A Conversation With Paula Huston, Author

Paula Huston is the author of two novels and seven works of spiritual nonfiction.  Her most recent title is One Ordinary Sunday: A Meditation on the Mystery of the Mass (Ave Maria, 2016).  She lives on four acres on the Central Coast of California with her husband Mike, and is a mother, grandmother, and Camaldolese Benedictine oblate.  For more about her work, please visit her website at http://www.paulahuston.com.

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In the prologue to A SEASON OF MYSTERY, you mention two myths about aging. “One is that technology is my friend and if I only am willing to tap into its wondrous resources, I never have to age or die. The second myth is loftier and does not concern itself with wrinkle abatement; instead it assures me that the older I get, the more fascinating, wise and powerful I am destined to become.” You note that “underlying each of these myths is the same, unquestioned modern belief: the purpose of life is to get what I most want before I die.” How does this modern perspective on aging differ from previous generations? And what have we lost?

I’m not sure that we ARE so different from previous generations.  What made the words of Jesus so startling, even back then, was that they flew in the face of cultural givens about what makes life worth living.  People have always striven to get what they want.  The difference in our time is that so many of us are actually able to pull it off.  We have the technology, the money, and the permission from society to pursue our individual dreams in a way that would have been unthinkable, except among the extremely wealthy, during harder times.  And because the fulfillment of personal desires is now possible in a way it didn’t used to be, it’s become the measure of a good life.  We are judged, and judge ourselves, on the basis of whether we’ve gotten what we set out to get.  Yet even as recently as my grandparents’ generation, Minnesota farmers born near the turn of the 20th century, desire-fulfillment would have been an unattainable goal. Simply putting food on the table took everything they had. Elders who survived such hardships automatically accrued respect; they became role models for their children and grandchildren.  What we’ve lost in our time, I’m afraid, is that sense of wonderment at wisdom acquired the hard way.

You suggest that we should “consciously surrender up as many of our worries and plans as possible,” while taking a “deliberate focus on the present moment rather than on the future.” And recognize the consistent themes in our lives “don’t necessarily bear much relationship to reality. To be able to listen with spiritual ears, we have to set aside this self-created tale and simply wait for what comes next.” Much of this seems so against human nature. Is this a particular challenge within western culture, or is this dilemma imbedded within the human race itself?

Jesus’ words about the lilies of the field who neither sew nor spin but are beautifully arrayed by God make those of us who pride ourselves on how responsible we are a little crazy. Isn’t worrying about the future the adult thing to do?  Certainly, we need to prepare for what awaits us—the infirmities of old age, the possible need for a caregiver, mounting medical bills: we don’t want to be a burden to others if we can possibly avoid it.  But instead of just making some reasonable preparations, too often we strive for absolute security.  We convince ourselves that whatever happens in the future is completely up to us. Yet we can never predict what comes next: our best-laid plans crumble in the face of the unexpected. So why devote so much time and energy to what we ultimately cannot control?  Especially when all that earnest striving keep us so preoccupied that we fail to enjoy what’s happening all around us?  Is this a particular challenge in Western culture?  I don’t know.  But I’m guessing that the Western emphasis on “doing it my way” makes for a tougher road as we approach infirmity and loss of autonomy in old age.

You include a great quote by Thomas Merton in your book: “to find the full meaning of our existence we must find not the meaning that we expect but the meaning that is revealed to us by God. The meaning that comes out of the transcendent darkness of his mystery and our own. We do not know God and we do not know ourselves. How then can we imagine that it is possible for us to chart our own course toward the discovery of the meaning of our life?” Your answer is to invite the reader to listen and we’ll hear Jesus knocking (Revelation 3:20). Can you elaborate?

I can’t begin to tell you how many times over the years Jesus has knocked and I have ignored him because I was too preoccupied with my own agenda.  One thing I’ve noticed about becoming a senior citizen, however, is that Jesus’ knocking has gotten louder and I’ve gotten better at responding to it.  I think this may have something to do with losing friends to death. By now, I’ve been involved in the aftermath of too many sudden departures (planning funerals, helping pack up clothing and hauling it to the Goodwill, sorting through books and papers and all the items that people save for decades for no good reason whatsoever) to put overly much stock in my own preoccupations.  It can all end in a moment.  The more urgent question has become, How am I living?  Would I have any regrets if it turned out that today was the day?   

