Hello again! It's been a while. Mainly haven't written because there was nothing to say. I mean I got contacts and last twenty pounds and have been backpedaling into my forties, in complete denial that I am approaching mid-fifties. It’s sobering - this aging business. This summer I've gone to baby showers and family picnics, played badmitten and SET (a mesmerizing card game), cat sit for my daughters' cats and driven back and forth to the airport to pick up my son who just returned from a year away, traveling around the world.
I've watched my mentor venture to Scotland where he can caddy for world-class golfers on the course at St. Andrews and figure out how to write books for the masses. I've fought with him too. He says sex-sex-sex and more sex sells. That's what the publishers want, he says. Now, I respect Don Snyder deeply - he's really the first person who taught me the CRAFT of writing - how to write a scene and know what you're doing. But I draw the line at explicit sex. Don't get me wrong. Sex can be the most beautiful thing around and Don is after HOW to write about it perfectly. I hope he achieves it. If anyone can, he can. But after the sum of all my experiences, I'm not sure I could.
Oh, and I've also finished my sequel to LOSING THE WAY. It's called WALKAWAY: CONFESSIONS OF A LOST DAUGHTER. There's a fair amount of sex in it, too. It's really a story of reconciliation between a daughter and her estranged mother after the daughter leaves a cult with her two young children. It's fraught with sex and heartbreak, custody fights and violence. Sounds like a winner, huh? That's the other thing I've been doing this summer - writing and revising, revising, revising, revising. They say all writing is revising. But as far as sex, I've gone the suggestive route and left out the panting and the groping.
Last thing on my mind, just to bring you up to date was that I truly overdosed on religion. I think after my friend committed suicide and I went to that monastery, I fell off the planet temporarily and lost my bearings. My church got a new minister who's a little too gung-ho for my tastes so I've stopped attending. I'm not meditating or journaling like I used to and amazingly, I'm still alive. I haven't been smitten with the botch of Egypt. I mean as far as I can see it, meditating makes you a better meditator, praying makes you a better prayer and writing makes you a better writer. All the praying in the world won't make me a better writer. I have to work at it. I'm much happier now.
I still believe in God, though I prefer the Jew's YHWH (or is it JHVH) no vowels and unpronounceable. To me, that's honest. For whatever we call the higher power, we're sure to get it wrong. Still "IT" understands, I'm sure and looks on us poor bumbling mortals as extensions of its immortality and light. I believe that. So hurray for faith in something. I read Christopher Hitchens book GOD IS NOT GREAT about all the reasons that "religion poisons everything." He had some good albeit hackneyed arguments. But a good faith, a solid bedrock of trust in something unseen (not the IRS), something beyond ourselves that is good, that makes me happy. And happiness, I'm coming to learn, is really all we have. To do our work and enjoy the portion we've been given. I think Solomon said something like that. There's the Bible again. Can't get away from it.
Anyway, that was my summer. I'll try to get back on my horse, Blog, and start riding again. How about you? How was your summer? It's good to be back.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Happy Earth Mother's Day
Every year around this time, my mind seems to get overheated and shuts down like a car engine. It ceases to function properly and I end up taking some time off to rest and regroup. That's what I've been doing or trying to do since Tuesday.
Last Tuesday, a dear friend from church committed suicide. I've been shaking ever since, overcome with a new kind of anxiety, the kind that says "There but for the grace of God, go I…."
My friend had been battling depression for months and he promised to call me if he ever felt like he couldn't handle it anymore. He didn't call. One night last week, he climbed into his car, sped down a straight country road and veered off into a stone wall. He wasn't wearing a seat belt. There were no skid marks.
Suicide. It's still too close to write about. He was in so much psychic pain, this must have seemed like the only way out. And this morning I'll be going to church, back up the dreaded steps, to share my grief with the other parishioners.
How does one recover the mind after a shock like this? I couldn't even concentrate to do my breathing. Contemplation seemed like a nightmare because I could only see his face. I had overdosed on God the Father at the monastery so prayer was out, too.
But yesterday, my husband and I planted some new hydrangeas - two Limelight bushes and one PeeGee tree. That may sound trivial but it focused my mind and helped (literally) to ground me.
