love- hope- strength

“I'm just gonna sing about the things that I need:
A little bit of love, a little bit of hope
A little bit of strength, some fuel for the fire.

To build the ships to set the sails
To cross the sea of fools
To be dealt the cards
To play our hand
To win or else to lose
In this cruel world that kicks a man when he's down.”

~ The Alarm, Deeside.


fearful times

Without venturing into making sociopolitical statements, many agree that we live in upsettingly violent and fearful times. And that is excessively our context. An ordinary person, of dauntingly modest influence, can at least try encouraging others. Being a grain of inspiring leaven must persist with every passing day. Straight through the doldrums, no matter the ignominy. The stewarding of responsibilities is a trail that rarely juxtaposes with pursuits of success. Indeed, I’ve always tenaciously worked for both, but my high-minded idealism remains along a castle courtyard in the sky.

As one recession follows another, I thankfully keep on working. Whether or not it’s satisfying has had to decrease in importance. Scores of skilled workers lose their jobs, and exponentially more lose their homes. What may one dare to presume? The job market is as lifeless as this present culture is impoverished, yet personal defeat cannot be permissible. I must continue fueling my own engines. There are too many things yet to be accomplished; giving up the ship is still not an option. While life frustratingly remains in holding-pattern mode, I continue cultivating and flourishing where I’m planted. Foundering and drifting are undoubtedly worse than slowed movement and tacking. In the process, I can still be helpful to others. Most everyone I know is seeking a better situation for their livelihood. So many are struggling. On top of that, I’m listening to individuals of all ages express their cravings for community. Somewhere between pandemic quarantine life and The Great Resignation, too much of humanity turned inward to itself. The general willingness to gather pieces and create unifying bonds anew has left the popular consciousness. My own efforts continue, but indeed neighbors, colleagues, and kindredships are sum-totals comprising warm-blooded persons. Electronic personae cannot amount to reasonable facsimiles of human compassion and insight. As much as we know this, too many prefer their little pocket devices. Ironically, the bulk of human resources officers that recruit workers largely ignore the humanity exemplified in their conscientious applicants.


searching for positive signs

Grim times and thoughts intertwine to clog the mind as milfoil tangled around a ship’s propeller. Getting on the road does plenty to help my perspective, along with any intentional change-of-air. Occasionally I’ll have some music or radio accompaniment, but almost always some good threads of encapsulating monologue. And healthful silence. A good road trip- especially a scenic one- allows me to hear myself think (or not). Recently, getting outta Dodge was my very long-awaited family visit to Chicago, driving across the northeast, taking in the terrain. Making notes in my journal during a highway stop, I noticed how I had plenty of stamina for the 2200-mile round trip, but little for the sort of creative writing I’ve always loved doing. Exhaustion can be oddly asymmetrical. While listening to music and remembering the recently-departed, longtime favorite Mike Peters, I revisited the album “Strength” for the zillionth time. The Alarm is a prominent part of my life’s soundtrack. Among the songs, one of Peters’ verses, wrapped in refrains about struggling workers in a shuttering Welsh steel mill, affirms I’m just gonna sing about the things that I need, which are Love, Hope, and Strength. Essential, to be sure, and as the song proceeds, fuel for the fire. Enjoying the very short respite of being able to close my eyes while my coffee cooled in an I-90 service plaza, I penciled this in my journal: Sing about the things you need.

urban oasis

Inadvertently, my musing became an intrguing journaling prompt. “Sing about the things that I need,” looked to me like a way to cheer up my writing, and step back from the prevailing grimness. It surprised me that I found it difficult to answer the question with more than survival basics, though less poetic than “Love, Hope, Strength.” Instead, it was more of my quagmired scribbling about better work, quality of life, health of loved ones, stability, and community. Thinking through writing often carries a lot of repetition along, but re-reading thought processes can be fascinating. My ten days away from the grind began with some refreshingly unstructured time, which is always great for writing and reading- things that ordinarily require doses of stolen moments. My sister created a garden in a small space that has taken shape as an astonishing urban oasis. Perching outside was in itself salubrious, beginning with writing about gratitude for my earned-time-off to be able to make the travel, as well as for the welcomes received. Fresh air, good company, and tasty food; more gratitude. Looking up at the city’s trees, then down to my books on the patio table, gave me some Mike Peters-worthy words: Air, Light, Belonging, Writing, and Philosophy. Garden quiet combined with large-city hum, brought to mind choosing the substantial over the artificial. The following day, at a busy downtown café in the Loop, I added more answers in my journal such as “things that attest to the human spirit.”