You make an interesting point that “if life’s purpose lies in getting what we want, as our culture insists, then freedom becomes a very big deal.” But this freedom gets in the way of love because we see love as constraining – so intimate relationships are lost. You note that the freedom of the gospels isn’t at all the sort of freedom we seek in 21^st century America.  Can you speak to the consequences of this tension?

I think that the consequences are all too obvious.  By “keeping our options open,” we’ve condemned ourselves to living elbow to elbow and yet feeling alienated and alone.  In the midst of thousands, we struggle to find a sense of community. Our skittishness about commitment to long-term relationships of any kind, especially marriage, means that we never experience the deepest mystery of life—the mystery of intimacy with another human being.  The freedom that Jesus talks about in the Gospels is completely different.  He shows us a way out of enslavement to self-centeredness and the deep loneliness this spawns in us.

You make an interesting point about questing (striving for meaning) and how it can get in the way of settling (resting in contemplative awareness). “In our endless questing, we never stumble on a beautiful secret: that God’s time – Kairos time – is always present and available to us… At any instant, if only we are aware enough to catch it, we can enter a suspended moment that contains within it layer upon layer of history…” Can you elaborate?

I got this notion of the “suspended moment” from a technique used by the novelist Virginia Woolf.  She often stops an action scene in mid-stride to fill in everything else that is going on around the main character in the midst of this dramatic moment.  We see the butcher down the street carving pork chops, the flower shop owner burying her nose in a bouquet of roses, the moon going down over India, 20,000 miles away—actually, I am making up these details, but you get the point.  Everything we do at any given moment, no matter how intense and dramatic these few seconds may be for us personally, is part of a great river of ongoing life. A billion other things are happening at any given time. A kairos moment is one in which we momentarily become aware of all that lies beyond the personal. 

You mentioned how a favorite monk friend, Fr. Bernard, greeted a first-time visitor. The visitor asked Fr. Bernard, if he ever got sick of being a monk. Fr. Bernard shook his head and told the visitor the monks have a saying that keeps them grounded. “Memento mori.” The visitor asked him what that meant. Fr. Bernard explained, “Hello, I’m going to die.” Then you note that: “From its beginnings in the third-century Egyptian desert, Christian monasticism has concerned itself with final things…. Physical existence, they believed, is meant to prepare us for eternal life with God. And there is no other way to meet our future except to undergo the terrible transition of death.”  It seems like most of 21^st Century western culture, especially now, is moving in the opposite direction. Why? Would you say that ignoring “memento mori,” leads to nationalistic thinking, like a longing to ‘Make America Great Again’?

When we can’t bring ourselves to face reality, our only recourse is to live in fantasy. Assuming that anything created by human beings is going to last forever, whether we are talking about the pyramids of Egypt or 1950s America, is a pipe dream.  Death comes for all of us and the real question is how we are going to use our brief time here on earth.  One time Fr. Bernard was interviewed by a journalist who asked why he’d chosen the monastic life.  “Life is short,” he said, “and I want to live it the best way I can.” 

“We cannot hold on to a single thing, no matter how we try.” I’m curious, what things, in your life, have you found to be particularly hard to let go of?

I have found it hard to let go of people I love when it is time for them to die. I am already grieving as I watch our sweet and innocent grandkids graduate from elementary school and enter the big bad world of junior high. I am finding it difficult to let go of my physical endurance—the old days of fifty-mile Sierra backpacks are clearly coming to an end.  And I think a lot about the eventual, inevitable end of this happy marriage of ours.  No matter which of us goes first, the other will have to learn how to live without that loving partnership.  And that will be the hardest loss indeed.

You describe the Benedictine rule of hospitality as being “rooted in this deep human need to be included, to find a home among caring neighbors.” It sounds genuine, but yet, you point out, “let’s face it; many (if not most) people are not inherently loveable.” In your own life, what’s been the way out of this dilemma?

Over the years, I’ve watched the monastery take in and shelter some wounded, difficult people—not as potential monks, but as temporary workers or guests.  I’ve watched what happens to the angry and the hurting when they are treated with kindness and respect. Hospitality at this level is like a balm for the soul, and sometimes it can even work miracles.  So when I find myself at a decision point in my own life—shall I open my arms and heart and home to this difficult human being or shouldn’t I?—I always think about the patience and gentleness of the monks who refuse to harm a “bruised reed,” as the Bible puts it. 

You think back upon handling the transition from leaving an earlier career as an educator. “Thank heaven for the cloud of witnesses that surrounded me, people from countless generations before who’d taken the trouble to record their own experiences of the dark patches on the spiritual path… Without all of them, those living teachers and long-dead saints, I may have given in to fear and rushed back to the only life I knew – the life of academic striving and artistic ambition – if simply to recover the blessed security of feeling purposeful again.” Why is this particular fear so intense?