We started with a hole then we added 6 inches of peat moss. My job was to add water and turn it into a rich roiling reddish-brown soup. I reached my bare arms into the dirt and peat and kneaded the soil, squeezing water through each dry part until it was all soaked.
The smell of the earth and its satisfying texture reminded me of playing with clay as a child. I molded and splashed until I emerged a filthy mess. I would have gladly jumped in to cover myself with the mixture but my husband constrained me.
So today when I awoke, after a night of dreams about my lost friend, I attempted my morning exercises - meditating and journaling - both of which had been virtually lost to me this past week. I closed my eyes and followed my breath, focusing only on the up and down of my stomach. That worked for a few moments before my mind skipped off.
Someone told me an upset mind can be like an agitated two-year-old child. So how to deal with it? Don't scream, don't slap, don't judge. Just gently guide it back into the task at hand. And so I imagined my mind as a two year old and there was a Mother, a perfect non-judgmental Mother who gently led me to a quiet within myself. Earth Mother!
Father Sky stepped aside and let the Great Mother appear. And so I am once again grounded. At least for the moment. It's almost time for church and I feel the anxiety rising. But I'm not going to avoid it. That would only make it worse. Face the sadness. Face the pain. And with the help of the Earth, on which I can't help but be grounded, I will make it. I only wish….
Last Tuesday, a dear friend from church committed suicide. I've been shaking ever since, overcome with a new kind of anxiety, the kind that says "There but for the grace of God, go I…."
My friend had been battling depression for months and he promised to call me if he ever felt like he couldn't handle it anymore. He didn't call. One night last week, he climbed into his car, sped down a straight country road and veered off into a stone wall. He wasn't wearing a seat belt. There were no skid marks.
Suicide. It's still too close to write about. He was in so much psychic pain, this must have seemed like the only way out. And this morning I'll be going to church, back up the dreaded steps, to share my grief with the other parishioners.
How does one recover the mind after a shock like this? I couldn't even concentrate to do my breathing. Contemplation seemed like a nightmare because I could only see his face. I had overdosed on God the Father at the monastery so prayer was out, too.
But yesterday, my husband and I planted some new hydrangeas - two Limelight bushes and one PeeGee tree. That may sound trivial but it focused my mind and helped (literally) to ground me.
We started with a hole then we added 6 inches of peat moss. My job was to add water and turn it into a rich roiling reddish-brown soup. I reached my bare arms into the dirt and peat and kneaded the soil, squeezing water through each dry part until it was all soaked.
The smell of the earth and its satisfying texture reminded me of playing with clay as a child. I molded and splashed until I emerged a filthy mess. I would have gladly jumped in to cover myself with the mixture but my husband constrained me.
So today when I awoke, after a night of dreams about my lost friend, I attempted my morning exercises - meditating and journaling - both of which had been virtually lost to me this past week. I closed my eyes and followed my breath, focusing only on the up and down of my stomach. That worked for a few moments before my mind skipped off.
Someone told me an upset mind can be like an agitated two-year-old child. So how to deal with it? Don't scream, don't slap, don't judge. Just gently guide it back into the task at hand. And so I imagined my mind as a two year old and there was a Mother, a perfect non-judgmental Mother who gently led me to a quiet within myself. Earth Mother!
Father Sky stepped aside and let the Great Mother appear. And so I am once again grounded. At least for the moment. It's almost time for church and I feel the anxiety rising. But I'm not going to avoid it. That would only make it worse. Face the sadness. Face the pain. And with the help of the Earth, on which I can't help but be grounded, I will make it. I only wish….
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
What WAS she thinking? (or a Plug for Reality)
When I was a single parent, working with AIDS patients at an inner city hospital, I used to have lunch with another single parent friend. She recognized my tendency to become overly involved with my patients and lose sight of my own life. "Earth activities, Kris. That's what you need," she would say. "Ground yourself on this planet. Clean the fish tank, water the plants, wash the floor."
