Dying Wiser #8: “This being human…”
Wisdom Through Literature; Eldering Through Dad: Here lives a guest house.
Julal al-Din Muhammed Rumi, or simply Rumi, is a 13th Century Persian poet, Islamic scholar, and Sufi mystic. And one of my favorite poets. I use a present tense to highlight the fact Rumi lives, still, through the vibrant language and imagery of his poetry, prose, and philosophy. Rumi lives because he hasn’t been forgotten. His work is still relevant to this present day. Take this, one of his most famous poems:
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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.Eldering 101: The Guest House that is Dad:
I love this poem and have used this poem often in my life as a parent, husband, teacher, friend, and principal. “The Guest House” is popular, I believe, for a number of reasons but mostly because its words and sentiments can be applied in so many ways. Like any great and generous poem, it keeps gifting its wisdom with every reading—and we become, then, the better for having invested time with it. “The Guest House” worked for me in all the roles I stated above as I tried each day to live an authentic life of service and meaning—and even though I came up short every day, I lived the poem best when I understood every single thing that entered my life, the good and the challenging, the clean and the messy, the rough and the smooth, the peace and the conflict, all served to grow me as a human. Nothing is out of place in the perfection that is the Universe, ever. All I needed to do was the hardest thing ever to do at those times of arrival: “welcome them all.”
The poem still works for me when I read it again as Dad’s son.
Guest houses stay guest houses when they welcome all guests. You really cannot be a Guest House otherwise.
There is SO much truth here as Dad and I live this poem every day. I can never predict what will arrive next upon waking in the morning. They are all “unexpected visitors.” His mood might be happy or melancholy. His mind might be sharp or fuzzy. He might wake wanting his muffin and latte right away, or he might wake not even knowing it’s morning. Every morning I might be able to tell within five minutes how the entire day will go; or maybe I can’t and he’ll surprise me. I am often surprised.
So, we try to welcome it all. Even if I’m the one trying the most because I “get it.” And I’m here to serve him.
To “entertain them all” means to never dismiss the sorrows that visit, or ignore them, or imagine they don’t exist. If you are a host (I guess you could choose not to be—but what a sad and lonely life that is), you have a responsibility to insure your guests have a pleasant stay and experience with you. They are going to be there regardless; so you might as well entertain them and work at enjoying their presence. After all, just as you will work at being an attentive host (and gosh that IS hard work at times), the arrivals have work to do on you! That’s their purpose—that is why they were sent as guides from the “beyond.”
Dad does not have the poetic language to describe his current way of being—and its accompanying circumstances, aches, pains, and complaints—as a “crowd of sorrows;” but this describes perfectly the emotion behind much of Dad’s current experience. Dad’s “not aging well-ness” underscores a sense of sorrow he has when he compares who he is now against who he was as a vibrant and independent farmer. Dad was not prepared to expect, assimilate, and welcome the inevitable sorrows that come from aging. I don’t know what he expected actually—but it’s not this.
So, it is precisely this, these daily arrivals, that we work on every day as we try to cultivate our welcoming mindsets—inevitable sorrows don’t have to mean suffering. An Elder CAN wear those sorrows as welcomed evidence—symbols of experience that have led to wisdom. One can’t really become wise without them anyway. All wise Elders have been hosts to sorrow. You can see it in their being. But they don’t stay there: Wise Elders know ascribing “sorrow” to an arrival is a uniquely human judgment. There is always choice there—for if an Elder does classify a guest as a sorrow, they do so with a palpable sense of gratitude. Because Elders know what can happen next.
The New Delight
I think the wisest of the wise know this truism as well: you have to know and cultivate gratitude for the deepest lows in order to experience and appreciate the highest high. All the “grains of dust” that are never out of place in this perfect world are placed where they are placed for our benefit—we just have to pause to understand…to make the connections. We have to search inside for the light of knowing within. This allows us to grow and become more human. If this mindset predominates in our hearts, even as challenging as some of those people or moments might be—all those sorrows in other words—we can rest knowing we will be better from the experience as they clear out more space for us to realize our limitless capacity for compassion, empathy, kindness, and love. And when that happens, we take more steps toward assuming our own obligation of creating sanctuary by cultivating our innate wisdom. We become better hosts in our own Guest Houses. But we do have to welcome and treat all the arriving guides, disguised as crowds of sorrows, with the honor they deserve.
The wise Elder Mother, now Saint Teresa once famously said of her work in Calcutta among the desperate poor and sick: “Every day I see Jesus Christ in all his distressing disguises.”
Night terrors, 2am bathroom calls, “accidents,” unstable walks, scary episodes of catatonic stasis that are growing in frequency—all are growing me, if not my Dad, as a better human. I may not welcome them all at 2am, mind you, but I’m trying. And I still want to believe any little bit of compassion and conversation Dad and I have ARE making a difference in growing my Dad into a better human too—and hopefully a better Elder (he’s already a great Dad—he need not grow in that area)—because…
…Dad knows he has the sorrow Parkinson’s—unwelcomed as it is right now, or so I thought.
Time froze the other day. As it is starting to do more often. We were simply up and moving to the bathroom when everything froze—forcing us, as we were, to welcome at the door an arriving sorrow that rudely announced: “Knock, knock. I’m here now, deal with me!” Dad was having one of his peculiar episodes of catatonia (defined as a state of immobility and stupor); these are increasing in frequency, and I asked him if he was aware he was in the midst of having an episode—he was standing frozen and slumping against me with his head against my chest, fists clutching tightly the handles of his walker which was between us at that moment; he was unable to move his legs or his arms or anything at all for that matter. As I tried to keep him from falling, and to get the walker that was still between us turned so he could sit on it, his body weight becoming dead weight against my body, I asked Dad if it was scary for him because it was scary for me; which was before he said I was holding out one finger when I was showing him two a mere six inches in front of his dimming eyes.
This was when he whispered: “This is what Parkinson’s does.”
And he was right. He was exactly right.
Maybe my Dad HAS welcomed some of that crowd in? If so, that’s a good sign.
I do wish Dad was a reader; I think it would have helped him be a better host to these arriving crowds of sorrows. I wish Dad read poetry. Then, he’d realize…
…his life is a poem.
“This being human is a guest house.”
And so here we are, guest houses and hosts living within this new home of his; living each moment in the moment whenever we can—and we always can; trying every day to be grateful for whatever comes. When we can do that, we also invite in…grace. And that makes us better hosts.
It’s all made easier when we understand “each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
BTW: Rumi’s advice is well placed—the arrivals can be made more welcomed when we remember to meet the crowds at the door laughing:
As I was saying goodnight to him the other evening, he remembered the previous night and how difficult it was for him.
Dad [not so successfully choking back some tears and fears]: Kert, will you check on me a couple times as I sleep tonight? Please?
Me: Dad, I’ll always be here for you whenever you need. Remember, I can hear you on the walkie when you need me. All you need to do is call my name. You don’t know this but sometimes I wake up at night and I listen for your breathing; I always hear when you are snoring and when you are having your dreams. I hear everything Dad.
Dad [after a perfect comedic beat of silence]: I better be careful of what I say then.
Uh, yeah Dad. You better be careful! There are muffins and lattes riding on it!
So we invited them in laughing as we went to bed.
I remember he slept well that night.
T plus 106 days…and counting. If you aren’t in the habit of reading poetry, you might want to have a try. Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks, is a good place to start. You might be amazed and surprised about what it clears out in your own lives making room for so many unexpected delights—your own descendants might be the true benefactors of that effort…you future Elder you.
And then may you live your own life as a poem.
“Let the beauty we love [and are] be what we do.”