I think we rightly fear the loss of purpose in our lives.  We are designed by God to do good work, to create, to love, to commit ourselves to others.  Our careers, especially if they are very satisfying to us, can make our lives feel meaningful and important.  That’s why losing a job can be so devastating.  How will we ever find this sense of purpose again?  One of the biggest challenges of the spiritual life, I think, is to stop equating a purposeful life with a particular career.  To become open to change.  To welcome mystery.  To look toward an unknown future with anticipation instead of dread.  We can only do this if we truly believe that God is interested in us, has work for us, and is patiently waiting for us to stop clinging with white knuckles to what is safe and familiar.    

I absolutely love what you have to say about the modern-day view of the elderly. “The elderly are often the last people we think of as our natural-born teachers. How could they be? They grew up in different times, we tell ourselves. The world has totally changed, we say. They may be quaint, even mildly interesting with all those walking-to-school-in-three-feet-of-snow stories of theirs, but who can connect to them in this day and age? Their attitudes are based on values that have become obsolete. They are irrelevant. Sad, maybe, but these are the facts.” In response, “Some of them [the elderly] simply withdraw, preferring to keep their experiences to themselves or to save them for people their own age, the only ones who can understand…The ultimate result is a Grand Canyon-sized gulf between the very people who should be spending the most time together: wise elders and the young.” What are the ramifications of this rift between the elderly and the young?

I think we are seeing the ramifications of this rift in the obvious distress that plagues so many young people today.  Too many kids suffer from depression, anxiety, or a perspective on life that’s confined to the personal and emotional.  Their busy parents, usually both working full-time, do their best to help, but the only people who really have the time to connect on a deep level are the older generation.  I know that I am a much better grandma than I was a mother, and this is primarily because I have the time and mental space and, let’s face it, life experience to handle with equanimity and good cheer the hurts and confusions and longings that my grandkids and other children bring to our table.  I loved watching my husband, who taught public school for 35 years, sitting on the sofa helping 5-year-old Sophie learn to read before she started kindergarten.  There’s a natural rhythm between old and young that is a blessing for both; when that gets disrupted, it’s a major loss for our culture. 

Towards the end of A SEASON OF MYSTERY you offer a couple of examples of incredible grace. Henri Nouwen leaving a solitary, scholarly life, to become part of the L’Arche community, finding grace living among those who are physically and mentally challenged. And Fr. Chris, a friend, who became afflicted with Devic’s syndrome. Fr. Chris had been used to doing everything for himself, but, for a period of time, the only thing he could offer his caregivers was love.  Is this part of the bigger picture? The way to see aging? And dying? To open ourselves up to a deeper experience of love? Of grace?

There is no doubt about this.  My closest friend, just a year younger than I am, was struck by MS a decade ago.  Our relationship became deeper as her physical disabilities became more pronounced.  Now that she is mostly in a wheelchair, I am often her “pusher.”  This friendship of ours has become a constant source of grace for me.  I am in awe of the way she deals with constant pain, the loss of her mobility, the sorrow over her inability to work anymore.  Every time I am with her, I learn something new about faith, patience, and what happens to people when they pray without ceasing.  The gift I receive from her each time we are together is pure love, which is an enormous source of strength for me.  I think this is what the aging have to offer: a view of reality we often can’t access as busy, striving middle-aged folks, and a hard-earned conviction, grounded in love, about the most important things in life. 

In terms of your writing process, is there a certain time of day that works best for you? Place? Do you have any tips to offer to writers?

Oddly enough, I go to my studio up in the pine trees at about 2:00 each day and write till 6:00.  This makes dinner pretty late each night, but it’s the time that seems to work best for me.  I need to be totally away from the house, the bills, the dishwasher, the laundry, to sink deeply into the writing.  My advice to would-be writers is this: find a place to work that is only for your writing, even if it’s just a card table set up somewhere in the house.  Find a schedule that is realistic and then stick with it.  And give yourself Sundays off!

Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

Just that I appreciate the invitation to go a little deeper into some of the issues I talk about in Season of Mystery.  That was a special book for me, and by now it’s not one of my more recent, so I was glad to get these insightful questions of yours. I can tell that I am already in quite a different place than I was when I began writing the book seven  years ago.  Then, I was more focused on the aging of those around me; now I am in the middle of my very own adventure!