Two days ago I used the word taming in relation to the students on campus. I had learned 40 years ago that the last thing an 18 year old wanted around was another parent figure. And so in order to serve them I needed to show them that I would not try to control them, and that I was a source of encouragement, help, or just companionship that comes from caring about them. For some this “taming” was a very gradual process, like with a squirrel. With some, it was all of a sudden, like the fable about the boy who befriends a lion by pulling a thorn from its paw.
Once these relationships developed, I delighted in seeing their faces, remembering their names. I delighted in their seeing me delight in them. I enjoyed watching them get to the end of their first year, learning to survive and even thrive in the dorms, scream with them at basketball games, and sit in with them on that same basketball court when they were protesting an action of the administration. I enjoyed climbing the ropes course with them, learning to really rely on them, discovering that real trust is mutual. And I enjoyed seeing them changed by compassion as we went into the city together to literally feed the homeless.
While it was true that after four years of undergraduate studies most of them would leave, it was my own leaving after forty that called me to appreciate the importance of releasing them, “untaming” them, calling them not to my voice but to the one within themselves. I found that I was saying less, my message was more and more simple, essential. You have all that you need. You are good, and talented, and called from within the deepest part of yourself to discover that goodness, and engage it through that talent, responding to compassion. And while others share that same goodness, their different talents will help you collaborate, to do the right things the right way, and you will be sustained.
I found the same simple truth all that I had to share with Kathy and my kids when I thought that death was near, and I felt the same comfort in that truth. Like the students, they had all they needed, and each other.
And I see the same simple truth in the things that Jesus said to his followers as he showed up from time to time after his death, letting them know that he’d soon be leaving for good, and releasing them to their own inner voice, guided by the same goodness, the same Spirit. And in today’s Good Story (click for a link) http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/041810.shtml#gospel he shows up out on the lake, standing on the water, and calls Peter to step out of the safety of the boat and trust that he will not drown. Think Obi wan Kenobi saying “Use the force, Luke.” Forget about the external threat. Listen to the voice within, the Spirit.
We are given guides, who love us and encourage us, and release us into the same love that tamed us. And aren't we afraid to leave?
FreeLemonadeStand by John J. Daniels is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
John,
ReplyDeleteHere's a poem by Denise Levertov that gets at your wonderful, inciteful paradox of being so loved and so afraid to leave. She places it directly in Easter time.
St. Peter and the Angel
Delivered out of raw continual pain,
smell of darkness, groans of those others
to whom he was chained --
unchained, and led
past the sleepers,
door after door silently opening --
out!
And along a long street's
majestic emptiness under the moon:
one hand on the angel's shoulder, one
feeling the air before him,
eyes opened but fixed…
And not till he saw the angel had left him,
alone and free to resume
the ecstatic, dangerous, wearisome roads of
what he had still to do,
not till then did he recognize
this was no dream. More frightening
than arrest, than being chained to his warders:
he could hear his own footsteps suddenly.
Had the angel's feet
made any sound? He could not recall.
No one had missed him, no one was in pursuit.
He himself must be
the key, now, to the next door,
the next terrors of freedom and joy.
- Denise Levertov