different volunteers have different assignments, for some it's cooking, others laundry (communal laundry like towels and such, not personal clothes) and others maintain the land. The daily schedule is as follows:

7:45 AM - Susan Parenti, one of the "faculty" members, marches around with her accordion and wakes us up.

8-9 AM - Breakfast is served in The Farmhouse

9-9:30 AM - "Tuto-Tuto" which is Italian for 'everyone'. Susan starts singing this ridiculous song whose only words are "Tuto-Tuto", and we circle up and are given our group's cleaning assignment. Each cleaning crew has a name. We named ourselves Unicornucopia, and even went so far as to give each member an alias. There is Starlight (me), Sparkles (John), Juan Avocado ('Avo' for short...another John), Mr. Moonlight (Rodrigo), and Miss-Direction (for Verena, a volunteer from Germany. She gives us our marching orders.)

10 AM-12 PM - Classes

12:30-1:30 PM- Lunch

2-4 PM- Classes

6:30-7:30 PM- Dinner

8-10 PM - Evening activities which sometimes is guest speakers and other times open for whatever you feel like doing.

10-??? Every night so far we've spent well over two hours singing songs and telling stories and jokes and such. We made a fire in the fire pit the first night, but it was too wet last night after a day of pouring rain. We attempted to make one tonight and it worked...sort of. Still pretty wet, but we got something going. It's pretty great.

We are essentially split into two groups for classes, one with Composition as the focal point, and the other with Activism as the focal point. The whole idea though is that these focal points are merely points of departure, and the idea is to meet in the middle and explore where and how the two intersect and overlap. I think as the week progresses we will be combining the groups for classes and discussion. We've had some very interesting and experimental assignments that definitely make you think.

There's so much more to share, but it's 12:47 AM and time to sleep.

First full day

It's odd how uncomfortable I feel here in certain moments. I did not in any way anticipate this feeling. I am definitely out of my comfort zone. I think this means I'm being challenged though, so that's a good thing. I found out earlier today that Patch is not going to be here until Friday, which is the day we all leave. Apparently he really wanted to be here, and that was the original plan, but there was more pressing business elsewhere. This was quite a disappointment, but I know there is still so much to be gained from this experience. Perhaps I'll get to at least meet him on Friday before I leave, but if not, that's okay too.

When we got back to Gesundheit yesterday, we went on a hike. There is an absolutely beautiful waterfall, and the trees are like a towering wall of green surrounding you on all sides. I've never seen so much green in my entire life. It poured rain today, and the ridiculously lush vegetation suddenly made sense to me.

I feel strangely vulnerable here, and I'm not sure why. I think part of it is homesickness, which I didn't at all expect to feel, and kind of makes me feel like a wuss. It's strange because I wasn't ever homesick during college, so to feel it now is unnerving. It's amazing how prepared you can think you are until it's actually put to the test. The inverse is equally true, however. There's a part of me that fears that I won't appreciate this experience fully until the last day when we're all going home, and it's all over. But I guess worrying about that only compounds the problem. I'm just trying to remind myself to be here now, be present. Don't worry about what you are doing, or failing to do, or doing, but could be doing better. Just exist.

God's Country

July 10^th, 1:16 pm, EDT

I’ve just landed in rural West Virginia at the Lewisburg Airport. The 10-hour trip is behind me and went surprisingly smoothly. After our first flight, my new friend Lisa found an ATM and paid me back the $20 I lent her, and we went our separate ways. The flight into Lewisburg was on the smallest plane I have ever been in. Just a single row of seats on each side of the plane, probably about 14 seats in all. The airport is equally small, just one terminal, and no fancy runways. You walk straight out into the open air and scale the narrow steps of the plane. This feels like a different world, compared to the massive airports and seemingly infinite populous that defined my many trips back and forth from Denver to LA during college.

The landscape is breathtaking. I was talking to the man next to me on the plane as we were landing, and I commented on the endless sea of green below us. He said, “Yep. This is God’s Country.” Indeed.

I estimate I’ve gotten about 6 or 7 hours of sleep in total and feel surprisingly rested. I’m chewing gum, so as not to kill the person who comes to pick me up with the kind of bad breath that only air travel can muster. I called Gesundheit and apparently someone named Melanie is on her way to pick me up after she stops at the train station to pick up others. I wish I could find a working WiFi network to actually post this… I’ve just reset my talking watch to the correct local time. “It’s--one-----thirty-four----P.M.”

