I’m entering a simplicity I didn’t anticipate,
this (blessed) aging is changing
chores into privileges:
to have dishes to wash,
a house to clean,
a path to keep clear,
a deck to stand on, at dawn, my God! a coffee in hand,
and praise on my lips,
at the first stirrings of a chinook.
Once I thought philosophy was paramount. Silly me!
and its cousin, theology, a ladder through the clouds. Ha!
I dismissed, or rather missed, here at ground level,
beneath my feet, all the flowering forms of love:
the humanitarianism of smiling,
the philanthropy of humming,
the charity of not winning a point,
the valour of refusing to fire back,
the cultivation of inner stillness
the compassion of moral anger
mutual dependency,
human equality,
community,
humility.
And I want to believe these flowering forms of love,
like a squadron of garden beds, are breaking up
the clay heart of our collective trauma.
I know there is evil in the world,
minute upon minute an injustice,
every hour, a new method of hatred,
every bloody day, a fresh mode of cowardice turned outward.
Dear Lord, help us to remain human, scald our complacency,
let it reach the edges of our anger,
until we shout, Stop! the bloodshed! Stop! the suffering!
Stop! using our money to make weapons!
I know there is sorrow in every city;
we’ve all been touched, if not today, then tomorrow.
In my own household, I’ve seen suffering
that all the theodicies in the world can’t touch.
And I’ve seen tenderness in the eyes of a nurse
that would shame the heavenly sum of pious sermons.
And I’ve watched the pain that medicine can’t reach,
lessened by a care-laden glance.
And still, I wonder at my luck, to live, and not worry
where the next missile will land. My luck at not being the father
cradling his child in yet another air strike,
“Oh my little Jameelah, don’t tremble,
the bombs can’t see us in the dark.”
A warm meditation on the extraordinary gift of our ordinary moments
Thanks for that, Ananda.
Right to the heart Stephen, once again, thank you for your deeply personal perspective. Our humanity connects us all. I appreciate this reminder that goes beyond theology and philosophy. Best wishes to you and your’s on this almost shortest day.
Truly appreciated, Kirk. I always value your comments. And Happy Solstice.
Thank you, Stephen, for again giving us perspective — and hope — in a way that only you can. Wishing you all the best this holiday season!
Thank you so much, Cara. And thank you for your poetic encouragement.
Those last lines made me weep, Stephen, yet still we can praise His name and rejoice in His birth, that extraordinary event that changed everything.
This juxtaposition of one life with another has always been a mystery to me because of the way He shows us that somehow we are all connected, one in the suffering, one in the joy. And must always have praise on our lips.
Thank you for your reflection, Marcia. Praise, to the Mystery.
So hard to hold the paradoxes and not be crushed under the effort, the realness of “the flowering forms of love” and the toll of suffering, both within and all around. This piece feels like a prayer that we can hold both, full of the compassion of the Lover. Thank you, Stephen. I do so want to stay human.
I’m with you, Ann. O…to stay human, and accept the hard inner and outer work of it. I find too, that there is less and less distance between prayer and poetry. Thank you for noticing. Thank you for responding.
“Less and less distance between prayer and poetry” :). Yes. Stephen!
“I’m entering a simplicity I didn’t anticipate (at 96). This (blessed) aging is changing chores into privileges!” Who would have thought?
Who would have thought, indeed. 🙂 Thanks, Ike.
Oh my goodness Issac…those words completely described my own metamorphosis on becoming an aging kinder version of myself.
Thank you.
Those moments of goodness in the every dayness, coffee in hand under a Chinook, and the growing clarity of what matters as we age… while our hearts break for our brothers and sisters in Gaza. You describe the dissonance (now, also carrying an every dayness) so poignantly. Thank you.
Thank you, Karen, for these insightful and kind words.
Hi Steve,
I spent the last week in hospital having prostate surgery and feeling sorry for myself. I told my visiting sisters I felt like I was on the set of “One flew over the coco’s nest”. Terrible…
In a moment on the third day, everything changed. A very distressed, unkempt, homeless woman was put in the same room as me. My negative impulses went in overdrive. Why is she put in with me?
Thr hospital staff, however, took on the challenge to clean her and make her comfortable with humour to add. I was so impressed. I knew I could never come close to what they did. They changed my thinking dramatically.