Last week at work, I overly-identified with one of my patients and his family and got swallowed up in their lives. I lost my grip on my own life. I thought a weekend at a Benedictine monastery would help me get back in touch with myself. Paradoxically, it did just the opposite. It reinforced that old mindset of magical thinking which was so familiar in the cult. Finding a community that seemed "open and free," (that phrase should have tipped me off) was a "tangled root" that led me farther and farther away from my real life.
My tendency to launch off into space in search of some spiritual truth can lead me to the brink of madness. I long for a connection with the universe and forget to recognize that I already have one. Like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz," I go running off to find something that I've had all along. I AM connected, like it or not.
The trip to the monastery was a trip to the extreme reaches of religion. You don't get much more religious than to sit under a large ebony cross of Jesus and listen to a dozen robed men chant the psalms. I felt sort of like Snow White among the seven Dwarfs. Only there were twelve of them and they were the ones dressed in white.
After my voyage to the brink, I've decided I'm going to cut back on my spirituality and invest more in the here and now of planet Earth. Many other people seem to be able to handle the spiritual quest but I don't seem to be one of them. I spin out of orbit too easily and become ungrounded.
My life seems dull in comparison to the resurrection and ascension of Christ but at least it's MY life. I have many connections: my family, my work, my art, my friends, my home, nature, the universe, and yes, God, whoever that is. I realize what's often missing is often a connection with my own heart and soul. My life. The breath may not be quite as exciting but at least I have my sanity. And what's more important than that?
Last week at work, I overly-identified with one of my patients and his family and got swallowed up in their lives. I lost my grip on my own life. I thought a weekend at a Benedictine monastery would help me get back in touch with myself. Paradoxically, it did just the opposite. It reinforced that old mindset of magical thinking which was so familiar in the cult. Finding a community that seemed "open and free," (that phrase should have tipped me off) was a "tangled root" that led me farther and farther away from my real life.
My tendency to launch off into space in search of some spiritual truth can lead me to the brink of madness. I long for a connection with the universe and forget to recognize that I already have one. Like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz," I go running off to find something that I've had all along. I AM connected, like it or not.
The trip to the monastery was a trip to the extreme reaches of religion. You don't get much more religious than to sit under a large ebony cross of Jesus and listen to a dozen robed men chant the psalms. I felt sort of like Snow White among the seven Dwarfs. Only there were twelve of them and they were the ones dressed in white.
After my voyage to the brink, I've decided I'm going to cut back on my spirituality and invest more in the here and now of planet Earth. Many other people seem to be able to handle the spiritual quest but I don't seem to be one of them. I spin out of orbit too easily and become ungrounded.
My life seems dull in comparison to the resurrection and ascension of Christ but at least it's MY life. I have many connections: my family, my work, my art, my friends, my home, nature, the universe, and yes, God, whoever that is. I realize what's often missing is often a connection with my own heart and soul. My life. The breath may not be quite as exciting but at least I have my sanity. And what's more important than that?
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Get Thee to the Monastery
So I went on a private retreat this weekend to a Benedictine Monastery. (It's only fitting now that I've decided to not join the church.) How refreshing to be in a spiritual community that was open and free, at least on the surface of things. Twelve round monks dressed in white hooded robes chanted and sang five times a day and I got to sit in and listen. A wonderful time to think and pray, read and write...
Here's a poem I wrote while I was there.
An Encounter While Reading Thomas Merton
He says that love depends on
believing we are loved and
contemplation is not for loners.
I turn the pages, underlined with pencil.
It's in the mid-80's, this bright May morning.
She plods up the hill, carrying something,
stops at my faded Adirondack chair
and shows me a large triangle of driftwood.
"It looks like a mobia strip," I say.
"Or the pelvis of a buffalo," she adds
and we laugh. It just floated up to her
from the river as she was standing on the bank.
She sits down on the ground next to me,
says she has needed this alone time.
She confesses that she has decided
to restart her medication and I say everyone
I know is on medication for something, including me.
And she says the wheels in her head just won't
stop churning and she judges herself so harshly
sometimes to the point of hatred. She lives in Brooklyn
and is four years married to a fireman, "a good man,"
who fought at the World Trade Center. She goes to
Al-Anon and has a two-year-old son named Adam.