And so it begins…

I am on a bus bound for the Denver International Airport. Barring any natural disasters, terrorist attacks (“May I have your attention please: The caution level at the Denver International Airport has be raised to ‘Orange’. Please report any unattended luggage or suspicious behavior to airport security.” How is it that it’s always been raised to Orange if it’s never anything but Orange?), or internal organ failure, this bus will deliver me safely to the US Airways terminal where I will catch a flight departing at 12:45 a.m. MDT. I will land in Philadelphia at 6:26 a.m., EDT. From there I will catch a plane that arrives in Cleveland, OH at 9 a.m. EDT. Finally, I board a plane that will deliver me to Lewisburg, WV, my final destination, and new home for the next 7 days. I am told someone will be meeting me when I land at 12:45 p.m. EDT, to take me back to the Gesundheit land. The workshop/summer school program is entitled: Composition ± Activism. You can read about it here.

I was first “introduced” to the person of Patch Adams in a rather ordinary way: sitting in a dark theater, watching a movie with my family. The year was 1998, and as a 12 year old boy, I was absolutely delighted by the irreverence and utter silliness of Patch’s antics, portrayed brilliantly by the talented Robin Williams. But it was more than silliness and irreverence that delighted me so. There was, at the heart of the story and the character, a deep reverence for the miracle of life, of existence. What struck me more than anything was the written epilogue at the end, saying that to date, a substantial number of doctors had left their current positions to join Patch’s cause, with the mission of providing free healthcare to anyone who needed it. This was a real man. This was a real story. This was happening in my lifetime, on this planet, in these ways.

A few years later, Patch came to town to speak at a medical conference. My dad, being a nurse (and a true clown, if I have ever known one), was going to attend. He asked me if I wanted to come, but we didn’t know how much of it would be Patch and how much of it would boring medical stuff. I decided not to go. My dad came back from the conference wearing a red, foam nose, with tears in his eyes. “I wish you had been there,” he said. About two years later, my dad died, turning my world completely upside down. I was 16. Donna, the counselor I had begun seeing, heard that Patch was coming to town again, and invited me to come with her and see him speak. I was delighted, and planned on going, but had a huge homework assignment come up, and again, I missed him. However, the next time I saw Donna, she handed me one of Patch’s “business” cards, with a note Donna had scribbled on the back: “Write Patch a letter at this address. He will write you back!” So one night, I decided it was time to write him. I sat at my computer and typed out a 13 page letter, telling him everything, about my dad, and my music, my passions, my ideas. I included two CDs of my music and pictures of my family. Looking back, I was perhaps a touch over-zealous. No matter. Although I didn’t really expect to hear back from him, about a week or two later, to my utter delight, I received a two-page hand written letter from Patch. He told me he was listening to my CDs and liked my music. He had scanned pictures into his letter. He included one of his books and signed the front cover. He told me that my interest in music therapy was wonderful, and that I should come to Russia with them on a clowning trip, and bring my guitar. I was ecstatic.

Five years later, he came to Boulder yet again, and my mom, an employee of Boulder County, saw him speak at a county sponsored workshop. During the Q and A, she said, “My son wrote you a letter several years ago. Thank you for writing him back. It meant so much to him.” Apparently a look of remembrance came over his face. I’m not so sure about this part of the story. After hearing it, however, I decided it was time to write Patch again. It was 2003, my senior year of college, and my letter this time was more succinct, to be sure. Kind of a “Hey, how are things? Remember me? I wrote you that 13-page-long, epic Greek Tragedy letter about seven years ago? Oh, btw, do you still want me to come to Russia with you?” type letter. Sure as clockwork, about two weeks later I received a handwritten card from Patch, encouraging me, relaying his latest adventures, and telling me all the different ways I could get involved. It was wonderful to hear from him.

On April 7^th of this year, I got an e-mail talking about this workshop he was involved in. Composition ± Activism... The wheels in my head started to turn. I was broke, jobless, and $21,000 in debt (still am), but somehow I knew I needed to be there. Composition ± Activism! COME ON, PEOPLE!!! If it were any more up my alley, it’d be living in my bathroom. Oh, and did I mention I have a degree in Music Composition and Psychology? And what does that qualify me for, you ask? Not…really…sure. Couldn’t tell ya, actually. The point is, money will always be there...to enjoy and despise and worry about and waste, but this is a bonafide life experience we're talking about here, and I guess that's really kind of the point of, well, life, right?

