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 21st century America. Can you speak to the consequences of this tension?
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 21st 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?
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?
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 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?
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?
Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
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