notice what is good

The Newberry Library

Being a native born-and-bred city kid, I love a great city, and Chicago is a place that attests to the human spirit. As always, it did my soul a lot of good to immerse myself in miles of walking, intricate neighborhoods, grandiose avenues, L trains, and chatting with plenty of people along the way. On this particular sojourn, there was enough time and mild weather to see exhibits and some favorite businesses. The city’s vibrancy helped me replenish, at multiple levels.

Above: The Paper and Pencil, in the Andersonville neighborhood.
Below: Atlas Stationers, in the Loop.

savoury Chicago cheesecake, at The Pittsfield diner

It’s a long, long haul- and notching all those highway tolls, towns, and milemarkers reminded me of that reality, along with the constant need for patience in all things. After returning to Maine, a good friend said to me that “OK is fine,” which is to say that my big aspirations are a lot to expect. This was somewhat reassuring for me to hear, while my efforts continue as always. There are major projects yet to accomplish, and never enough time or influence. Survival always screams loudest and thus gets the majority of my attention. Countless others are likely in similar straits. Speaking for myself, along with my dreams, OK is momentarily fine, but I’ll keep on reaching higher. Modest measures of forward movement are better than nothing. Town-to-town gets me to the bigger destinations. En route, I’ve found it to be wisest to keep on identifying what is good, as much as possible. At work, I’m helping and teaching dozens of people daily, while conserving and offering primary source material. Every single workday attests to the extraordinary value of professional versatility, and how polished and productive I’ve been making this, contrasting how too many recruiters assume an unreality that ascribes one-skill-per-worker. Excelling at many things amounts to a full and focused life, and this should be desirable for any institution- no less in tight economic times. Identifying what is good keeps things interesting. This came to mind as my long-distance navigation wove through fields, vineyards, and along some of the Great Lakes. Despite the job market and all its barriers, like a true Alarm fan, I’m singing about the things that I need: Love, Hope, and Strength.

my favorite Chicago bookstore, The Armadillo's Pillow- in the Rogers Park neighborhood.

“...things that attest to the human spirit.”

Lake Michigan, viewed from the Rogers Park neighborhood.

back-to-school season

“Finish every day and be done with it.
For manners and for wise living it is a vice to remember.
You have done what you could;
some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely,
and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This day for all that is good and fair.
It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the rotten yesterdays.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Volume 2, 1836 - 1841

Long before the weathervanes of corporate retail brought out their marketed wares, the liminality of back-to-school season became very clear to me. Summer heat and humidity yielded to tree-bending blustery air, and on a random morning I suddenly remembered walking to grammar school in new shoes. Changed slants of light and earlier evenings indicate the setting of August. Though my graduate school thesis term was many years ago, memories- especially of my earliest education- vividly remain. The first day of a new school year was a burst to the senses: the look of new spaces, unfamiliar sounds, and the strong smells of industrial cleaning ingredients. At Public School No.13, in New York City, classroom numbers had their corresponding numbers painted on the gridded asphalt surface of the schoolyard; this became the place to line up every morning, prior to processing into school for the day. That was embedded within my first five years of schooling. Many other formalities followed, but as my father observed, “when you’re six years old, one year occupies fifteen percent of your life.” Back-to-school has always meant a fresh start, and at every age a learning of room numbers, names, and navigational strategies. A common post-secondary puzzle required knowing various campus buildings and the time needed to connect between them. To this day, late-August and early-September rekindle memories of new beginnings. Notwithstanding all the teaching I’ve been doing since college, I continue to purchase a new calendar book every summer. Labor Day Weekend is essentially the recognition of a new year.

A few of my classmates at the High School of Art & Design, New York.

