Maybe that’s what all of us are here for: To hold the sun. To step it down to earthsize, to be its outer edges here. They tell me, after all, that it was stars that built us, that tiny bits of them make up our cells. Could be.
One thing’s for sure. These squash have it down. I mean, just look at them there, practically on fire with all those oranges and golds, looking like they held so much sun it was oozing right through their skin. Maybe we’re all meant for that, for holding so much sun that all we can do is shine, baby. Think so?
Here I am, rolling through the corn again, aware that soon the giant green machines will be rolling through, too, gobbling up the ears, shooting them into trucks, bits and pieces of their dried leaves flying through the air, chopped stalks left behind, crows swooping in to feast on missed cobs. But the ripened corn isn’t the only wonder. I mean, just look at that cloudless autumn sky.
This is one of those scenes that froze me in my tracks, not daring to move until I had taken in as much of it as I could hold. The longer I looked, the larger the mystery of it became, seeping deeper and deeper into the forest, into the very trunks of the trees, and yet floating as well on the whispering air that surrounded me, brushing my face, my skin. My mind is entranced; the choreography is perfect. Nothing is haphazard, nothing is by chance. Everything is music, and the never-ending dance.
I hadn’t intended to pass by the lake. I meant to take the highway. But then I got distracted by my thoughts and missed my turn and here I was, right in the midst of this absolute splendor of a perfect autumn afternoon. The fisherman in the boat near the far shore is so still he doesn’t even make a ripple. Here, four geese etch the lake with their fine silver wakes, disturbing nothing, silent as the water, slowly floating through the reflections of the brilliant, turning trees. I blend into the stillness, too, softly breathing thanks.
As the sun dipped behind the tops of the pines to her west, the meadow felt the warmth of its powdery golden light, pollen and seeds floating in the glow of it. From her grasses the song of the crickets rose, floating across the whole of her, down to the lake and to the forest at her edge. So soothing was the song, that for a long, soft moment the meadow drifted into a dream about all the flowers and birds, the butterflies and spiders who had danced for her since spring. Soon the last of them would be gone. And with that thought, she woke from her reverie, glad to see asters swaying in the early evening light, because you never know, she reasoned, when a migrating hummingbird might stop by.
If you’ve been reading these Sunday Letters for a while, you may have heard this story before. I tell it from time to time because it’s a favorite of mine. And as we slide into the holiday season with all the high emotions it brings, it feels like a timely reminder. So here we go:
One day, while riding in the car, my teen-age son and I were listening to the radio. Some guy was explaining that we don’t always feel warm fuzzies toward someone we love. “We like each other because,” he said. (Because she made you laugh. Because he did the dishes. You can imagine any “because” you like.) “But,” the radio guy continued, “we love each other anyway.”
We love each other even when. That’s because love can embrace even those things in each other that drive us batty, or that conflict with our own cherished viewpoints or beliefs. Liking usually can’t go there; it stops at the differences.
My son and I loved the radio guy’s statement: We like each other because; we love each other anyway. It was so true that it made us laugh, and from that day on we often said to each other, as a kind of affectionate joke, “I love you anyway.”
I thought about that this past week when I ran into a difficult situation with a friend. She was recently diagnosed with a serious medical condition and when she asked me to pick up a certain snack item for her, I said I would feel uncomfortable doing that and asked if maybe she could make a different choice. Later, I gently suggested that she see a dietician for help in changing her eating habits so her body could stay as healthy as possible as long as possible.
She told me that she knew I was trying to help, but that it was up to her to choose what she wanted to eat and what she didn’t, and she didn’t want any more of my advice on the subject.
I thanked her for telling me that, and promised that I would respect her wishes. And I will – even though in my version of reality, the things that she’s eating are killing her.
What do you do when someone you love is, in your view, choosing to do things that may cost her life? Things that make you furious, that make you feel helpless, that, according to everything you know and believe, are potentially deadly mistakes Do you abandon your relationship because it’s too painful to see your friend’s choices? Because she’s refusing to accept what you (of course) believe to be superior information?
Nope. You love your friend anyway. You love her enough to honor her free will to make her own choices about her own life. That doesn’t mean you consent to enable clearly self-destructive behavior. You can draw lines and say what you are unwilling to do. Your free will counts, too.
You can work to find compromises. You can even do things for her that you strongly disagree with, as long as you’re clear that you’re helping only because you honor her right to make her own decisions and not because you‘re condoning them.
In essence, it all boils down to the Golden Rule – treating others the way you want to be treated.
Yeah, it gets difficult when you and the other hold strongly conflicting beliefs. You have to face the fact that each of you has plenty of evidence for what you believe, and that, in the end, beliefs are just that.
Whether it’s which foods to eat or not eat, or what political party to support, or what treatment to choose for a medical condition, or what God to believe in or reject – each of us must choose for ourselves. And each of us has the right to expect those who love us to accept our choices – whether they agree with them or not.
Because, in the end, it’s really true. We may like each other because, but we need to love each other anyway.
Wishing you a week where liking triumphs almost every minute.
A little love note from the universe made its way to me, despite the odds. It poked me and said, “So, kid, just what is it that you’re looking for?” I smiled, thinking all I was seeking was the usual. You know. I know you know. We’re all sifting through time’s sands for it. And how its nuggets shine!
This maple that stands at the edge of the cornfield at the big curve in the road, this one, newly aflame with the deep oranges she lifts to the sky each autumn, is an old friend. I’ve known her for decades now, walked beneath her branches, explored the old farmhouse she sheltered all its life. I remember the tire swing that hung from one of her limbs and imagine the laughter of children playing there on a day much like this one. Their family had a barn, too, and cows that grazed where the corn grows now. And right in the middle of the cornfield, there’s a tree with thick branches that folks call the hanging tree. This maple holds all these stories for me and more. I always look her way as I slow for the curve. She comforts me, and I imagine we’re radiating love to each other, feeling a connection somehow. I round the curve and the cornfield gives way to woods, and she is behind me now, marking the invisible point that tells me my journey’s ending. that I am almost home.
I couldn’t see the tops of the corn until I got to the rise of this hill. The stalks, suddenly gone from green to tan, are taller than my car now, almost ready for harvest. I get to drive this smooth, curving road every Wednesday, and I confess it’s a highlight of my week, year ’round. But today, the first day of sun after many days of rain, it thrills me. Just yesterday, it seems, I was a flea on the hide of a sleeping elephant as I drove between stubbly mounds of rutted, muddy gray. And now, look what this land has done! All those green shoots that rose from that elephant’s hide in spring have turned into corn! I feel rich, as I breathe in the late September air, a flea become a king.
As autumn rushes in, her flashy colors and cold in tow, she sets aside some places of refuge from the tumult, places of calm, where sun and shadows balance and peace resides.
Within each of us, such places dwell, little meadows of reverie and dream, where we can sit for a while and gather ourselves when the rush of the world overwhelms.
It’s good to map them out, to keep little postcards of them in our pockets, remembering their scents and seasons, and sounds, returning to them whenever the need arises for refuge, for calm. Settle there for a while. Feel the peace. Hear the whispers: You are welcome. You are cherished. You are loved.
