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Accepting the what is

The poet Galway Kinnell writes the following poem and calls it Prayer:

Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.

I call that a life's work, which, I suppose, is close enough to what prayer is. It is a mantra worthy of repetition for what we come up against, what we experience and endure, and for that matter, what endures. Whatever what is is....

On the cover of the Los Angeles Times Tuesday morning was a picture of a small group of women in the Philippines walking, according to the caption, in a religious procession--arms laden with religious icons--against a background of devastation left in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan that wracked much of the Philippines on November 8. It is the sort of photograph that looks like a painting, and the women look more like warriors than like those suddenly rendered homeless by natural disaster. It is a remarkable photograph, worth more than its share of a thousand words. I found myself going back to it many times throughout the day not only as a means of bearing witness to this unfolding tragedy in the Pacific, but as well to marvel at the resilience on display on the faces of these women.

Whatever what is is....

How do we learn such acceptance? According to the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, we learn acceptance in much the same way as the women in this photographed procession, one small step at a time. In his book The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, Hanh talks about growing up in a time of war. He admits that the wounds of that war have still not healed in him, and yet despite what has not yet healed, he has learned to live with great joy and compassion and peace. How? By sharing the Buddha's right view of things: There is suffering and the transformation of suffering.

Last weekend, we had dinner with friends of ours from Colorado. They recently purchased a winter home not too far from us. After one of those unrelenting weeks of activity, including a full day Saturday on the soccer pitch, I was less than eager to spend one more evening out. But some occasions allow for the excuse, and others demand the extra effort. Despite my desire for home and hearth and pillow and bed, I got out the door and into their home where we enjoyed a good meal and great conversation, and I learned another lesson in the art of acceptance.

About six years ago our friends were thrown one of those curve balls life is so expert at lobbing from time to time. George became very ill and endured a significant period of time in medical limbo while many doctors and specialists tried to determine just what exactly our friend was dealing with. In the end, it turned out to be myelodysplastic syndrome or MDS, an autoimmune disease that, in short, destroys a person. The American Cancer Society describes MDS as "the name of a group of conditions that occur when the blood-forming cells in the bone marrow are damaged." I have always known George to be a robust individual, healthy and incessantly curious about life. He was a Yosemite Valley climber in the 60s and 70s, and retired his shoes early to become the founder and publisher of a small press devoted to rock climbing, Chockstone Press. Today, George is the survivor of a bone marrow transplant and a long list of surgeries and other medical procedures too numerous for me to name without being intrusive. In order for his bone marrow transplant to continue to serve him, George takes medication that, in essence, is intended to lay waste to his immune system. This so his body does not reject the transplant. Imagine that. Every day attempting to do yourself in.

Our friend, George, has one of those handshakes with a grip that lasts for days. He still has it. In it, you feel the barn he has built, the cattle he has tended and herded, the cliffs he has climbed and the innumerable strokes made on a keyboard so that his published wares entered the marketplace with his signature expertise. I look at him, and I see a man of great intention still enamored of life. As a consequence of all of his medical procedures, George had lost his right leg from the shin down, and despite a pronounced limp, you would never have guessed that he was missing part of a limb. A few months ago, while on vacation in Mexico, George took a fall and shattered his right knee. The doctors offered knee-replacement as an alternative, but with no guarantees against future surgeries to maintain it. The other, less pleasant option was to amputate his leg above the knee, which is the choice George ultimately selected. 

This is how we found our friend last weekend, still getting used to this newer reality. And while he wears a top of the line prosthetic, George is adjusting in the same small way of the women in the picture from the Philippines, step by step by step. As I sat there last Saturday, listening to our friend talk about his latest incarnation, I was humbled by the enormous task of acceptance that George was shouldering, and, as he has proved in the past, very well, I should add. At one point, George stopped himself. He heard himself talking about the details of this latest procedure and the subsequent fitting of the prosthetic with its inherent gadgetry and limitation, and he asked us, "I'm sorry. Are you really interested in hearing all of this?" Me, I'm an easy mark. That was my moment to reign in my emotion and hold back the tears because what I heard instead was, "Gee, thank you for letting me talk about all of this. It's just what I needed."

Dealing with the aftermath of "whatever happens" is often times a very tall order. It requires more than a leap of faith to get across the gaping chasm that has just opened before us because it feels like a test we could never prepare for, the delivery of which feels monumentally unfair. But life finds a way, as the actor Jeff Goldblum says in his role as the hip chaos mathematician, Dr. Ian Malcolm, in the film Jurassic Park. 

 Whatever what is is....

When I feel wrung out by what seems like the never-ending tasks of a routine semester, or a week of being Mom or (an infinity of etcetera), it is not automatic for me to invoke the Prayer of the dear poet Galway Kinnell. If I can make it as far as the book, however, and open to the page where these words reside, and if I can remember to read them, breathing in and breathing out, I  have another chance at learning this level of acceptance. Kinnell was right to call these words a prayer because they carry a tonic, one that tastes like the truth. 

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