Some of us are physically affected by the season. Back-to-school acquired my added connotation of allergy season. Parallel to my beginning high school, my one allergic condition emerged, which is ragweed pollen. As some of you know, some years are tougher than others. At the start of sophomore year, as a woeful fourteen-year-old, I had several protracted sneezing spells that frightened the teacher such that I was re-situated to the back of the classroom. That’s a great first impression to make for a teen, and surely not how I wanted to be noticed. Over the years, I learned to be equipped with neutralizing medication. On a better note, back-to-school meant reuniting with familiar faces and meeting new people. At the start of my senior year at the High School of Art & Design, at age seventeen, a number of old friends noticed how tall I’d suddenly gotten. New school years- both in high school and undergrad college, both four year institutions- began with re-acquaintances and recounting our summers. Fresh starts, in themselves, open to new horizons. And every venture, at any age and level, needs its equipage. Notebooks, writing materials- including aromatic wooden pencils, sometimes a new bookbag.

I still have this- from a Maine College of Art graphic design prof
who said to me, "Here is an E for your excellent work!"

Because of my high school’s focus on the visual arts, there were always supply lists to be filled. My mother, an experienced artist, and I made errands to the famous Pearl Paint- in SoHo- for our provisioning. Art college in Maine also meant filling supply lists, but with less variety. Unlike all the public schools I’d attended, college and university life required purchasing my own books, adding to the “new year” rituals. To send myself off in style to graduate school in Boston, I drove to nearby L.L. Bean and treated myself to a rugged backpack for the new journey. Each and every academic year began with reminders in the forms of brisk air, longer shadows, sneezing, and motivation to reach beyond my self.

Above: From my matriculating days in the MA program
at UMass-Boston. Notice my notebook-holder.

Below: Simmons University, Boston.

“Major in the Rest of Your Life” read the banner in the large vestibule of Boston’s Simmons University, highlighting my first day en route to my masters degree. It took two years of extremely hardworked matriculation to reach that beginning, but my gratitude produced its own energy. I hope Simmons has reused that brilliant motto. It may surprise those who’ve known me since my postgrad years, that I did not like school. I dreaded it. During childhood, I called the daily trudge “going to jail” and those tiresome stretches of time (in any duration) seemed agonizingly endless. Everything changed with the intense challenges of graduate schooling, which I loved. Perhaps it was the added years of work experience, but indeed I chose new vocations and goals, and I also chose each one of my courses. Back-to-school was a series of forward motions, even further hastened by summer sessions. The subject matter, as I advanced from one program to the next, became increasingly fascinating to me: from history, with the addition of philosophy, and then finally to archival sciences. With each new semester, the projects and assignments intensified- including publishing about book conservation. I took to beginning each academic year by watching that great film, The Paper Chase. For those timed, cheat-proof, fill-the-blue-booklet exams, I had a magic fountain pen which I’d bought in Paris. Every evening before one of those draining experiences, I’d make myself a brain-enriching fish dinner, and would perch that Waterman on my stereo to the tune of Meyerbeer’s benediction of the daggers from his opera Les Huguenots. All of this prep amounted to straight A’s. The pen wrote a perfect score.

The Waterman fountain pen with the 4.0 average.

My love for learning hit its permanent stride, when I joined the Boston Athenaeum immediately after graduating with my Masters degree. I’ve since lectured and taught there. Back-to-school is something I’ve been experiencing and supporting as an educator, and can attest that pursuing my own continued learning is an unending feast. In his Collations on the Hexaemeron, Saint Bonaventure wrote, “The door to wisdom is the vehement desire for it.” The season associated with the re-entry to school for so many among us retains its significance for me. Just as scholarship is stewardship, studies need application- all of which require conscientiousness. In his brilliant work and ready companion to me, The Intellectual Life, by A.G. Sertillanges, the chapter called Preparation for Work is especially appropriate for the season. His use of the word génie doesn’t quite translate as “genius,” but is something more like “inspired intellect.” He referred to this kind of wisdom as something that “stimulates us and gives us confidence. The stir it arouses is a spur to ardent personal endeavor, revealing a vocation, correcting overanxious timidity. A sense of sublimity breaks on our soul like a sunrise.” He described how we can use inspiring source material to fuel our ambitions and projects. Sertillanges’ references about cherished personal readings amount to an individual’s assembly of strategic reserves. Their cultivation increases with each measure of progress, such that “back-to-school” encounters less and less inertia. Studies lend well to spiritual formation, in an ongoing stream. Navigating currents and tides, we bring along our prized primary sources and faithful instruments.