Besides feeling pangs of guilt my my unsavory thoughts at the beginning I now felt “wow”, there are people out there doing this fantastic work of loving their neighbour without any agenda except a pay cheque.
Today, while I was reading your poem I kept thinking how the hospital staff changed my perspective and put tears to my eyes, I might add.
I felt compelled to share this incident with you as it was such a secular, sacred moment.
Best in the New Year,
Ken
Thank you so much for this, Ken. I’m sorry you had to go through the surgery, but I’m so appreciative of your sharing your hospital room experience, and honestly so. We stay human through this.
Wishing you quick and full recovery.
Stephen, As I approach my 75th birthday, I find myself marveling at how accomplished and satisfied I feel doing the ordinary things life requires. You captured it perfectly. And yet, yet, there is the larger reality. And I am once again humbled. I wonder why I am the one who’s children are healthy, smart, and handsome; why I have a full refrigerator and a comfortable bed; why I have never lived through war or been hated for the color of my skin. Thank you for putting speaking my truth so eloquently.
Thank you for this encouragement, Julia. I’m with you, I’m grateful for the ordinary, given things of life, but aware of the larger reality. I pray my actions, in some tiny way, can add to the light.
Thanks, Steve
I enjoyed your description of the changes that come with ageing and struck by the juxtaposition of the awareness or powerfully cruel suffering that exists in the same world I inhabit.
Thank you, Sam. These contrasts jar me as well, and the only way I find to handle them is to expose them, give voice, appeal to our humanity. And still hope that we have it in us to affect change.
Thank you, Stephen, for this poem that makes moral anger more bearable !
Often, when a poem touches me deeply, I translate it in my mother tongue to feel it through my soul and bones. I am pleased to offer you this French translation of your poem with thanks.
Rester humain
par Stephen T. Berg
J’entre dans une simplicité inattendue,
ce troisième âge (bienheureux) transforme
la moindre tâche en privilège :
une vaisselle à faire,
une maison qui a besoin de ménage,
un sentier à dégager
pouvoir contempler l’aurore, grand Dieu !
une tasse de café à la main
et la louange aux lèvres,
au premier souffle d’un chinook.
Et dire que je croyais la philosophie essentielle. Pauvre de moi !
tout comme sa cousine théologie, échelle vers le ciel. Ha !
Si proches de moi, sous mes pieds,
je me privais, en les rejetant,
de toutes les formes où l’amour s’épanouit :
l’humanitarisme du sourire
la philanthropie du chant que l’on fredonne
la charité de ne pas avoir le dernier mot
le courage de refuser la réplique
la culture de l’équanimité
la compassion de l’indignation
l’interdépendance,
l’égalité humaine,
l’esprit de communauté,
l’humilité.
Et j’aime penser que toutes ces floraisons de l’amour,
comme un escadron de plates-bandes
fracassent l’argile de notre trauma collectif.
Je sais que le mal existe,
que chaque minute est marquée d’injustice,
que chaque heure voit une nouvelle haine,
que chaque jour, hélas, une nouvelle lâcheté se répand.
Seigneur, aide-nous à rester humains, échaude notre suffisance,
et laisse-la rejoindre la frange de notre colère,
jusqu’à ce qu’en monte un cri : Arrêtez les massacres ! Arrêtez la souffrance!
Arrêtez de fabriquer des armes avec nos impôts!
Je sais que dans chaque ville on pleure,
chacun de nous a été touché, si ce n’est aujourd’hui, ce sera demain.
Même dans mon foyer, j’ai vu une souffrance
qu’aucune métaphysique ne saurait apaiser.
Et j’ai vu dans les yeux d’une soignante
une tendresse à faire pâlir la somme céleste de tous les pieux sermons.
J’ai aussi vu un regard bienveillant
alléger une douleur qu’aucun remède n’avait pu toucher.
Et je m’étonne encore de la chance que j’ai de vivre
sans avoir à me demander où le prochain missile va tomber, la chance que j’ai de n’être pas le père qui serre son enfant dans ses bras sous les bombes.
« Oh, ma petite Jameelah, n’aie pas peur,
les bombes ne nous voient pas dans le noir. »
This means a lot to me. Thank you so much, Daniel!