Every life is bound to have its moments of despair and sorrow, amidst the joy and merriment. The psychiatrist Irvin Yalom once said, “Despair is the price one pays for self-awareness. Look deeply into life, and you’ll always find despair.” What matters most, I suppose, is how we manage these painful moments, as we hear from Harry Sterling.
Harry Sterling comes to us from Coventry, Rhode Island, where he lives in retirement after working most recently in the health care field.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
These are verses of the poem, Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver. Recently, hearing her read them started me remembering. Many years ago, I was living alone, though married, despairing of my marriage. I might have been unemployed; I don’t remember. I lived on a cul-de-sac, lined with houses where I frequently walked in the evening. One evening the sky was clear and filled with stars. As I walked, I looked up and then stopped.
I looked at the stars and at that moment I knew that this beauty was there regardless of both my despair and my happiness. I knew that beauty was there whether I died or lived, whether I was good or bad.
At that moment, I knew I was OK. I was loved, I was valued. I knew these things; I did not think them, I did not feel them, I knew them. My knowing was almost telepathic. I knew that I had received a gift. And, at that moment I did not ask why.
Over the years, I did ask why. None of my answers named religion or God. Such answers are too simple, almost trite, reducing religion and God to a slogan. No, this gift is part of the ongoing mystery of life, given to all, never to be fully explained. Receiving this gift is not uncommon; the poet, Mary Oliver knew it. Others have different accounts of the same gift.
The brilliance of those stars did fall into prepared soil. When I was a Pastor, I had preached every Sunday for 10 years. Years after I changed occupations, the organist at one of my churches told me he still remembered my constant theme, “God loves you, regardless.”
That explanation, fertile ground, is simplistic; it does not encompass the depth of my experience. That starry evening, I knew to the depth of my being that I was OK. Through the years, I have had great and lasting despair. Through the years, even in those lost times, I have not lost that gift. I have known I was loved. And that remains sufficient.