So here I sit at my US Airways terminal. My inventory for the week is as follows:

-1 acoustic guitar, 1 melodica, 2 egg shakers, 1 tambourine

-1 journal, 2 books, 1 composition notebook, 1 book of music notation paper

-1 iPhone, 1 MacBook, 2 pairs of headphones (better safe than sorry, I always say)

-1 pair of flip-flops, 1 pair of running shoes, 1 pair of hiking-esque shoes

-Shorts, pants, socks, shirts, undies, and a hygiene maintenance kit

-1 glow-in-the-dark frisbee, 1 pair of swimming trunks

-1 open heart, 1 open mind

-1 chocolate chip, vegan, Heart Thrive bar (these are common in my house...high in fiber, protein, and NO EGG. My mom is allergic to eggs.)

-1 prepaid phone card with 360 minutes worth of talk time (There is no cell phone service at Gesundheit. There are two landlines that everyone shares. Landlines.... Woah.)

-$78 in cold, hard cash

When I was checking in, the woman to my right realized with horror that they are now charging to check the first bag. She had no cash and no credit card. The guy behind the counter was very helpful and basically said, "You either have to figure out a way to pay, or leave your bag here. SORRY LADY!" "Thanks, bro. Let me just will $20 into existence. Coming right up!" I told her I'd spot her $20, and she said she'd pay me back when we get to Philly and she can get to an ATM. I can dig it.

Every day is an awakening. The Buddha's last words are said to have been, "Work out your salvation with diligence." Philipians says, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." For my money, salvation is the charge to become awake, to awaken a bit more each day. I pray to dream, and sing, and write, and love, and dance, and kiss, and touch, and taste, and smell my way to awakening. Brick by brick, step by step, moment by moment, I want my eyes opened wider and wider still to the miracle of life, its reckless beauty and savage poetry. May this small journey be a communion with that life. Amen. So be it.

Greetings, Humans!

I've decided to succumb to the peer pressure and start a blog. Whether it's an exercise in self-reflection and communal sharing or an indulgence in pure narcissism I'm still not sure. Maybe it's a little of both. I guess my main goal here is a simple one: tell the truth.

I was watching a wonderful special on Garrison Keillor last night on PBS. He was discussing the renaming, in 1994, of the St. Paul, MN theater that is home to Keillor's radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, from 'The World Theater' to 'The Fitzgerald Theater', after writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. He quoted Fitzgerald who said, "What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story." I certainly believe this to be true, and the statement suites the splendid candor propagated weekly by Keillor and his delightful Prairie Home team.

I certainly have plenty I am ashamed of or at least embarrassed about, some of it rightfully so, but much of it unnecessarily, and I would venture to guess that I'm not so different from most people in this regard. So, basically, this blog is about being human, or failing at being human, or trying to become more human. Here's my two cents for the day:

I've been thinking a lot lately about being content. Like most things in life, contentment lies on a spectrum, with an endlessly unsatisfied and staunch perfectionism at one end, and total apathy at the other. Also, like most things in life, I think the goal is to strike a balance between the two. Everything in moderation, as I like to say (and often do). I personally tend to err on the side of "endlessly unsatisfied and staunch perfectionism", and I think we live in a society that tends to cultivate this sort of "Gotta be the best! Gotta be number one!" mindset. So I've been asking myself a radical question lately: "David, hypothetically speaking, what would happen if you were actually content with yourself and your life, exactly as it is now?" In Philipians 4:11-12 Paul writes, "Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need." (NKJV)

It is so easy to attach our contentment and joy to something we do not have and say, "As soon as I have X, life will be good, and I will be content," or, "As soon as this day, this week, this year is behind me, then I will be happy." But as soon as we get X, we inevitably find a Y to start wanting and needing, and our happiness becomes entirely dependent on the acquisition of just. one. more. thing., be it personal, emotional, physical, or mental. This sort of thinking is so terribly seductive. But the tragic result is that it chokes the life out of the present moment and ostracizes it to some point in the distant future when we finally have all our ducks in a row and everything is running smoothly and according to plan and there are no more clouds to rain on our parade. But we all know that day is never going to come. This is life. Right here, right now. This untidy, un-P.C. rattling of the world is life, and I think at some level we want to postpone life because we are afraid of truly living, afraid of making mistakes, afraid of being different, afraid of being original or beautiful or bold. So we attach our contentment to something we don't have yet, and then when we have it, we find something else to attach it to that we don't have, and we just keep postponing life, telling ourselves that once we have everything we need, and everything is in its right place, and everything makes sense to us, then we'll start living. But that day is never going to come. John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." It's now, or never.

