On Not Knowing

 

Go, not knowing where; bring, not knowing what; the path is long, the way unknown; the hero knows not how to arrive there by himself.  (-Russian fairy tale-)

For a week now, the valley and surrounding mountains and hills have been shrouded in mist and fog that swirls about, creating ever-changing faces of reality.  Much of the time, life is like that, full of nothing other than the ambiguity of Not Knowing.

Before her death a few years ago, my 88 year old mother lived in a nearby garden cottage, and would often fix supper for me to bring home with me.  On one particular evening, I crossed the field between our homes, hurrying against the chill of a late fall dusk, soup, bread, and fresh apple dumplings clutched to my breast.  Caught with full hands at the door to my pantry by three hopeful barn cats attracted by the aromas, and twining about my legs, I hesitated to set down the dishes on the terrace in order to open the door.  What to do?  And so of course, I tried to open the door with full hands.  Warm soup, bread, and dumplings cascaded onto the cats.  While I huffed in frustration, the cats eagerly devoured meaty soup morsels and buttery crusts.

How often, out of our fear and/or our own willfulness, do we refuse to put down what we carry in order to open the door, even when it is patently apparent that we cannot hold on to things and enter.  To have to put down what we now carry before we open a new door in our lives can be very upsetting, when what our anxious selves always want is the certainty of the familiar, no change ever, please, of knowing exactly what’s happening and what to expect.  Most of us don’t always give up the known (or soup, bread, and dumplings in this case) without a fight.

The psychologist Winnicott taught that to go willingly into “unknowing” was the key to living a full life.  When any of us experience anxiety, ambivalence, or ambiguity, we want answers big-time.  We want to fix it, quickly, and that usually means an “either-or” kind of resolution or choice.  We long for security and answers, and our very human fearfulness makes us grasp for control.

Maybe our challenge at times like these is to make the space between the “either” and the “or” bigger, big enough to hold a “both-and,” and to hold the tension of uncertainty and not-knowing — sure, this could be the outcome if I choose this way, and it could also be that.  When we can embrace this place in the middle, when we’re willing to tolerate the tension of having no answers, we open ourselves to the Mystery, and allow something new to happen in our lives as we leave room for other alternatives and different possibilities for choices to emerge.

Life is fuller and richer and deeper when we can move into the space in the middle, the place of not-knowing, and tolerate the fear and anxiety of being there.  It seems to be a place of magic, where powers beyond our human selves are free to work.  It is a place where, if we can bear the tension and the strain, we grow up a little more.

The cats ate well that evening.  But it was a night without soup, bread, and dumplings for me.

What new things might happen if we could be willing to put down our need to control, our preconceived notions and expectations about how life ought to proceed, in order to let what needs to happen unfold?

Come. Sit. Listen.

Most people don’t know that there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don’t fall asleep and miss your life.  (-B. Andreas-)

The song It Came Upon a Midnight Clear was written by Edmond Hamilton Sears, a Unitarian minister in Wayland, Massachusetts, in 1844.  Although down through the years it has become a beloved Christmas carol, it is not so much a song about the birth of Christ as it is a song calling our attention to the ministry of angels.  1849 was a troubled time.  The United States still reeled from the aftermath of the Mexican War.  Tension over slavery would soon plunge the nation into another terrible war.  The gold rush and the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution were major shapers and disruptors in people’s lives.  Poverty and suffering were rampant.  Sears himself wrote this hymn while recovering from a devastating illness and a period of profound despair.

Several years ago on a dark, icy Christmas Eve, I sat huddled in the back pew of a small, darkened, candlelit chapel, and listened to voices raised in the words of this old carol.  I was in despair.  It was the only time in my life that I can remember having truly given up.  As I listened, these two simple lines — O rest beside the weary road, And hear the angels sing — lifted me up, and were a call that kept me going.  That much I could do in that moment of darkness:  I could rest beside the weary road and just listen.  And it was enough to keep my feet on the path I was given to walk.

There are many kinds of life journeys, and each of us is traveling a unique path; often the way may be obscured from view.  Come. Sit. Listen.

Angels, in both Greek and Hebrew, mean “messengers,” messengers of God, messengers who can advise, warn, support, encourage, comfort, come to our aid, perhaps from time to time, intervene in our lives by shaking things up.  We in our contemporary world need these reminders of a spiritual resource upon which we can call no less than those in centuries past.  The words of this beautiful old hymn call us to listen:  O rest beside the weary road, And hear the angels sing.

The words that I offer to you on the following pages were born in that spirit.  Perhaps a few of them may speak to you, may offer you comfort, support, encouragement, courage to keep on keeping on.  It is my hope that perhaps you will even feel less alone, knowing that someone else has also walked this way before.

I am a retired psychotherapist and professor, and after over forty years in the field, I guess I wondered when I retired a few years ago if I had anything left to say.  But a dear friend on an adjoining mountain encouraged me to do this writing, and so I agreed.

Many times over the last four decades as I have sat with a client in deep pain, I have felt inadequate and helpless.  But what I learned is that the most profound moments of healing take place, not in a recalled past or imagined future, but in the present moment of an authentic encounter between you and someone else.  There’s a wonderful old saying:  A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.  Maybe together, we can sit and listen to the angels and occasionally “sing” to one another.

Thank you for stopping here for a few minutes to read this!  My hope is that it may be a blessing to you.

Helen