I was well aware that my room at Simmons was on Pilgrim Road.

quiet paces

“If we deal fairly with one another and practice the virtue of justice,
we establish the bond of peace.
This means that where silence is observed, the fruits of peace
are gathered as easily as fruit is gathered from a heavily-laden tree.”

~ Saint Bonaventure, Holiness of Life.

In a serendipitous rarity, I was recently able to briefly liberate myself from my indentures with a week off. Coinciding with the Jubilee Year of Hope, designed to strike a strong contrast against all we see in our midst, the late Pope Francis published books and essays to go with his declaration, encouraging that we become pilgrims of hope. This entails conscientiously improving our communities as well as internalizing the theme, making physical pilgrimages to sacred places that are both conducive for prayer and accessible. Supporting articles, lectures, and broadcasts are directed as much to groups as they are to individuals. The concept of pilgrimage is surely ancient; for me, it’s been a way of life, growth, and stability since the mid-1990s. During this past year, I made my way to such familiar wellsprings as the Weston Priory (Vermont), Mount Saint Mary’s (Wrentham MA), Beacon Hill Friends House (Boston), and most recently the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy (Stockbridge MA). Earning time-off and finding salubrious ways to redeem those morsels takes shape as getting away from unsympathetic hardships- to welcoming healthful situations.

As studies can have their own pilgrimage aspects, I’ve nicknamed my years of ongoing and compelling Bonaventurian research and readings my Bonaventure Adventure- even developing a personal devotion to the saint, annually observing his feast day. Shortly before the sudden approval of the time off, albeit with little time to plan, I’d been reading Leonard Bowman’s book, A Retreat with St. Bonaventure. As the sojourn’s plans solidified, I saw on the calendar that I would be on pilgrimage for most of the novena leading up to Bonaventure’s memorial, as well as the days straddling July 15th. I took the book with me, of course. Amidst my studies, I read the Seraphic Doctor’s biography of St. Francis of Assisi. Bonaventure adored Francis, and when he subsequently found himself elected leader of the Franciscans, in 1257, the order asked him to write Francis’ life story- intending to prevent propagation of false rumors and folklore. As their generations slightly overlapped, Bonaventure interviewed eyewitnesses and colleagues of Francis, en route to the written oeuvre. In preparation for his new role as minister-general of the order, Bonaventure made an intentional pilgrimage to the top of Mount La Verna, the site of greatest importance to Francis. During his solitary time at the mountaintop while reflecting upon the legacy of Francis, Bonaventure experienced his own spiritual encounter, and began to compose what became his most celebrated work: The Journey of the Mind into God (also known as The Itinerary). Bowman’s book includes a commentary about Bonaventure’s writing in the silence at La Verna. In the solitude, “our efforts and achievements, indispensable as we saw them, look absurd.” “Pierce through the words, images, and thoughts,” added Bowman. “Now is the only simple recognition and wordless response.”

The idea of wordless response has stayed with me. While on the road, I tried imagining this manifesting as such pedestrian things like daily routine life, even breathing. Driving without the sound system gave me a small taste of wordless response. Bonaventure’s expression of contemplation was the stilled voice. I considered this, as well as the entirety of making a pilgrimage, to be a healthful distraction from the miseries I’d paused. Sanctified time. I took to the road earlier than I’d originally planned, having compressed a weekend’s errands into an overnight. Figuring on arriving in Stockbridge in the usual 3½ hours, intense highway traffic added more than an hour to my nonstop driving time, yet I arrived at the Shrine ten minutes prior to Mass. Being the 2nd Saturday of the month, the service was especially directed to Jubilee Year pilgrims; I was elated to have arrived in time, with the week still to follow in the peace of the Berkshires as guest of the Marians’ community.

