Present in the Unknowing
As I write this, it's Saturday afternoon and the hills of England are looking very green and pleasant. My mum died on Thursday night, peacefully, with some spark of bright undiminished determination to the end. This morning, I joined an Illuman council online and shared the news briefly with the large group, then spoke within a small group about some aspects of the last few days. The men there have also suffered loss and pain, recently and longer ago, and generously shared their own stories of grief and separation into the conversation alongside other reflections and pressing concerns.
Council is a magical and powerful container. It's not a discussion, or an accountability program, or much like anything else I've been a part of. One man brings a sheet of prompts for the group: often a reading or commentary, and a few questions. The questions are just directional openings to get us to share, and especially to listen; reflecting in a deep pool. Some men are religious, some are not; young and old, rich and poor, human.
I attended MROP two years ago. It includes council groups, but also a multi-day structure where each of us is challenged to confront the hard things directly. Experiential immersion, wilderness time, and group ceremonies that take us into the very heart of life. The deep; the reason we came. Because a life is short and miraculous and really quite mysterious; a tapestry of pain, and joy, and love. When we go through a time of crisis -- feeling adrift or disoriented or groundless as the stable assumptions (family, health, friendships, careers, skills and capabilities) all come unstuck -- it seems that we all need to learn how to engage with this difficult unknowing, not to run away.
There's plenty of blame and anger and hurt in each of us, and perhaps losing the second parent is when I can finally leave behind my childish resentments. Philip Larkin, the dour English poet, may be right: "Man hands on misery to man / It deepens like a coastal shelf". Or as Richard Rohr says, "the pain we do not transform, we will transmit". If I have grown since encountering Illuman, maybe I can judge that by whether I continue to inflict my pain on the people around me. With time perhaps I can be more consistently generous and useful in the world.
I sat by her bed and held her hand, still and gentle, while her labored breathing was the only sound in the room. She had stopped eating a week before and went without water for days. That last morning, she said one word to me: hello.
The difficult things are very much unfinished. There's no way to arrive at a neatly-packaged resolution, but instead the constant challenge is being present in the difficulty, trying to keep our eyes open in a kind of wonder.
In this, I am very lucky to have found that I am not alone. I talk to men about the things I'm encountering, and they listen. They share from the heart, in a sacred space, and the things I hear provide new perspectives on my own thoughts and experiences.
The vision I have this week is of bubbles on the surface of the water, iridescent and drifting in a breeze. Each one of us lives within the scope of a bubble, separation paper-thin. We'll each touch its boundaries, not in all the same places, but just as completely as one another; none of us are exempt from the deepest experiences. And then in the end, the shimmering wall will be gone. Nunc dimittis servum tuum (Luke 2:29) - now may your servant depart. The body will dissolve, the consciousness will dissolve, and the cycle of life carries on. This creation, a privilege, a joy.
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Hugh Pyle lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with his wife, Diane. If you wish to respond directly to this account, you can reach him at hughpyle@gmail.com.