I listen, weigh each word like Merton, then I tell
her my secrets which are no secrets at all,
but they hang in the air like pollen.
"Unseasonable weather," she says at last.
When she leaves, she thanks me for my kindness
and we hug. Then the gulf within me opens
and my mind turns round and round
like the tangled root she brought
up from the shore.
Here's a poem I wrote while I was there.
An Encounter While Reading Thomas Merton
He says that love depends on
believing we are loved and
contemplation is not for loners.
I turn the pages, underlined with pencil.
It's in the mid-80's, this bright May morning.
She plods up the hill, carrying something,
stops at my faded Adirondack chair
and shows me a large triangle of driftwood.
"It looks like a mobia strip," I say.
"Or the pelvis of a buffalo," she adds
and we laugh. It just floated up to her
from the river as she was standing on the bank.
She sits down on the ground next to me,
says she has needed this alone time.
She confesses that she has decided
to restart her medication and I say everyone
I know is on medication for something, including me.
And she says the wheels in her head just won't
stop churning and she judges herself so harshly
sometimes to the point of hatred. She lives in Brooklyn
and is four years married to a fireman, "a good man,"
who fought at the World Trade Center. She goes to
Al-Anon and has a two-year-old son named Adam.
I listen, weigh each word like Merton, then I tell
her my secrets which are no secrets at all,
but they hang in the air like pollen.
"Unseasonable weather," she says at last.
When she leaves, she thanks me for my kindness
and we hug. Then the gulf within me opens
and my mind turns round and round
like the tangled root she brought
up from the shore.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
To Join or Not to Join
I think I've told you about St. Mark's, a little white clapboard church about a mile down the road from me. I've been attending there for four or five years, I don't really remember. I started going right after I saw "The Passion of Christ." All that blood and guts of Jesus compelled me back to the Christian way. Go figure. This year I tried to watch the movie again and got only so far as the flogging in the court of Pilate. After two martinis and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I fell asleep. I would certainly have gone out and gotten ploughed at the crucifixion if I were one of the first disciples.
In any event, I have been recently grappling with joining the church….officially. Well, I've been grappling with this for four or five years but it was never really an issue until our old minister retired, the one white hair and one leg who looked like my father. The new minister, an earnest unretired priest with a shy Gary Cooper smile, arrived and I made the mistake of telling him that I'd been around, lo these many years, and had not yet been recognized by the Bishop. Well, his eyes lit up and he gave me a book on "the peculiar way of life of Episcopaleans." I was happy to receive it and become a candidate for membership. After all, didn't I really want to belong….to something?
Evidently not. Every night for the next week, I was tormented with nightmares about Wierwille and the cult. On Tuesday, I woke up at 2:30am, sobbing. I don't remember the exact content of the dream but the familiar pain of betrayal was there. A palpable memory of abandonment. The next night, another dream and the next until I was afraid to go to sleep.
I called my old minister and spoke with him about this situation. "I think I'm scared of joining anything," I said. He thought I had diagnosed the situation correctly. And he encouraged me to talk to the new minister, Father "Woody" and give him my book, which I did. After he finished my book, Father Woody came and paid us a visit and he almost blushed as he apologized for his enthusiasm. "I feel like a slick, oily used car salesman. I think it's best that you back off joining for now," he said.
Needless to say, I felt relieved mostly. There weren't any real benefits to joining, beyond what I already enjoyed. It wasn't like I'd get a guaranteed all-expenses-paid ticket to heaven or holiness. And the thought of the bishop laying his hands on my head sent me into more paroxysms of fear and trembling. Why fix something if it's not broken? Still, I couldn't help feel like I'd failed at something. Commitment.
The word "commitment" to a former cult-member is like "Incoming" to a Vietnam vet. It makes one want to dive under the pews and take cover. In a cult, it's a do-or-die mission. All-or-nothing. In church, Father Woody, tells me, it's very low-key and the point is not to PUSH but to ALLOW things to take their natural course, like the way flowers grow. We don't pull them out of the ground. We let them evolve according to their own time.