Being so accustomed and conditioned to expecting large accomplishments and covering big distances, the wordless response of my musings began to take shape as quiet paces, meditatively absorbing the pilgrimage. Walking from place to place on Eden Hill and in Stockbridge permitted for an eased and reflective tempo. My paces through the woods and lanes were extensions of my steps along polished naves and transcepts. Among few things I brought with me for the week were ingredients for writing, reading, photographing, and my cherished rosary from the Sacré-Coeur basilica in Paris. Indeed, I arrived on pilgrimage, in the place that daily observes the Divine Mercy Chaplet in the presence of the relics of Saint Faustina. Looking at the inviting iconography throughout the shrine’s grounds and buildings, I remembered St. Augustine’s words: “Prayer is the raising and turning of the mind to God.” More than places loved and missed in our absence, spiritual destinations call to us. The pull of inspiration is met with an individual’s push forward, albeit in the quietest paces hidden within. Consequently, there follows an outward journey.

Kindredship winds up being among the unexpected, yet consistent, aspects of pilgrimage. Destinations may be givens, but the sojourning experiences comprise the subtle and the serendipitous. Speaking with, and listening to fellow pilgrims gave me stories of those who travelled much greater distances than my 230 miles. I heard about burdens and gratitudes, afflictions and recoveries; all the anecdotes and sights provide perspective. And significant shared silence. In his work Holiness of Life, Bonaventure wrote that “silence begets compunction of heart,” and thus we are humbled. As well, contemplative silence shows we belong to another world. On the eve of the day which memorializes Bonaventure, I enjoyed a great conversation with one of the Marian brothers who also admires the saint. We meandered between talking about the Itinerary, and about our lives of interaction with the public. He said he had once been a short-order cook. Sanctifying our work was among our topics. He heard a little about my employment stresses, to which I added another gem of Bonaventure’s in Holiness of Life: “Perseverance is the crown and consummation of all virtues.”

During the week of quiet paces, I participated in all the liturgies- increasingly listening in silence. Because the large sanctuary was regularly filled with actively vocal attendees, I could as easily blend into the current, as to be carried along in focused silence. The impression of the entirety was that of swelling and falling back upon the solidity of the acclamations. Wordless response essentially transcends structure. Having brought many intentions with me, from friends and correspondents- adding my own, I became aware that my purpose for being at this extraordinary place of worship outweighed me. Paradoxically, the more substantial, the more invisible. This strong imprint has accompanied my return to work and to all the connected frustrations I’d paused. Immersed as I’ve been with St. Bonaventure’s writing, I can imagine him encouraging me with “Reach beyond self, and toward God.” While I’ve had to resume my “normal” vigilant paces, I’m remembering having been able to slow down. “From memory as fountain-source,” wrote Leonard Bowman in his book about Bonaventure, “there emerges a wordless sense. Intellectual recognition traces it and names it into Word. Then emotion and will connect it and claim it in Love.”

small

“Negations seem to say less,
but actually they say more... expressing transcendence.
The more intimate the ascending force, the more powerful the elevation;
the deeper the love, the more fruitful the rising. It is beneficial, therefore,
to practice in this manner.”

~ Saint Bonaventure, Love Enkindled

Perhaps, if there will be interest to someone far into the future, the telescopic truncation of time will reveal a dovetailing of present-day crises. From intensely economically recessed times, there followed a devastating global pandemic, giving way to this contracting and stratified era. What comes next remains to be seen. While the cultural and infrastructural scaling-back of the past decade seems yet to hit the bottom, contrasting and exclusive opulence has yet to crest. The view from my very modest perch is that of scaled-back times persisting and forcing ambitions into compromise. Reflecting upon the ancient prayer to be led away from temptation and delivered from evil, there really is no other wise choice but to persevere and to improve as possible. No turning back, and no stopping at this extremity of my hardworked tracks. This often comes to mind, sometimes when my daily commute includes a long stretch of shadeless barrens of broken pavement mildly recalling slivers of my junior high school trudges. The urgency of perseverance bites down on my work days. Keep going, I tell myself, even if just by modest increments. Big ideas may exemplify ambition, though progress may manifest by small measures. Reaching destinations, apparently, is the guiding big idea. Complex entities become intelligible, as Descartes posited, via analyses of the smaller components. This comes to mind as I process oceans of archival documents and images while keeping the broader entirety in view. Completing projects, of any extent, also carries metaphors about letting go, taking on new projects, and persisting in my belief that better will ensue.

Amidst a societal prevalence of necessary downsizing, terms such as small and humble have ceased being pejoratives. Basics being unaffordable for so much of the general population, frugality has taken on a self-defensive connotation. Economics and personal reach are obviously tied together. Many of us are brought to the challenge of whether and how less can be more. What happens to the scale of our hopes, as buying power dissipates? Shall we thrive in our smallness?