So the flip-side of all this doom and gloom is finding contentment, finding joy, in the simple things. I've started praying fairly regularly again, a practice I had lost track of for a number of years. And while prayer is a vast and mysterious practice, its function in my life of late has been relatively straightforward. More than anything, the act of prayer has given me the occasion to step back, breathe in, and really take stock of all the things in my life I have to be grateful for, all the causes for joy exploding out of every moment, if only I open my eyes to see them: A warm bed to wake up in every morning. Two delightful doggies that are always happy to see me, no matter how magnificently I have succeeded or how terribly I have failed. Food in the fridge and pantry when I open their doors. The burn in my legs as I ride my bike around town. The breathtaking Colorado landscape. The most beautiful, incredible, inspiring people whose lives I look upon as great works of fiction being written with every passing moment, and whose pages I turn so expectantly. The very fact the we live in a universe (not a planet, a universe) capable of yielding consciousness. If the universe had expanded just a bit more quickly, it would be expanding still, but if it had expanded just a bit more slowly, it would have collapsed back in on itself again, and in either case, we would not be here to talk about it or ponder its significance. When you get right down to it, the very fact of existence is, in itself, more than cause enough for explosive joy, and yes, a deep sense of contentment.

The novelist, essayist, and preacher Frederick Buechner writes:

Who knows whether there is life on any other planet anywhere else in the universe, but there is life on this planet. And what is life like? Think of not knowing what life is and then finding out: a book suddenly learning how to read; a rock jutting out into the sea suddenly knowing the thump and splatter of the waves, the taste of salt. You are alive. It needn't have been so. It wasn't so once, and it will not be so forever. But it is so now. And what is it like: to be alive in this maybe one place of all places anywhere where life is? Live a day of it and see. Take any day and be alive in it. Nobody claims that it will be entirely painless, but no matter. It is your birthday and there are many presents to open. The world is to open.

It rattles softly at the window like the fingers of a child as I sit on the edge of the tub to tie my shoes. It comes down the glass in crooked paths to stir my heart absurdly as it always has, and dear God in Heaven, the sound of it on the roof, on the taut black silk of the umbrella, and the catalpa leaves, dimpling the glassy surface of the peepering pond. It is the rain and it tastes of silver; it is the rain, and it smells of christening. The rain is falling on the morning of my first day, and everything is wet with it: wet earth, wet fur, the smell of the grass when it is wet, the smell of the wet pavement of the city and the sound of tires on the wet streets, the wet hair and face of a woman doing errands in the rain. Wherever my feet take me now, it will be to something wet, something new, that I have never seen before (The Alphabet of Grace, pp. 35-37).

I have a tendency to look back on the past with an unhealthy level of nostalgia, at times wondering if the best days of my life are behind me. Of course, I in no way believe this silly thought to be true, but just for speculation's sake, I sometimes ask myself, "What if the best days of your life are behind you and the rest will be just so-so, plain, average, ordinary, mediocre? What if all your great adventures and romances are already finished?" And every time I realize that even if this thought were true, which I certainly don't believe it to be, but if it were, my stunning realization is that there is enough joy and preciousness in one single moment of existence to sustain a whole lifetime. There is enough love in one simple memory to make any number of ordinary, average, mediocre days so much more than worth it. And truth be told, there is no such thing as an average, mediocre, or ordinary day. There is wonder, and joy, and sweet chaos to be tasted in every moment, no matter how commonplace its appearance. I think as we learn to recognize this strange beauty and cultivate true contentment and gratitude within ourselves, as we surrender our insatiable needs and wants on the altar of joy, we open ourselves up to whole new realms of possibility, whole new ways of living and seeing and experiencing life. We become liberated from the tyranny of trite desire and are at last free to encounter all those things we sought in the first place. It is that profound paradox that Christ speaks of when he says, "He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39 NKJV).

And so I am obliged, compelled by the very fact of life itself, to be content in moments as they pass, whether they be lovely, painful, sad, or entirely ordinary. As Garrison Keillor said, "I was afraid of living an ordinary life, and I realized, that's what everybody gets. And that's good enough."