I remind myself that I managed to make a commitment to my husband fifteen years ago. He didn't push, he didn't threaten. He just created a safe environment in which I could decide for myself. And I've never for a minute regretted my decision. Perhaps, that's the key here - safety. When, if ever, I feel safe enough to join something, like a church, I will. I have to remember that it's much more complicated for me than the average person. The wounds are evidently still deep, deeper than I wish they were. But I can still attend and run for cover if it gets too much. Allow, don't push. That seems to me what Jesus would have advised.
In any event, I have been recently grappling with joining the church….officially. Well, I've been grappling with this for four or five years but it was never really an issue until our old minister retired, the one white hair and one leg who looked like my father. The new minister, an earnest unretired priest with a shy Gary Cooper smile, arrived and I made the mistake of telling him that I'd been around, lo these many years, and had not yet been recognized by the Bishop. Well, his eyes lit up and he gave me a book on "the peculiar way of life of Episcopaleans." I was happy to receive it and become a candidate for membership. After all, didn't I really want to belong….to something?
Evidently not. Every night for the next week, I was tormented with nightmares about Wierwille and the cult. On Tuesday, I woke up at 2:30am, sobbing. I don't remember the exact content of the dream but the familiar pain of betrayal was there. A palpable memory of abandonment. The next night, another dream and the next until I was afraid to go to sleep.
I called my old minister and spoke with him about this situation. "I think I'm scared of joining anything," I said. He thought I had diagnosed the situation correctly. And he encouraged me to talk to the new minister, Father "Woody" and give him my book, which I did. After he finished my book, Father Woody came and paid us a visit and he almost blushed as he apologized for his enthusiasm. "I feel like a slick, oily used car salesman. I think it's best that you back off joining for now," he said.
Needless to say, I felt relieved mostly. There weren't any real benefits to joining, beyond what I already enjoyed. It wasn't like I'd get a guaranteed all-expenses-paid ticket to heaven or holiness. And the thought of the bishop laying his hands on my head sent me into more paroxysms of fear and trembling. Why fix something if it's not broken? Still, I couldn't help feel like I'd failed at something. Commitment.
The word "commitment" to a former cult-member is like "Incoming" to a Vietnam vet. It makes one want to dive under the pews and take cover. In a cult, it's a do-or-die mission. All-or-nothing. In church, Father Woody, tells me, it's very low-key and the point is not to PUSH but to ALLOW things to take their natural course, like the way flowers grow. We don't pull them out of the ground. We let them evolve according to their own time.
I remind myself that I managed to make a commitment to my husband fifteen years ago. He didn't push, he didn't threaten. He just created a safe environment in which I could decide for myself. And I've never for a minute regretted my decision. Perhaps, that's the key here - safety. When, if ever, I feel safe enough to join something, like a church, I will. I have to remember that it's much more complicated for me than the average person. The wounds are evidently still deep, deeper than I wish they were. But I can still attend and run for cover if it gets too much. Allow, don't push. That seems to me what Jesus would have advised.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
Last weekend, I went to a retreat on Centering Prayer sponsored by a local church. On the face of it, it seemed harmless enough. I mean what possible problems could arise from just praying silently with a room full of strangers? Right? Wrong!
The other participants were, mostly like myself, sincere God-fearing women. There were a handful of men, including the leader, a cheerful monk from Toronto. He had us sit quietly and let our minds "just be" in the presence of God. Whenever our minds strayed, which was often, one need merely say one's "love word" to bring it back. The point was not to push thoughts away or to empty one's mind. The point was to welcome all thoughts and feelings and simply refocus each time one arose. Sounded very much like Eastern mindfulness or Vipassna meditation, which I have been doing for years. He wasn't asking us to give up our free will or hands ourselves wholeheartedly over to the God of His understanding. Harmless enough.
Until the priest-in-charge of the church opened his mouth. I might have known that trouble lurked beneath the surface of this jolly minister. He looked like a cross between Santa Claus and Abby Hoffman with his hippie sandals and the shock of white curls on his head.