Such small things in a major accomplishment for the ages.

Living in a scenic, yet depressed region whose chief commerce is tourism reveals a juxtaposition of extremes which are impossible not to notice. For this essay’s occasion, my treatment of smallness is along the lines of making do- as necessary. Small pieces in an immense puzzle, such as one 35mm negative among 1.2 million- each that I examined while interpreting and processing an enormous archival collection. In context all those tiny parts find their greatest research and documental impact. Gem-like smallness, from artifacts to difference-making mechanical parts, are outsized in their importance. Think of ingredients. Years ago, when my mother taught me to bake bread, she showed me what a pinch of salt is, and how integral that is to the exponentially larger whole. When I’m binding books, I regularly see what a great difference a sixteenth-of-an-inch makes. Ponder the parabolic implications around grains of leaven and mustard seeds. Astonishingly simple things serve to form a reliable world around us. When I see ads and signs about “buying small” from a small and local business, building smart and small, companies and venues that publicize their personal attention, it is interesting to see the humble somehow exalted.

As we are compelled, for any of many reasons, to redefine what we mean by significance, we may also reconsider how we interpret importance, and what is trivial. In all spheres, it is critical for me to know what I’m overlooking and needs my careful attention. Difference-making, subtle factors can paradoxically become vital. Indeed, there are solutions found in correctly fitted fasteners and cogs- and surely how far-reaching are small acts of kindness? In keeping with the understated and humble, it’s not really for us to know- except for when we are recipient of such gestures. My best teachers could never have known the extent of all I learned from them. The expression, “pay it forward” is something a person can do, however modest that gesture might be. But of course I want to do great things! I’ve tenaciously cultivated myself to achieve and inspire. Preparation and endurance crave tangible fulfillment. How, when, and if that materializes continues to be a mystery. So does not knowing what to reasonably expect. But action and motion must move in a forward direction. Rather than to expect to solve sweeping problems in a fell swoop (few can do that), I can manage in measure with small steps. In this light, lowly attains great importance. There is discoverable divinity in the ordinary, and in this light we see light. Plainness can conceal complexities. Consider the needed effort to pare many disparate ideas down to a concept- and to be easily comprehended! The big work en route to humility, simplicity not to be mistaken for smallmindedness.

enkindle

“One who wishes to advance toward wholeness
should, by meditation, awaken, sharpen, and direct the
sting of conscience; hold out, broaden, and turn back
the beam of intelligence; concentrate, feed and raise
aloft the little flame of wisdom.”

~ Saint Bonaventure, Love Enkindled

ideals and possibilities

“By judging the truth of things according to the divine measure,
we acquire wisdom; by embracing the supreme good,
we are liberated to enjoy and use the goods of creation
for the enrichment of human life.”

~ Zachary Hayes, O.F.M., The Hidden Center.

The lead quotation for this essay comes from a book written by a modern-day Franciscan, addressing Saint Bonaventure- a fellow Franciscan who lived in the 13th century. The consistency of insight to this reader is such that I have the impression of studying a philosophical writer reflecting upon his own esteemed ancestor. I read the sentence to my philosophy students, as an example of idealism- and good, lofty one, too: Acquire wisdom and improve the lives of others. Cultivate what is needed to practice the golden rule. We subsequently had a lively Socratic forum about such divisions of idealism as the subjective, the divine, the ontological, and the epistemological. These topics will be revisited in greater depth, seeing how strongly they’ve resonated with the group.

One of my colleagues added encouragement, having participated in my treatment about how happiness ("eudaemonia") is defined in philosophy, generating an enthusiastic discussion. “Keep doing these,” she added, “we all need this.” Admittedly, so do I. Perhaps the study of philosophy- or philosophizing, in itself- may be just a bit escapist? Well, that’s worth another group forum. For the moment, I’ll say it’s a combination of reckoning with the surrounding world, and consolation. All points lead to understanding, to making sense of perceptions. Beyond the abstraction of thought is the praxis of a physical sign. The illuminative and the literal riding in tandem, searching for signs. Spring began showing itself at least a month later than usual, in northern New England, with persistent cold temperatures clashing against lengthened daylight. Eager for new growth, both metaphorically and three-dimensionally, I have my camera close at hand to photograph what treasured signs can be found and savoured. Living to such ideals as Bonaventure’s, and the later Bergson’s “realization of what is yet to exist which will provide greater significance” relates well to the new promise of spring.

For a week of respite, my first in four months, I recently enjoyed a nourishing string of days in Boston. My studies at the Athenaeum were centered around encouragement and assurance, all penned by various theological thinkers. More philosophy for inspiration. I select the readings through bibliographies and lengthy catalogue searches, followed by submitting the requests several weeks before my arrival. Those e-mailed communications signify initial forward motions toward pilgrimage, choosing my direction immediately after having my time-off request delicately approved. As the swirls of preparation, packing, transportation, and logistics settled, the brilliance of great company and thoughtful studies emerged. A lingering thought occupying many musings was a suggestion to consider the possible as an antidote in the struggle against confining and incessant frustrations. What possibilities are available while swamped in recessed economics, undercapacity, and treadmill existence? Turning toward an ideal of possibilities brings me to the captivating word, potential. Convinced for many years of the underutilized potential for my skills and experience, my perseverance toward better days continues to be fueled by the prospect of future opportunities. Necessary components and energies are at the ready; but there needs to be a convinced and welcoming receiving end. Realized potential as an ideal is the stuff of daily and constant prayers, immersed in quotidian productivity and conscientious service. The magnitude and immediacy of responsibility eliminates the option of waiting around for the miraculous. But a state of readiness can still abide, seeking out the possible, despite the encroachment of negative limits.

While drafting this essay, and during my recent week of commuting, my reading included two new books by Pope Francis, one which included these words...

“Do not surrender to the night; remember that the first enemy to conquer is not outside: it is within you. Therefore, do not give space to bitter, obscure thoughts... Faith and hope go forward together.”
(Light in the Night, 2024)

...and the day after reading these sentences, I learned of his passing. Pope Francis wrote in gentle and direct tones, as a seasoned mentor. The surrender he wrote about refers to something familiar to me, and I absorb his exhortation as a warning against my habitual tendency toward immersing thoughts with impossibilities. Entirely unusual for his position, Pope Francis engaged with this world and its many humanitarian crises, sharply critical of injustice- yet his idealism remained solidly intact. As with Brother Roger of Taizé (whom I knew), living to a similar age, Pope Francis consistently wrote about hope. Both leaders approached the entirety of life as a pilgrimage of trust. Brother John, former prior of Weston Priory (whom I also knew), passed away last month at the age of 100. When an esteemed leader- especially an elder- passes from our lives, and we notice traits and turns-of-phrase attributable to them, we begin to realize a spiritual inheritance.

“In revealing the possibility of a life lived in the presence of God,” continued Zachary Hayes’ gloss of Saint Bonaventure, “it reveals what is in fact the original possibility of humanity, created from the beginning in the image of God.” We’re reminded that various possibilities are in our midst to be discovered, if the “big picture” isn’t lost, while struggling to create wider opportunities. During my recent studies at the Boston Athenaeum, I read the inspiring Life of God in the Soul of Man, written by Scotland’s Henry Scougal in 1677. His term for spirituality was the divine life, and his intention for the work was that his readers derive encouragement to stay the course through the challenges of hardship. His enjoinder to continue making progress in faith has the reminder that with wholehearted devotion, “we shall have all the saints on earth and all the angels in heaven” interceding for us. Readers are instructed to take heart, keep faith, and not be afraid. “Away with perplexing fears,” Scougal insisted, continuing with:

“We cannot excuse ourselves by the pretense of impossibility.”

... which is to say that we mustn’t be so quick to unquestioningly say “it can’t be done.” Indeed, we have yet more idealism, and I welcome strengthening words, relieved to discover such fine company. Studying written treasures is more than reason enough to travel. As I witness the passing of various visionary leaders that taught generations preceding and including mine, I’ve become increasingly aware of thinning ranks, in no less than these darkened times. Let us all consider our reception of torches passed into our hands, no matter our states of readiness. Many are already teaching others, unwittingly and by profession. There is little choice but to carry on. Now, how shall we find and flex our discovered possibilities?