The group was talking about obstacles that arose during prayer and the priest raised his hand and said, quite unabashedly, that he couldn't help but having erotic thoughts enter his mind the whole time and wasn't it time we stopped looking for ecstatic "God" experiences and just allowed our minds to be as human as they really were.
Human! Here we were, a room full of post-menopausal women, and I doubt any of us were thinking of anything besides what we were making for dinner that night. But I knew where he was coming from. I'd heard it all before. The shock value of a man of the cloth admitting to carnal thoughts permitted us lowly laymen (women) to do the same. The only problem was most of us WERE having epiphanies and the like.
Wierwille, my former cult leader, used to do the same thing then he'd sleep with as many women as he could find. I'm not saying that's what this minister did but it was awfully suspicious behavior. Of course, it took me a whole day to register why I felt so vulnerable and upset. It took my husband to point out that perhaps that man had touched on one of my triggers and that made me feel very anxious.
So, once again, an innocent stroll into the murky swamp of religion turns up alligators and snakes. But it turned up other things too. The beautiful flowers of compassion and birds of paradise. I did happen to have a transcendent experience, though, we were reminded, that is not the goal of centering prayer. Nevertheless, as I was sitting there, I had an overwhelming sense of Presence. Something or someone holding my heart in the palm of its hand, like cupping a fragile robin's egg. I was reminded that for all my spiritual aspirations, I am still wounded, and can be triggered at any moment in any place. I still have to watch out for those wolves in sheep's clothing. Happy Easter.
The other participants were, mostly like myself, sincere God-fearing women. There were a handful of men, including the leader, a cheerful monk from Toronto. He had us sit quietly and let our minds "just be" in the presence of God. Whenever our minds strayed, which was often, one need merely say one's "love word" to bring it back. The point was not to push thoughts away or to empty one's mind. The point was to welcome all thoughts and feelings and simply refocus each time one arose. Sounded very much like Eastern mindfulness or Vipassna meditation, which I have been doing for years. He wasn't asking us to give up our free will or hands ourselves wholeheartedly over to the God of His understanding. Harmless enough.
Until the priest-in-charge of the church opened his mouth. I might have known that trouble lurked beneath the surface of this jolly minister. He looked like a cross between Santa Claus and Abby Hoffman with his hippie sandals and the shock of white curls on his head.
The group was talking about obstacles that arose during prayer and the priest raised his hand and said, quite unabashedly, that he couldn't help but having erotic thoughts enter his mind the whole time and wasn't it time we stopped looking for ecstatic "God" experiences and just allowed our minds to be as human as they really were.
Human! Here we were, a room full of post-menopausal women, and I doubt any of us were thinking of anything besides what we were making for dinner that night. But I knew where he was coming from. I'd heard it all before. The shock value of a man of the cloth admitting to carnal thoughts permitted us lowly laymen (women) to do the same. The only problem was most of us WERE having epiphanies and the like.
Wierwille, my former cult leader, used to do the same thing then he'd sleep with as many women as he could find. I'm not saying that's what this minister did but it was awfully suspicious behavior. Of course, it took me a whole day to register why I felt so vulnerable and upset. It took my husband to point out that perhaps that man had touched on one of my triggers and that made me feel very anxious.
So, once again, an innocent stroll into the murky swamp of religion turns up alligators and snakes. But it turned up other things too. The beautiful flowers of compassion and birds of paradise. I did happen to have a transcendent experience, though, we were reminded, that is not the goal of centering prayer. Nevertheless, as I was sitting there, I had an overwhelming sense of Presence. Something or someone holding my heart in the palm of its hand, like cupping a fragile robin's egg. I was reminded that for all my spiritual aspirations, I am still wounded, and can be triggered at any moment in any place. I still have to watch out for those wolves in sheep's clothing. Happy Easter.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Faulkner on Fear
I've been writing a lot about fear lately - the fear of being in groups, the fear of being alone. I thought this week, I'd share the most inspirational piece of writing I know about fear. It has to do specifically with writing but I think it applies to all varieties of creativity....and living. Here is Faulkner's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech:
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work -- a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed -- love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
The poet’s, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work -- a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed -- love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
The poet’s, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
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